We continue breaking down the Bridge to total Freedom towards the level of Clear with Bruce Hines.
It’s the stairway to heaven with turnstiles at every step.
The State of Clear — halfway up the Bridge
What is the E-Meter?
The latest version of the E-Meter — costs $5000 for the basic model
The “auditor” controls the E-Meter, the person paying for the auditing holds the “cans”
We also mentioned Bruce Ploetz, the electrical engineer at Gold who knows more about the E-Meter than anyone on earth. He wrote an article for this blog entitled What About the E-Meter?
Further reading for a deeper dive on this subject:
Jeffrey Augustine published an extensive analysis of the history and science of the E-Meter at his blog, The Scientology Money Project entitled: A Brief History of How Scientology’s E-Meter Came Into Existence — Parts 1-10
And here are some other sites with additional information:
Secrets of Scientology: The E-Meter
The Wikipedia entry on the E-Meter:
This includes the quote from Hubbard in 1954 where he discontinued use of the E-Meter:
“Yesterday, we used an instrument called an E-Meter to register whether or not the process was still getting results so that the auditor would know how long to continue it. While the E-Meter is an interesting investigation instrument and has played its part in research, it is not today used by the auditor … As we long ago suspected, the intervention of a mechanical gadget between the auditor and the preclear had a tendency to depersonalize the session …”
And finally on this subject, these are some quotes from Hubbard about the E-Meter being a lie detector from a lecture he gave in 1952 entitled Indoctrination in the use of the E-Meter:
Anyone who pretends to a knowledge of auditing should also at least pretend to a knowledge of how to use one of these machines. This machine is a small edition of those machines employed by police departments and which they call “lie detectors,” The difference between this machine and a police department machine is elementary: a police department machine is just more of it.
This machine is also a “lie detector,” completely in addition to being a diagnostic instrument…
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
The Happiness Rundown:
Price Lists from Scientology:
Grades Claimed Results:
AC 360 with the “Inch Wives”
Researching dark matter….
I still haven’t found the time this week to listen to this one, but its ON tonight and I cannot wait! keep it up guys your podcast is so enlightening, entertaining and interesting and makes it so easy for us WOGs to really understand it all. COB should be shaking in his boots, looks like were not that degraded after all, imagine that
“…and, to a certain degree, the lived experiences of our direct ancestors, whose bodies were changed by their experiences, and they then passed on those changes to their descendants.”
I sometimes think this is what Hubbard was fighting against on the OT levels, what with his yearning for a “genetically uncontaminated body.” That or his microbiome. Or both.
Either way, the guy clearly despised his body the older he got. When he wasn’t blaming his biological imperfections on interdimensional beings (OT8.0) he was cursing Farsecian immigrants for giving him body aches and a droopy dick (Pain & Sex).
That quote also caught my attention. It brought to mind Mr./Ms. Genetic Entity. . . . . . (joke)
Ahh yes, the GE… 😵💫 “Errors in Time” crapped all over that idea though, no?
mwesten – I’m not familiar with the Errors in Time reference. I find it interesting that a therapist would give any credence to the idea that a life experience or experiences causing bodily changes of a direct ancestor might be transferred to a descendant. With the current explosion of genetic science maybe there is some research going on in that area. No doubt that if there are any government research grants available investigating that possibility some psychologists or scientists would jump on them.
It’s an idea that follows basic evolution though, is it not? There is a brand new species of bird on the Galapagos Islands that has evolved in just two generations. [1] There are lizards in Croatia that have developed cecal valves, an expanded gut, a larger head and a heavier bite – all in just 3 decades. [2] The idea that basic survival computations of our direct ancestors are encoded into our genes is no stretch. But yes, what a therapist can do with it in a clinical setting would certainly be intriguing.
In Errors in Time (SHSBC 316–18.7.63), Hub dismissed the notion of evolutionary lines as an implant (how can you have a GE without a genetic line?) and, iirc, would eventually blame genetic memory on family member-hopping body thetans…
1. Rapid hybrid speciation in Darwin’s finches
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6372/224
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42103058
2. Lizards undergo rapid evolution after introduction to a new home
https://www.pnas.org/content/105/12/4792
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_wall_lizard#Rapid_adaptation
Naturally I couldn’t go past an MU!
from wiki:
microbiome
The word microbiome (from the Greek micro meaning “small” and bíos meaning “life”) was first used by J.L. Mohr in 1952 in The Scientific Monthly to mean the microorganisms found in a specific environment.[2][3] It was defined in 1988 by Whipps et al. as “a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably well-defined habitat which has distinct physio-chemical properties. The term thus not only refers to the microorganisms involved but also encompasses their theatre of activity”.[4]
………………………………………………………………………
Use the word in a sentence: “I didn’t do the OT levels so I didn’t explore the microbiome of BeeTees on my meat sack.” :-))
Hehe, yes…specifically, the human microbiome.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome
There are as many non-human cells on and in the body as there are human. Microcritters. I think maybe Hubbard mistook them for space cooties.
South Park explained it best… 😂
https://youtu.be/FLQUZ0gcVSw
I would love to ask Bruce if he is aware of C/Sing cases according to ones means. I think it’s worth a discussion of how the church C/Ses and writes programs to obtain the most money possible.
OR have Matt Pesch on sometime and talk about this. I’ve heard Matt allude to C/Sing becoming more of a reg function and registrars letting C/Ses know what to write programs or at least how long they want the programs to be. I know how people feel about the promises of the Bridge but the Church of Scientology outright bilks people for as much money as they can get via the programs. This “church” commits outright extortion and fraud, even by its own standards of not delivering what is promised. Also, I’ve heard of people fulfilling requirements of levels they are on still not being allowed to attest.
At least a discussion of this phenomenon would satisfy my suspicion that I was being milked for as much money possible as opposed to an honest C/S.
This of course ex[plains the constant irrelevant “reads” when I was audited or sec checked. Just a Wheatstone bridge that measures ONLY resistance. NOTHING else. The needle shows NOTHING but minute (SUPER small) changes in resistance between the two electrodes. ANYONE thinking that it “reads” junk like “mental mass”, “fields” around the body, et al only needs to put the cans a small distance from both sides of the body and watch as the needle DOES NOTHING no matter what “processing” one does.
Let’s not forget on an intensive, the c/s admin costs so you really only end up with 11 hours of actual auditing not 12.5 hrs.
The best ultimate translation for the Scientology “auditor” is to call it a “quackery pseudo-therapist”
Scientology practices aim towards a person’s mind and “spiritual memories”.
The action is pseudo-therapy and the whole subject is quackery.
It’s all quackery pseudo-therapy and quack exorcism of supposed surplus souls that infest our human bodies, and the OT 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 target (the “OT case” we all each individually have supposedly) is the “case” leaked onto us from our own loads of “body-thetans” and the “body-thetans” case that leaks into our “case.”
Scientology goes after this expanded concept of a person’s “case”. We have our individual “case” that is supposedly finally fixed at “Clear” and then we have to deal with our “OT case” (the collective leaking of our surplus souls, our “body-thetans” collective “case” that we’ve gotten stuck to us due to them).
So Scientology really fundamentally is this huge long stepladder of supposedly addressing this past lives accumulation of “case” from our own past lives, and then from all the surplus souls “case” that we’ve gotten stuck with due to our infestations of all the full collection of “body-thetans” that have gotten stuck to us.
It’s massive pseudo-science quackery.
The exorcism part of Scientology is just wholesale snipe-hunting (look up snipe hunting).
Very interesting, can’t wait to hear the interview.
I suspect that the real reason Hubbard abandoned the Mathison E-Meter was that Volney refused to sign over the rights to him, making it impossible for him to suck up all the profits.
Later he got Don Breeding to do an updated transistor version and sign the patents over to him. This made it possible for Hubbard to rake in royalties on meters all the way to his death in the 80s by updating the patent once in a while. From the late 50s to the early 80s the oldy but grotty Breeding three-transistor meter was not really changed except for the battery power and the digital electronics for the clock etc.
The longest run for an electronic design that I have ever heard of, even beating the Neve Mixing Console.
During Hubbard’s last years John McCormick modernized the electronics a little bit for the MK VII and the Quantum. I don’t know for sure that Hubbard ever actually tested the new design or knew about it, but his name is on the patents.
It was all about the money for Hubbard.
By the way, Leah’s therapist’s explanation is better than mine, I never even knew about some of the details of the physiology, I’m an electronics guy. It is easy to see that the meter does indeed show something, just nothing like what Hubbard thought it did.
“Mental masses” shifting around, mental electronic charges discharging, disembodied beings with electronic minds, parts of the body that can store memories, pain getting “locked up” in standing waves in nerve channels, never the same explanation twice. All Hubbard horse-puckey.
Like explaining lightning as the wrath of the god Thor instead of triboelectric phenomena in clouds.
After I left scn in 1979 because of the price increases I knew another ex scn who did some type of “healing technique” and I had two or three “sessions” with him. He had a portable table which you would lie on and he would pass his hands over you about about a foot above. In one of the sessions I was experiencing a great “flow” and I said, “Steve, I’m feeling this great flow.” He replied, “Yes. It’s light red and flowing from your head down through your feet.” That was exactly what I was experiencing. Another ex scn friend of mine tried him out and got no results.
The point being that there may be as yet unexplained physiological occurrences in the body which are currently scientifically unexplained and not measurable with current scientific instruments. Hubbard/Scn had its own version of flows and ridges with no scientific verification.
thanks for all of this
Bruce, I’ve seen research that polygraphs are up to 80% accurate – but pathological liars and those trained in deception readiy also often “beat” them, so they’re not good at detecting the really bad people the legal system and security services really want to catch. They might do well at detecting average people taking office supplies home or cheating on their spouses, for example, but are likely to miss the serial killers and spies.
That also probably explains in part why so many bad eggs seem to make it so far in Scientology in spite of the metering and sec-checking. The much simpler e-meter probably works with some effectiveness as a basic lie detector on most people, and for detecting issues around which they experience stress or anxiety – especially if they believe it does.
I also think it’s the sort of phenomenon where it can be difficult to tease out the causes and effects, and to some extent the meter can also become more a sort of prop for interrogators to use as part of pressuring people to confess. Similarly, in counseling old-time auditors who are adept at reading people and may have an innate skill set that would have done them well in some other therapeutic modality, have abandoned the meter and still get satisfactory results.
The physiology is also fascinating, and still not fully understood. I read into it a few years ago, and it appears to be one of those phenomenon with multiple factors at work, including subdermal reactions that can change resistance even before sweat glands are triggered, answering the objection that some “reads” appear to be too fast to be explained by sweat.
Yes, Peacemaker, the subdermal reactions are related to something similar to sweat glands that only appear on the palms and soles of the feet. Apparently a leftover feature from our hominid ancestors that needed to be able to grip tree limbs, using sweat that could be summoned on demand.
Today we can’t consciously demand sweaty palms but the old autonomic system remains, responding to emotional state instead. Not so good for those that need to seem calm in job interviews that end with a hand-shake, for example.
These glands can and do expand and contract without releasing sweat, resulting in the various meter phenomena. Even the famous rock slam can be explained that way, though it seemingly is too fast for such an explanation. When we had to make one for the Drills Simulator, Gary Lew just recorded a bad connection and then edited it using the custom software we developed for editing needle reactions.
He was also the one that just recorded a Wavetek oscillator to create the totally artificial-looking floating needles in the Drills Simulator. I struggled for weeks to make a realistic floating needle with some random motion in it, until they finally hired Vic Wagoner to take over the coding and put Gary (Luigi) on the reads.
Richard Berman also worked on the software. I made some scripts in Lisp that ran in the old AutoCad drafting software that could convert an arbitrarily drawn line into a read. It could also take a recorded read and draw it as a line. So we could edit reads using the Bezier curve features of AutoCad.
The original idea of the Drills Simulator was to use actual reads recorded in meter drills, and Luigi spent weeks in the courseroom recording using the old McCormick MK VII read recorder. But some like the “paused floating needle” and “theta bop” were just too elusive. We also had the actual reads that were used in the Meter Reads Drill Film, recorded using some parts Luigi got from Radio Shack and an old Studer B67 tape recorder. Approved by Hubbard! But too brief and incomplete to make a full set of Drills Simulator reads. I think we actually used some of them.
But anyway, to your point, I have looked at many recorded reads on the screen. Though they look “instant” or fast to the eye, in fact they are never fast enough to exceed the speed of the needle. The needle mechanism is a essentially a 1 Hz pendulum. In recorders I determined long ago that a sample rate of 240 Hz far exceeds the needs of a reads recorder. It is possible to create much faster signals by banging the cans together etc. but the real physiologically created phenomena are much slower.
That is why you can have a meter drill to train the auditor to distinguish between “mechanical reads” (lifting a finger etc.) and real reactions. In almost all cases the mechanical reads excite the resonance peak of the needle itself, resulting in the needle swinging around a bit on its own before settling down. Real reactions are too slow to do this.
I don’t think you can really fool a good meter operator by moving your fingers as some have suggested. But it is easy to fake it just by gaming the system. When you get bored with the session, just think of the last time you rested in the grass with a good friend by your side and get a nice floating needle. What does it say about the effectiveness of the vaunted space alien technology of the sainted L Ron Hubbard that anyone would even think of doing this?
Naw, FAR less than 80% even on people who are clueless about the machines. My cousin is a police detective. They are just a tool to rattle suspects.
It’s difficult to find a reference to “Inch Wives” on Google. I get it when watching the video. It’s a weird thing to say.
Anderson Cooper did a good job.
Great information about the e-meter. I never thought that this little machine could cause so much trouble for me.
Looking back, I agree with the scientific evidence. All the way up to OT VIII, I received tens of thousands of “reads”. In reality, they were not objective but merely reactions from my own nervous system. If you expected a read, chances are you got a read if you were drinking the Kool Aide. Of course there were no OT powers after cleaning out the implants on History of Man. I was projecting a picture of the implant which read. All I ever ran out was my own picture. So evil Hubbard had me believe that these beings took away my powers. Hubbard discovered no OT powers. He created lies and put them into stories.
Lesson learned.
I speculate that auditing opens the mind or creates the ability to create or access an unfiltered stream of consciousness. Comedians do this on stage when they take unrelated subjects and put them together into an almost instantaneous comedy routine suggesting that it can be a developed “ability”. The further one goes in scn the more “advanced” this ability possibly becomes.
It’s not an uncommon phenomenon. Some rappers and possibly channeling seems likewise able to access a stream of consciousness.
Very true on OT VIII auditing on the Freewinds. You go from being a pho ton to a clam to a bug to a snake etc. You also go in to outer space and get shocked by electronics.
ExScis have said it’s easy to “gain” the Emeter. It’s so obvious to anyone who knows a little about electricity that the harder you squeeze the cans the lower the resistance it measures and the opposite is true and with no other physiological input, if you can get some feedback about how the meter is supposed to read during auditing, it should be possible to get a good result by modulating your grip.
In my experience of auditing people on the lower levels the e-meter performed as expected in auditing sessions. Some things would “read” as the person listed them and others would not. Likewise when I called out items from a list. If the person was satisfied and happy at the end of a session the needle did indeed “float”.
I’m not promoting scn, just telling it like it was.
Quite true, Richard, I had the same experience.
The issue arose when Hubbard assigned deep significance to the reactions, like assuming that a read on something from a past life “proves” that the past life experience is real. No, it just proves that something about talking about that past life experience invoked a physiological reaction known as arousal (not the sexual kind).
Hubbard built a huge house of cards based on that kind of false evidence and experiences under the influence of various drugs. Seemingly never realizing how easy it is to create false memories, or perhaps cynically reveling in it, he spun an incredible tapestry of lies. All supposedly proved by a scientific instrument, the E-meter.
Fancying himself a modern Leeuwenhoek, who made real discoveries using the microscope, he actually only discovered his own fantasies and misapprehensions using the E-meter. Combined with an authoritarian form of “therapy”, and his malignant narcissistic tendencies, it made a living hell for his followers.
None of that actually proves or disproves anything about the spiritual nature of man, the supreme being or past lives. Just because Hubbard said something does not automatically make it a lie, he borrowed lots of stuff from others and some may be perfectly true or just distorted. It is up to each former Scientologist to carefully sort out their own true beliefs, the truth, and the lies for themselves.
Not too different from everyone who actually cares about truth, I suppose,
I completed grade 1 and achieved the ability to spot the source of problems and make them vanish. The source was Scientology. I walked out and all problems vanished. Spiritual freedom achieved.
👌👍
Now I know why they strive for religious status, beside tax exemption for income earned from services and tax credit for donors …….all those pay as you go ” spiritual” services cannot be challanged as it come under religious services.
In ordinary course of business if you believe the services you bought from a business entity is below you expectations ,you may take it to court and for full / partial refund.
And if you suffered metal stress of financial loss you may recover the cost like most of the time happened in medical science or construction industry.
Doe it mean that in countries like Canada ,France ,Germany , Russia and all 185 countries ( out of total 195 countries in the world) it could get challenged ?
Here is a post that has the warning from Volney Mathison, the inventor of the E meter, in full.
Scientology Assists and Objectives as Hypnosis
I occasionally run across people who believe assists and objectives, which both consist of a lot of repetitive touching of things and walking to things and looking at things over and over, sometimes for hours and hours totalling hundreds and hundreds of times doing the exact same thing, are harmless.
I beg to differ and have found more than a little bit of evidence to back me up.
Hypnotist Volney Mathison (inventor of the E meter) explicitly described in his book Creative Image Therapy hypnosis being used over and over for hours as a covert way to mentally enslave someone.
Here is the quote:
At this point, nearing the end of this book, the writer reluctantly presents a negative warning. There is extant a pseudo-scientific system of something or other wherein the patient is required to create and duplicate arbitrary systems of mental images that are autocratically selected for him by the operator. Worse still, the patient is forced monotonously to perform interminably-duplicated trivial physical motions, such as touching a certain exact spot on the table, over and over and over, sometimes for hours.
Bluntly, this is a powerful and effective technique for covertly inducing hypnosis. By the duplicated command the subject is caused endlessly to duplicate mental image patterns wherein he is OBEYING the operator, explicitly, time after time after time. The subject is sooner or later reduced to such a zombie-like state that he will thereafter obey the operator’s every other covert or indirect command. These covert and indirect commands are presented to the subject in the form of take-it-or-leave-it “suggestions”–to buy every book, take every expensive “course”, attend every convention or conference staged by the operator. The victim at long last finds himself penniless, in debt, and much more ill and troubled than ever before.
The seizure of the intense attention of an intended victim by monotonously duplicated little acts is the technique of the rattlesnake as he fascinates a bird. The snake sways back and forth, holding the victim’s gaze, causing it to look from side to side, keeping its attention captive by this duplicative technique of fascination. A “fatigue point” eventually is reached. The snake’s prey is thereby immobilized, psychically and physically–and devoured.
From Lermanet.com
Next we have quotes from Ron Hubbard, SHSBC is the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lectures followed by the lecture number in the series and date of the lecture. PDC is the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures, given in 1952.
SHSBC-209 – 18.9.62
If you want to make some pc feel like he’s being hypnotized when he isn’t, set up two bottles in front of him and tell him to look at the left one, and then tell him to look at the right one, and then tell him to look at the left one, and tell him to look at the right one, and tell him to look at the left one, and tell him to look at the right one, and tell him to look at the left one, and all of the sudden he’ll get some weird feeling of becoming hypnotized.
SHSBC-330 – 29.8.63
… then tell them what their opinion is and they just sit there… They’re – of course, they’re in a hypnotic trance to their own opinion, so anything you say must be their opinion, see?
SHSBC-402
Of course, we go on a tradition “if you learn anything about man that will help him,
you help him with it.” …
“If you learn anything about man that you can manipulate him
You’re going to manipulate men,
you’ve got to change their definitions
and change their goals
and enslave them and do this and do that.
SHSBC-447
Now, brainwashing simply is the trick of mixing up certainties.
All you have to do if you want to know and develop the entire field
of brainwashing as developed by Pavlov,
is simply to make somebody ….. into a confused or hypnotic state in which he can believe anything.
Dec 1952 Philadelphia Doctorate Course
There’s nothing every very weird about hypnotism.
It is the easiest thing in the world. ..
“All right, now you stare at the candle, stare at the candle.
Now uh… you know that concentration of that sort can make you for… sort of sleepy and so on.You stare at the candle until you feel that.“
And he’ll say, “All right.“ See he’s agreed that concentration on that can make him sleep.
All right, … let’s look at this candle a little… a little closer and
now let’s feel… let’s feel the… the… the body becoming more and more relaxed. And, he agrees to feel that the body is becoming more and more relaxed.
That’s all there is to that. He… he just agrees little by little,
the next thing you know the hypnotist says,”
Now your eyes will close.“ And his eyes go bonk. Of course, he agreed to that.
Now, the hypnotist says,”
Now your right hand will rise.“ And with some slight amazement, this fellow watches his right hand come up.
And he says, “Wooo, I’m hypnotized.“ So he just gives it up then,
and the hypnotist now says, ”
Now you see that kangaroo on your right knee?“
“Yes.“ He sees the kangaroo on his right knee.
Now take it on your right knee.
“Now let’s see it jump over to the left knee.
Now you got that? All right,
now let’s put… let’s put a… uh… a bonnet on this kangaroo. Got the bonnet on it?
Now have the kangaroo sing a song
.“ And the hypnotized person is very happy to sit there and watch this.
PDC-05 pg 7 SCALES OF HANDLING 2.12.52
Well, that’s… that’s very interesting because we have hypnotism which can be demonstrated as a phenomenon,
and we show that the greater and greater agreement,
all you do to hypnotize somebody is just make him agree… agree… agree
and after that he’ll see anything.
He’ll do anything,
he’ll see anything.
He agrees, agrees, agrees.
RON THE HYPNOTIST
Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1
“All processes are based upon the original observation
that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis
and removed at will any obsession or aberration,
compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“
Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;
sometimes it worked,
sometimes it didn’t work.
It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.
Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.
Well, I had a high certainty already –
I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…
Philadelphia Doctorate Course lecture tape numbered 39 from 1952 – 1953 known as the games maker tape or lecture
Now the caste system of game consist of this: The Maker of Games, he has no rules, he runs by no rules.
The player of the games, rules known but he obeys them. And the assistant players merely obey the players. And the pieces obey rules as dictated by players, but they don’t know the rules.
And then, what do you know. There’s broken pieces, and they aren’t even in the game, but they’re still in the game.
And they’re in a terrible maybe: “Am I in the game or am I not in the game?“ Now, “How to make a piece. This is how to make a piece: First, deny there is a game. Second, hide the rules from them. Three, give them all penalties and no wins. Four, remove all goals“ –
all goals. “Enforce them… their playing. Inhibit their enjoying. Make them look like but forbid their being like players“
– look like God but uh… you can’t be God.
“To make a piece continue to be a piece, permit it to associate only with pieces and deny the existence of players.“
Never let the pieces find out that there are players. Now out of these you’re going to get games.
Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process. End quote
I obviously have written a tremendous amount more on hypnosis and Ron Hubbard’s efforts to control people and exactly what it is and how it works in Scientology.
The posts Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology, Basic Introduction to Hypnosis in Scientology, The Critical Factor, The Secret Of Scientology Part 1 Control Via Contradiction, Burning Down Hell – How Commands Are Hidden , Varied And Repeated In Scientology To Control You As Hypnotic Implants, Why Hubbard Never Claimed OT Feats And The Rock Bottom Basis Of Scientology, Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning In Scientology, Hypnotism: Science Or Pseudoscience ? Not So fast, A Psychiatric View With Comments On The Admissions By Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1947), Scientology Was Ron Hubbard’s Private Game at Mockingbird’s Nest all have further information on this topic.
Hypnosis or auto suggestion does not always explain why some “items” read on the e-meter and others don’t. Keeping it simple a read is the needle on the e-meter “falling” to the right. The auditor notes in the session notes whether the read was an sf (small fall), F (fall ) or LF (long fall).
On the Dianetic Drug Rundown mentioned in the podcast the person is asked to list all the drugs and alcohols he has taken. As the person says them the auditor notes the accompanying reads/falls if any in the session notes. Taking the longest fall first, the follow up auditing addresses the associated attitudes, emotions, sensations and pains associated with each reading drug or alcohol. There is no particular reason why one drug would read better than another except that reading items will be in the awareness level of the person and “run” (be able to be addressed). Attempting to run non reading items produces problems.
This is just conversation on a blog. A person who has never given or received metered auditing might be confused about what is happening in a metered auditing session and maybe this explanation helps. A few times over the years I’ve used simple explanations like the above to explain why I don’t consider myself a gullible fool for having once participated, I think/hope they got the message. lol
It’s easier for me since I was out long before the internet and DM took over.
It’s interesting that Scientology apologists don’t address the mountains of evidence that Hubbard intended to mentally enslave people via hypnosis, including his own words.
Additionally you wrote “There is no particular reason why one drug would read better than another except that reading items will be in the awareness level of the person and “run” (be able to be addressed)”.
This is an argument from ignorance, A logical fallacy of claiming an unproven idea must be true because you can’t think of an alternative.
Just because a person can’t think of an alternative explanation for something doesn’t mean the one they know is necessarily true.
I know people, for example, who can’t think of any other explanation for certain things besides God. But that is not evidence that God exists (or doesn’t exist either).
You don’t have to act like you are dealing with someone unfamiliar with Scientology. I was in Scientology for twenty five years. I spent hundreds of hours on Scientology indoctrination and of course have experienced the meter.
The thing about Scientology is it is what critical thinking expert Richard Paul described as a sophistic subject.
A sophistic subject is designed to be learned by supporters but it denigrates other subjects as invalid or inferior and doesn’t accept criticism or evaluation by outsiders.
An expert in a sophistic subject can learn six volumes of material and know them quite well, but won’t be open to reevaluation of the subject through a historical lens or against empirical science as in physics or medicine or chemistry or other relevant scientific subjects.
Scientology is not open to evaluation by sociology or psychology or anything that would use metrics of results and seek falsifiable claims to falsify or support based on relevant evidence.
So, A Scientologist does not seek outside subjects to expand or improve Scientology.
My Take on the Scientology E Meter
My take on the meter is there are some debated ideas I see as neither proven or disproven to my mind. I don’t want to rush to judgment and present unsupported claims because it fits my beliefs or bias with no good science behind it.
I certainly don’t believe it finds true incidents. Hubbard said the meter doesn’t lie. He wanted people to believe anything said in auditing must be true if they were getting auditing so they would believe Scientology miraculously found hidden past lives and that miracle proved everything else Hubbard claimed. He wanted auditors to never invalidate claims by victims, no matter how obviously impossible or untrue because uncritically accepting auditing as true is a cornerstone of the fraud.
He wanted auditors to believe that the meter properly operated could find anything. Auditors realize the incidents can’t be real because they meet a Jesus or Napoleon every other week. So Scientology tells them the memories are implants or the results of other mental conditions, but claims the meter and auditing are valid. The excuses start with the reactive mind in Dianetics and expand to implants in Scientology and even imagined incidents and the memories of others. Then by OT III and Class VIII for an auditor the BTs or body thetans are used for an excuse.
You have an ever expanding and lengthening list of excuses why the memories recovered in auditing are not valid, despite his claim the meter finds truth.
Ultimately the meter has no actual beneficial use to my knowledge.
The meter isn’t the infallible lie detector Hubbard claimed. There is an idea that the swinging needle of the floating needle can sometimes correspond to a trance state, that is unproven but Hubbard may have believed it. He may have felt it showed the victim in auditing was vulnerable to suggestions. Which obviously Hubbard sought.
He wanted the auditor to achieve the floating needle before ending the session quite often. His claimed interpretations of the other meter phenomena have been largely discredited to my personal satisfaction by examination by ex Scientologists in very lengthy dissertations.
The bottom line on the meter phenomena is it’s almost entirely been debunked, certainly as Hubbard claimed. I can’t say every single sentence he made was disproven since he said millions of things, but the core doctrine on the meter is disproven pseudoscience.
The meter does function to at least seem like a scientific instrument to fool people. It confuses both the auditor and the victim of auditing so they both have their attention divided between the meter, their own mind and the other person in the room. That division makes critical and independent thinking more difficult and relying on habit easier. It makes both people more anxious and suggestible. It makes both more likely to resort to following the authority of Hubbard for both direction on how to act and guidance on how to interpret what occurs in auditing.
They both are meant to enter trances and imagine and anticipate what Hubbard suggested in Scientology doctrine. They are meant to encourage each other to find evidence that supports Hubbard’s claims and to deny or avoid evidence against Hubbard’s claims. The auditor is happy when the victim finds incidents Hubbard predicted and unhappy when auditing doesn’t progress, this encourages the victim to find incidents.
It’s been said an object, concept or image to focus on helps a hypnotist. Some have used a waving handkerchief or mirror or candle or pool of water to be an aid to hypnosis. Similarly the meter is something to focus attention on. The degree to which it helps is debatable, but the confidence it gives the hypnotist may function well enough. It gives the hypnotist something outside their own self to focus on. It can inspire confidence which can translate to effective persuasion.
Arnie Lerma has some ideas I don’t have strong independent confirmation for or against. He has made his own case at Lermnet.com.
I think the warning the inventor of the E meter Volney Mathison made in his book Creative Image Therapy is very important. If you examine hypnosis and Creative Image Therapy it’s very obvious in my opinion that Hubbard merely stole much of Creative Image Therapy for his Scientology and plagiarized it. He repackaged things and filed off the serial numbers, meaning tried to alter them enough so it wouldn’t be completely obvious he stole them.
Below is Volney Mathison’s quote from Lermnet. com.
Don’t be tricked by any faker, whether he claims to be holy, “illuminated”, or “scientific”. There are charlatans who promise–even through the U. S. mails, so stupidly reck less are they–to heal or transform you for large sums of money–some by esoteric “teachings”, others by their mere presence or by their invoking some mysterious Power. The Power they claim to invoke is genuine–but it functions only within each of us. It was, is, and probably always will be here, unlimited.
The faker who hypnotizes you out of your money is not himself a sane, whole, and happy man–he is usually operating, puppet-like, on some deep, uncleared set of sub conscious image patterns as brutal as those of some stray killer shark.
The power to create and to re-create is within each of us. It is not to be brought in through the door or the window by the wave of any man’s hand, no matter how good or saintly a man he may in some cases actually be.
Creative Image Therapy
by Volney G Mathison
(c) 1954 by Matheson Electropsychometers International
Scanned and OCR’d by Lermanet.com
Exposing the CON
Mockingbird – I have no problem with your thesis that scn is entirely or nearly entirely based on hypnosis. On the other hand this lifetime memories which are neither imaginary nor hypnotically induced also read on the e-meter.
Saying that scn or any other cult had some benefits does not make one an apologist. Categorically denying that any cult provided any benefit to anyone does not add to an understanding of the “Prison of Belief.” Lighten up.
P.S. When I wrote “This is just conversation on a blog” above I meant it was just MY conversation not meaning to refer to your comment if that makes any difference. It was on the back of my mind as soon as I posted it. Your commentary is valuable and much more in depth than anything I might offer. :-))
Complete and utter hogwash. It’s amazing that scientologist don’t realize how absolutely insane they sound to the rest of the world.
O/T. I previously noted that the US Secretary of State, Senators and Congresspersons joined the Church of Scientology National Affairs Office (CSNAO) for the International Religious Freedom Summit. The Scientology STAND League has posted more information, including the fact that the CSNAO distributed copies of the Scientology booklet What is Freedom of Religion?
This is significant because the booklet What is Freedom of Religion? contains the proposed “Charter on Journalistic Ethics in Relation to Respect for Religion or Belief.”
The STAND League story is excerpted below.
https://exscn2.net/threads/us-secretary-of-state-senators-and-congresspersons-join-scientology-national-affairs-office-for-international-religious-freedom-summit.3629/post-100970
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The bipartisan, three-day summit, with over 1,000 registered to attend, was organized by U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom (2018-2021) Sam Brownback, and Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2012-2015), president of the Lantos Foundation and daughter of the late U.S. Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress.
With session topics ranging from the role of technology in religious persecution to survivor testimonies and genocide prevention, summit speakers included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chris Coons, Sen. James Lankford, Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Henry Cuellar, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Muslim-American actor Mahershala Ali, and the Dalai Lama.
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Many different religious freedom organizations had booths at the summit including groups advocating for the human rights of Uyghurs, the Hindu American Foundation, and the Church of Scientology National Affairs Office, whose staff offered attendees the booklet What is Freedom of Religion? which outlines the international human rights standards regarding freedom of religion or belief.
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The booklet What is Freedom of Religion? contains the Church of Scientology’s proposed “Charter on Journalistic Ethics in Relation to Respect for Religion or Belief.” I respectfully suggest that people read it in full, if they haven’t already. If adopted, the Charter would significantly limit reporting on and criticism of Scientology.
https://exscn2.net/threads/the-church-of-scientologys-proposed-charter-on-journalistic-ethics-in-relation-to-respect-for-religion-or-belief.3659/
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Charter on Journalistic Ethics in Relation to Respect for Religion or Belief
1. INTEGRITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Journalists are accountable for the social and political consequences of their actions and have a duty to maintain the highest ethical and professional standards.
Journalists shall scrupulously endeavor to report the truth; respect the right of the public to know the truth; ensure that any information they disseminate is fair and objective; promptly and prominently correct any material inaccuracies; and afford the right of reply in appropriate instances.
The media [43] is responsible for any material released through it.
2. FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND ETHICAL ACCOUNTABILITY
The public’s right to information is a fundamental right and cornerstone of a free and democratic society. Thus the media exercises an essential role in the society that requires a great sense of responsibility to the public. Freedom of speech, freedom of information and freedom of the press represent the heart of democracy. A free, independent media is critical to ensure transparency and an open and robust democratic society; it is instrumental to the development and strengthening of effective democratic systems.
A responsible media recognizes the vital necessity of the free flow of information and the impact it has on shaping public perception. It is mindful of its ethical responsibility to the public and its need to respect and defend human rights.
A responsible media has the right and the duty to report and to comment on all matters of public interest with respect to the rights and freedoms of individuals and institutions. It advances understanding and participation in the democratic process for all.
A responsible media freely expresses personal or group opinions within the limits of the pluralistic contest of ideas. It accepts that freedom of expression may be subject to restrictions and limitations when other fundamental rights are endangered. It takes special care to not violate other fundamental human rights and takes individuals’ rights to privacy, honor and dignity into account while fostering the free flow of information.
A responsible media respects prevailing ethical and moral standards and avoids pandering to the lurid or profane.
A responsible media fosters the public’s right to know and right to freedom of expression. It aims at promoting the free flow of information and transparency, and adheres to the principles promoting and upholding respect for human dignity and religious beliefs as reflected in the United Nations Resolution Combating Defamation of Religions.
A responsible media strives for peace, democracy, social progress and respect for human rights. It recognizes, respects and defends diversity of opinion. It opposes discrimination based on any grounds.
A responsible media makes earnest efforts to reduce ignorance, promote greater understanding, alleviate cultural and religious insensitivity among peoples, and facilitate dialogue among nations.
A responsible media ensures that the display and dissemination of images complies with the same requirements and the highest ethical standards as for written or oral presentations.
3. RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION AND ETHICAL ACCOUNTABILITY
A responsible media serves as a watchdog to safeguard fundamental rights. It does not, therefore, fuel or engender discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, cultural traditions or similar grounds. It recognizes and respects diversity and minority rights.
A responsible media avoids discriminatory or denigrating references to religious beliefs and spiritual values.
A responsible media does not refer to religions or religious institutions in a prejudicial, biased or pejorative context; when religious references are essential to the reported matter or facilitate understanding, they are made accurately, fairly, impartially and respectfully.
A responsible media refrains from reinterpreting, misinterpreting, analyzing, assessing or examining religious beliefs or the expression of these beliefs. Instead, it maintains a strict duty of neutrality and objectivity—accepting what the religion puts forward as its true beliefs without disapproval, contempt, condescension, bias or ridicule.
A responsible media does not intrude on sacred matters relating to creed, religious rites and religious institutions. It refrains from encouraging or instigating discrimination, derision, scorn or hatred based on religion or belief.
A responsible media provides a fair and prompt opportunity for reply to inaccuracies and stereotypes regarding religious organizations or affected members when reasonably called for.
A responsible media avoids religious stereotyping and does not associate any religion or belief with human rights violations or terrorism.
A responsible media balances fundamental human rights, including the right to be free from discrimination based on religion or belief, with the right to freedom of expression and the public’s right to know. It shows special sensitivity when dealing with religious issues to avoid any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on religion or belief that has as its purpose the nullification or impairment of human rights.
4. INCITEMENT AND ETHICAL ACCOUNTABILITY
A responsible media never promotes religious hatred. It scrupulously avoids engendering hostility toward religions and their members likely to lead to imminent violence or systematic deprivation of human rights.
A responsible media refrains from provoking aggression, hatred, discrimination and any form of violence directed at individuals and organizations because of their religious beliefs and association. It remains alert to the grave danger associated with condoning or encouraging violence, discrimination, hatred and intolerance on religious grounds.
A responsible media eschews inciting foreseeable violence, inflaming hatred, stigmatizing religions and their followers, and engendering inequality on grounds of religion or belief. It is sensitive to avoid affronting religious beliefs and contributing to conflicts between religions and their members due to religious differences.
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