$1,295 is quite a steep price. Even with the $200 referral code discount, $1,095 is still a steep price.
What is the interactive or personalized aspect of the online âretreatsâ? Why couldnât they be delivered as video on-demand (like a YouTube playlist), audio on-demand (like a podcast), or an app like Headspace or 10% Happier?
From some poking around, I found that Jhourney has been doing retreats for at least 2 years, and possibly longer. Itâs hard to believe that the following could be true:
-That around 40% of participants have a transformative experience (about 66% of participants say they experienced a jhana and about 60% of that 66% say it was the best thing to happen to them in at least the past six months).
-That the people who have a transformative experience also have some sort of lasting, sustainable improvement to their lives long-term.
-That Jhourneyâs way of teaching meditation is so much different from and better than other ways of teaching meditation that have been broadly accessible for years â such as apps like Headspace or any number of meditation teachers or retreats that exist seemingly in (or near) every major city in North America â that it produces transformative experiences and sustained life improvement at a much higher rate.
This might be more believable if Jhourney had just developed this program and tried it out for the first time. But, as I said, they have been doing retreats for at least 2 years. It seems dubious the results could be this good without making more of a splash.
It also stokes the fires of my skepticism that this allegedly transformative knowledge is kept behind a $1,295 paywall. If Jhourneyâs house blend of jhana meditation makes you more altruistic, why wouldnât the people who work at Jhourney try to share it widely with the world? Thatâs what I would do if I had developed a meditation program that I thought was really producing these sorts of results.
Maybe I would still need to charge something for it rather than make it completely free. A 1-year Headspace subscription costs $70. Maybe something in that ballpark.
Jhourney reminds me of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which charges $1,400 for meditation instruction that â from what I hear â is not very differentiated from what you can get for free or cheap. TM also makes extreme claims about the kinds of results it produces for people.
My impression of TM is that itâs basically a scam. They are secretive, charge an inordinate amount of money, donât seem to produce better results than what you can get from Headspace or your typical local meditation teacher, and make claims about the benefits of the practice that far exceed the actual benefits.
Iâm inclined to believe that Jhourney is similar. People do have transformative experiences â with meditation, with spiritual retreats, with pilgrimages like the Camino de Santiago (or secular walks like the Pacific Coast Trail), with religion, with psychedelics, with therapy, with all sorts of things â but thatâs different from what Jhourney seems to be claiming. Again, what Iâm specifically skeptical of is:
-That a high percentage of people (e.g. 40%) will have a transformative experience.
-That this transformative experience or impression of having a transformative experience will lead to positive long-term life changes.
-That the percentage of people who experience something transformative, the magnitude of the transformative experience, or the long-term effects marks a radical departure from the experiences people have been having for decades in North America with meditation, psychedelics, and therapy.
In addition to meditation and the other normal things, I have tried all kinds of weird things like nootropics, hypnosis/âhypnotherapy, and binaural beats. I am open to trying weird things. Another way to put it is that Iâm sort of an âeasy markâ for self-help fads.
So, when I read this post I was tempted to believe that Jhourney had invented a non-pharmacological version of the Limitless pill. But, for the reasons I just gave, Jhourneyâs narrative doesnât add up for me.
When they release the $70 app, maybe Iâll try it then.
Fair and understandable criticisms. Some quick responses:
1) Iâve attempted to share resources and pointers that I hope can get people similar benefits for free without signing up for a retreat (like Rob Burbeaâs retreat videos, Nadia Asparouhovaâs write-up with meditation instructions, and other content). Since I found most of these after my Jhourney retreat I canât speak from experience about their effectiveness. Iâd be excited for more people to experiment and share what does and doesnât work for them, and for people with more experience to share whatâs worked for them (on the meditation front, emotion processing, and more). I also donât intend to suggest that Jhourney has access to insights that are only discoverable by doing one of their retreats. They do seem to be taking the prospect that jhanas can be accessed quickly much more seriously than many others, and have encouraging results.
2) As I mentioned, my experience appears to have been somewhat of an outlier, and I donât have a great understanding as to why. Insofar as whatever worked for me can help others, I aim to share. That said, Twitter discourse about jhanas and Jhourney seems to match my impression, other unaffiliated people have discussed Jhourney retreats seeming to generate many outlier positive experiences.
3) It doesnât surprise me at all that thereâs low-hanging fruit on the mindfulness front. Buddhist texts are very poorly (anti-helpfully) translated. There has not been that much serious exploration, optimization pressure, and investment into improving and democratizing mindfulness education and wellbeing. This extends beyond mindfulness. Why did it take as long as it did for GLP-1 medications to become widespread? Many self-help interventions are incentivized against actually fixing peopleâs problems (e.g. therapists stop getting paid if they permanently fix your problems). There are other orgs that seem to generate very positive experiences working in related areas, like Art of Accomplishment content and courses for processing emotions, making better decisions, and better connecting with others.
4) I donât know Jhourneyâs team well and donât want to speak on their behalf (but I do think theyâre well-intentioned). Iâve found their official and staff Twitter accounts share the most relevant instructions they provide on retreatâe.g. they publicly discusscultivating positivity likely being more effective for accessing jhanas, forgiveness meditation (which Iâm realizing I should add to the main post) and guided recordings, and many other insights.
My impression is that expected donations/âfees for week-long meditation retreats is often in the $1000+ range (though granted this is for in-person retreats, and I havenât explored this in detail). We did have daily personalized instruction, and staff were available on-call throughout our retreat. Given how quickly Jhourneyâs retreats sell out, from a profit-maximizing perspective it seems like they could be charging more. I also donât know what they do with their profits. I wouldnât be surprised if they donated a decent amount, or spent it in ways they think make sense on altruistic grounds. They say in their blog post about their plans that they aspire to change the lives of tens of millions with the following steps:
Build a school to demonstrate that itâs possible to transform wellbeing with meditation
Invest the money and attention from the school into technology to accelerate that process
What is the interactive or personalized aspect of the online âretreatsâ? Why couldnât they be delivered as video on-demand (like a YouTube playlist), audio on-demand (like a podcast), or an app like Headspace or 10% Happier?
I mean, Jhourney is far from the only organisation that offers online retreats. Established meditation centres like Gaia House, Plum Village and DeconstructingYourselfâto name but a fewâall offer retreats online (as well as in person).
If Jhourneyâs house blend of jhana meditation makes you more altruistic, why wouldnât the people who work at Jhourney try to share it widely with the world? Thatâs what I would do if I had developed a meditation program that I thought was really producing these sorts of results.
Jhourneyâs initial product is a meditation retreat. In the past ~12 months, weâve created a modern school for learning how to have joyful meditative experiences. We teach in a week what was previously thought to require hundreds or thousands of hours of practice. [âŚ]
While this is great progress, we see meditation retreats as just a stepping stone to building a bigger movement. Weâre not simply a retreats company aspiring to teach thousands of people meditation. Weâre an applied research company aspiring to change the lives of tens of millions.
[âŚ]
From here, weâll build a lab to research ways to make it easier and faster, inspiring more people to join the cause. Eventually, weâll develop novel deeptech for wellbeing that goes beyond meditation retreats.
I personally wouldnât bet on the neurotech approach working; however, Iâm inclined to believe that Jhourney is making a sincere effort to share their findings with the world.
It also stokes the fires of my skepticism that this allegedly transformative knowledge is kept behind a $1,295 paywall.
I agree that itâs reasonable to be skeptical of paywalled contentâthere are all kinds of scams out there. But in Jhourneyâs case, I expect they are putting their operating income towards their research lab. Note also that they offer need-based scholarships.
COI note: I attended an online Jhourney retreat last year.
Do those other meditation centres make similarly extreme claims about the benefits of their programs? If so, I would be skeptical of them for the same reasons. If not, then the comparison is inapt.
If I had developed a meditation program that I really thought did what Jhourney is claiming their meditation program does, I would not be approaching it this way. I would try to make the knowledge as widely accessible as I could as quickly as possible. Jhourney has been doing retreats for over two years. Whatâs the hold up?
Transcendental Meditation (TM)âs stated justification for their secrecy and high prices is that TM requires careful, in-person, one-on-one instruction. Whatâs Jhourneyâs justification for not making instructional videos or audio recordings that anyone can buy for, say, $70?
Could it be just commercial self-interest? But, in that case, why hasnât the jhana meditation encouraged them to prize altruism more? Isnât that supposed to be one of the effects?
Iâm willing to make some allowance for personal self-interest and for the self-interest of the business, of course. But selling $70 instructional materials to millions of people would be a good business. And the Nobel Peace Prize comes with both a $1 million cash prize and a lot of fame and acclaim. Similarly, the Templeton Prize comes with $1.4 million in cash and some prestige. There are other ways to capitalize on fame and esteem, such as through speaking engagements. So, sharing a radical breakthrough in jhana meditation with the world has strong business incentives and strong personal self-interest incentives. Why not do it?
The simplest explanation is that they donât actually have the âproductâ theyâre claiming to have. Or, to put it another way, the âproductâ they have is not as differentiated from other meditation programs as theyâre claiming and does not reliably produce the benefits theyâre claiming it reliably produces.
Do those other meditation centres make similarly extreme claims about the benefits of their programs? If so, I would be skeptical of them for the same reasons. If not, then the comparison is inapt.
Why would the comparison be inapt?
A load-bearing piece of your argument (insofar as Iâve understood it) is that most of the benefit of Jhourneyâs teachingsâif Jhourney is legitâcan be conferred through non-interactive means (e.g., YouTube uploads). I am pointing out that your claim goes against conventional wisdom in this space: these other meditation centres believe (presumably), much like Jhourney does, that their teachings canât be conferred well non-interactively. Iâm not sure why the strength of claimed benefits would come into it?
(I will probably drop out of this thread now; I feel a bit weird about taking on this role of defending Jhourneyâs position.)
$1,295 is quite a steep price. Even with the $200 referral code discount, $1,095 is still a steep price.
What is the interactive or personalized aspect of the online âretreatsâ? Why couldnât they be delivered as video on-demand (like a YouTube playlist), audio on-demand (like a podcast), or an app like Headspace or 10% Happier?
From some poking around, I found that Jhourney has been doing retreats for at least 2 years, and possibly longer. Itâs hard to believe that the following could be true:
-That around 40% of participants have a transformative experience (about 66% of participants say they experienced a jhana and about 60% of that 66% say it was the best thing to happen to them in at least the past six months).
-That the people who have a transformative experience also have some sort of lasting, sustainable improvement to their lives long-term.
-That Jhourneyâs way of teaching meditation is so much different from and better than other ways of teaching meditation that have been broadly accessible for years â such as apps like Headspace or any number of meditation teachers or retreats that exist seemingly in (or near) every major city in North America â that it produces transformative experiences and sustained life improvement at a much higher rate.
This might be more believable if Jhourney had just developed this program and tried it out for the first time. But, as I said, they have been doing retreats for at least 2 years. It seems dubious the results could be this good without making more of a splash.
It also stokes the fires of my skepticism that this allegedly transformative knowledge is kept behind a $1,295 paywall. If Jhourneyâs house blend of jhana meditation makes you more altruistic, why wouldnât the people who work at Jhourney try to share it widely with the world? Thatâs what I would do if I had developed a meditation program that I thought was really producing these sorts of results.
Maybe I would still need to charge something for it rather than make it completely free. A 1-year Headspace subscription costs $70. Maybe something in that ballpark.
Jhourney reminds me of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which charges $1,400 for meditation instruction that â from what I hear â is not very differentiated from what you can get for free or cheap. TM also makes extreme claims about the kinds of results it produces for people.
My impression of TM is that itâs basically a scam. They are secretive, charge an inordinate amount of money, donât seem to produce better results than what you can get from Headspace or your typical local meditation teacher, and make claims about the benefits of the practice that far exceed the actual benefits.
Iâm inclined to believe that Jhourney is similar. People do have transformative experiences â with meditation, with spiritual retreats, with pilgrimages like the Camino de Santiago (or secular walks like the Pacific Coast Trail), with religion, with psychedelics, with therapy, with all sorts of things â but thatâs different from what Jhourney seems to be claiming. Again, what Iâm specifically skeptical of is:
-That a high percentage of people (e.g. 40%) will have a transformative experience.
-That this transformative experience or impression of having a transformative experience will lead to positive long-term life changes.
-That the percentage of people who experience something transformative, the magnitude of the transformative experience, or the long-term effects marks a radical departure from the experiences people have been having for decades in North America with meditation, psychedelics, and therapy.
In addition to meditation and the other normal things, I have tried all kinds of weird things like nootropics, hypnosis/âhypnotherapy, and binaural beats. I am open to trying weird things. Another way to put it is that Iâm sort of an âeasy markâ for self-help fads.
So, when I read this post I was tempted to believe that Jhourney had invented a non-pharmacological version of the Limitless pill. But, for the reasons I just gave, Jhourneyâs narrative doesnât add up for me.
When they release the $70 app, maybe Iâll try it then.
Fair and understandable criticisms. Some quick responses:
1) Iâve attempted to share resources and pointers that I hope can get people similar benefits for free without signing up for a retreat (like Rob Burbeaâs retreat videos, Nadia Asparouhovaâs write-up with meditation instructions, and other content). Since I found most of these after my Jhourney retreat I canât speak from experience about their effectiveness. Iâd be excited for more people to experiment and share what does and doesnât work for them, and for people with more experience to share whatâs worked for them (on the meditation front, emotion processing, and more). I also donât intend to suggest that Jhourney has access to insights that are only discoverable by doing one of their retreats. They do seem to be taking the prospect that jhanas can be accessed quickly much more seriously than many others, and have encouraging results.
2) As I mentioned, my experience appears to have been somewhat of an outlier, and I donât have a great understanding as to why. Insofar as whatever worked for me can help others, I aim to share. That said, Twitter discourse about jhanas and Jhourney seems to match my impression, other unaffiliated people have discussed Jhourney retreats seeming to generate many outlier positive experiences.
3) It doesnât surprise me at all that thereâs low-hanging fruit on the mindfulness front. Buddhist texts are very poorly (anti-helpfully) translated. There has not been that much serious exploration, optimization pressure, and investment into improving and democratizing mindfulness education and wellbeing. This extends beyond mindfulness. Why did it take as long as it did for GLP-1 medications to become widespread? Many self-help interventions are incentivized against actually fixing peopleâs problems (e.g. therapists stop getting paid if they permanently fix your problems). There are other orgs that seem to generate very positive experiences working in related areas, like Art of Accomplishment content and courses for processing emotions, making better decisions, and better connecting with others.
4) I donât know Jhourneyâs team well and donât want to speak on their behalf (but I do think theyâre well-intentioned). Iâve found their official and staff Twitter accounts share the most relevant instructions they provide on retreatâe.g. they publicly discuss cultivating positivity likely being more effective for accessing jhanas, forgiveness meditation (which Iâm realizing I should add to the main post) and guided recordings, and many other insights.
My impression is that expected donations/âfees for week-long meditation retreats is often in the $1000+ range (though granted this is for in-person retreats, and I havenât explored this in detail). We did have daily personalized instruction, and staff were available on-call throughout our retreat. Given how quickly Jhourneyâs retreats sell out, from a profit-maximizing perspective it seems like they could be charging more. I also donât know what they do with their profits. I wouldnât be surprised if they donated a decent amount, or spent it in ways they think make sense on altruistic grounds. They say in their blog post about their plans that they aspire to change the lives of tens of millions with the following steps:
I mean, Jhourney is far from the only organisation that offers online retreats. Established meditation centres like Gaia House, Plum Village and DeconstructingYourselfâto name but a fewâall offer retreats online (as well as in person).
I think Jhourneyâs website answers this. They say:
I personally wouldnât bet on the neurotech approach working; however, Iâm inclined to believe that Jhourney is making a sincere effort to share their findings with the world.
I agree that itâs reasonable to be skeptical of paywalled contentâthere are all kinds of scams out there. But in Jhourneyâs case, I expect they are putting their operating income towards their research lab. Note also that they offer need-based scholarships.
COI note: I attended an online Jhourney retreat last year.
Do those other meditation centres make similarly extreme claims about the benefits of their programs? If so, I would be skeptical of them for the same reasons. If not, then the comparison is inapt.
If I had developed a meditation program that I really thought did what Jhourney is claiming their meditation program does, I would not be approaching it this way. I would try to make the knowledge as widely accessible as I could as quickly as possible. Jhourney has been doing retreats for over two years. Whatâs the hold up?
Transcendental Meditation (TM)âs stated justification for their secrecy and high prices is that TM requires careful, in-person, one-on-one instruction. Whatâs Jhourneyâs justification for not making instructional videos or audio recordings that anyone can buy for, say, $70?
Could it be just commercial self-interest? But, in that case, why hasnât the jhana meditation encouraged them to prize altruism more? Isnât that supposed to be one of the effects?
Iâm willing to make some allowance for personal self-interest and for the self-interest of the business, of course. But selling $70 instructional materials to millions of people would be a good business. And the Nobel Peace Prize comes with both a $1 million cash prize and a lot of fame and acclaim. Similarly, the Templeton Prize comes with $1.4 million in cash and some prestige. There are other ways to capitalize on fame and esteem, such as through speaking engagements. So, sharing a radical breakthrough in jhana meditation with the world has strong business incentives and strong personal self-interest incentives. Why not do it?
The simplest explanation is that they donât actually have the âproductâ theyâre claiming to have. Or, to put it another way, the âproductâ they have is not as differentiated from other meditation programs as theyâre claiming and does not reliably produce the benefits theyâre claiming it reliably produces.
Why would the comparison be inapt?
A load-bearing piece of your argument (insofar as Iâve understood it) is that most of the benefit of Jhourneyâs teachingsâif Jhourney is legitâcan be conferred through non-interactive means (e.g., YouTube uploads). I am pointing out that your claim goes against conventional wisdom in this space: these other meditation centres believe (presumably), much like Jhourney does, that their teachings canât be conferred well non-interactively. Iâm not sure why the strength of claimed benefits would come into it?
(I will probably drop out of this thread now; I feel a bit weird about taking on this role of defending Jhourneyâs position.)