I actually initially wrote off psychonetics because of its woo sounding name. However upon skimming the thing which I linked, I noticed two things that made me suspect that psychonetics might be worth taking seriously:
First, the safety rules and in particular, discouraging religious or spiritual interpretation and encouraging you to stop doing it if you start feeling “an otherworldly presence” or feeling as though you have magical powers and seek out a psychiatrist. Second, the purported benefits are limited in scope. It does not claim to solve all of your physical or mental problems, but only to efficiently process lots of information.
After reading the linked website in more detail, I continue to think it’s worth taking seriously.
Psychonetics still sounds somewhat woo-ish but not in a way optimized for book sales or anything else I can think of, besides being true. At worst, I think I would be unable to tell between a world where psychonetics worked and a world where it didn’t, just because it doesn’t activate a lot of the woo red flags, and there’s no experiments I can find confirming whether psychonetics works one way or another. This is what I’d think a $100 dollar on the sidewalk that no one has picked up would look like.
I actually initially wrote off psychonetics because of its woo sounding name. However upon skimming the thing which I linked, I noticed two things that made me suspect that psychonetics might be worth taking seriously:
First, the safety rules and in particular, discouraging religious or spiritual interpretation and encouraging you to stop doing it if you start feeling “an otherworldly presence” or feeling as though you have magical powers and seek out a psychiatrist. Second, the purported benefits are limited in scope. It does not claim to solve all of your physical or mental problems, but only to efficiently process lots of information.
After reading the linked website in more detail, I continue to think it’s worth taking seriously.
Psychonetics still sounds somewhat woo-ish but not in a way optimized for book sales or anything else I can think of, besides being true. At worst, I think I would be unable to tell between a world where psychonetics worked and a world where it didn’t, just because it doesn’t activate a lot of the woo red flags, and there’s no experiments I can find confirming whether psychonetics works one way or another. This is what I’d think a $100 dollar on the sidewalk that no one has picked up would look like.