This paper proposes a third meditation-category--automatic self-transcending--to extend the dichotomy of focused attention and open monitoring proposed by Lutz. Automatic self-transcending includes techniques designed to transcend their own activity. This contrasts with focused attention, which keeps attention focused on an object; and open monitoring, which keeps attention involved in the monitoring process. Each category was assigned EEG bands, based on reported brain patterns during mental tasks, and meditations were categorized based on their reported EEG. Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma activity, included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhist, and Chinese traditions. Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist, Chinese, and Vedic traditions. Automatic self-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic and Chinese traditions. Between categories, the included meditations differed in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures. These findings shed light on the common mistake of averaging meditations together to determine mechanisms or clinical effects.

Hand and computer searches located studies on the effects of relaxation techniques on trait anxiety. Effect sizes for the different treatments (e.g., Progressive Relaxation, EMG Biofeedback, various forms of meditation, etc.) were calculated. Most of the treatments produced similar effect sizes except that Transcendental Meditation had significantly larger effect size (p <.005), and meditation that involved concentration had significantly smaller effect. Correlations with effect size were calculated for many variables, e.g., population, age, sex, experimental design, duration and hours of treatment, pretest anxiety, demand characteristics, experimenter attitude, type of publication, attrition, etc. Only a few variables (mainly population, duration, hours, and attrition) significantly influenced effect size. Controlling for possible confounding variables did not alter the overall conclusions. The difference in effect size between treatments was maintained both when only published studies were included and when only the studies with the strongest design were included. Possible explanations for the findings are examined.

Th e study of human consciousness poses unique diffi culties for science. Consciousness and its contents are intrinsically private, "fi rst-person" phenomena and scientifi c method relies on public, "third-person" data for establishing objective facts. Th is might seem to imply that consciousness is in principle beyond the range of scientifi c investigation. Scientifi c method, however, is quite capable of studying things purely indirectly when they are not observable. Th e quantum fl uctuations of empty space underlying all chemical transformations are a clear example, known with exquisite accuracy from their eff ects, despite the fact that (according to standard quantum theory) it is impossible in principle to observe them directly. And for over a century psychologists and other researchers have routinely evaluated scientifi c theories and claims about consciousness in terms of public, objectively observable correlates and eff ects (experiential reports, physiological states, behavioral dispositions, etc.). But such objective phenomena have to be correlated with internal, subjective experiences to be taken to be about consciousness at all. And this presents researchers with some major problems.One of the major factors in the enormous progress scientifi c knowledge has made in recent centuries is the development of highly sophisticated objective means for exploring the world around us, from proton-scattering microscopes, X-ray crystallography and computer-assisted gene-splicing to continent-wide radio telescope arrays and satellite gravitational-mapping. However, for various historical reasons, modern science has not paid comparable attention to developing sophisticated means for exploring the inner world of consciousness. As a result, while contemporary research on consciousness oft en uses very sophisticated objective methodologies (electroencephalography (EEG), functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI), molecular biochemistry, etc.) for investigating the correlates of subjective states, the methods used to locate and identify the subjective states themselves are generally rather simple and commonsensical by contrast (remembering a string of numbers, visualizing a scene, feeling an emotion, focusing on a computer generated pattern, etc.). In short, there is a great asymmetry between the sophistication of the means used to explore the objective and the subjective sides of the correlations essential to the scientifi c study of consciousness. And relying on what amounts to merely common sensical, "Aristotelian" methodologies to explore the subjective domain can only be expected to limit our progress, no matter how sophisticated our objective methodologies are.

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