I would be interested if anyone has compared the efficacy of using a set of beliefs' feed forward  process (you fill in the specific beliefs) with  the know nothing state - in terms of acquiring and mastering a set of skills and behaviour. It would seem from Whispering, that the know nothing state is presumed to be more effective than using a specific set of beliefs - might I add that assertion includes a presupposition or belief in itself.  What about the self-fulfilling prophecy that has been studied and identified with regards to beliefs - apologies I don't have any specific references at hand here -  (how about positive beliefs and halluciations?  aka tony robbins types). It has been made clear by the author's in whispering that the feed forward process (self-fulling prophecy of positive affirmations, visualisations and feelings) is antithetical to excellence in learning.  Has the know nothing state been demonstrated as a more 'competant' model - not just by one's own, the authors' or one person's experience but by consistant observation of others' measurable performance and competancy in learning a set of skills in a variety of different contexts.  Since demonstrable competancy of a model is at the core of NLP, the answers to this question are fundamental in determining the relevancy and efficacy of that model (in comparison to other models).