"Scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam, scam. SCAM, SCAMITY SCAM!"
"I don't like scam!"
Eh, I really do feel that meditation gave me pretty much the same results as holosync or hemisync.
Dreamlife, which hemisync products did you find worked best for you. I'm curious. I played around with them for a while. Like you, I didn't find they helped productivity one jot. They were, however, very entertaining.
Re: centerpointe ... because binaural beat frequencies are at a lower pitch, this makes an amazing transformative experience? Or maybe the PLACEBO EFFECT (belief) along with plain old meditation makes a transformative experience?
You get a lot of the same purgative experiences and depth through using a mantra a la TM or the relaxation respose or doing za-zen (pretzeling your legs, sitting up straight, and counting breaths) as with the tapes. Frankly, I think with meditation you're more involved in the process. Some guy making lots of money on hellishly overpriced tapes is not "doing it" for you.
Frankly, making an investment in a lot of ways (time, money, belief, a little bit of self-image [this has to work, or I am a fool for investing so much of myself into it ... so I'll make it work]) in following a program is much of what makes it work. You make a product that makes people feel, in some way, extraordinary, put a bunch of interesting philosophical/spiritual/psychological rhetoric on top of it, get people believing and investing in it ... and you got something that will make itself work in whatever ways people expect it or want it to. And even if it doesn't, people will make themselves believe it does. It's better than seeing a dupe whenever you cross a mirror.
Listening to binaural beat frequencies every day will most certainly have *some* sort of effect upon you. How much different is it from meditating or just being quiet if you *believe* in that activity the same way? And anyway, how does a person know that the "effects" of holosync are actually the effects of holosync and wouldn't happen anyway? Maybe they are products of belief and expectation?
Perhaps it's just plain old totemism and fetishism. It's been known to work. Repeat after me, three times: the tape is the talisman.
IMO, Centerpointe's intense effort at marketing (read: lying) speaks volumes about their ethics.
But, to quote Guns 'n Roses: use your illusion. Whatever floats your boat.