Alex,
#1 Marketing involves using psychological techniques to influence people to buy stuff. If my criticisms (below) are valid it is safe to assume a Harvard-trained social scientist who left a successful marketing career would be well aware of them and the implications of that are enormous.
#3
Many of the techniques Dr. Martin teaches are freely available. What he developed is a unique system he claims helps the student to find the best technique so they can attain PNSE (persistent non symbolic experience - in other words enlightenment) in a few weeks. This is what is supposed to justify the high tuition for the course. That aspect,
the system for assigning techniques and whether it produces non-symbolic consciousness, has never been tested as far as I know. You would need to use a blind protocol with experimental controls to test it.
The fact that his students may experience increased wellbeing shows that the freely available meditation techniques used in the course increase wellbeing it does not prove his system for assigning techniques works better than assigning a technique randomly nor does it prove the course is better at producing non-symbolic consciousness (enlightenment).
#4 To my way of thinking this is damning with faint praise.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-...chology-results-not-reproducible--study-65117
https://theconversation.com/we-foun...sychology-research-is-reliable-now-what-46596
You say you dropped out of the class. I would like to know what % of students don't complete the class, do they get a partial refund, and are the success rates based on only students who complete the class or all students including those who drop out? If a large fraction of paying students never complete the class, a high success rate based only those who complete the class might be misleading for people trying to decide if they should sign up for it.
#5 I have no problems with people saying meditation increases wellbeing. I have a problem when people make strong claims about an expensive course without backing them up sufficiently. I've explained my concerns in a previous post in this thread:
To be clear: there are two endemic problems with psychological research 1) When other people try to repeat the experiments using the same protocols they often can't. 2) The experimental protocols themselves may be unreliable so even if the research can be replicated you still don't know if the results mean anything.
I am also not convinced the four stages of PNSE are correct based on my own experiences. One of the experts he interviewed in his original research believes he forced the data to fit his preconceived beliefs:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/6458099#_19_message_6492333
Dr Martin may have used best-in-class methodology to measure the results from his classes, but his original research on PNSE was done differently it was based on interviews. There is no way to tell whether his personal bias influenced his results. That's fine for an exploratory study, but it needs to be tested objectively before it is taken as fact.
The PNSE stages are the underpinning of the system of assigning the right technique to the student. If the PNSE stages are flawed the whole basis for the course and its high tuition is flawed.
The P in PNSE stands for Persistent. Based on my understanding of the Finder's course the students have to continue their daily meditation practice after the course is completed to retain the benefits of the course. Buddhists who have attained even the first stage of awakening say that meditation is not required to retain that state.
The NS in PNSE stands for non-symbolic. Dr. Martin used the term non-symbolic consciousness because he found it increased the likelihood subjects would agree to be interviewed. It is not clear how that term relates to what the students in his classes experience. Increased wellbeing is not the same as non-symbolic consciousness (enlightenment).
The only part of PNSE that I think is not misleading as it relates to the course is the E.