Next in the ongoing series of essays by Terra Cognita. See earlier posts here: The Mind, The Way To Happiness: Really? A Story, Auditing: a PC’s Quest for the Holy Grail, The Knowledge Report, Integrity, The Almighty Stat, The Reg, The Horrors of Wordclearing, Why Scientologists Don’t FSM, Respect, The Survival Rundown – The Latest Scam, Communication in Scientology… Or Not, Am I Still A Thetan?, To Be Or Not To Be, An Evaluation of Scientology, Fear: That Which Drives Scientology and Justification and Rationalization.
Condition of Doubtfulness
For those of you not familiar with L. Ron Hubbard’s “Conditions,” he wrote, “An organization or its parts or an individual passes through various states of existence. These, if not handled properly, bring about shrinkage and misery and worry and death. If handled properly they bring about stability, expansion, influence and well-being.”
Each condition is paired with a specific formula. LRH continued, “The formulas for these are apparently monitoring formulas for livingness. The first thing to know about them is that each step in a formula is in exact sequence and must be done in that sequence. It is totally fatal to reverse the order of sequence of two or more actions.”
This is a large subject, so for now, I’ll just talk about one of the more confusing conditions and save the others for later (and as usual, let readers fill in the inevitable parts I’ve left out).
Condition of Doubt
“When one cannot make up one’s mind as to an individual, a group, organization or project, a condition of Doubt exists.” LRH.
Sounds reasonable.
The Formula
Step 1
“Inform oneself honestly of the actual intentions and activities of that group, project or organization, brushing aside all bias and rumor.”
Seems like a fairly straightforward formula. A person simply Googles “Scientology,” clicks on such sites as Mike Rinder, Tony Ortega, and Chris Shelton and goes to town.
The problem however is that within the walls of Scientology, conducting such research is a crime against the church and humanity, and punishable by one of their Courts of Ethics or Boards of Investigations. Anything not in total agreement with church doctrine is “counter-intention,” “entheta,” “enemy line,” and “black PR.” So much for informing oneself honestly.
I often waffled on who or what LRH was referring to with his use of the word “that.” I suppose he meant the organization with which I had my doubts, but by the time I reached Step 4, I wasn’t so sure.
Step 2
“Examine the statistics of the individual, group, project or organization.” Interestingly, he didn’t use the word “individual” in Step 1, like he does here. Why the inconsistency?
Step 3
“Decide on the basis of the ‘the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics’ whether or not it should be attacked, harmed or suppressed or helped.”
Unfortunately, he gave us only two choices: a) attack, harm, and suppress, or, b) help. But what if I just want to walk away peacefully? Why should I be forced to harm this organization? For instance, if I decided to leave the American Kennel Association because I was no longer interested in showing dogs and wanted to devote more time to organic gardening, why should I attack, harm, or suppress—or help—a perfectly good organization? I just want to grow my squash and carrots in peace.
At this point in the formula, an unenlightened reader might think it’s been determined whether to stay or leave a particular entity based on its intentions, activities, and statistics—and time to move up to the condition of Liability. Not so fast.
Step 4
“Evaluate oneself or one’s own group, project or organization as to intentions and objectives.”
Wait… Didn’t I just do that? I decided to leave the AKA. End of story, right?
If I just evaluated the aforementioned organization, maybe LRH now wants me to evaluate myself. On the other hand, maybe he’s talking about my new hobby, organic gardening. He wants me to compare showing dogs with growing organic vegetables and choose the one which most benefits my dynamics. Right?
Then again, maybe he simply wants to me to take a hard look at myself, and not evaluate organic gardening. Or showing dogs. Or…I’m confused.
Step 5
“Evaluate one’s own or one’s group, project or organization’s statistics.”
This seems easy enough—unless I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to be evaluating my statistics, the AKA’s statistics, or the statistics of organic gardening. Just to be on the safe side, maybe I should evaluate all three and assign each a numerical value on a one to ten scale.
Let’s see…my dog Roscoe hasn’t won a ribbon in years: 2.6; my carrots are huge and tasty: 8.7; and I’m only slightly overweight: 5.9!
Step 6
“Join or remain in or befriend the one which progresses toward the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and announce the fact publicly to both sides.”
No! I don’t want to announce the fact publicly to both sides! Not to either side. And definitely not publicly! Who I decide to align myself with is my business and nobody else’s.
Just for the hell of it, though…
I show up at the next chapter meeting of my local AKA and announce to the members I no longer want anything to do with them. Because organic gardening is so much more organic and dog feces is bad for the environment. My standing within the canine community plunges.
At the next farmer’s market, I stand up on a soap box and proclaim my everlasting friendship and support. I’m showered with free kale!
Or something like that. Didn’t I already “decide” in Step 3?
And what if I don’t want to disconnect from either group—or from myself? Am I supposed to “disown” myself? Still confused.
Step 7
“Do everything possible to improve the actions and statistics of the person, group, project or organization one has remained in or joined.”
EVERYTHING possible? “Everything” covers a lot of ground. Too much ground in my book.
The problem with this step is that by not doing “everything possible,” one is committing an overt (in the eyes of Scientology, at least). Which leads to guilt, control, sec-checking, and the inevitable, lighter wallet.
So, no. I may work to improve the project or organization I’ve remained in or joined, but chances are good, “everything possible” won’t be happening this lifetime. Honey and I are hitting the movies tonight.
Step 8
“Suffer on up through the conditions in the new group if one has changed sides, or the conditions of the group one has remained in if wavering from it has lowered one’s status.”
First of all, I’ll pass on suffering up through the conditions. If this means I’m a dilettante organic gardener—or Earth goes to hell in a handbasket—then so be it. My days of suffering are over. Thank you very much. My squash and carrots are doing just fine without having to apply the condition of Liability to me and my small urban plot of land.
Notice that LRH just uses the word “group” in this step—omitting “person, project, or organization.” Because one can’t change sides with himself, right? Or can he? He included the word “individual” in Step 1, but left it out in all the others.
By the time I reach this last step, I feel as though I’m in the condition of Confusion, not Doubt. Which may have been LRH’s intention after all.
Danger Will Robinson! Danger!
Take heed, good readers! According to LRH, “The next thing to know is that knowing the formulas carries the responsibility of using them. Otherwise one could be accused of willful suicide! For these are the formulas. And they do work like magic.” Suicide? Yikes!
Last Two Questions
First, why is Doubt a “lower” condition and positioned below Liability? Is it so wrong that one should have doubts about a particular organization with which he’s associated? I was always taught that there were no stupid questions; that questioning things was good and indeed, a cornerstone of freedom and democracy. So again, why would having doubts about an individual, project, or organization put one in a lower condition?
Second, if the conditions worked as flawlessly as LRH wrote, shouldn’t all orgs—and all its parishioners—be in conditions of Power after years and years of applying their formulas?
Confused as usual.
Mike willing, more conditions to follow.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
Wow. I am gobsmacked by the Alanzo post.
“Some never-ins are tolerant of spiritual and religious pursuits. But the overwhelming majority of never-ins who have been attracted to Scientology-watching are atheists with contempt for any religious or spiritual activity. ”
How does Alanzo know this, did he query everyone in his “ASC” tribe?
“Both Scientologists and Anti-Scientologists – even if they are Exes and know better – disconnect from huge parts of themselves and their own experiences.”
How does Alanzo, who is not and can never be a “never in” know what a “never in” experiences. How does he know that a “never in” disconnects from parts of themselves? He has no ability or understanding on what “never in” experiences or life wisdom gained through their living experience..
“Atheistic never-ins would never have gotten involved in anything spiritual, let alone Scientology. They see doing anything spiritual in life as a weakness, a delusion, or at least a big mistake. They assign all kinds of negative personality traits to anyone who would do that, and they hold those negative personality traits out with contempt and disgust to Ex-Scientologists every day.”
That is jam-packed with accusations. So many assumptions stated as fact. So much vitriol.
“I’m not saying that never-in Scientology-watchers are bad people. In fact, they are very good people and extremely compassionate or they would never be spending the time they are exposing Scientology.”
So wait, “never ins” are driftless, spiritualess, atheists with contempt for all, and yet they are good people? An entire article about how “never ins” have nothing to add to the discussion… then ends with a (false?) platitiude.
“I’m saying that, for the reasons above, they don’t get it.”
If one has never been in something, that one can never “get” something?
So no one can understand the boy scouts, unless they were one?
No one can understand ISIS unless they are former ISIS members?
No one can understand anything, unless they themselves have personally experienced it?
That is… fascinating. And not how human knowledge works. We are here because an ancestor ate a poison berry and died. And the rest of the TRIBE learned from that not to eat the poisoned berry. We didn’t keep eating the berries just to get a personal death experience.
I have to say, I am a never-in Scientology-watcher ever since I was 16, and I am pretty much exactly as Alonzo says, with the exception that I don’t “hold those negative personality traits out with contempt and disgust to Ex-Scientologists every day.” I don’t have negative thoughts about ex-scientologists. Actually, I think they’re pretty damn brave.
Really? So you “disconnect from huge parts of themselves and their own experiences.”?
Well, that completely fascinates me.
gtsix, I read it the same way as you did, I agree totally with you.
Perfect i_ndeed. I doubted of the formula and the condition since the very very first time I read it in some PL! No intelligent individual having enough view of a subject based on some unproven allegation can do anything else than having sane doubts on the topic. All the systemps invented by LRH to erase the doubts are as dishonest as the formula and the whole topic of scientology.
What an absolutely fascinating post this one is to read. This truly is covering the engine room of the robotic insanity Scientology is when you get more than one person agreeing to its policies and procedures. A single person alone doing this is no worse than most things done alone but as a group activity it is insane. Auditing takes back seat with this stuff too, this is the stuff that is forced down the throat of everyone within that bubble.
Geezes I’m glad I’m out.
And, as I’ve said before, I Yawn, you got your old life back! For me, that’s the most important thing!
I’ve had the same thought many times as expressed here by TC in his article and that is, if it’s all as L Con said it was, why aren’t we all at the top of our game – permanently?
Why are the orgs in shit street decade after decade? The staff are forever doing conditions, every week, every day. Every scio I know, except perhaps me (haha!) was always applying some condition or other – ALWAYS.
I had a friend – I say “had” because when she was applying the condition of Liability she decided (with the help of her militant FSM) that her “friends” were people going up the bridge which I’d decided to give a miss – who was forever and ever applying the conditions to her situations. They were her children, her nine-year- ongoing-never-committing boyfriend, her job with its “SP” boss; but I never saw any of these situations ironing out. I was so often tempted to point this out to her but decided against it, hoping she’d notice it herself some time. The only person she didn’t apply the conditions to was me and I “ironed out” very nicely by leaving the scam and living a happy and prosperous life! So, thanks to her!
Really good one Terra Cognita!
Yes I never could see how Doubt fit in the sequence of conditions and how when now deciding for the organic garden (in your story) you now had to go up through Liability! Like Joe Pendleton commented later it’s because it was all based on someone going down the route of transgressions, i.e. being a baad person (sec check obsession).
But once again, it’s not always like that. And that’s why it did not work all the time.
You beautifully brought home the essence of free choice and self-determinism. One can perfectly choose not to play some games and let others play them without having to either love them or hate them, or without having to help them or attack them. That is a big part of freedom.
Ironically one of the thing that rang true to me from LRH (oh no, reverse sacrilege) was that the playing of any game can bring about “aberration” or “entrapment”. It can be observed in day to day life, not an absolute by any means. But again, that is where with, some talk with family, friends or co-workers, some freedom of choice and a bit of self-inspection can get you to step back once in a while and go breathe some fresh air.
You are right, in my Scientology life I did get little by little into this mode of thinking of either you help or you attack, and realized that this “with us or against us” mentality is a symptom of being in a battle situation, the dedicated glare attitude in the final paragraphs of KSW.
And in a battle situation, yes, in that context, you can get stuck seeing things that way. And it pervaded a lot of LRH’s writings. And thereby this limited help or attack view of things in the doubt formula. Great spotting!
This “either you’re with us or you’re against us” has been going on and sold for thousands of years, and ironically it’s one of those very digital thinkings with its resulting disasters, wars and crime that originally made me look for something like Scientology. If there was something woggier than the woggiest, that was one of them.
Not always wrong to think that way, but wacky too often enough. As a matter of fact that ‘s what was so pleasing about infinity-valued logic, the concepts of gradients, gaining familiarity with a subject, “absolutes are unobtainable”, and his pointing out the bad habit of passing laws burdening everybody just because of a few bad apples.
What a trip!
“And that’s why it did not work all the time.” For me, the only reason it ever “worked”, because it was so confusing, you never knew which group you were looking at for sure! was when I’d already decided which was the better group! It was a farce. I completed it glibly because I knew I had to!
When you really sit back and LOOK at the condition Scientologist’s are really in
It is total confusion
They make many mistakes…like joining the Sea Org or giving up all of their money
Very sad state of “being”
Idle Morgue, that is exactly correct for me. But I didn’t have to look back I knew I was in confusion and was constantly trying to figure it out. In 2008 I even went to the Glendale Map store and got me a 3D map of LA county and hug it in my bathroom opposite the stool. Haven’t felt in confusion for about 3 years now …. took a long while but is impossible to figure out not having all the data. Education will do the trick but to educate oneself one needs to know they don’t know which pretty hard when you hold the high and mighty job of saving planet earth from certain abolition. The one thing I did know was I was not doing OK weather it was confusion or not. When the student is ready the teacher will come. All I have to do now is sit back and watch and learn more and the “Very sad states of “being”” become history and have some value and are eventually laughed about. I would assume everyone goes through such processes in life if they continue to care to make sense out of it. When we fail seems to be when we shove it aside without fully understanding and then the sadness was worth nothing at all. Then we simply didn’t care enough. I suppose that might be why most persons lives get pretty bad off and then can change overnight for the better. They got up the gumption and finally cared. Once you care you have may have an obstacle course in front of you but it’s worth it. I hope these kids to the same 🙂
In my experience, scientologist are notorious bad employers: overworking people, poor pay, unpleasant work ethic, horrible working conditions, and so on. When I tried working for a couple of them and got down to try to finding out stats and how they were doing, etc, I could never get the information from anyone. The reason for this was because no one, even when they knew “he” was a swine boss, would tell me. They didn’t want to be thought nattering! How was I ever to make a decision.
So I went in blind and came out in a hurry with my eyes opened after some bad times and with a new bunch of KRs being written on me and in my org ethics folder, even though they weren’t supposed to go there.
Great write-up TC and you said things I never thought of before.
AI bit off topic, but interestingly on Hubbard’s liability formula the first step is Decide who are one’s friends.
And yet Hubbard never defines friends, If one does a google search of Aristotle ethics on friends, some interesting data is exposed.
Sometimes one just wants to do something else, do something new. Why must there be a big palaver about it? Why must I apply a formula to decide on things. Keep it simple stupid, the KISS formula, taught to most salesmen, at least in the life assurance company. In other words, keep things simple, straightforward.
I admit now that I often wondered why L Con made everything so complicated when it was he himself who said the Simplicity was all. I’m paraphrasing.
Tubby LIKED complexity. The more complex and imprecise, the better. Part of the “mystery sandwich” that he used to trap folks. If things were TOO simple, the bs would be too obvious.
Just because you leave doesn’t mean you are in doubt anymore than someone who has decided to no longer do Scientology services. That’s not doubt, you’ve made a decision. The reasons fro leaving may be infinite, but none indicate “Doubt” is at play.
Once you have decided to leave any group, project, activity, you are technically in “Non-Existence” with that group, not doubt. As long as you are still somehow involved with them and have not decided to sever connection, you may in any number of other conditions. “Doubt” and “Leaving” are not necessarily synonymous.
Let’s say you wanted to do organic gardening. You don’t have the time though, but decide in a matter of seconds to pass up on the time for the Kennel Association and pursue the new cultivation venture. As soon as the decision has been made, you are in Non-E with the dog club. You are long past doubt, and you can’t go back to the Doubt condition, it won’t work — unless of course you are still in doubt about leaving the Kennel Association.
Terra Cognita: “Unfortunately, he gave us only two choices: a) attack, harm, and suppress, or, b) help.”
A little logic will help to check the accuracy of this assertion.
= Decide on the basis of G whether or not A, Ha or S or He
= Decide on the basis of G: whether or not: {A, Ha or S or He}
= Decide on the basis of G: whether {A, Ha or S or He} or not {A, Ha or S or He}
Where:
G = Decision function.
{A, Ha or S or He}= Set of actions.
not {A, Ha or S or He}= Something which does not belong to {A, Ha or S or He}.
Terra Cognita: “But what if I just want to walk away peacefully?”
This action belongs to: not {A, Ha or S or He} = something which does not belong to {A, Ha or S or He}.
Yep. Clarified it for me.
WTF?
Just a bit of set theory and symbolic logic, Mike. It’s been a while since I used mine, but I got where he was going with it. Choosing to walk away peacefully is an allowed result of the decision-making process according to the way f16 did it. However, there’s more than one way to interpret the phrase “whether or not it should be attacked, harmed, or suppressed or helped”, and that’s the fact that the operator “or not” does not have any meaning in this context. Therefore, the result “not {A, Ha, S or He}” is a null set. Anything that falls in this category has no value according to that interpretation and cannot be done.
That’s the interpretation that Terra has of that statement, and it’s almost certainly the way that L. Fraud interpreted it.
In order to justify that “the result ‘not {A, Ha, S or He}’ is a null set”, the argument “that the operator ‘or not’ does not have any meaning in this context” is a pretty big stretch of logic.
In this context, the “not operator” is the “absolute complement” operator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complement_(set_theory)#Absolute_complement
Therefore, “Not {A, Ha or S or He}” = Something which does not belong to {A, Ha or S or He}.
Hi Terra,
Interesting and thought-provoking article as usual. Its amazingly true that no one in Scientology can do a Doubt Formula on Scientology because examining the statistics of Scientology is now considered a Suppressive Act, so just being IN the condition of Doubt is a no-no for them. Small wonder they’re avoid looking and observing the obvious!
Now, where I differ with you is where you object to not being able to just walk away from a group. If, using your example of leaving the American Kennel Club because your interest is centered now on organic gardening, if you were in that mind set you would not apply Doubt because doubt is for anyone who can’t make up their mind. You would only apply Doubt, whether to yourself or the American Kennel Club or both, if you couldn’t make up your mind whether to leave or not. That said, I get what you mean about the 4 choices, i.e. “attacked, harmed, or suppressed or helped” Now, this is just me, but I’d think that if you didn’t want to show dogs anymore and had decided to spend your time growing lettuce and carrots instead, then you’d be helping that group by leaving it, and by telling them the actual reason, rather than just vanishing without a word of explanation. But that’s just me.
LOL. As soon as I sent this comment I just realized something else: in Scientology, telling people that one is leaving in any way is itself a Suppressive Act. On the other hand, not showing up with no comm to anyone is called “blowing” and a “blow” ALWAYS means that one has overts and witholds against Scientology. So funny – no matter how one leaves, its not OK.
Hotel California.
“…and by telling them the actual reason, rather than just vanishing without a word of explanation.”
Who said anything about not mentioning the reason for leaving and just vanishing? To my mind, this smacks of scientology think. Blows are so common place in scientology.
What always struck me as odd about the conditions was that they seemed really carelessly worded. Then I heard a taped lecture called The Five Conditions, and I remember during the lecture, Hubbard seemed to be referring to really rough notes he’d made.
So then, someone transcribed all that and there it was, The Conditions and this rough draft was never much refined after that.
Such a brush-off treatment of such a key part of the practice of and experience in Scientology.
Another such bit of very important tech that was never revisited much nor refined is OT 3. The insistance of using Hubbard’s hand-written scrawl was more about the pageantry of doing the mythical Level 3 OT Course.
With all due respect to the author of today’s article, in my experience it seems overly complex and frankly missing the point.
Here’s a simple, common sense restatement of the Doubt Formula:
1. Define the fork in the road at which you find yourself.
2. Determine the actual intentions, activities, and statistics of each fork.
3. Choose the one that best serves your self-determined success across your dynamics.
4. Work hard and smart at the path you have chosen.
This is hardly rocket science.
Nearly all of today’s comments criticizing the Doubt Formula are really about other factors, mainly the low tone level with which the formula has been utilized and applied in the Church. Just look at the Chart of Human Evaluation in Science of Survival and you’ll see.
In all organizations, countries, and religions in history, the contest has always been between freedom (high tone level) and totalitarian control (low tone level). Where Scientology went wrong was in giving too much power to very young, low-on-the-bridge admin people (relative low tone level) to rule over mature, high-on-the-bridge tech people (relative high tone level). The more the young admin types took over, the more basic Scientology philosophy and tech was bypassed, and the crazier the scene became.
Your RESTATEMENT of the doubt formula is an interpretation of scripture and therefore squirrel. I sympathize with the need to do so but doctrine demands you use a dictionary instead. Good luck with that.
Actual understanding trumps robotic duplication. That’s why I left the Church.
Obnosis & coffee. Now that’s the way to start your day!
It’s become a personal mind-game to predict what Terra Cognita will cover next: each subject has been one that drove me crazy when I was involved (ALL those many years ago). And each time I see the subject, I smack my hand on my forehead and think “Of course”! How could I have missed that?”.
While I was in, I sincerely doubted the doubt formula because if one (such as myself) was in doubt about various aspects of Scientology and its organization, I already knew I wasn’t free to actually think for myself about it: the punishment for coming up with the wrong answer was too much to bear. So I tucked those doubt formulas away in my top dresser drawer and finally threw them away when I finally left (without announcing to anyone that I was leaving). Still … those sneaky scientologists noticed I wasn’t playing anymore and base on that alone, I lost some friends I’d thought were true friends.
Keep ’em coming Terra C. You’re breaking down some fixed ideas that I’d already tackled, but now and then you drawn my attention to a piece that’s still there and needs tossing.
As for the benefits of kale: I can’t help but wish I liked it more than I do.
🙂
I certainly have to agree with you on kale. I *know* how good it is for me…but that somehow doesn’t translate into “oh, that’s good!” I, too, like the way TC breaks things down. I never cared a lot for the confusion of so much of his writings. I generally paid little attention to them. I read very few of his books, thought DMSMH was a total mishmmush though I started it twice. Could not get past Chapter One. And I never bought into his MU concept. (Had too many experiences of going past a mu word or concept, only to find that further on more information flowed in which handled the confusion.
I worked in a mission which had no ethics officer as the decision of the mission holder. Whenever someone would get into a problem or confusion in life, we’d just take them aside and ask “what’s going on”? Pretty soon they’d begin to spot their confusion and we’d just hand them the “formulas” and ask, “Where do you think you are on here?” Almost every time they’d see something which indicated for them (a being deciding his own ethics – wow! what a concept) and we’d say, “Great. Now apply the next up formula.” Worked every time. Hubbard wrote that ethics were self imposed, then set up a system of enforced ethics, generally applied by some youngster who’d not yet lived long enough to know what s/he was talking about. Bad decision to give such authority to just anyone who happened to be around. Hubbard said some good things, then immediately ACTED the opposite.
My favorite time of the morning is coffee with a shot of Obnosis. It tickles my brain…
Mike –
After working for you for all those years when you ran OSA in the Church, and sneaking around in the Anti-Scientology movement for the last 15 years, I finally can’t take it any more.
I’m coming in from the cold and finally confessing my real self:
I’m an OSA Agent.
Finally.
Here’s Alanzo’s confession: Embrace Your Inner Scientologist
Alanzo
Alanzo,
I like this article of yours. I agree with a lot of what you say.
Always appreciate different viewpoints, I think there is something to be learned from everyone’s perspective.
Mike
+1! Loved the article Alanzo. My conclusion after leaving Scientology and interacting with anti scios is in close accord.
Great essay and comments today. Thank you all.
Alanzo – I just read the piece, too, and have to agree with almost everything. Having spent a couple of years on The Bunker, it became very clear that most of the never in would never be able to get it. You can’t ever duplicate what someone else has experienced. Even if you went through what appeared to be the same experience, it simply could not be the same just as no two individuals are ever “the same”. Nice spotting and well written.
I absolutely disagree with your post Alanzo. You are forwarding the “anti-Scientology cult” group myth, and it just isn’t so. This diverse group of people who are not ex-members have not formed into “a tribe” as you termed it. They do not possess a unified viewpoint on Scientology or ex-Scientologists. There is no organized group of “Anti-scientologists”, certainly not a cult. I already stated my opinion about this fictional group in a prior post here on this blog. https://www.mikerindersblog.org/facilities-available/#comment-145816
I also am in disagreement with your many harsh statements and invalid conclusions made about people who have not experienced Scientology first-hand, some of them quoted here: “… they are atheists with a contempt for anything spiritual; they see doing anything spiritual in life as a weakness, a delusion, a big mistake; they assign negative personality traits to ex-scientologists and hold them out with contempt and disgust every day…”
These are just a few of your derogatory comments. Where do you get off lumping everyone who has not been a member of Scientology into one mindset, and making ridiculous and insulting statements about them? No, we are not all atheists, we don’t devalue spirituality and hold it in contempt, we don’t all share the same attitudes and beliefs – you are really seeking to de-humanize people here, to segregate and isolate yourself, creating an “Us vs. Them” mindset; claiming an enemy where none exists.
Then you go on to declare that associating with people who are not “ex’s” will cause ex-Scientologists to “…incorrectly remember their experiences and distort their feelings…” and that our “…insidious assumptions will poison your decision-making”… Really? You actually think that ex-Scientologists are that weak-minded, that people who are not part of your group can somehow influence you so strongly that you mis-remember your experiences? Or that we would even want to do such a thing?
I feel incredibly insulted and offended by this, and by many things that you said in your post. I have never ridiculed anyone for their participation in Scientology, or in any other group, or criticized any person for their beliefs or views nor made remarks of a personal nature towards anyone including L.Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige. I have only expressed disagreement with policies of the Church of Scientology that I feel are detrimental and harmful, and a violation of human rights.
I’m sorry that you think that reading comments from people who have not experienced being a member of your group will “poison your mind and cause you to distort your memories”. There is really no basis for such a belief and no way to counteract something that absurd. It’s always a sad thing when people say “…don’t think for yourself; just believe in what you were taught…” or: “…don’t question anything; just have faith”… or: “… don’t listen to non-believers; they will lead you astray…”
Right… just keep that closed mind, just avoid anyone who might cause you to think for yourself or change your views… we might poison your mind and distort your memories.
I am not someone who seeks to alter someone else’s memories of their experiences, nor to convince someone they are wrong, or were wronged, or a part of any tribe or organized group or cult with a purpose to influence anyone about anything related to Scientology.
I do not lack understanding of your experiences because I have not experienced this group first-hand; one does not have to experience everything there is in life first-hand to gain an understanding of it, (I can think of many examples of this, can you?) I am perfectly able to listen to people, observe, read, and otherwise gather information from many hundreds of sources over several years to form my viewpoints and understanding of a subject, just as I, as most rational human beings do everyday; we gather information to form views and opinions on many topics. I object to being artificially placed into a “group” and told I have a purpose which is to undermine and denigrate others; I belong to no such group, and have no such purpose.
This blog, Mike Rinder’s, caught my attention over others some time back because he posted interesting articles, the atmosphere was cordial, the conversations intelligent, there was diversity and everyone seemed welcome. So I am surprised and disturbed to see people posting in agreement of the things you said in your post Alanzo; it is so very far from how I consider myself and many others who are not “ex”s to be, and it’s very disheartening and discouraging to read such things about how we the general public are perceived and our input is devalued. I can see that the atmosphere here has changed, or perhaps I was a misfit from the beginning, in any event, this blog is a forum primarily for ex-scientologists, and is obviously not a place I should be posting at any longer.
I urge you, Alanzo, to consider how you lump everyone into one category and dismiss their input on the basis that they have not been a member (and really, every person has their own unique experiences in the group; you shared being a Scientologist, but no one had the exact same experiences) I hope you can challenge your assumptions that you know other people’s feelings, purposes, and viewpoints; or assign them motives they do not have; or dismiss any knowledge they could bring to the table on the basis of not being part of your select group; or in general restrict yourself mentally by excluding the viewpoints of others.
Mike Rinder, Thank you for the space to voice my views over these past few years and I wish you and all the posters here that I have come to know and care about all the best in the future. – T.J.
TJ – thanks for another of your always thoughtful comments. And though opposite to Alanzo I also agree with almost everything you say. It is what is interesting to me about commenters. They can present differing views and you can gain differing perspectives from everyone.
I hope your last para was merely a general encouragement and not a sayonara from you such that we will no longer have the benefit of your views. But if so, I want to thank you and wish you well.
Hi Mike Rinder, thank you for your reply.
After reading Alonzo’s article, I became worried that my presence wasn’t really wanted here and felt doubtful that anyone was finding anything of relevance or value in my posts, so I did think I would take a little hiatus from this blog, since I kind of got hurt feelings (I’m a woman, so I’m emotional) – but then after reading some comments from people who didn’t agree with Alonzo’s statements and who reassured me that they did find some worth in my posts after all, I changed my mind (again, I’m a woman, so it’s allowed) so instead of leaving, I’m most likely doing an LANCB instead.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Leaving_and_Never_Coming_Back
“Leaving and never coming back” (LANCB) is an internet tactic whereby a frustrated participant in a forum, or blog, or whatever, takes away their ball and refuses to play. It is usually publicly announced, done with great fanfare, then followed by a quiet return within a week (or even within a few hours). A statement of LANCB virtually guarantees a return, thus destroying any ultimata or idealism involved in their “leaving.”
….
Hi everyone, I’m back. 🙂 – T.J.
LANCB? So there’s a term for what I did at Tony Ortega’s blog? I got eaten alive like a caterpillar on an ant hill because I said something that wasn’t in strict conformance to the “group think” there. One of the participants went so far as to research me that she may post personal information about my employment history. There’s nothing of that sort here at Mike’s Place. Still, I like to have the option to hear myself talk at the U.Bunker.
Anyway TJ, blogs with their social cliques sometimes resemble high school and that’s just the nature of the beast I think.
TJ, – I was in Scn for a very long time, and I have always appreciated your intelligent and insightful comments. Also your compassion. I understand you feel disheartened but don’t take it across the board to everyone else here or even personal to you. I haven’t read Alonzo’s article yet but believe he is writing for the ex-Scn. You may not be his audience for that particular piece.
Thank you for the kind comments Hennessy. I’m glad you found value in my words.
T.J. You’ll never learn anything but what you already know if you hang out with only like minded persons. Well that’s not entirely true but you probably see what I mean. When I was a Scientologist I would not have considered wasting much of my time speaking in depth to a person who never was. This cut down the education that was/is needed for change. I like changing because It’s more fun 🙂
Hi Cece, I don’t mind hanging out with people of a different opinion, I just am not too fond of being told I am an evil, insidious, atheist cult member who never had any interest in spirituality, who is determined to poison people’s minds and treat them with contempt and disgust, and will never be able to understand anything about Scientology, etc., as Alonzo stated. Totally untrue and hurtful. I am a human rights advocate and have done nothing to be characterized as those things. To see people agreeing with these statements led me to reconsider whether or not I should be posting here any longer.
I don’t need to be with “like-minded” people, but I also don’t need to be verbally abused when I’m just trying to offer another perspective. I’ve always been respectful of others beliefs though disagreeing, I haven’t ever engaged in name-calling or made disparaging remarks about someone whose beliefs don’t match up with mine, so I don’t like it when someone maligns my character or motives or assigns traits to me that I don’t have, or claims I am part of some organized “anti” faction, which I certainly am not.
The bottom line is I really care about people’s freedom, and that includes freedom of thought, their ability to make up their own minds, and be free of undue influence, manipulation and control. This is especially important for children who are still developing their thought processes to be allowed to think for themselves, and for people of good will who desire to help others and themselves, to not be caught up in something detrimental that they have a difficult time extracting themselves from. This is not only about Scientology, but all practices that seek to manipulate the and thoughts and freedoms of others.
I hope this explains it without sounding too harsh (I already know the post was too long – anyone can exercise their freedom to not read it, lol).
TJ, a great article. I agree with all you say. I can feel for abused, neglected children to the extent that I’d like to contribute something to them, even though I’ve never been one, for instance.
Another example: I was an atheist long before I came across scn and in all that time I was extremely spiritual. You do not have to pray to a god in order to be spiritual.
Thank you Dawn. 🙂 I understand and agree with what you said also.
TJ, excellent points you bring up. Please don’t stop posting on this blog. We need your intelligence and invitation to look and judge for ourselves. We need your viewpoint.
Hi Cindy, thanks so much. I’m happy that you have found my comments worthwhile. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being useful or not, so it’s really nice to see you say this.
Excellent use of Scamology thought stopping methods Alanzo! You have learned from being in scamology so long.
Wynski, just for a fun change of pace, try actually making a rational case for your “it’s all bad” statements, instead of just firing off clever but childish put-downs that the grown-ups don’t laugh at.
Al, just read that post on your blog. And I think it was brilliant. Not just for how you view the whole “never in” group who seem so into this whole subject, but even MORE importantly, the points you make about how so many ex-Scientologists now view their Scientology experience (and the trap you so well describe is one I personally always try to keep myself from falling into). EXTREMELY well said.
“Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like,but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” – Winston Churchill
Thanks for the article Alanzo. I can see how that is true. I have a lot of stories of my last 42 years good and bad. You said when speaking of an X that focuses on the bad “They lack the valuable life wisdom (yes, wisdom) that one gains for having been through something like Scientology”
That is exactly correct. I walking into S on my own two feet and stayed there and left. I lost and I gained wisdom which is priceless. I truly don’t care that I donated 20 years of labor (mostly all doing jobs of my choosing) and then donated some 200,000$ only to find out it was a con job. I’m so much wiser now. Looking back, when I was young I wanted only to be as old and wise as my grandma. She was probably only 50 then but she had gray long thick hair, she made grandpa put their bed in the garden all summer long, had houses and goats and lots of flowers and kittens. She used to stare out at the garden sipping her tea and smile. She would go for hours long walks and come back with the pictures she sketched and show them to me. She was against the war in Vietnam and kept a picture of herself being hauled off to jail by her hands and feet for some protesting she was doing. When I was 12 she took me to her birthday party at some Moose or Elks lounge where Gus Hall who was running for US president that year showed up to her party. That just confirmed I was on the right track Haha.
So now I know I’m at least as wise as my grandma was at that time and if it took me these 52 years then it was all well worth it. 🙂
What a beautiful lady Cece!
And as far as Alonzo’s article is concerned, again there
are as many viewpoints as there are people in on this
planet so who is right or wrong? Compassion, help,
being able to see the world from others viewpoints
and relax your hate quotient can soften your inner
soul.
The conditions article is very funny and gave me a
good laugh (twice I tried to do a real doubt formula
in the SO but could never do it as I had very limited
access to real statistics so it was good to see that).
Alanzo, well done on your article and its more balanced viewpoint. We need more of this from more commenters on the various blogs, because it’s more truthful than the 90% anti viewpoint that’s predominated the last few years. It seems we’re working our way through thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and that’s a good thing. Continue.
Showered with free kale? Very funny, Terra! I guess better than the alternative from the AKA. : ) Good inspection and dissection of the formula that one might otherwise accept at face value, as I once did. I eventually came to realize that any group or subject than cannot withstand “doubt” is not a valid group or subject. That should be one of the axioms.
Lots of great additional well-informed commentary on TC’s articulate and insightful take on a central aspect of $cn that everyone who was in for any length of time experienced for themselves.
One crucial aspect of the Conditions of Existence that Elron deemed so crucial which has not been focused on as yet is the fact that $cn in its entirety is modeled on a military organizational system, with a very rigid hierarchical power structure, reinforced through direct reward/punishment behavior modification control means. And it was also one conceived of as a military organization which was at war, where everything took on a heightened sense of importance, immediacy and deadly seriousness.
Viewed in this light, many of inapplicable, confusing and downright nonsensical aspects of the Doubt Formulas steps that TC illustrated so well can only be understood by taking on the the mindset that Elron wanted everyone who was a part of the organization to adopt and promulgate as the unquestioned context of all of their actions as members. All of that Tom Cruise manic zealotry and fixed, unwavering stare as he gazed into the Fatherland crap comes from this subliminal context of always being on a war footing, where the price of freedom is always OaTy super power vigilance, because there are SPs lurking everywhere and evil (in the form of psychiatry, with its strangle hold on all things good) abounds.
As he so glibly exhorted his audience then, you’re either in it like the rest of us or you’re not. The “it” to which he refers is the ongoing war that Elron declared and that all who become members must buy into as the unquestioned, subliminal context of all things scientological.
But even wackier than our current “War on Terror” (an internal physiological state that is always subjectively defined), Elron’s historical basis for making $cn into a quasi-military organization was (and continues to be) based on our supposed tens of millions of years long battle with the evil psychs, who just can’t ever quite seem to be defeated. All that frenzied, pump-you-up, sabre-rattling rhetoric about what you do now, in this very lifetime, will determine the outcome of all of existence for tens of millions of years (blah, blah, blah) makes the Japanese rallying cry during WW11 to fight to the death for their living god emperor seem like child’s play.
So, of course, given the deadly seriousness of it all, everything takes on that “us vs. them,” simple-minded dichotomy, and, obviously, no one sane would choose organic gardening when the whole agonized fate of the earth is at this pivotal crossroads. So, a big part of the group hypnotic control there is based on you buying into this hyper-real, all-important, ultimately consequential conceptual frame…and it STILL is! The faithful still believe this utter nonsense and see the world through this delusional “world at war” lens.
““Inform oneself honestly of the actual intentions and activities of that group, project or organization, brushing aside all bias and rumor.”
This part of Elron’s otherwise bogus mind control formula – designed for the creation of complete other-determinism – I can heartily endorse! And it seems that, through the vast resources available to us on the internet, more and more folks are doing exactly that with $cn and deciding that no one should be a part of this evil and abusive organization in its current form.
Some good harpoonin’ thar pardner!
Well articulated, thank you!
If you thoroughly believe that L Ron Hubbard figured it all out and that his creation, “the church of scientology” and the technology within it has all the answers and is a deadly serious activity and that the fate of everyone on earth depends on what you do here and now with and in scientology and that scientologists are the most ethical beings on the planet, then you’ll have no problem with that doubt formula.
And as long as you can pretend the outpoints and cognitive dissonance don’t exist, you’ll be just fine.
Otherwise, just take what you need or want (if anything) and leave the rest.
Personally, I had a lot of fun announcing my findings publicly until the big, bad SP declare got everyone to disconnect from me.
I wanted to give a big thumbs up to this article.
Nice read, it’s been awhile since I’ve read the conditions.
I don’t miss spinning around in circles doing that doubt formula.
Using Lron’s ‘musings’ to try to put $cientology into a logical framework is pointless. In the end, all of his orders are meant to enslave and subdue all of the minions. If you can’t swallow his crap, he wants you to leave. Better one less minion than someone who questions his authority.
Thanks TC, put a big nail in the clam coffin of logic.
That’s an excellent distillation of the sorting mechanism that continues to be at work in $cn: If you don’t buy in (at each successive level on your way up the bridge), then GTFO! It truly is, my way or the highway.
What makes the choice harder, though, at each successive level is that, if you’ve already invested yourself and your hard-earned cash at earlier decision points, your decision is already biased toward going along, because to change your mind now would mean that you’d been wrong before which is tough for most folks to swallow.
So, part of the evil genius of $cn is to get you to chump for a series of smaller cons that gradiently increase to the big cons. Getting out early is almost always so much easier than getting out years later and tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars lighter.
My own doubt formula which has worked for me successfully for most my life: When in doubt, say no. 🙂
Haven’t seen Andres Rodriguez, the senior C/S at Big Blue complex for awhile. Are the stats still the same? 700 new people flooding into the LA org, on a weekly basis? Or, has it dropped a little bit? Say….down to 650 new people flooding into the LA org on a weekly basis? I guess I can’t keep up with all the 64 times expansion….
You know that the “Conditions formulas” are a sacred cow, don’t you? It is one of the things that bring out religious and fanatical fervor in some who revere parts of Hubbard’s works. It seems benign, but the “Conditions of Existence” are really quite thought-stopping. The declaration of them prevents the contemplation that perhaps there are in reality a far more vast set of “Conditions of Existence” that we might aspire to. That there are other conditions and other ways to handle them than Hubbard’s thin conception.
I appreciate this analysis of the “Doubt Formula.” as authored by L. Ron Hubbard. However reasonable sounding the definition of doubt in this formula, Hubbard has delivered his weighty authoritarian declaration that it is a “STATE OF EXISTENCE.” You can’t just have some normal indecision. No it has to be “DOUBT” in capital letters.
You have to start with the critical analysis (in my opinion, YMMV) with a hefty questioning of the wording and intent of Hubbard’s definition at the very beginning. That is where he front-loads some assumptions you don’t question because it seems reasonable. Accepting his definition makes it much harder to tease apart the other manipulations embedded in the rest of the formula.
You also make a very good point about the wording changes. Not very consistent.
Also, why make it a lower condition? Doubt about the necessity of current conditions drives change and advancement. “Why do it this way when we could do it better” is a statement of doubt. That’s a very good condition.
Why isn’t “Curiosity” a condition of existence? Why isn’t “Bored”?
Let’s just state a more obvious definition:
When one cannot make up one’s mind, a condition of being unable to make up one’s mind exists.
And, state some (but not all) possible causes:
Something has happened that you didn’t agree to, but you are being told you must agree to it.
What you originally agreed to is not what is now being done.
You have been manipulated into giving uninformed consent and now wish to withdraw that consent while still under the thrall of those manipulating you.
The consequences of making up your mind in a different way than it has been are enforced and draconian punishments that are artificially stacked against making any change.
You have been forced to ignore your own evaluation of information and thus cannot trust your own mind.
The information you have to base a decision on is suspect.
The information you have has been countered by others so as to diminish the importance you would usually give it, in order to deliberately confuse the issue and control your behavior.
You do not have enough information to make an informed decision.
You are not allowed by circumstances or those in power over you to discover enough information to make an truly informed decision.
You realize you have made a mistake and trusted others who were untrustworthy, but you cannot face having made such a grave mistake. So you dither about what to do.
You are counter intentioned ethics bait and should go back to sucking cock on hollywood boulevard.
I’m sure you can think of a lot of other reasons for doubt.
Splurge on it!
Michael Leonard Tilse
Bravo
I don’t know how much of a unique perspective the Delphian School has given me, but it was the Doubt Formula—for the twentieth time—that drove the first wedge between me and L. Ron Hubbard’s infallible technology. As a third generation Scientologist whose parents had given everything for me to attend and graduate from Delphi, I was confused by the School’s rabid determination to sign me up for staff. The same institution who had culled only the best and most inspirational parts of Hubbard’s oeuvre to fill young minds with an urgent sense of noblesse oblige and moral superiority—was also the same institution which said, “Well, actually, all of that high-minded stuff, you can do that later. First, you need to work for us. Because, education.”
Indeed, their staff pitch ultimately won me over by wearing me down in accepting their “education first” mantra, especially when said education was of the Hubbardian variety. (Delphi’s pitch was so strong, I actually talked down to Sea Org recruiters, insisting that brainwa… er, educating children was just as important as clearing the planet. Oh boy, did my superior attitude make their blood boil. You may be assured that most if not all Delphi graduates have the same insufferable attitude. The ones who align their Delphi education with a subsequent career in the Sea Org are the absolute worst.)
Anyway, the problem was that I had no interest in education. I had done my Be-Do-Have and I was going to be an architect. Until, that is, the School said I was wrong and the only valid activities were Scientology and Education-by-Scientology. (It was the first intimation of the true nature of the cult and of the things that were to come.) Mere building are impermanent, you see. The Tech was forever.
Things did not go well for me and I was constantly being put in Lower Conditions. The poor Ethics Officers who had to deal with me as I snarkily explained my Doubt Formula again and again, twisting things around to make it seem that leaving the School was for the greatest good for the greatest number of Dynamics. (As you may infer from my writing and the afore-mentioned insufferably superior attitude of Delphi graduates, I could talk circles around those Ron-bots.) Eventually I realized all the Conditions were rigged to ensure sniveling compliance with the hateful trolls who somehow rose up the ranks to control things in Scientology.
And I walked away from the Delphian School, who betray the ideals of their promised education in exactly the same way L. Ron Hubbard betrayed the ideals of his Homo Novis by crafting a cruel and totalitarian cult.
“Eventually I realized all the Conditions were rigged to ensure sniveling compliance with the hateful trolls who somehow rose up the ranks to control things in Scientology. ”
Killin’ me here! You sir, had a thought-starting wognition there that, quite obviously, has served you well since then! Congrats!
It seems laughable and downright silly now, but there are still so many young folks being subjected to exactly those same high-pressure recruitment tactics, which play on guilt, ambition, lofty ideals and anything else that they can figure out to try and manipulate you with.
Great post! Glad you survived Delphi and are out! You got your old life back!
Very well done on holding your ground and walking away, IMT! I wish I could share what I know about several Delphi graduates I know, who did not join the SO yet whose lives are so nowhere. Architecture is a worthwhile profession and if its your dream to be one I’m so glad you refused to be talked out of it.
“Mike willing…” Amen and Hallelujah! 🙂
Praise the Jedi!
Astute essay and right on the mark especially with the question “why is doubt a lower condition than liability???”
Doubt is merely the thought that one’s assumptions may not be correct. That ‘doubting function’ is an evolutionary survival mechanism to protect us from things in our environment that aren’t as they initially appear to be. You see it in the animals when they proceed cautiously instead of jumping willy-nilly into things. In humans it’s sometimes called, “wondering if you’re doing the right thing”. Per Hubbard, one has been subversive to the group BEFORE they have doubts about it. In truth, you can be in a position of “power” and still have doubts.
In practice that formula is applied only after you’ve done something VERY BAD. But wait, isn’t that why he invented ‘liability’ and ‘treason’ and ‘confusion’?
Again, Hubbard is busted for not making sense, being flat-out wrong about things, over complicating simple things and demonstrating sloppy use of language.
Perhaps Hubbard positioned the condition of Doubt below Liability because he understood that the doubt of Scientology or of Hubbard himself posed a far greater threat to his power and the mechanisms of coercive control that he (and his organization )employed, as compared with someone who merely messed up on post and was put in Liability.
Doubt, as is often stated in the ex-Scientology community, IS NOT A CRIME.
This game is rigged
Sorry, give me a few & I’ll fix it…
Treason formula is the biggest minder of them all. Guaranteed to screw you up, Enemy will guarantee brainwashing for a few years minimum.
The Scientology Organisation amazes me. I’ve been in a few large organisations in my life and got quite involved in the field administration of “keeping the military working,” despite the best efforts of many to fuck it up. One for one, when the system did “fuck up” there’s some idiot up the line doing their thing and more often than not they have to power to ignore the fallout from their arbitaries, so we just carried on regardless. With Scientology it’s worse, a lot worse. The higher you go, the higher the stupidity rate. I’ve never known such mindless idiots as those I encountered within the Scientology hierarchy. The SO is a weird sort of out of touch priesthood at best.
With that said, the condition formulas are ridiculous in application and theory, no matter how they look. They encourage wholesale robot-ism and give seniors the easy, “big hammer” to belt those below them. Nowhere in my life have I seen such actions of willfully undermining the efforts of capable people all in the name of a technology which clearly is attempting to bypass anyone capable and replace them with fancy words and formulas.
The only time I was relatively content with Scientology was when management was nowhere to be seen or heard. Apart from that brief exposure in the 80s the rest fell to bits. Cof$ policy does not work and expecting anything sane after that is folly. The Scientology administrative system is as muddled as DMSMH is to follow.
It’s all one big mess of contradictions, which has an unbelievable inbuilt system to automatically punish anyone who can get make any sense out of it.
Rub two Scientologists together and you get instant combustion!
“… why is Doubt a “lower” condition…”
Doubt is anathema to religions or any faith-based system. Systems that depend on received knowledge, sacred texts, prophecy, etc depend on belief without rational examination and without question. Doubt is the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent of purity. Doubt is to rooted out, labeled as heresy and eliminated at all costs. Among rational thinkers, doubt is admired as an impetus to objectivity, exploration and learning. Not so among the religious.
As a believer (which anyone is when trying to apply those condition formulas to their life) it is impossible to do: “…brushing aside all bias and rumor”.
Once one has decided LRH is ‘Mans best Friend’, he can no longer look at life without bias.
Myself – after erroneously believing LRH knew better then me, I compared every single moment of my life with what would LRH do … for 35 years! I was no longer thinking for myself from that moment on. It’s been 3 years now since unbelieving in LRH and I still find myself comparing some things in life with the LRH indoctrination. I figure it’s likely to go on for years longer that way. I’m just grateful I never lost my real goals in life along the way, can see his lies and am willing to have been wrong about those 35 years for me and sadly the children I raised in it.
When it comes to LRH and Scientology it is impossible to brush aside all bias. The indoctrination is designed to not allow a look at LRH and Scientology without bias. Either you are or your aren’t. If you aren’t someone will attempt to persuade you as you would be better off dead.
And what f**n BS especially when he states things like “totally fatal.”
Any ‘believer’ simply runs his life down the same street LRH did sadly. When it hits rock bottom then maybe one will get out of it and his true self will shine through enough to hang on to the correct rope till he’s back on his feet. Without having a community that understands is also finding truths and is willing to love you anyway it is near impossible to figure this out. What an adventure 🙂
What an incredible person you are Cece.
LOL Mike 🙂
Like everything else in sciontology these conditions are deadly serious and make it sound like you are deciding whether to join the communist party or stay part of western society, or in l ron’s paranoid mind become an enemy of the scions. When applied to the sort of decisions we are more likely to be making they sound over blown, heavy handed and as Terra says rather confusing. Now as to the Kennel Club or Organic gardening I’d definitely stick with the AKA, has anyone ever tried walking a carrot? It’s not very interesting.
The worst thing is they refuse to obey! LOL
Terra Cognita, it would probably help you if you would thoroughly clear and understand the Doubt condition. But not only the Doubt condition but all of them, so you could find and handle your condition towards LRH, towards the wisdom of Scientology, towards the people you influence in a negative way.
It is disgusting, how this originally constructive group snapped terminals with the church. The church equates Miscavige with LRH, this group tends more and more to equating LRH with Miscavige. Intelligence is the ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities.
This I agree with: Intelligence is the ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities.
Which “constructive group” are you referring to?
If you refer to this blog, I invite you to reread the italics above. This is a blog, and it has individual commenters. That is all.
No more than the comments section of an article in the NY Times or anywhere else is a “group.”
Macy, your idea of a ‘negative way’ may be different then others. When I hear someone finally proclaim that LRH was not the humanitarian he claimed to be that may be negative to you but not others. Personally I think it’s better for one to think for himself and let others do the same.
Macy,
You failed to understand that Terra did, in fact, thoroughly attempt to clear the Doubt condition using Scientology. Repeatedly. And still failed to understand anything. This is what LRH intended. This posting is Terra’s analysis of how deliberate contradiction in the canons stops an average person’s critical faculties and renders such people pliable and obedient, unquestioningly.
Laffy clearly wanted no one to find his or her way out of the swampy morass called Scientology.
Anyway, this is not why I’m responding. I find, however, that I am amazed that you find this group behaving ‘disgusting’, as you put it. Were you unable to read the posting without emotion? Disgust, to me, clearly marks a failure of critical analysis.
You waste your time if you read postings that ‘disgust’ you. If you’re disgusted, why didn’t you just go away?
Sorry, Macy, but I don’t think Terra needs to do that. At all…..
I never have equated Miscavige with L. Fraud. Miscavige never told me that because of who I sleep with, I should be eliminated. Miscavige never falsified his service record. Miscavige never pretended to be a nuclear physicist. L. Fraud did. That’s why I want Scientology, Church and philosophy, destroyed. And if you get in my way of doing that, Macy, I have no problem with collateral damage.
Scientology has no wisdom whatsoever. If you believe that it does, you don’t have any wisdom.
Espi, as long as we remember that Scientology is make believe, nobody has to get their britches in a bunch. And I can still be a Jedi Knight.
i agree with you one hundred percent. thanks
You better leave the Easter Bunny out of this! You hear, or there will be trouble, BIG TROUBLE!
Listen, buster, hand over the cash or the bunny gets RPF’d…
Macy,
Terra Cognita is very specific in delineating his personal reasoning for the claims he makes. Whether you agree with his reasoning or not is your business. But at least he lays it out on the line.
But you, in your retort give only generalities. Why don’t you do what Terra did, only with your own viewpoints, and be specific in your arguments? Write something that lays out why you think the doubt formula and the other conditions make sense to you, how you have used them, etc.
Then maybe you can have an intelligent discussion about it.
Macy, the point of this blog is for people to voice their opinions about Scientology, whether they think that it’s the greatest thing in the world or a truckload of horseshit. I have made many gains with the tech while at the same time there are things about the church that I totally disagree with. I feel that some of the tech is valid and some of it is garbage. If you want to post on this blog, please do so without calling us a bunch of no-good ,traitorous SPs.
With apologies to H.L. Mencken, using scientology to explain scientology is trying to explain “the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.”
You’re worth knowing, Bystander…
Bravo Bystander!
Shit, even if referred to as poop, dung, scat, doo-doo, ca-ca, booty brick, butt chocolate, feces, or a bowel movement, is still…shit.
El Con turned a complex and nuanced subject into a slave production code.
You forgot poo poo…..
Old Surfer Dude, I owe you a beer…or the non-alcoholic beverage of your choice 🙂
Stella, please….
The “conditions” were designed as a control mechanism, not as a formula for seeking truth or success. The proof? The poor bastards still “in” are “thought controlled” to point where they lie themselves and only accept lies as “truth”.
Members of the CoS “see” a very ethical organization expanding like mad while the entire world sees a nutty, unethical organization collaps onto itself.
The conditions were created to enslave, not to free. That’s why they don’t work as billed.
in 2005, the :”wasband”did conditions on our marriage. I assume this because he went to bed reading conditions under orders from the Org he was and still is addicted to…..results: The end of our 27 year old marriage and total hurt, distrust and destruction of the family.
The destruction of the family has been a mainstay of Scientology ethics and justice. Without that, the evil empire would have collapsed decades ago.
All I can say about conditions is, the first time I did them for REAL, as opposed to a formulaic box-ticking exercise, was shortly before I left the CoS. At that moment, I thought conditions were GREAT!
Ah yes. The “ethics conditions” Another useless piece of garbage, I mean tek from El Con.
Punishment. That’s what the conditions are for. I did them in Hawai’i. Fucking hated it…
Quite correct OSD. I meant useless from the viewpoint of the sane like you and I. The slaver of course found them useful.
Well, your sanity clearly shows. Now…my sanity? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hope I didn’t scare you.
“SUFFER ON UP THE CONDITIONS”. The important part was the suffering. To be upgraded into the Liability Condition, from my experience in 23 years in the SO one had to SUFFER. PAIN AGONY and other low toned activities are necessary in order to get ones formula approved. For instance, I worked 48 hours without sleep. Or I did not take any liberty for a year.p Or I donated thousands to the IAS that I could not afford to donate. Or I donated my children to the SO. ( I didn’t donate any, because in the SO one is no longer allowed to have any to donate.) Now conditions formulas are supposed to increase the survival level of those using them. This however, is contrary to “suffer on up the conditions”. It is a form of punishment.
LRH decried the self abnegation of people in asia in KSW but then gets Scientologists to do the same thing. I got into the frame of mind that non survival, abandoning the 1st and 2nd dynamics etc were part of my duty to the group. I grew to believe that injustices, insanities, Off Policy and Out Tech, no sleep, no auditing or study were something to be proud of, like dying for your country. My senior on the Freewinds never went to study and appeared to be proud of it. His attitude was that anyone who went to study or took liberty was less ethical than he was. If he happened to be on libs he was usually sick.From this it became out-ethics to reward upstats. It seemed that only the screwups or downstats get auditing in the SO. I know of almost no SO members who did their OT levels except those who did them in the RPF. Now since in 23 years I was never in the RPF I never got onto my OT Levels. Now LRH says that pain is the result of non survival. The ultimate of pain is death. Now since suffering is good since it is part of the formula death must be even better. Since the SO thinks that suffering is good they must think even better of dead SO members. As an example a friend of mine WAK ALLCOCK, WHO PURCHASED THE FORT HARRISON ON MISSION FROM LRH AND WAS THE FIRST ENGINEER ON THE APOLLO DIED OF PROSTATE CANCER FROM NEGLECT BY THE SO. HE REPORTEDLY HAD A FUNERAL BOTH ON THE FREEWINDS AND AT THE FORT HARRISON. HE WAS A BIG HERO IN THE EYES OF THE SO.
BUT WHEN I ALMOST DIED OF AIDS DUE TO THE SAME TYPE OF NEGLECT, MY WIFE WHO WAS HELD PRISONER ON THE SHIP TOLD ME THAT SHE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED OFF THE SHIP TO GO TO MY FUNERAL. A staff member would have been fired from the FREEWINDS to send my corpse into the oven. So much for suffering on up the conditions. I would have been a hero, but I would have also been dead.
I join the group of SPs that are stll alive in body and spirit. I leave the group of Sea Org members for which DEATH is the highest State one can achieve.
I HEREBY REQUEST UPGRADE INTO THE NEXT CONDITION. If not upgraded I will continue to suffer until upgraded (Like hell I will)
Wow!
Sooo good, thank you!
Thank you Terra for demonstrating reasoned questions, sovereign curiosity and coming to your own conclusions based on your understanding.
This line of reasoning could never have been expressed while in the ‘church’. Because:
1) LRH was granted infallibility (knows all sees all)
2) because of that granted infallibility our own perception of reality was subconsciously categorized as wrong.
I also wondered why I had to attack. But I did not allow that thought to actually become an inner questioning. That is because Ron was always the one who ‘knew best’ and therefore my line of questioning was invalid.
Since you have the spotlight these days in questioning LRH doctrines, I would be happy for you to tackle BTs.
Running BTs could be stated as the most advance form of auditing. It is the goal of the bridge. It is the major part of mental conditioning.
My view is that running BTs leads to a psychological disassociation from the real causes of the human condition.
I would love for you to unpack this ultimate Scientology (LRH) sacred cow.
And maybe you can theorize why people out here in the field are still running this stuff even though it is now known that LRH wished suicide to rid himself of BTs.
Yes, Brian, I agree. Unpack this sacred cow.
In 1940 when LRH was 29 he wrote a Science fiction story “The Indigestible Triton” which was a story about a BT that controlled the main character (like LRH) and in turn the main character struggled to control the BT, which he did by taking alcohol.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16071213-the-indigestible-triton
When he died in 1986, LRH was still working on this same BT project. So, is this the goal for all of humanity. The answer to the Universe? Do we stop our search because the answer has been found?
Good points, Brian and Robert.
Let´s really stretch for a moment: IF such an ¨entity¨, assuming it actually exists, could be ¨detected¨, would one use a wheatstone bridge to do so? How is it that a particular kind of galvanic skin response is an ¨ indicator¨ of the ¨presence¨ of a ¨BT¨ AND the indicator of its ¨communication¨ ? C´mon, that´s just lame science fiction, at best…
The emeter was the delivery system for the disassociation. The blips were studied as ‘standard’ and an accurate reflection of all of our thoughts.
We commingled our thinking process with Ron’s. BTs are a sham.
I welcome reasoned disagreement. I’d love to talk to you.
“And maybe you can theorize why people out here in the field are still running this stuff even though it is now known that LRH wished suicide to rid himself of BTs.”
Such a good question. And some of these people are OT 8s. Cause Over Life?
Well said, Brian. When I did Oatiethree, my actual cog was “this is nuts. I must be running Ron’s case.” Bingo! Dial wide F/N which did not quit for days! Of course, I made up another thing to tell the examiner. LOL
Lol!
Robert, it always brings my mind to amazement and pity when I know that people still running BTs are familiar with the story of Ron wishing to be electrocuted to rid himself of BTs.
In my opinion, it IS the unquestionable evidence of brainwashing, that a class 12, class 8 is still CSing solo auditors, and that solo auditors are still running these things.
The man who claimed that BTs are the source of the suffering was insane at the end of life wishing death upon himself to blow BTs!
HOW CAN ANY OF YOU WHO ARE STILL AUDITING BTS COME TO GRIPS WITH THE FACT THAT LRH WAS A MADMAN WISHING TO KILL HIMSELF BECAUSE OF SOLO AUDITING??
L Ron Hubbard’s final legacy of the OT levels is that they brought him to a state of wishing suicide.
How can anyone still see the validity to OT3 when they brought the creator of OT3, Ron, to a wish for suicide by electroshock????
Can anyone see the twisted irony of Ron wishing for the very thing he warred against his whole life:
ELECTROSHOCK!!!!!!!!
The great sacred cow in Scientology is the theory of BTs. The bridge will collapse like a house of cards when this sacred cow is made into burgers.
Brian,
1. Sarge is the only source for the story about the electro-shock e-meter and Ron’s state of mind leading up to his death. How do we know what he said was true? It can’t be corroborated, because Annie Broeker was the only other person there, and she never spoke about it.
2. What proof do you have that BTs aren’t real?
I can’t give you proof — there is no video/audio recording of these incidents and Annie didn’t speak about them before she passed away.
But I did speak with Sarge. I believe he was telling the truth.
1. He loved LRH — devoted his life to him. He was incredibly tortured about recounting this because he knew it did not paint LRH in a good light. It was VERY hard for him to agree to speak about it publicly. But in the end he felt the truth was important. If you knew Sarge you would know he was one of the most loyal, straight up and uncomplicated people you could ever meet.
2. It matched with other things. The paranoia he manifested about people chasing him — he was in hiding, literally, for many years. Afraid of the world and the evil SPs who were trying to get him. There is no doubt there were people trying to get him, but he became complete and utter effect of them. Not someone who was at cause over matter, energy, space, time, form etc etc
As for your second question, of course there is no answer. It’s like asking prove there are no unicorns.
In both cases, everyone chooses to believe what they want to believe. Facts and evidence should help inform decisions, but there is no guarantee either way that someone is going to believe “logically” — that is almost any oxymoron.
Hey My Two Cents, I agree with Mike, there is no proof. My conclusion came from my own reasoning.
Some circumstantial evidence is:
1) I ran OT3 materials when I did not finish grades, had no CS, audited without meter for a while and then with a meter and never got sick, never red tagged, never caved in and never went psycho.
2) no other truth seeker has ever come up with this stuff. That would make LRH the “only one” to ever discover this. And I do not grant a man who could not be honest , the label of the most wiseman on the whole track.
3) Hawaii did not exist 75 million years ago.
Just some thoughts.
Brian, re BTs you said “no other truth seeker has ever come up with this stuff.” That may be true of the sci-fi story content of OT3, including its questionable geography, but not about the basic spiritual situation that the OT3 incident only made worse. After all, ideas of non-human spiritual beings, possession, and exorcism exist in all major religions.
The major philosophical root of Scientology is Gnosticism. The ancient Gnostics talked about BTs a lot, calling them “archons” who co-inhabited human beings and controlled their thoughts.
The Gnostics also spoke of a being they called the “demiurge” and how he trapped other beings in the physical universe through the use of a mind control matrix and religious hierarchy very similar to LRH’s Incident One, and then used archons to maintain control.
The Gnostic spiritual technology involved viewing one’s self as a spark from and qualitatively of the same essence as God, and then viewing archons, the demiurge, and the demiurge’s hypnotic religious matrix for what they really are, and thereby becoming free of them. In the middle ages European Gnostics were called “Cathars,” which translates as “Clears.”
Gnosticism was declared heresy by the Catholic Church, which then persecuted it to the point of genocide. But it wasn’t a squirrel offshoot of Christianity as the Church claimed, because it predated Christianity. Gnostic ideas had already existed in many esoteric religious teachings for thousands of years.
Obviously the Gnostics failed to free mankind. Scientology was LRH’s attempt to give it another try, even if that wasn’t all he was trying to do.
All of the organizational abuses of the Church of Scientology are consistent with the Gnostics’ description of the methods and behavior of archons.
Whatever becomes of Scientology per se, we must not abandon the purpose that motivated us to use LRH’s tools in the first place.
Hey My two cents, I am familiar with the problems of disembodied souls as defined by different schools of wisdom.
In my tradition they are called Tramp souls. Beings who are stuck on the earth plane because of attachment. There is a very unique situation of beings getting into someone’s body. It’s very very rare.
But the circumstance in my tradition stipulates that a lower consciousness being (thetan) is attracted to a mind who has a similar vibration. It’s not an automatic condition like Ron has imagined.
The false knowledge of the entire planet and all the humans on it are infested with millions and millions of trapped beings has no precedent in any school of wisdom I know of: NOT A ONE.
So the argument that other schools of wisdom have disembodied beings in their writings does not support or justify the make believe that Ron was driven to attempt suicide over.
I believe that believers in Scientology and Ron use these other philosophy doctrines to position themselves as “normal” because other schools acknowledge disembodied beings causing human’s trouble.
The two are 180 degrees opposite. L Ron Hubbard’s BT, R6 and OT3 theory is unique to Ron.
The highest level of auditing is based on imagination. People are running their own thoughts and feelings and assigning them to make belief imagery.
This, in essence, is the road to assigning false cause to the human condition and deserving of the term dangerously misleading and counter productive to discovering the truth of the human condition.
If nothing else I admire your indifference to public opinion by referencing the authority of the Gnostics to substantiate a claim.
Roger, you said, “If nothing else I admire your indifference to public opinion by referencing the authority of the Gnostics to substantiate a claim.” I don’t get it. Please explain.
Brian, you said, “I ran OT 3 materials when I did not finish grades, had no C/S, audited without meter for a while and then with a meter and never got sick, never red tagged, never caved in and never went psycho.”
So, what results DID you get from this?
Obviously you know that you skipped some important steps that are prerequisites to OT 3, including (a) finishing your grades, (b) going Clear on NED or on the alternate route of Power, R6EW, and the Clearing Course, and (c) doing OT 1 and OT 2.
And what auditor training did you have? Did you do Academy Levels or the NED course? How about the Solo Auditor course?
LRH said, “Reality is proportional to charge off the case.” The Bridge is a series of gradient steps to get more and more charge off at each level. You didn’t follow the instructions. It’s therefore not surprising that you think BTs don’t exist.
One of my friends is an independent field auditor who specializes in repairing people who were unhappy with the results of doing OT 3 and NOTS. She gets good results on almost everyone who comes to her. And she told me that in almost every case what went wrong with these people was one or both of (a) not having fully completed lower levels, and (b) lack of fundamental auditing skills.
You’re a very smart guy. But with all due respect you should quit pretending to know anything about the OT levels until you do them the right way. Meanwhile, to be fair to others, you should go back and withdraw every comment you’ve ever made about them.
LRH categorically said if you stumble onto OT3 unprepared you can get sick.
When I tell my story to those who still believe in Ron as a benevolent prophet, they always say the same thing:
You were not prepared, that’s why you did not get sick. That is a made up story to sidestep the truth.
Regarding auditing in general:
Some of it I loved. I think that’s because I’ve always been a transformational junky and can learn anything at anytime. I loved going within and observing my inner mind and self. Auditing can do that. I’ve had some great experiences.
But that can also be the cheese.
Because what I have also observed, My Two Cents, is that Ron, as well as create some benevolent “let’s take a look see” processes, he also imprinted some of his ignorance, delusion and imagination.
I have no doubt that people are having wins. It’s our nature to learn and always expending that awareness.
So, when the good stuff is agreed to, then most Scientologists simply open the door to Farsec, Marcabians, all of the between lives area is an implant station etc etc.
That’s where the disassociation comes into play.
What did I get out of running OT3
1) I solved the mystery sandwich that had me stuck to the organization like crazy glue. What a relief!
2) I realized that daily mediation is a far superior practice than being stuck in the linear time model of the mind that Ron was limited by.
3) OT3 also was my big break from the church. You have no idea how happy I was to leave the church in 82. It started to get taken over by Lord of the Flies.
4) then I started the long road of unpacking L Ron Hubbard’s deep affect on my cognitive faculties.
The bottom line My Two Cents is this:
Ron’s OT3, BT doctrine is like a dream therapy. When you go to a dream therapist they deal with the energy attached to the symbols and objects in a dream.
Real issues are run in dream therapy by way of association with anologous symbolism.
Someone in dream therapy knows it’s a dream.
The true blue Scientologist thinks the dream is real.
That’s the disassociation at work.
Ron’s ridem cowboy cosmology is delusional. A study of his life, false claims, tapes, X wives, X business partners and family condition is circumstantial evidence enough for me.
Meditation is cheaper and works far better. Believe me, I did both.
Brian, you didn’t really do OT 3, because you didn’t follow instructions, mainly regarding the preliminary steps leading up to it. If you had followed the instructions you would have had a different experience. Therefore you have no business sitting in judgment of it.
My 2 Cents, only idiots demand someone prove a negative. (in this case, what proof BT’s aren’t real?)
see: argumentum ad ignorantiam
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
If you can’t prove that BTs aren’t real, you shouldn’t engage in such evil ridicule of those who have found them to be real. As you well know, your comments are very often not rational discussion, but rather political PR mind control.
People with science education know you can’t prove something doesn’t exist. They also know the burden of proof lies with those who claim something DOES exist.
BT “theory” unlike Darwinian Theory doesn’t explain anything that can’t be better explained in more common sense ways. BT’s and engrams are used to explain irrational behaviors yet interestingly those who have supposedly gotten rid of significant measures of those bothersome rascals continue to demonstrate the same irrational behaviors as their non-scientology counterparts.
Thus we can venture, based on evidence, BT theory has no known utility outside of garnering income for the CoS.
BTs aren’t physical, and therefore would seem to be unverifiable by physical science methodology. But something makes the meter read on them. And by direct perception I can see something there when I look. I also get case gain from solo auditing this something. So to me BTs are real.
What BTs actually are is a different question. There are several possibilities, and some BTs may be one thing while others are another.
I’m not trying to get anyone to agree that BTs are real. I just object to people invalidating the possibility that they exist, just because their existence seems too different from what conventional wisdom says is possible. It’s the continuous invalidation of case and gains in blog comments that’s my “BT issue.”
Here are two “BT’s are real” stories you may find interesting.
1) I had a friend who got in trouble solo auditing on OT 3. He got overwhelmed and couldn’t sleep, which made him unsessionable so he couldn’t even get a repair auditing session to fix what had gone wrong. This went on for a couple of weeks, during which time he became less and less productive at work, to the point of possibly losing his job. He was going into AOLA daily but it wasn’t helping. So I decided that even though it would officially be squirreling, I just had to bypass everyone and fix him myself.
Without a meter, I tuned my spiritual perception to the right wavelength and looked at my friend. I could see the BTs that were harassing him. I got in telepathic communication with them and told them that my friend was not alone, and that he was under my protection, and that I was ordering them to de-manifest for awhile. I saw that they did. That night my friend slept like a baby. The next morning he was sessionable and got his repair session at AOLA, which was successful. He then resumed solo auditing on OT 3 and did fine, finishing in about another month. I never told him what I’d done. I did send a report to his C/S. I didn’t get in ethics trouble, either.
If what I did didn’t affect something real, why did it work?
2) Another friend of mine had no trouble on OT 3, but said it was very unreal to him. The meter read as it was supposed to, and the incidents ran like they were supposed to. But it was all unreal to him, especially the existence of BTs. He finished the level and continued all the way up to OT 8, with everything along the way being unreal and non-productive of any significant case gain. Then he got 500 hours of Sec Checking due to pissing off the wrong people, also with no substantial case gain. Finally he left the Church.
A few years later he got repair auditing in the Indie field, and began to get some reality on BTs. He resumed solo auditing on OT 7, and his reality grew rapidly, along with case gain. He now reports getting great results routinely on exactly the issues he always wanted handled, and literally laughs when the idea of BTs not being real comes up in conversation.
If the truth is that BTs don’t exist, why did this guy get better and better results as BTs became more and more real to him?
Again, what BTs are may or may not be what LRH said they are. But something is there, and handling it helps people.
That’s not to say that the tech LRH left us is a perfect way to handle that something. The Ron’s Org people swear by their “updated” version of NOTS. And there are several systems of handling GPMs that are purported to render BT handling unnecessary or at least much shorter and easier.
I don’t know what the best tech would be for those of us who want to continue with the purpose we had when we first got involved with Scientology. I just don’t think the answer is to blow from that purpose when we blow from the Church.
My Two Cents………. Thought is real. Life force in the body is real. The body is composed of a billion intelligent complexities.
What you are getting on the meter is life force. It could be feeling or reason.
It us hypnotic trickery that you are running on people. They are having wins just like in dream therapy.
But if you are making your livelihood from this, then I understand your position.
I have given my position. Let others do the experiment on these doctrines.
My investigation says they are delusional.
My Two Cents said
“I just don’t think the answer is to blow from that purpose when we blow from the Church.”
I am sorry to say but that statement is arrogant. You may not be meaning to be but it is an arrogant statement.
Who says that I, or anyone, has left the goal of spiritual freedom?
What you mean to say, imo, owing to the fact that you still believe in OT3 theory, is that we are not on the road to freedom because Ron sold to you that he has the “only way” to freedom.
I see that view as a detriment to free thinking and free investigation.
If you believe that all of our planet is a dramatization of R6, if you think that you are a loyal officer, if you think that L Ron Hubbard was the only being in the history of forever to discover the truth…………..
Then it is logical for you to surmise that if I think BTs are delusional, you will conclude that I am against the original goal of spiritual freedom.
That, my dear award winning field auditor, is the problem.
The road is wide open. There is much to learn. And there is much to unlearn.
There are reasons that people are blowing charge in session. The real reason is sometimes known. But in terms of the OT levels, there is something else going on.
I’ve gone through it many times on these blogs.
Ron was not free. He could not teach true spiritual freedom.
And just because you can take a mind to cognition does not mean you have found the direct cause of pain and human suffering.
There is an invisible dragon in my garage.
Don’t believe me ? Why, you can’t prove what I’m saying is false. You’ve never been in my garage. Besides, the dragon is invisible, so even if you’ve been there, that you’ve not seen it proves nothing.
If you can’t prove that invisible dragons aren’t real, you shouldn’t engage in such evil ridicule of those who have found them to be real.
Brian, you are right that one can blow from the Church of Scientology AND from the subject altogether, without blowing from the purpose of attaining spiritual freedom.
I think LRH got a lot right but also made mistakes, and that further research and development should occur and has occurred to correct those mistakes and expand on what he got right.
I see value in certain other practices not associated with LRH at all, and have practiced some of them.
I had these viewpoints when I was in the Church, and they didn’t go over well there. That’s why I left.
So I’m not some true believer as you describe.
However, you still didn’t follow the instructions when you messed around with OT 3, so you have no business broadcasting any evaluation of it. Do it properly and then let me know whether or not BTs are real.
By the way, I agree with you that some of what happens on OT 3 and NOTS could be dream therapy. Check out the Reality Scale in Scientology 0-8. As a person runs a process he can go through levels like dub-in, blackness, and not there. But if the process is properly C/Sed and audited, the person should arrive at higher levels in which he sees what’s there for what it is. As he’s working his way through lower levels on a process, he gets gain from running what he sees, even when that is dub-in, blackness, or not there.
Wonderful! MY Two Cents! please to meet another rogue mixing practices. Though I think we already know each other.
The bottom line for OT3 for me was still I did not get sick. That was the stated reason for secrecy. You will not be ready and it could screw your case.
There is not one line of reasoning that you could give me that would sway me. That is because my experience is that BTs are definitely something, I’ll grant you that.
I believe you have truly helped people in your field practice.
Bottom line #2: the whole BT, R6, Xenu descriptors are not essential to run the mental energy.
Bottom line #3: the underlying seed thought that allows cognition and blowing off BTs comes from our innate power of differentiation.
In Yoga there is a term Neti Neti. It means “not this, not that”. It is the essence of the wisdom that consciousness can be conceived as separate from its projections. And in that process of differenciating consciousness (the awareness of awareness) from externalities, therein lies the road to knowing our own nature.
I am not my body, I am not My mind, I am not these emotions, I was never born, I can never die. Neti Neti, the soul is not this not that.
I am not my BTs, not my clusters etc.
So you see? There is a prosses going on. It is pure differenciation. The being, the thetan, the soul is separating himself out from a mental projection.
This is wisdom. But the problem with Ron’s method is that it includes these Sci Fi visuals that are non essential to running this sort of thing.
And because it is based on wrong knowledge, the true nature of thought, feelings and body are burdened with a falsehood.
It is a barrier to direct perception of the true nature of the human condition.
Our beautiful crazy dangerous planet is not the product of OT3 implants.
Thank you my friend for engaging in this topic. I know your view. Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.
You’re a good man!
Brian, thanks for your comment ending with “You’re a good man!” And yes, we do actually agree on a lot.
Specifically regarding BTs, I don’t think it’s important to know what they really are before auditing them. As for LRH’s sci-fi stories about BTs, I’ve long wondered whether or not such evaluation in violation of the Auditor’s Code was a help or a hindrance. Why not run processes that would allow the pc to find out the truth for himself?
There are LRH processes from the early 50’s that run just energy flows and ridges with no address at all to the story content of incidents. I’ve found this approach quite useful in blowing BTs.
Prior to my involvement in Scientology I was a serious practitioner of first Zen Buddhism and then Advaita meditation. In both disciplines neti neti was what it was all about. I switched to Scientology because I thought it might be a more effective means of addressing the energetics involved in Advaita. And for me it was. But my understanding of Zen and Advaita also informed my use of Scientology and made it more effective for me, especially at the upper levels.
Along the way I also studied and practiced Reichian Therapy and Gnosticism. But I never mixed practices. When I did Scientology I was more KSW than the staff handling me.
I think LRH made a lot of progress but didn’t finish the research and development job he started, and erroneously spurned the efforts of others to help him with it. I also think it’s our job to finish his work, rather than argue over how good or bad he was at it.
How to organize to do that has remained elusive.
Again, I appreciate your last comment.
Brian that’s what I figured out also – the BT shit and thinking a reactive mind is responsible. My theory why people are still running this stuff ~ well it’s addictive and until one can see that he can’t get out like any other addiction. What caused the addiction in the first place, well we are all different and that is certainly something one should figure out for himself should the need arise. Usually a ‘rock bottom’ happens first I hear.
Hi Cece! I haven’t said hey to you since I first started coming here. I hope all is well in your world.
Thanks for that additive of describing it in your words as addiction. I see your point.
I think what solo auditing does is, through Ron’s Sci Fi imagery, is like having a cognition wheel, in the mind, on defining and realizing our suffering through Ron’s mental processes: solo auditing.
In his auditing, it does cause some very deep “ah huh!” moments. I’d even say some were truly a wonderful feeling.
The cognition thing will keep going on because that is our nature: ever expending aswarness.
But Ron infected our cycle of cognition as only seeing it through his imagery. That’s a crime because we all have our own imagery to express and think with.
Ron’s BT theory created disconnected people. Just look at their celebrities?
It creates an arrogance because these people see us all as a dramitization of R6. That is how Ron defined our culture; the product of an implant.
It’s what makes the true believer being the only group to know this.
This is the Lynch pin that will bring down the bridge. This is a very basic world view of a Scientologist. It puts them as superior.
Scientology out of touch for a reason. It’s philosophy is out of touch: with the real nature of human suffering.
Hi Brian, I’ll always remember you because of your stories with the Incredible String Band which is lovely happy music. Them and Traffic were 2 favorites.
As for BTs well I have yet to figure out how it is that Solo auditing them even when the entire OT III story was unreal to me and I knew that at the time – that it was un-real – actually could get an FN. I liked Solo auditing because I learned how important my own thoughts had to do with how I felt. It made it very real to me that my thoughts (which I could control) had everything to do with my outlook in life not the other way around. Live didn’t have to control my thoughts anymore. To a degree this was a freedom I hadn’t had for a while and it helped me remain the stubborn brat that I was which seriously got me out of a lot of trouble simply because I didn’t agree with the trouble. Took years to figure out the ‘trouble’ of course because the source of it was very well hidden at one time.
After OT III I refused to allow another command from an auditor questioning me on ‘Whos responsibility was …?” I made it very clear I was done with that since I was an OT III comp. I must have driven the auditors and C/Ses into some thoughts of their own at least.
I always read what you have to say 🙂
Thank you Cece❤️ I hope all is good:-)
My BTs & I have come to an agreement: they don’t fuck with me & I don’t fuck with them. Besides…I set them free years ago…
I gave all mine a bus ticket, that’s all I could afford after Scio got through with me. I hear they are still debating who gets to sit up front near the driver.
I’m pretty sure one of my BTs snagged that seat…
I laughed at my BTs. They took umbrage and left!
There’s no doubt that the Doubt formula is a flawed formula as written by LRH (and a bit confusing as well).
A few points here that I think Terra did not really cover:
(First before I go into that, let me quickly say that you can do a kind of “doubt” formula on any decision you are making, applying the GENERAL idea of this formula. That is to say, just list the upsides and the downsides of the decision or the alternatives and go with what is the most upside for YOU. That’s the way I apply this. NEVER to write it up though per this formula)
First, you need to understand that the Doubt formula is being applied because YOU DID SOMETHING BAD, VERY BAD. (for example, Doubt is an automatic condition for false reports on auditing worksheets, as you must be in Doubt to do that as you do not recognize the integrity of the subject). But in my last 15 years, I found that you are usually doing Doubt, because you were put in an even LOWER condition and have been upgraded to Doubt.)
So you are in Doubt because YOUR activities (Step 4) have been bad. So when you are doing Doubt, you are essentially deciding between 1) Walking the straight and narrow in ethics life of an upstat Scientologist and 2) Being your downstat and degraded self.
So, you see, it becomes quite easy to actually write this up in that sense. No.1 and 2 are usually to say how great upstat Scientologists are, all the good that they do in the world. And of course on step 6, you WILL decide to join that group, yadda yadda yadda and STOP being your asshole self. That is almost always how it goes. So it is not a really complicated formula in that sense. (or if you went “out 2D” on your spouse, then you spouse would be Step 1 (or “in ethics people on the 2D” might be Step 1 and Step would be you and your out ethics) and Step 4 would be your out ethics activities on the 2D
Now, if you WERE deciding between two jobs for example, or two investment activities or had any trouble deciding what to do Doubt between to write this up, the Ethics Officer would just have you choose the two alternatives and plug those into Steps 1 and 4.
But this would not be the usual activity. Normally, it’s almost always choosing between 1) Walking the straight and narrow with the other in ethics Scientologists who are clearing the planet and 2) your out ethics or degraded activities or self.
And yes, LRH did word this badly OR maybe he worded it the way he wanted to because in actual DOING this, I never saw in 35 years anyone do anything but choose Step 1, the “in ethics” Scientologists. (yes, AFTER deciding to leave Scientology, people wrote up elaborate and honest formulas based on facts and stats and decided to leave, but they had ALREADY really decided that). When this formula was written and in my early days in Scientology, people were not overtly leaving who had been heavily involved.
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And need you ask? Doing everything you can to help the in ethics group you just choose includes … yes … FORKING OVER THE CASH, BABY!, FORKING OVER THE CASH! (and don’t the ethics officers don’t make that abundantly clear nowadays , it was certainly made clear to me and I had to pay to stay in the CoS the few extra months I did before leaving)
Pardon a couple of garbled sentences in the above. It’s late at night here in the mountains of Chiang Mai, Thailand as I write this and I’m starting to nod off) I did proof it and STILL missed stuff!
I always find your comments to be thoughtful.
Except when he has a couple of drinks with me…
Thank you Interested Party. Much appreciated.
Joe P, are you acquainted with a Brit living in Chang Mai named Steve Parkins? He’s been there for decades and is an old friend of mine.
No, do not know him. But would be happy to meet him.
StephenParkins@hotmail.com I mentioned you to him. However, he doesn’t know me as thegman77. 🙂 He’ll figure it out.
Enjoyable post as usual.
Makes me wonder what the current condition of scientology is.
The only thing society as a whole is in doubt about is if scientlogy is a liabily or an enemy condition.
Techwise the word confusion comes to mind with people going clear unclear.
Organizationally it is Non-existence trending. The ideal mOrgs soon will make Christian Science reading rooms look busy.
Huge historically is the fact that Hubbard himself was in doubt condition for moments, as evidenced by Hubbard’s admissions to Sarge that Hubbard had failed.
If Hubbard doubted that his “tech” worked sufficiently, on himself even, then Hubbard was “in doubt” conclusively, at least in moments of his despair to Sarge.
The hard bound rules and regulations, steps and procedures of Scientology, are just artificial in the end of the day.
Hubbard was in despair and doubt, at moments, in the end of his whole life, about the whole of what he’d done in his career as founder of Scientology it is clear, and Sarge had no reason to make up what he told to Wright and Marty Rathbun, which is told in their two must read books.
Hubbard himself was in and out of Doubt at the end of his own life.
That is staggering important info.
Hubbard’s theory of even applying Hubbard’s medicine to himself, to the other leaders, to the flock, there are problems in the application of the medicine.
The air and attitude and status of the Scientology “doctor” to the patient, is a significant factor, and the relationship of the MAA, auditor, Case Supervisor, Executives, the staff and players who DO the required and laid out procedures have to be respected for the recipients to accept the medicine.
When Hubbard died, there wasn’t an Otto Roos there, no Paulette Ausley, no David Mayo.
But Hubbard did call up Ray Mitoff near the end of Hubbard’s life.
Which is why what Ray says will be so historically important someday.
Hubbard, to me, did think that Ray (then Senior C/S Int, and equivalent to David Mayo’s role in Hubbard’s orderly setup of who was who in the top brass of Scientology hierarchy) would attend to Ron’s “case” “handling” at that point near the end of Hubbard’s life.
The “End of Life” objective processing, is sort of a really important to note “ritual” right down the lines of what Hubbard’s therapeutic “auditing” “rituals” are.
So much is being missed, and I lament we don’t have really at present a really interested observer asking all the interesting questions that will matter to the people in 50 years who wished WE who live now, would ask and get answered of all the people who WERE around in these final years of Hubbard’s life!
Question to all those who ever served LRH in the Sea Org:
Did anyone see LRH apply Ethics Conditions formulas to himself? Any time period, on the Apollo, at Creston (Pat Broeker may know if Hubbard ever did, in fact did Pat apply lower conditions ever, or even weekly conditions like all of the lower on the totem pole staff do weekly)?
Absolutely never.
Staff basic weekly actions, upkeeping updating one’s weekly graph, one’s weekly conditions formula in alignment with one’s major and minor stats, one’s programs one’s doing, coordinating and doing targets required of other people’s programs, all those weekly steps one puts in one’s weekly battleplan, and I wonder how those at Creston in LRH’s final years, did the same, or not.
I wasn’t up to the status to go visit and interview Sarge, but there were so many question I wished I could have asked him about how standardly things ran around LRH in the final years, as far as “staff basics” or not.
All lower down echelons of Scientology, even ASI, staff did their weekly stat graphs, condition formulas, battleplans, program targets they planned to accomplish for the week projections.
The higher one went on the totem pole, to being around LRH, I think the close one comes to LRH’s actual presence, I think those closest persons in the end may have been living normal lives unburdened by weekly conditions formulas, programs, etc.
Has anyone ever seen programs written by the ranch staffers (Annie, Pat, Sarge, Gene Denk) for their duties in the final months and years of LRH’s life? Like did Pat have stat graphs? Did Pat do conditions formulas weekly, did he write his own staff programs?
It’d be telling to hear the details of how standard normal staff actions were or were not directly there around LRH.
LRH didn’t consider himself to be a Scientologist. That will go a long way to understanding some things about the man.
Curious how you came to that conclusion?
Because he didn’t apply it to himself? Much? By the sounds of it, he didn’t die a Scientologist.
Still trying to audit BT’s to his dying day I think indicates he believed in his theories.
That is certainly staggering. And I still have no idea what to make of it after first coming across it 3 or 4 years ago.
At first I rejected it outright. I don’t personally know this Sarge character and I have no idea what his motives might be. But what he said is like kryptonite. It’s not easy to confront that LRH might have doubted his own tech. Unless…
… another aspect of the story really doesn’t add up. No matter what opinion you might have about LRH’s intentions I don’t think it reasonable to doubt his intelligence. I just can’t imagine him asking Sarge to modify a meter for use as a BT zapper. It just doesn’t make sense as a means of either zapping a BT or as a way to suicide.
But then later I read the medical report and get more info about his condition at that time and I think it looks more like he was sick, was using drugs of some kind that had some kind of mental effect and UNDER THOSE CONDITIONS he may have done precisely as Sarge said he did.
But I think the context matters.
He was certainly multi-faceted.
He never handled his mind. Attributing one’s troubles to outside forces is certainly contradictory to the basic tenets of early scn theory. Certainly outside forces can array themselves against one, but ultimately it is the individual that decides to submit to them. Blame is not a very high state. The trouble with Hubb’s upper level tech is that it completely diverged from what was useful – letting the individual inspect his own life and decisions and come to better understandings. Blaming BTs and seeking to rid oneself of them was a less than intelligent solution. If such a situation were a real issue than it would have been far more intelligent and efficient to have the person investigate their own decisions to be effect.
If he’d had a few fully functioning brain cells to rub against one another he’d have been looking for when he decided to become the effect of this gnarly BT that was so plaguing him, rather than asking Sarge to build him a bt-zap-o-matic.
Freebeeing, And what about going into agreement that each person also has a reactive mind that until discovered one is the effect of? What if one simply disagrees with that? What if some don’t call their earlier experiences part of a reactive mind? What if they get educated and simply decide ‘oh that wasn’t so good that I did/ or was done to me’ and move on? LRH is way over complicated about the entire ‘truth’. If he’d stayed with ‘truth’ he never would have needed volumes. I think the processes he came up with and then to undercut those (he usually said to keep up with diminishing capabilities of current society) were all attempting to handle his own circumstances. Maybe not but way to complex either way.
He could have simply said each person mocks up their own reactive mind. Really? One needs to spend costly hours to figure this out on their own? Oh well….
Such an simple wording and you are so confused….I don’t know which words I should clear on you that you get it…and if you make a clay of it it will be even more confused….I think you skipped a Gradient.. Thats the why !
Oh I get it ,…You should go back and read again the condition of confusion…
Makes sense doesn’t it ?
ROFL
Thanks TC (hmmm u share the same initials as a BIG BEING….unless you are….hmmm)
Outstanding work, and thanks for the Dose of Obnosis this am it goes perfectly well with my coffee.