Ego-- harmful delusion or pragmatic necessity?

[Angrboda]

The problem is that such people have attained a certain result by the practice, but have adopted fanciful explanations for what that result is and why it is.  The fact that different brands of woo layered on top seem not to matter one whit to the result suggests that the woo is an extraneous imposition — the woo doesn't matter, it's the practice.  But the woo has become embedded in our culture(s) to the effect that the explanation that the practice rids you of ego — which is part of the woo — is the reality.  It's mistaking metaphysics about the practice, which is likely wrong, for the nature of the result.  The explanation — which is just religious horse hockey — has come to be mistaken for the reality.

I'm interested in meditation because of the possible effects on the brain.  But those effects are unlikely to be as the mystics describe them.  What the actual brain / psychological effects are is still largely unknown.  I don't think adopting a woo filled explanation of it gets us any closer to that goal, except as a descriptive report of the subjective experience.

Yes, I agree with this very much.  However, looking at quotations or teachings of both the Buddha and subsequent buddhists, I think it's easy enough to determine which are purely treatises on mental experience and the nature of delusion, and which are speculative BS about karma and rebirth etc.

I'm not talking solely about karma and rebirth. I think many of the treatises on mental experience are woo filled as well, making reference to the doctrine of Anatta or no self, dependent origination, the two truths doctrine of Nagarjuna, even innocent sounding stuff like the Kalama sutra are based on error and speculation (if not outright mystical dogma). There is evidence that during deep meditation, the 'executive' functions in the temporal lobes shuts down, but that's a far cry from being able to conclude that this shift in terms of brain function is "egoless". (Subjective reports have deep meditators 'feeling' a sense of oneness and boundlessness, but as you can well understand, I don't trust subjective reports; similar things happen in DMT trips, but whether the substance of the report is a metaphysical fact or just an emotional delusion, who can say?)