Hi,
I am a little new to the game but have practiced with Good results and have faith in it.
The conclusion i have come to is that a first "grounded" step would be to create a short course describing this process without researching it scientifically at first. Part of the teaching process over a month or so would be to practice the first two stages i.e. deep meditation and Spinal Breathing.
This would start to broaden the access base of AYP and give people a tangible "feel" for the results they have achieved in practice.
My university (UK) runs a short course program called life long learning, it takes a broad base of people
young and old from the unemployed to the retired.
If i ever get my confidence back I would happily teach a syllabus based on AYP Spiritual transformation and thats all you need a syllabus,
you don't need funding.
there also is the science of transpersonal experiences which might invite practitioners to delve into some of the scenery.
also there is a website
http://www.isabelclarke.org/ describing the growing link of Psychosis and Spirituality and there is an extremely active forum (can't find right now with documented experiences of sufferers who maintain that their (Psychotic) condition is Spiritual"
CAM is one growing area of funding but Mental health is massively funded and with the right research in terms of developmental psychology could be linked with developmental issues of Schizophrenia (which is what I almost had)
there is a book linking East and west philosophy which delves a little into the area of mental health (more from a counselling perspective) called Easter Body western mind by Anodea Judith
if you could just pursuade one academic to study Schizophrenics practising your AYP for a number of years you'd be laughing.
From my experience the only thing missing (in a Spiritual perspective) from the AYP which would be necessary in a study for Schizophrenics is Mindfulness and Prayer (outward Samyamma)
both of these things have granted me great miracles from my weird and wonderful ills.
(basicly what you need to do first in create a research proposal and present it to a number of academics)
but it could work great with the likes of CBT in cognitive behavioural therapy.
the mental health foundation actually do a course in Mindfulness for people so it is definitely growing.
it's like you say the cart and the horse.
but if your looking at both and only pick one?
i would happily be studied to see how i get on over the next s many years with my mental health but the question is: will any one do it?
mental health is a big claim but all you need is one certifiable result and you've caught peoples eye.
Sorry that actually helped me more than it helped you
p.s. have you thought of emailing doreen virtue and getting some expert meditators to look into doing studies of the Spiritual realms you could easily publish a book on that to generate some revenue?
i will stop now....
Joe
