Having thought about this some more. I now roughly believe:
What Gretta and John are doing is very likely (85%) basically fine or net positive for them
What Gretta and John are doing is most likely (70%) basically fine or net positive for a random person they teach
But
Some small proportion of people (0.5-15% 90% CI, weighted towards the bottom) who use this based on this post, or similar online dissemination (not in-person) will have a net negative experience because of it
And
In a way I cannot really put my finger on, this smells adjacent to the tactics that rationalist-adjacent cults (Black Lotus, Leverage, Zizians) like to deploy. “You need to break out of what society wants you to want” + “this will energize you” trips this for me. If I imagine that in four years I’m reading an exposé of a cult that spanout in 2026, I can very easily imagine a line like “X made us all sit down and think about what we really wanted. We did this for hours a day. Sometimes some people would share it with the group and we’d be told we hadn’t really broken free of societal expectations. Some people claimed it made them more energetic, more powerful.” Obviously the way I’m describing this is very different from how you are doing it, but this seems like the kind of thing which spirals from 1 hour/day to 8 hours/day, when social groups hit the cult attractor. It feels particularly risky because, unlike other John Wentworth mental technique posts, it doesn’t really come as many gears or caveats. It seems much more “in itself” in a weird way.
Disclaimer 1: I have a very fuzzy picture of this technique and might have gotten it all wrong. This comment is really just explaining my immediate ick with the post, and might partly be rationalization.
Disclaimer 2: I know nothing about those cults I mentioned other than what is publicly available online. I don’t have personal experience with them or their members.
Without commenting on any of the rest of this, I’ll clarify that I currently spend less than an hour a week on visioning (usually just a few minutes a day) and that I think there are probably rapidly diminishing returns beyond that point, so, uh, please don’t spiral, folks.
I feel like basically any good thing can be made bad if you cultify it. This really doesn’t seem like something that spirals up to many hours daily. It really does just sound like “try fantasizing”.
You also have focused on the “break free from societal expectations” part. Of course, if you focus on that then you are effectively increasing how likely people are to change from wherever they were, and if you have malicious goals or are in a group that’s taken over by some all-consuming memes, then ‘unsticking’ you is a tool to make you adopt whatever crazy stuff they want you to.
If instead this is just called “fantasize about stuff you want”, then there’s less focus on unsticking you.
Having thought about this some more. I now roughly believe:
What Gretta and John are doing is very likely (85%) basically fine or net positive for them
What Gretta and John are doing is most likely (70%) basically fine or net positive for a random person they teach
But
Some small proportion of people (0.5-15% 90% CI, weighted towards the bottom) who use this based on this post, or similar online dissemination (not in-person) will have a net negative experience because of it
And
In a way I cannot really put my finger on, this smells adjacent to the tactics that rationalist-adjacent cults (Black Lotus, Leverage, Zizians) like to deploy. “You need to break out of what society wants you to want” + “this will energize you” trips this for me. If I imagine that in four years I’m reading an exposé of a cult that spanout in 2026, I can very easily imagine a line like “X made us all sit down and think about what we really wanted. We did this for hours a day. Sometimes some people would share it with the group and we’d be told we hadn’t really broken free of societal expectations. Some people claimed it made them more energetic, more powerful.” Obviously the way I’m describing this is very different from how you are doing it, but this seems like the kind of thing which spirals from 1 hour/day to 8 hours/day, when social groups hit the cult attractor. It feels particularly risky because, unlike other John Wentworth mental technique posts, it doesn’t really come as many gears or caveats. It seems much more “in itself” in a weird way.
Disclaimer 1: I have a very fuzzy picture of this technique and might have gotten it all wrong. This comment is really just explaining my immediate ick with the post, and might partly be rationalization.
Disclaimer 2: I know nothing about those cults I mentioned other than what is publicly available online. I don’t have personal experience with them or their members.
Without commenting on any of the rest of this, I’ll clarify that I currently spend less than an hour a week on visioning (usually just a few minutes a day) and that I think there are probably rapidly diminishing returns beyond that point, so, uh, please don’t spiral, folks.
I feel like basically any good thing can be made bad if you cultify it. This really doesn’t seem like something that spirals up to many hours daily. It really does just sound like “try fantasizing”.
You also have focused on the “break free from societal expectations” part. Of course, if you focus on that then you are effectively increasing how likely people are to change from wherever they were, and if you have malicious goals or are in a group that’s taken over by some all-consuming memes, then ‘unsticking’ you is a tool to make you adopt whatever crazy stuff they want you to.
If instead this is just called “fantasize about stuff you want”, then there’s less focus on unsticking you.