Jeffrey Martin will be a standalone Topic soon. I’m giddy.
Maybe not as soon as I thought. There’s so much to process. I’ll need time to collect the pieces of the world that just crashed before my eyes.
You make some great points there Geoffrey. It’s such a fascinating topic - I only wish I could temporarily switch bodies and experience what others are experiencing for myself. We tend to not realise that we don’t even know what our friends and family are experiencing in real time (can only draw conclusions/comparisons based on how they express themselves and behave). Obviously there are emptional states which occur simultaneously between human beings (ie love, social interaction etc) where it’s a bit more obvious. But it’s a whole 'nother kettle of fish guaging people who claim altered states and such.
Some people do better at advocating for their states than others…Richard did a very very good job at that one I have to say!
The reason JM’s presentation of “actualism” seems like the “affers” is because he got his information from them. He interviewed several people who claimed “af” from the DHO(one still claims to be even though their past writings and a video from the FC clearly show they are not). His presentation is called “unprovoked happiness” which is one of the affers term for “actualism” practice. It doesn’t place a proper(if any) emphasis on affective awareness and instead tries to mimic a pce by paying attention to the senses, particularly the visual field. I fell for that trap myself and it leads to actuality mimicking ASC’s very quickly and is very difficult to stop once it becomes habitual.
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Would be interesting to read if you are able to digest his publications and condense it into a summary for the rest of us.
@actualron thanks, that does make sense now. I was looking at Location 4 and going, hmmm in a couple of ways it resembles AF and in other ways it totally doesn’t. But of course if was an Affer thing 
@solvann just read the paper and much of his book The Finders. His yen for monetization and self promotion, seems to outstrip his scientific interest. Research methodology and transparency doesn’t seem good, but then again I am not well versed in best practises for the grounded theory methodology he used. That being the case, it’s really hard to know what if any truth there is that enlightees actually cluster into these groups. Still, on face value I thought as a crude categorisation system, it’s not bad.
Essentially he calls the enlightened state PNSE (Persistent Non Symbolic Experience) and divides it into 4 main ‘locations’, which are in some senses a progression.
Hi Solvann - yes, I’m scouring through Mr. Martin’s publications bit by bit. The objective is to present a more in-depth and coherent summary analysis of his findings and the unique taxonomy he devised, particularly as they relate to Richard’s own description of his status and the journey he made from an Absolute to an actual freedom. Srinath provided an instructive diagram that outlines the basic characteristics he attributed to each of his classifications. The intention is to go a little deeper and flesh out each classification by providing extracts from his research papers and cross-referencing those with extracts from Richard’s publicized words. The endeavor to adequately encapsulate Mr. Martin’s findings is complicated by the fact that his taxonomy is rather inconsistent; for example, the characteristics that he ascribed to Location 4 in 2010 has changed over time and it appears that recently, in the last three years maybe, his publications are showcasing additional Locations, all the way up to 10, that are not clearly defined or explained, at least not in what I have come across so far, which is not exhaustive. I still have plenty to comb through such as interview transcripts, videos, and podcasts.
There is also an intention of reaching out to him for follow up questions. I am curious as to what is influencing this drastic reworking of his initial taxonomy; what is the story behind these recent unique data clusters that are causing him to create more and more Locations? What’s he reading, who’s he talking to? As Srinath mentioned, his methodology and findings are questionable: for example, what criteria did he use to evaluate the authenticity or fraudulence of a claimant; who are the individuals he interviewed that informed his classifications, particularly Locations 3, 4, and beyond; how much of the category development of Location 4 was informed by interviewing ‘Affers’, if at all; how much was informed by interviewing the genitor and/or genitrix of actualism, i.e., Richard and/or Vineeto, if at all; how much of Location 4 was informed by those unaffiliated/unaware of with either ‘Aff’ or actualism, if at all? And so on.
Is it more life-altering than the discovery of actual freedom? 
Ha, not by a long shot.
Hi Rick,
At least one of the “affers”(I suspect JM knows little to nothing of this “controversy”) is now “publicly” talking about there being things “beyond actual freedom” where feelings appear again(albeit mostly just feeling “other people’s” feelings for them). I put publicly in quotes because only those who have taken one or more of JM’s courses and hence have access to being a member of the free “perfectly okay” community for former course participants have access to much if not all of this info. This community is not affiliated with JM as JM has created his own “pay as you go” community for “finder’s” called “The Exemplars Program”. The “affer” is also the person who used to have a video explaining “unprovoked happiness”(ie their take on “actualism”) in the original FC but JM no longer uses it, but one can watch it on the “perfectly okay forum”. Also, this person has done some “workshop” zoom videos that a perfectly okay member can watch. Clearly not actually free from comparing the videos of Richard and Geoffrey.
I only pointed to Jeffery Martin because Srinath was looking for some kind of typology of ‘enlightenment’ experiences. And, to my knowledge, that’s all we have as far as ‘objective’ (not tied to a tradition) typologies go. It might be seen as regrettable that it’s branded by a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” who happily talks about marketing techniques and “audiences”, and not only exhibits demeanours that keep one wondering about his motives (and scientific rigour), but apparently takes fashion/style advice from Steven Seagal (ok that one was not exactly warranted 
).
Now, looking at the slide of the ‘locations’ Srinath posted… one has to keep in mind that the bar is pretty low here. I’ve seen Martin say that, to his ‘surprise’, 25% to 50% of people who take his (“new and improved”) course, are already at location 1 and 2, most without knowing it. Either his demographics are quite skewed, or his criteria are quite lenient. Some cynical person might say that it’s quite convenient, when you have an ‘audience’ of ‘seekers’ looking to ‘find’, to tell them that they’ve already found… and that you’re gonna make it even better (through the use of, wait for it, “positive psychology”), and then have them report “improvement of well-being” post-process - which makes nice before/after graphs for one’s sales pitch.
If some of you guys were tempted to buy some of this sales pitch, and wonder how nice it would be to get ‘enlightened’ in such an easy manner, let me reassure you, actualists! A simple connexion to pure intent would probably qualify you for location 1, and an extended EE (or even more, out-from-control) would qualify you for location 2, no problem. I’m of course NOT saying that these are the same thing, or even related in any manner… just that Martin would have you sit and go through a test, with little boxes to check, that you’d do the best you could with what the little boxes say… and soon you’d get to hear the good news. As a side note, it’s an interesting factoid that Martin says that ‘actualism’ is the one sure way to get to location 4… from location 2 
. That’s likely to just be an ‘affer’ thing though, seeing that most of them got to ‘location 4’ from their pragmatic dharma ‘arahatship’ which looks like location 2 (although it does not look at all like out-from-control, which shows how (not) useful this typology is really).
Regarding location 4, I could spend hours arguing about each one of those characteristics, and explain why it is not actual freedom it describes, but if I was, for whatever reason, obliged to take his test and only answer “yes” or “no” to the characteristics detailed, I’d just check ‘yes’ and be done with it. Martin would then give me my ‘location 4’ diploma, and all would be well lol. Damn, I might even get myself into location 5 or something. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
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I can give an example here: I took a test to see what location I was in and had the most “yes’s” for Location 4, closely followed by Location 2, a small amount for L1, none for L3 and one or two for no location at all. All that and I wouldn’t consider myself in-control VF let alone out-from-control. No doubt my experience of afferism has affected me deeply. Shooting for the real thing now! 
Such an accurate test.
most “yes’s” for Location 4
Congrats for your actual freedom!
LOL. You’re pre-edit was funnier.
There, I put it back
As a participant in those courses I was considered L2 though so there’s that(ie I had two many answers below L4 to be considered at that “Level”.
Tough luck eh.
Would you say location 2 is where pragmatic dharma related practices takes one?
At least one of the “affers” (…) is now “publicly” talking about there being things “beyond actual freedom” where feelings appear again(albeit mostly just feeling “other people’s” feelings for them).
This sounds coherent with what Martin describes as a “Path of Humanity” post-location 4, where feelings supposedly come back, as opposed to a “Path of Freedom” (no feelings there). The former, apparently frequent with ‘western’ teachers (although Martin mentions “bodhisattva” tendencies 
), apparently has a lower ceiling (loc 9) than the latter, pictured as that of eastern traditions (monks in caves etc.), who go into locations up to the 20s (lol), and show not only the impressive ‘intuition’ of the westerners, but indeed actual PSI capabilities 
(just mentioning that for those who might have been impressed with Martin’s scientific-looking article)
I think that’s more or less fair to say.
The way I’ve understood the difference is also based on Richard’s massive post on elucidating what real enlightenment is (as opposed to DhO arahantship and all that). Basically, the Absolute as it occurs in Advaita is immanent (is the phenomenal world) while the Absolute as it occurs in Buddhism is something completely other (not form, feeling, perception, volition, or consciousness). In both cases though, the Absolute has no features to speak of (ineffable) and is still not physical. When viewed in this way, the approaches and emphasis made in either one make more sense. I would also presume this is how it is experienced as well. (See Richard’s description of experiencing the nirodh).