yeah but doesn't this seem way out of whack? I mean, we're talking about the most fundamental human desire -- happiness, well-being... and some lone-wolf silicon valley guy has to be the one to push this... with is own $. and then folks want to give him shit for charging for the course. how about giving him some of the millions/billions/trillions we spend on stuff that is designed to destroy people/culture/society. how about we set up a contest and give whoever can do as good or better than his results better a billion dollars -- that's where I want my taxes to go.
If science is wrong about almost everything, maybe it's better if the
government funded mainstream science is kept as far away as possible.
Lot's of people offer meditation classes with little financial reward for themselves and at little expense for the student.
Dr. Martin is trying to optimize the process. But the traditional schools have been optimizing their process for over two thousand years.
And they are still working on it.
If Dr. Martin believes his system is better he could demonstrate it by publishing scientific studies using controlled, blinded protocols. Self assessments by people who paid a lot of money for a class and who might not want to admit they did not get results, and lot of marketing hype, are not a substitute for rigorous protocols.
I've done scientific research and co-authored published papers, If you haven't done that you might not understand how easy it is to misinterpret results in the absence of controls and blind protocols.
I am not against Dr. Martin researching what is the best meditation technique for each individual, but I think the fact that people remain unconvinced is because of his research methods.
And if you are going to make claims about your class and charge a lot of money for it, it is reasonable for people to expect that your claims are backed by solid evidence. If you justify extravagant claims and high prices with insufficient evidence, you are bound to attract critics.
I don't know exactly what the complaint is about the "haters", but maybe it is because Dr Martin makes very explicit claims about what the Finder's course can do but people feel those claims are not convincingly supported by the evidence he provides.
The
phases ("locations") of PNSC are a fundamental part of his system of identifying which technique is best for each person. But without solid research demonstrating those phases are real, the possibility exists that the system could be flawed because it is based on artificial categories.
And I think there is a lot of confusion about how the PNSC locations compare to enlightenment or awakening as defined by other systems. To his credit, Dr Martin had clearly defined the PNSC locations. But if I understand his original research correctly, he developed the definitions of the locations of PNSC by interviewing people who were considered enlightened within their own school of practice, so it is natural for people to think these locations represent enlightenment. I have not taken the FInder's course but I see a wide gap between the
definition of non-symbolic consciousness and the
PNSE locations. The effects described for the PNSC locations look to me like the effects of a lot of meditation, not awakening. People who are awakened according to Buddhist schools of meditation will do a lot of meditation so they will share the characteristics of people who meditate a lot. But that does not mean those characteristics necessarily correspond to enlightenment. (If Dr. Martin has done relevant controls, he might refute this point by comparing the data for people who meditate a lot but are not awakened with the data for people who are awakened.) I think that could be another source of criticism. People are going to be critical when they hear claims of a fast way to get "enlightenment" ("persistent non-symobolic consciousness") and then find out that the thing is defined very differently than how they have understood the term.
If Dr. Martin has published the research to back his claims, please post the links.
Thanks