I never considered the "pure use" of the arrow as ghost ball aiming either.
In my opinion aiming at a contact patch is not ghost ball.
In my opinion aiming at a contact patch is not ghost ball.
I was talking about using the Cranfield arrow to learn to aim at the "contact patch", not about using ghost ball aiming itself. I am definitely a ghost ball shooter and have always been (even though I didn't realize it until somebody pointed out to me that's what I was doing), but I don't need any sort of a training aid to see where to put the ball. I never aim at the contact patch, I always just try to aim the CB into the ghost ball position on the shot line. Big difference.
It never even occurred to me to aim at the contact patch until I read an article about that arrow some years ago. It doesn't even fit the mental image of a ghost ball, which is the mental visualization of a ball sitting on the table, not a point that is set on the shot line 1 1/8" back from the back of the OB. To me, that is not GB aiming, but some sort of contact point aiming.