I was having rather profound … side effects and experiences from the meditation around that time, so it’s hard to say whether it’s due to EMDR (which on its own provided no therapeutic benefits before I started meditating 1 hour a day), or due to the neurological effects of meditation. I also started to experience changes in mood like increased energy (even to the point of what I think is called “hypo-mania”), and started to experience insomnia. Because I had had months of EMDR at that point, I don’t think it was due to the EMDR, but it might be the combination of EMDR and meditation that specifically helped me overcome that memory loss. However, meditation seems to me to be the main mechanism by which that happened, and the question in my mind was more about whether EMDR played any relevant role (which I do think it might have, by repeatedly re-engaging those memories during a time when I was meditating so much and so intently).

Also, the specific claims about eye movement being the way EMDR works is more narrowly what I meant about it being quackery - it’s probably just recalling traumatic memories in a safe environment that helps, and the last I read, the research showed it was no more effective than the exposure therapy aspect it relies on.

I understand any skepticism you might feel about these claims about my side effects from meditation, I was very skeptical myself (which is why I spent so much time reading up on it and then practicing meditation to explore these things for myself).

In the end, I wouldn’t reify any religious claims, but I will say that I understand that the predictable effects of skillful meditation will cause people to have experiences that might be described as “religious experiences” (like, relevant to neurotheology).