What is the interactive or personalized aspect of the online “retreats”? Why couldn’t 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 DeconstructingYourself—to name but a few—all offer retreats online (as well as in person).
If Jhourney’s house blend of jhana meditation makes you more altruistic, why wouldn’t the people who work at Jhourney try to share it widely with the world? That’s what I would do if I had developed a meditation program that I thought was really producing these sorts of results.
Jhourney’s initial product is a meditation retreat. In the past ~12 months, we’ve 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. […]
While this is great progress, we see meditation retreats as just a stepping stone to building a bigger movement. We’re not simply a retreats company aspiring to teach thousands of people meditation. We’re an applied research company aspiring to change the lives of tens of millions.
[…]
From here, we’ll build a lab to research ways to make it easier and faster, inspiring more people to join the cause. Eventually, we’ll develop novel deeptech for wellbeing that goes beyond meditation retreats.
I personally wouldn’t bet on the neurotech approach working; however, I’m 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 it’s reasonable to be skeptical of paywalled content—there are all kinds of scams out there. But in Jhourney’s 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. What’s the hold up?
Transcendental Meditation (TM)’s stated justification for their secrecy and high prices is that TM requires careful, in-person, one-on-one instruction. What’s Jhourney’s 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 hasn’t the jhana meditation encouraged them to prize altruism more? Isn’t that supposed to be one of the effects?
I’m 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 don’t actually have the “product” they’re claiming to have. Or, to put it another way, the “product” they have is not as differentiated from other meditation programs as they’re claiming and does not reliably produce the benefits they’re 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 I’ve understood it) is that most of the benefit of Jhourney’s teachings—if Jhourney is legit—can 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 can’t be conferred well non-interactively. I’m 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 Jhourney’s position.)
Sorry, this is an incredibly late reply in a (by Internet standards) ancient comment thread.
My point is about differentiation. If Jhourney is saying their work confers benefits on approximately the same level as the many meditation centres you can find all over the place, then I have no qualms with that claim. If Jhourney, or someone else, is saying that Jhourney’s work confers benefits far, far higher than any or almost any other meditation centre or retreat on Earth, then I’m skeptical about that.
Transcendental Meditation or TM is an organization that claims far, far higher benefits from its techniques than other forms of meditation, insists on in-person teaching, and charges a very high fee. It’s viewed by some people as essentially a scam and some people as a sort of luxury product that is not particularly differentiated from the commodity product.
I’m not saying Jhourney is like Transcendental Meditation, I’m just noting that similar claims have been made in the area of meditation before with a clear financial self-interest to make these claims, and the claims have not been borne out. So, there is a certain standard of evidence a company like Jhourney has to rise above, a certain level of warranted skepticism it has to overcome.
I mean, Jhourney is far from the only organisation that offers online retreats. Established meditation centres like Gaia House, Plum Village and DeconstructingYourself—to name but a few—all offer retreats online (as well as in person).
I think Jhourney’s website answers this. They say:
I personally wouldn’t bet on the neurotech approach working; however, I’m inclined to believe that Jhourney is making a sincere effort to share their findings with the world.
I agree that it’s reasonable to be skeptical of paywalled content—there are all kinds of scams out there. But in Jhourney’s 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. What’s the hold up?
Transcendental Meditation (TM)’s stated justification for their secrecy and high prices is that TM requires careful, in-person, one-on-one instruction. What’s Jhourney’s 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 hasn’t the jhana meditation encouraged them to prize altruism more? Isn’t that supposed to be one of the effects?
I’m 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 don’t actually have the “product” they’re claiming to have. Or, to put it another way, the “product” they have is not as differentiated from other meditation programs as they’re claiming and does not reliably produce the benefits they’re claiming it reliably produces.
Why would the comparison be inapt?
A load-bearing piece of your argument (insofar as I’ve understood it) is that most of the benefit of Jhourney’s teachings—if Jhourney is legit—can 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 can’t be conferred well non-interactively. I’m 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 Jhourney’s position.)
Sorry, this is an incredibly late reply in a (by Internet standards) ancient comment thread.
My point is about differentiation. If Jhourney is saying their work confers benefits on approximately the same level as the many meditation centres you can find all over the place, then I have no qualms with that claim. If Jhourney, or someone else, is saying that Jhourney’s work confers benefits far, far higher than any or almost any other meditation centre or retreat on Earth, then I’m skeptical about that.
Transcendental Meditation or TM is an organization that claims far, far higher benefits from its techniques than other forms of meditation, insists on in-person teaching, and charges a very high fee. It’s viewed by some people as essentially a scam and some people as a sort of luxury product that is not particularly differentiated from the commodity product.
I’m not saying Jhourney is like Transcendental Meditation, I’m just noting that similar claims have been made in the area of meditation before with a clear financial self-interest to make these claims, and the claims have not been borne out. So, there is a certain standard of evidence a company like Jhourney has to rise above, a certain level of warranted skepticism it has to overcome.