There are several forms of non-theistic meditation, developed as a way of overcoming dualism, promoting physical and mental well being:
– Acem Meditation has been developed in the Scandinavian countries since 1966. It is non-religious technique with no requirement for change of lifestyle or adaption to any system of belief.
– Autogenic training was developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Schultz in 1932. Schultz emphasized parallels to techniques in yoga and meditation; however, autogenic training is devoid of any mysticism.
– Australian psychiatrist Dr Ainslie Meares published a groundbreaking work in the 1960s entitled Relief Without Drugs, in which he recommended some simple, secular relaxation techniques based on Hindu practices as a means of combating anxiety, stress and chronic physical pain.
– Biofeedback has been tried by many researchers since the 1950s as a way to enter deeper states of mind.
– Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School conducted a series of clinical tests on meditators from various disciplines including Transcendental Meditation and Tibetan Buddhism. In 1975 Benson published a book titled The Relaxation Response where he outlined his own version of meditation for relaxation.
– Jacobson’s Progressive Muscle Relaxation was developed by American physician Edmund Jacobson in the early 1920s. Jacobson argued that since muscular tension accompanies anxiety, one can reduce anxiety by learning how to relax the muscular tension.
– Natural Stress Relief is a form of meditation which uses a silent mantra.
– Newer forms of meditation are based on the results of studies with electroencephalography in long-term meditators. Studies have demonstrated the presence of a frequency-following response to auditory and visual stimuli. This EEG activity was termed “frequency-following response” because its period (cycles per second) corresponds to the fundamental frequency of the stimulus. Stated plainly, if the stimulus is 5 Hz, the resulting measured EEG will show a 5 Hz frequency-following response using appropriate time-domain averaging protocols. This is the justification behind such inventions as the Dreamachine and binaural beats.
– The 1999 book The Calm Technique: Meditation Without Magic or Mysticism by Paul Wilson has a discussion and instruction in a form of secular meditation.