I wouldn't say that the research Martin did that is discussed in the interview Chris linked to is "deeply flawed." It seems to have proceeded along accepted protocols in social science research -- accepting all the limitations thereof. Although, I did not participate, so maybe some of the participants can comment on that.

I feel this research is very valuable because it is ecumenical, in-depth, and had a fairly large sample size (n=50).

The succeeding "experiments" Martin conducted in the Finders Course, however, have no controls, no blinding, no published standards for measuring PNSE, etc. They're pretty flawed and, therefore, the data should be taken lightly, IMO.

I think the interviewer's main point was that you couldn't correlate the PNSE with any of the traditional models. But then Daniel gives about 30 models in MCTB1 and doesn't attempt to cross-correlate them. Which is a pity, since Shargrol is looking for some exciting pre-holiday weekend reading.

I'm not an expert on the methods used in social science research, so take what i am about to say with a grain of salt.

Jeffery Martin interviewed me as part of his original study on non-symbolic consciousness. Before the interview I was "qualified" as a subject because I had taken a series of online tests Jeffery was using to develop his study population and met his criteria for inclusion in the study population. What I recall is that Jeffery used word of mouth to find potential subjects, so in some sense we were self-selected. There as no control group that I know of, so there was no comparison of the selected population against a "norm" or benchmark population. I believe but cannot prove that Jeffery was using Gary Weber as a reference point of the study, as a kind of be all and end all for the furthest advances along his spectrum of what is being called PNSE. He pretty much told me that when I asked about it, although he did not use Gary's name for obvious reasons. I found out who Gary Weber was later on, and put two and two together. What bothers me to this day about the whole process is Jeffery and his dubious claims to being affiliated with a "Harvard study" when that was't quite the full story. I feel Jeffery has found a great niche to play in and play he does, with his books and his research, which by the way never seems to find its way into peer reviewed journals. I would be happy to be proven wrong about any of that, as it would make me feel a lot better about the whole episode in general.

So, yeah, there you go.