‘Mindfulness’ is due a backlash, surely. And it starts here. Sort of. The authors, both psychologists, and one an experienced meditator with a lifelong interest in spiritual matters, originally set out to write an account of the astonishing transformative power of meditation and yoga. But their research for the book complicated the story they had meant to tell: meditation turns out to be a stranger and more unreliable thing than we have been led to believe.

Mindfulness, for anyone who has escaped hearing about it, is the cultivation of in-the-moment awareness, mainly via meditation. The authors begin by critiquing the research evidence, which is helpful. We learn that the research is not especially rigorous, and in any case does not show all that it purports to. There is little evidence that eight-week mindfulness-based psychological treatments, as offered by the NHS, are as effective as more traditional forms of therapy. Claims that mindfulness meditation can slow ageing and reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, meanwhile, are the result of researchers ‘sexing up’ data – a near-universal practice.

Then there is the relationship between mindfulness and the Buddhist traditions that it has been taken from. Westerners are relieved that they can enjoy the benefits of mindfulness without the trappings of religion. But in the eyes of Buddhists, we have taken a powerful tool, thrown away the instruction manual and put it to a use for which it was not designed. Whereas Buddhist meditation is one aspect of a comprehensive approach to life aimed at dissolving the ego and realising compassion for all beings, mindfulness seems often to be marketed and used as a tool to serve the ego’s ends and help us tolerate our atomised, empty lives. We want it to make us happier, more effective competitors and consumers, even if the pioneers of Western mindfulness have hopes for it to do more: Farias and Wikholm report tantalising suggestions that the leading mindfulness researchers are ‘up to their necks in Buddhism’ and want to use mindfulness as a vehicle for it. It is a complicated picture, one aspect of the ongoing encounter between Eastern and Western perspectives that forms the background to The Buddha Pill.

The critique of mindfulness from Buddhism and other spiritual traditions goes further: meditation is powerful stuff and using it improperly may be dangerous to our mental or spiritual health; proper guidance is required. And even within that framework, we may run into trouble. Meditation, we learn, may not be safe or helpful, all the time, for everyone. We hear of the possible ‘adverse effects’ of meditation: manic episodes, psychoses and intractable depressions. But perhaps these are necessary stages on a spiritual journey (a perspective that Western readers might dismiss out of hand, until they reflect upon the extremely limited success of the Western sciences of the mind in understanding and responding to mental illness).

These anecdotal tales of the ‘dark side’ of meditation are interesting but not revelatory (or conclusive, being anecdotal): reports of meditation triggering psychosis have circulated for many years, and every meditator knows that the practice can bring forth unpleasant mental states, albeit usually transitory ones. Similarly, the average reader who does not already have a strong commitment to meditation or spiritual practice may be unsurprised to learn that meditation does not cure all ills, social and personal. Yes, Buddhists too can engage in sectarian and political violence, and find ways to align themselves with oppressive regimes. And yes, spiritual leaders in meditative traditions have been known to exploit their followers, just like all other spiritual leaders. No, meditation does not reliably produce comprehensive change for the better in everyone who practises it.

All of this adds up to a lot of very interesting ideas, introduced by a range of colourful informants and interpreted through the lens of Western psychological theory and the authors’ own research expertise. But the conclusions are tentative at best and the reader is not left with any clear sense of whether or not it would be good for them to meditate, or in what context. This may be reasonable, as the answer depends on your perspective on bigger issues. Which authority do you trust: the Western sciences of the mind, still in their infancy but seeking to apply methods that, when used in the hard sciences, have utterly transformed our world; or the spiritual traditions of the East, weighed down with superstition and bogus metaphysics, but millennia into an experiential, introspective project to understand and enhance the human mind?

Western psychologists have been eager in recent years to give the East its due, the rise of mindfulness being the most obvious example. But in appropriating and translating Eastern ideas and techniques for Western contexts, what should we keep and what should we leave behind? What looks like laughable superstition and pointless ritual may, while not encapsulating literal truths about the cosmos, contain lessons and practices that are of value for psychological health and wellbeing (and certainly for meditation). This is something that Western psychological science and scientifically minded Westerners need to be interested in.