Hi Neville,

That's an excellent point.  In Langone's letter below he states this to his client, which is something I've also argued here in the past.

I also suspect that you may have "overdosed," so to speak, on meditation.  Certainly, the spiritual literature of the East has many references to possible adverse effects of meditation (e.g., "Zen sickness").  In psychotherapy, as I may have mentioned, there is even a literature on what is paradoxically called "relaxation induced anxiety" (i.e., heightened states of anxiety, or even in some cases psychotic reactions, precipitated in some people by hypnotic forms of relaxation exercises). Let me draw an analogy to hallucinogenic drug experiences: I have known cases of people who initially had pleasant "trips" on LSD or Mescaline.  After one or two "bad trips," however, things changed.  They could not take the drug without re-experiencing the negative or at the least having it lurking fearfully in the background of their experience.  They became sensitive to the negative that poisoned forever whatever positives they had experienced—and they stopped the drugs.  I think your experience with meditation is similar.  And that is why you may not be able to return to that form of meditation without running a considerable risk of harming yourself.  So please, consider other paths to God.  Meditation is not the only pathway.