I believe anyone who pitches people to participate in circling with others who are pretty much strangers to them (and not super-carefully-vetted) and applies implicit peer pressure and doesn’t warn them that this sort of thing can be psychologically risky and unsafe, is either dangerously clueless or a bad actor.
For what it’s worth, I live in the Bay Area, where there are large spirituality communities and surprisingly related “professional development” communities. These practices seem surprisingly normal in these communities.
I think that the leaders of these groups are typically very overconfident in their approaches, are a bit desperate to sell them, and not very epistemically sophisticated, so very rarely give adequate warnings and help.
For what it’s worth, I live in the Bay Area, where there are large spirituality communities and surprisingly related “professional development” communities. These practices seem surprisingly normal in these communities.
I think that the leaders of these groups are typically very overconfident in their approaches, are a bit desperate to sell them, and not very epistemically sophisticated, so very rarely give adequate warnings and help.