In this frenzied day and age, more and more of us are turning to mindfulness to lower our stress and center ourselves. Based on Buddhist meditation, mindfulness spans a range of techniques that ask people to be more aware of their thoughts and feelings.
The benefits of mindfulness are well documented. But while some gurus claim it can do no wrong, a dark undercurrent lurks beneath. For some, it can worsen their mental health issues, cause trauma to flare up, or even push them to psychosis. Some meditators have tragically taken their own lives shortly after leaving retreats. There have also been scandals around data sharing, ripped-off customers, and exhausted employees. Here are ten tales from the sinister side of mindfulness.
Related: 10 Remarkable Stories of People Who Escaped the Rat Race
10 Young Woman Commits Suicide after Running Away from Retreat
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In October 2022, a free-spirited young woman made the devastating decision to take her own life while taking part in a meditation retreat. Jaqui McDermott, aged 22, died during a 10-stay at an intensive Vipassana retreat in Merritt, Canada.
Vipassana is rooted in an ancient style of meditation going back 2,500 years. Fans include Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, and Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter. Guests participate in rigorous silent meditation sessions, starting at four in the morning and lasting 10 or 11 hours a day. They must hand over their phones and keys for the stay and are told not to speak to each other.
In her application, Jaqui explained that she had thought about taking her life when she was younger, although she had not been suicidal for seven years. But during her stay at the retreat, she spiraled into emotional turmoil and disappeared after nine days. Police later discovered her van around 30 miles (48 km) from the center.
Friends and family desperately tried to reach her, but after an eight-day search, her body was found. “It was just inconceivable.” Her mother, Nathalie, told podcasters from the Financial Times. “It was just unbelievable. And I remember I fell to the ground. Ugh, it was awful.”[1]
9 Meditation App Headspace Leaves Staff Burned Out
Headspace is supposed to help people ease their worries. But for its own staff, the meditation app has been a constant headache. The company once prided itself on its approach to internal welfare. Co-founder and monk Andy Puddicombe used to start every morning by leading workers in a guided meditation session.
However, employees claim Headspace fell into disarray due to the lockdown. As demand boomed, a culture set in of intense workloads and lengthy shifts. Some staff became so swamped that they had no time to use the bathroom and would end the day in tears. Several started going to therapy to deal with the stress of endless Zoom calls and piling deadlines.
There were also complaints about a lack of diversity; it took nearly a decade for Headspace to hire its first female teacher. Some former employees say the sad irony is that after they left the company, they found their mental well-being blossomed.[2]
8 Scientists Warn Mindfulness can Cause Trauma Relapse
Mindfulness can do amazing things for people’s well-being, but it is not for everyone. Experts warn that for people who suffer from trauma, it could make things worse. Encouraging people to be more in touch with their thoughts and emotions opens them up to dark, painful memories. For some, it even pushes people back into a traumatized state.
In a 2017 paper, scientists brought attention to a style of meditation known as the body scan. In the body scan, a voice asks patients to be aware of areas of the body from head to toe. The authors of the study say this technique can trigger harmful flashbacks in survivors of physical or sexual abuse.
Scientists say there are many benefits to mindfulness, including boosting links between different regions of the brain. However, more research is needed to understand the neurobiological effects.[3]
7 Yoga Teachers Delve into QAnon Conspiracy Theories
Many mindfulness and yoga influencers are buying into shadowy conspiracy theories like QAnon. Wellness followers are more likely to be more open to these fringe beliefs. Yoga leans on the idea that all things are linked and nothing is what it seems. These are also key themes of conspiracies. Both believe there is some elusive higher truth that only a certain few can access.
During lockdown, hoards of new-age thinkers began to fall down rabbit holes of misinformation. Experts call this the wellness to QAnon pipeline. Many started out teaching people to heal. But now they are pushing ideas around government mind control, COVID-19 denial, and other fringe beliefs.[4]
6 Another Life Lost After Attending Vipassana Retreat
In 2017, adventurous traveler Megan Vogt checked into a 10-day meditation retreat in Delaware. She hoped that the course would provide clarity in her path through life. But instead, Megan left the center in extreme distress, with thoughts of taking her own life.
According to her parents, Megan became obsessed with the idea that she was supposed to die. By not dying at the retreat, she believed she had damned her family and needed to make it right. Tragically, ten weeks after leaving the Vipassana retreat, she was found dead. Police say Megan had jumped 120 feet (36 meters) from the Norman Wood Bridge in Pennsylvania. “Please forgive me for doing this,” she wrote to her boyfriend, Brian Dorsey. “I remember what I did at the retreat. I finally got that memory. I can’t live with me.”[5]
5 Evidence of Mental Distress Dating Back Decades
Some advocates will try to tell you that mindfulness is a panacea, a cure for all ills. Depression, anxiety, memory loss, they say meditation can help treat it all. For decades, scientists have worked to debunk these claims. As far back as the seventies, psychologists like Arnold Lazarus warned about the possible impact of meditation.
“When used indiscriminately,” he explained in a 1976 paper, “there are clinical indications that the procedure can precipitate serious psychiatric problems such as depression, agitation, and even schizophrenic decompensation.” Lazarus references some of the “meditation casualties” he met in his work. These include a patient, aged 34, who tried to take her own life after a weekend training course.
He also writes about three people who “suffered a complete mental breakdown for which they had to be hospitalized, within a matter of weeks after commencing the practice of meditation.”[6]
4 How Big Businesses Sinks Their Teeth into our Desire for Wellness
Those at the top are making big money from mindfulness. In 2019, the industry had an estimated worth of $1.5 billion. Self-help gurus can earn giant paychecks by peddling books, workshops, online courses, beauty products, and more. Mindfulness has become a corporate buzzword. Businesses, schools, governments, and even the military are signing up for programs that claim to care for the spiritual well-being of their employees.
In his book McMindfulness, Ronald Purser argues that big business has turned mindfulness into a tool for exploitation. Rather than looking at systemic issues, people are encouraged to feel broken as individuals. The industry tells us our stress has nothing to do with demanding bosses and ludicrous workloads. Instead, it is solely due to the chaos inside our heads. They then urge us to fork out for services like apps and retreats to “fix” ourselves. Purser argues that the best way to reduce stress is to challenge the underlying problems of society.[7]
3 MYRIAD Project Finds Null or Negative Impact on School Students
In 2016, researchers in Britain launched one of the most in-depth mindfulness studies in the history of mental health science. Over two years, the MYRIAD Project—My Resilience in Adolescence—surveyed over 26,000 school students aged 11-14. They found mindfulness training had no impact on mental health for most young people compared to regular social and emotional teaching. Over 80% did not bother to do the homework.
Further research revealed that, for students already at risk from mental health issues, mindfulness may make their condition worse. They found that techniques taught in schools failed to train young people in the functioning skills and resilience needed to stave off poor mental health.[8]
2 BetterHelp Shares Patients’ Personal Details with Advertisers
BetterHelp is a popular service that provides counseling and therapy online. In 2023, it emerged that the platform had shared patient details with third parties. BetterHelp passed on sensitive information to the likes of Facebook and Snapchat so they could target adverts. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) demanded that the company keep its promises on data protection. BetterHelp was ordered to pay $7.8 million, some of which will refund customers whose details they failed to keep safe.
“When a person struggling with mental health issues reaches out for help, they do so in a moment of vulnerability and with an expectation that professional counseling services will protect their privacy,” explained FTC director Samuel Levine. “Instead, BetterHelp betrayed consumers’ most personal health information for profit. Let this proposed order be a stout reminder that the FTC will prioritize defending Americans’ sensitive data from illegal exploitation.”[9]
1 OneTaste, San Francisco’s Orgasmic Meditation Cult
OneTaste is a wellness company that centers on a style of mindfulness known as “orgasmic meditation.” Customers are taught to meditate in couples through the collective power of the female orgasm. But beneath this odd practice lurks an alleged cult.
In 2023, founder Nicole Daedone and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz were indicted on forced labor charges. Prosecutors claim that OneTaste pressured people into thousands of dollars of debt to pay for courses. This gave Daedone and Cherwitz a cultish control over their lives. FBI agents say that the pair targeted people with prior trauma to join OneTaste. They then pressured members into sex acts, telling them it would help them achieve “freedom and enlightenment.”[10]