Tantric Obsession

When thirty-eight-year-old Ian Thorson died on a remote Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times reported the story under the headline: “Mysterious Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death.” Journalist and anthropologist Scott Carney was struck by how Thorson’s death echoed other incidents that reflected the little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation and mental instability. He explores the neural implications of obsession with cognitive neuroscientist David Vago.

A book signing for Scott Carney’s A Death on Diamond Mountain takes place after the program.

About the Speakers

David Vago is an instructor of psychology in the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory (FNL), Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. David has held the position of Senior Research Coordinator for the Mind & Life Institute, where he is currently a Mind and Life Fellow. In 2005, David received his Ph.D. in Cognitive and Neural Sciences with a specialization in learning and memory from the department of Psychology, University of Utah. David’s research interests broadly focus on clarifying adaptive mind-brain-body interactions and their therapeutic relevance in psychiatric disorders. In this context, David has been specifically focusing on the study of mindfulness-based interventions in clinical settings, and the basic neuroscientific mechanisms by which mindfulness-based practices function. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, spoken at international conferences, and his research has been covered by mainstream news outlets such as the Huffington Post, Boston Globe, and NPR, among others. David is an avid Vipassana, Dzogchen meditation and Hatha Yoga practitioner, and enjoys recreating in the outdoors.