It’s SaTerraDay — this one is going to provoke some reactions…
L. Ron Hubbard’s Obsession with Instant Reads
A read—very basically the movement of an e-meter needle from left to right—is what auditors use to determine whether an item in their PC’s mind is “charged” and should be addressed.
LRH wrote in HCOB 5 Aug 78, that “the correct definition of instant read is that reaction of the needle which occurs at the precise end of any major thought voiced by the auditor. All definitions which state it is fractions of seconds after the question is asked, are cancelled. Thus an instant read which occurs when the auditor assesses an item or calls a question is valid and would be taken up and latent reads, which occur fractions of seconds after the major thought, are ignored. Additionally when looking for reads while clearing commands or when the preclear is originating items, the auditor must note only those reads which occur at the exact moment the pc ends his statement of the item or command.”
He defined major thought as “the complete thought being expressed in words by the auditor. Reads which occur prior to the completion of the major thought are prior reads. Reads which occur later than its completion are latent reads.” Prior and latent reads are not taken up.
When Exactly?
How does an auditor know what the precise end of the major thought is? And when it occurs? Does he have some special insight into the mind of his pc? And why at the precise end voiced by the auditor? Because LRH said so? Why not half way through the question at the “exact” time the answer to the question pops into the mind of the pc? Why not a half second after the “major thought” has been voiced? Didn’t LRH write that all pcs have different comm lags? Might not their answers occur at different times?
LRH liked to think we were all exactly the same. Or should I have said, he liked to think we were all exactly like him?
What is the “exact end” of a major thought? At the last letter of the last word of an arbitrary question? How can an auditor know exactly when his pc has received, wrestled with, and understood a major thought?
Terra Math
And what about the time factor? We’re not machines. Shouldn’t fractions of seconds be figured into the equation? In other words, the “exact end” voiced by the auditor might be plus or minus .25 seconds. Which means if the needle fell .30 seconds after the auditor’s last sound, the read—as well as the PC’s thought—would be invalid. Likewise, if the needle fell .369 seconds before the end of the question—or expression of the major thought—the auditor would move on to the next item on his list. I realize such fragments of time are impossible for homo saps to determine…but LRH did write “precise.”
Personal Experience
Who’s to say what constitutes a “major thought?” In a pc’s minds, such a thought could occur anywhere. My major thoughts did. I used to think of perfectly valid answers to questions from lists all the time. Well over ninety percent of the ones that popped into my head, though, were never taken up by the auditor because apparently they didn’t occur at “the precise end” of the “major thought voiced by” the stoic guy sitting across from me.
Terra Cognita: The Science Guy
As far as I know, LRH never explained why only those items that read “instantly” at the precise end of a “major thought” should be addressed. Did I miss one of his bulletins in which he explained the science behind this “tech?” If I did, I’m sure someone reading this will set me straight.
There is no science behind this theory of “instant read.” There is no proof. And there isn’t a person who’s ever gone in session in which “major thoughts” haven’t occurred outside the arbitrary boundaries of what his or her auditor considered “the precise end of a major thought.” Or what LRH considered was a “major thought.” Trying to define what constituted this type of thought—and when it occurred—has perhaps led to more failed auditing sessions than anything else. Is anything more evaluative in session than telling a PC which of his thoughts are significant and which aren’t?
Even if we accepted that e-meter reads indicated areas of emotional charge in people, trying to establish exactly when and where these occur in the mind of a PC is just plain wrong. Trying to separate real reads from false reads due to the movement of a needle on a machine is not only completely arbitrary and wrong, it’s harmful.
Hold Still!
It’s also never been scientifically proven that an e-meter reads on thought. Can it be proven that an e-meter reads on body motion? You bet.
The human body is always in motion. Always. Until we die, different parts are moving, doing whatever millions of years of evolution have programed them to do. Hearts beat and blood flows through veins and arteries. Lungs expand and contract twenty-four/seven. Within the alimentary system, food and drink is broken down and digested. Bladders expand. Large intestines fill. Livers and kidneys filter. Muscles twitch involuntarily. Synapses fire. Billions of cells divide, preforming those tasks for which they’ve been designed. Eyes move back and forth. Bodies grow. Every organ is in motion. Always. All the time. Until we die. It is impossible for us to be still.
The chemistry of the body changes, too. One minute our saliva is more saline than the next. One minute a piece of litmus paper is darker than the minute before.
Assuming the human body can hold a pair of cans without moving is asinine. It can’t be done. The fall of an e-meter needle can be attributed to any number of the thousands of moving parts within the body.
The Repair Shop
Since the e-meter rarely performed as LRH said it was supposed to, as usual, he was forced to invent solutions to solve the problem. He created “tech” to handle “false reads,” “no reads,” “missed reads,” “other’s reads.” And if that didn’t work, he “discovered” that auditing wasn’t working because PCs were sitting on “ARC breaks,” “present time problems,” or “overts and withholds.” Or the auditor’s TRs were “out.” LRH always had a reason for why auditing didn’t work. The percentage of sessions that happen without an auditor having to apply some sort of remedial action must be astronomically low.
As evidenced by how he ended up, LRH couldn’t even apply the tech on himself. And yet…disciples of his, swear the tech “works.”
False reads are a hoax dreamed up by LRH to explain phenomena that didn’t fit within the parameters of what he deemed “workable tech.” There is no such thing as a false read. Why? Because the e-meter doesn’t read on thought. It reads on body motion.
Since people’s minds are always churning and their bodies are always moving, the two actions are inextricably linked. And thus, it becomes easy to believe that an e-meter is reading on thought when in fact, it’s reading on body motion—because the two actions—thought and body motion—are always happening at the same time. Thoughts and emotion certainly influence the body, but it is the body that makes an e-meter tick.
Ruds
Before the official start of most auditing sessions, an auditor will ask his pc if he has any ARC breaks, present time problems, or overts and withholds. These are called rudiments, and according to LRH, must be addressed and “cleaned” before a pc can be “in session.” Just like in the regular session, the auditor only takes up those rudiments that “read” on the e-meter. That’s where the similarity between “instant reads” and “instant rudiment reads” ends.
LRH said “instant rudiment reads” were different: “the instant read can occur anywhere within the last word of the question or when the thought major has been anticipated by the preclear, and must be taken up by the auditor. This is not a prior read. Preclears poorly in session, being handled by auditors with indifferent TR-1, anticipate the instant read reactively as they are under their own control. Such a read occurs in the body of the last meaningful word in the question. It never occurs latent.” Tech Dictionary.
This contradicts what he wrote about the “instant read,” which must occur at the “precise end of any major thought.” Apparently, pcs are allowed to “anticipate” thoughts in rudiments, but not later in session. I’m sure diehard followers of the tech can tell me why the difference, but as far as I’m concerned, “thoughts” are “thoughts” and “charged items” are “charged items” and differentiating an “overt” that came up in rudiments from one that came up in session is ridiculous.
Then again, as you may have gathered, I’m not overly fond of the whole “meter reading on thought” theory.
Last Words
Instant reads are meaningless. As far as I’m concerned, a person can talk to his therapist about whatever he wants to.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
This is a story about altering the tech about using the meter.
I read all of these comments and looking at quotes from El Ron on the meter and reads I have a little story to tell you. The reason I’m telling the story is because when I finally had the strength to stand up for what I needed, from auditing, what I needed was theoretically out tech. (Not per El Ron policy or auditing bulletins.
But it really worked and since it worked they allowed it. I don’t know how many other people got dispensation to alter the tech when used on them for effectiveness. I’m not complaining cuz this was some of the best auditing I ever had.
I went to Flag and I basically told them that I noticed when I was in Solo and I did any kind of method 5 assessment (questions all the way through with no stopping where the auditor just notes reads and kind of ignors the PC). I got no reads just a rising needle (not good) And a solid feeling.
I told them that what I needed was to be able to say what came into my mind. That if I did not say what came into my mind when I thought it, I would get a dirty needle. (Dirty needles are often an indicator of overts and withholds but also withheld communication). I had noticed this while I was solo auditing. And I had noticed on a particularly bad visit to Flag where much frustration happened and not much forward progress on the bridge, that my auditor looked quite frustrated when assessing me on any repair list.
Specifically I had to have a method 5 repair list assessed on me and my auditor looked very uncomfortable. And there were no reads gotten from it, but my session rudiments were in the toilet and I felt pushed out of present time by the experience of having this assessment where I could not say anything.
I told my new auditor who I felt more comfortable with that if she would just let me tell her when something came into my mind that I felt, I would be able to stay in present time enough to receive the assessment. But that if we went past something I had a thought on without saying it, there would be no more reads gotten on that assessment.
I pretty much told her I can guarantee you you’ll get a dirty needle, then a stuck needle (unresponsive needle) or a rising needle, (Not good it indicates mass moving in). And since I was so specific with my explanation of the technical response that my auditor would get somehow I got approval for this.
From that time on when I would get any assessment from her if I thought of something I just blurted it out. Those ended up being just the best sessions ever. Because clearly whatever it was that I blurted out that I was interested in read on the meter like gangbusters compared to the dead corpse read we were getting when I had to just shut up.
All during the auditing I received from this auditor where I was allowed to just blurt stuff out, I had easy and comfortable sessions that felt productive.
That’s not to say that I ever want to get auditing again. As I look back on my history of auditing what really sticks in my mind are the times I got put on straps which burned my skin because I was getting false ta.(ta = tone arm motion which you want to get) ( false ta is when the needle is reading outside of the ideal range and it is caused by many things.
Arm straps are used for people that can’t hold cans. This solution was used on me at Flag on an earlier trip. No doubt they didn’t like my corpse like lack of read on assessments. These gave me multiple burn areas that we’re kind of pink, hardened skin which took many weeks after my return from flag to heal.)
What else sticks out in my mind is how I prayed to just get to the main auditing and not have assessment lists because they would inevitably take a ton of time and leave me worse than before.
I’m telling you this story because of all this talk of instant reads And arguing about where on the command something is supposed to read on the meter. It reminded me of my best trip to Flag. Looking back on this instance makes me think wow ElRon would have had a cow if he would have seen what they did. For me it was way better than his way. And yet it was fantastic for me.
Not a Scientologist (Never was). I am a survivor of a rinky dink cult. I didn’t fully understand the article – but let’s face it …
I lurk for the responses.
Be it known: rinky dink or billion dollar baby, the absurdity of humanity is equal on all counts.
Why do some insist that Terra or anyone else be an “expert” or “trained” to offer personal reflections on his/her experiences in $citol? This is a blog which includes many perspectives. Citing bogus policies and procedures designed by a non-scientist and his deluded minions, they speak as if there is a “correct” way to do things. There is no correct way to do what was not scientifically sound in the first place. They just can’t get past the fact that ElCon made shit up as he went along. Why not start their own blogs where they can wallow in phony “science” and cite policies and procedures until they get carpal tunnel syndrome? There they can be exalted experts keeping the tek pure, or whatever they think they are doing.
For me, if I am discussing the teck of SCN I discuss what the actual references say. It’s all BS from start to finish, mind controlling and life ruining.
When we misquote we undermine our efforts. The misquotes or not known references give the bubble dwellers a, “SEE!! They don’t even know what they’re talking about! They have MU’s!!”
So often Mike give quotes and uses those quotes to hang and NAIL Hubbard, both on this blog and on the show. I just CHEER when I hear this.
For never ins, we don’t need to be precise and accurate, it all sounds so nuts that no one would ever fall for it.
BUT if we wrongly quote or mix up what was said, I worry we could lose out on helping someone come to their senses. I was in for almost 40 years and I find that I can exactly refute anything that is slightly off on the blogs and comments, I can explain practically anything – I don’t BELIEVE what comes to mind, and how I could refute it, I just know how it would be done. It’s scary how far in this shit goes.
There is no workable teck in scn and no need to keep it pure, but anyone who was in was brainwashed into believing that only the exact words of hubbard matter. If you’re getting it wrong or explaining how you fooled the auditor on purpose you give fuel to their brainwashed ideas. That’s fine, but it won’t help get them out.
These Saturday topics are one of the few places remaining where the pros and cons of some aspect of the subject, not the cherch, can be debated. Not everyone agrees that there was nothing of value within the entirety of the subject. The broader question on this topic might be does the e-meter or some form of electronic device have any use in counselling rather than splitting hairs on instant reads. Some comments below reflect this.
Terra, I’m glad you post articles here, but sometimes I wonder if you discuss and “vet” your articles before posting them, because sometimes you miss such big things it’s as if you’re not trained in that which you speak of.
Maybe that’s ok, and maybe your articles are just your thoughts and not meant to be factual and accurate essays on aspects of the cult of scientology. I tend to wish they were “qualled” before posting.
The reason why I say this, is because the following quote from above is fully and explicitly answered by hubbard and covered in the e-meter course/drills. Anyone who does auditor training or OT levels reads, re-reads, drills, and word clears the information to a degree unheard of in the general course of life. The answer to this paragraph is drilled in to a fully mind controlled level.
“As far as I know, LRH never explained why only those items that read “instantly” at the precise end of a “major thought” should be addressed. Did I miss one of his bulletins in which he explained the science behind this “tech?” If I did, I’m sure someone reading this will set me straight.”
I generally stay away from foolproof comments but this time he does point the way to the teck that addresses this.
To me, when you make rookie errors like this, it undermines your credibility and makes me less interested in what you have to say, and I worry you give the wrong information to those who are never-ins or those who never made progress on the bridge but who would benefit from hearing truth pointed out.
There are very well trained people on the boards who have done more training than you or me and I’d bet they’d give your thoughts a once-over before posting. If we’re going to discuss the bullshit, let’s discuss it as it actually is and is taught.
You have valuable articles. I’m rooting for you.
Not sure I follow what you say is the specific answer??
Good to know it wasn’t just me on that Mike. If you missed it, everyone else did too.
I no longer have the references (see prior mentions of my big bonfire) and though I know that if I give verbal tek I’m not an SP, but just to be clear… I’m not far along enough to not FEEL a bazillion bad feelings while giving the following verbal teck from memory and training… (seriously)
Hubbard said that the mind is a preconscious meter, it reads on the reactive mind during auditing questions. Reads which occur prior to the precise end are prior reads and reads which occur later than the precise end are latent reads. The auditor is only interested in reactive reads and not analytical reads. It’s not the PCs thoughts and ideas, it’s the charge in the reactive mind that we are going for. We want to lift charge, not just chatter about the pc’s known thoughts and ideas. Known thoughts and ideas are not aberrative.
If the PC knew what was wrong with him it wouldn’t be wrong with him. It’s what he doesn’t know that is the cause.
The PC may try to fool the meter, and these reads will be prior or latent. The pc may have ideas or thoughts about a question, but these are not reactive. The reactive and charged items are things in the reactive mind which are unknown to the PC, hence, they can effect him against his will and below his knowingness.
The words in the auditing question may be charged and one may get reads prior to the end, as the pc thinks and anticipates, but it’s the major thought that we want the read on. We also have to keep in mind that when we get a read, we don’t actually know what the meter read on, we only know that it read. This is where we have the door open to “false reads”. (maybe there was an MU, the PC was out of session or distracted or something)
Rudiments are not auditing. They set the PC up to be audited. Flying ruds is then different and we do take up reads which occur within the body of the last word.
Somewhere, all this shit is written.
Good. Sorry I don’t have the teck vols, lecture transcripts, meter course or Solo course pack to exactly quote from. Instead of grabbing paper to write myself up, I’m going to go assuage my guilt with a glass of wine.
Thanks for trying to answer at least.
The “reference” is simply that Hubbard says it’s the mind reading on the meter and it must be instant. No explanation beyond that.
Even with that, I am still not sure I get how there can be a distinction between a read on something and a read on a rudiment.
And how someone with no reactive mind isolates any charge at all? I know about BT’s and Clusters. But you also check if the read is “yours” so how does that work? Now it’s not reactive? It’s the thetan directly responding? But then it is NOT below his consciousness?
Syllogistic logic using Hubbard’s explanation for instant reads would DEMAND that there be no instant reads, being below the consciousness (that belong to the pre-OT) after the State of Clear is achieved.
This type of careful examination is the Achilles heal of all pseudo-science. Internal constancy is all but impossible to maintain and is thus substituted for by creating edicts as witnessed in KSW.
thank you Mike, thank you for pointing up one of those contrary facts that I had squelched – I forgot about the “big glaring outpoint” of what the meter reads on after clear and aside from the “OT case charge”. How DOES It read on the OT himself??
My questions to the Sup on this stuff was always met with, “what does your material state?”
The prison of belief of scn is like wall we build around ourselves, with every bit we read, use, and agree with we make a brick for the wall. When we can’t “get it” or agree we use all the tools (word clearing, FDSing, ethics) until we do agree and understand, building another brick.
You point up one of the weak points, one of the points that can be used to break through to someone perhaps. I know just reading it, for me, helps and is a relief, “YAHHH! What about THAT? I forgot about THATTT!”
….
and the rudiment read thing has it’s weak point. Even when I was typing the “ruds are not auditing” I could feel the hairy scratchings of past ideas that this was not a full answer. There is an important difference between what is actually in writing from Hubbard and our own explanations to ourselves for the things that didn’t quite line up.
Thanks.
Man, it’s almost as if Hubbard was like…totally full of shit.
Mike, the specific answer is contained in the HCOB I quoted, amongst many others.
Which question and which HCOB (and which quote from that HCOB)?
as far as I know we were discussing this paragraph:
““As far as I know, LRH never explained why only those items that read “instantly” at the precise end of a “major thought” should be addressed. Did I miss one of his bulletins in which he explained the science behind this “tech?” If I did, I’m sure someone reading this will set me straight.”
I thought so. But I did not see the reference TC asked for….
Mike, you are correct. No such reference was given. I know of no such reference from LRH that covers the science behind his decision on that one… (not even the class VIII tapes.)
maybe I don’t get what we’re actually talking about…?
because….. what about the whole bit about the words in the question being charged, – he gave some example using a sentence with cats, something along the lines of, “have you blown up a planet using a big black hairy cat?” and illustrating how each word could have charge but the mind is an exact mechanism and if the major thought is charged it will read at the exact end.
So you could get instant reads on each word, but it’s the major thought read that we are using because the charge we are trying to lift is the charge of that particular question, not merely charge connected to individual words.
The explanation of “why” this is was contained in a bit about the mind being an exact and precise thing without time and operating like a machine…
…..
thanks for engaging with me and letting me pick this stuff apart. It helps.
Thanks for this secretfornow: “The explanation of “why” this is was contained in a bit about the mind being an exact and precise thing without time and operating like a machine”
Typical Hubbard. Gibberish that has no actual science about it. It would be like explaining a fission power plant (scientifically) as “a thing that makes power because it is very powerful and small and operates in a clockwork like fashion.
Happy to help a fellow human pulling themselves from the fecal muck that is Habbard’s “tech”.
secret. One other MAJOR thing to ponder. The Reactive mind doesn’t operate at the levels above identities. E.g., a person being tortured is privy to the two torturers talking about eating cats while receiving the engram. It is simply a recording with no context, thought, conclusions, understanding, et al.
Therefore, the reactive mind has ZERO concept of what a “completed thought” is. It is simply A=A on the words. Each having equal weight. Whether one or a thousand in the incident. It doesn’t listen to the auditor, analyzing the sentence structure looking for a completed thought to read on.
…well I can quote the crap he wrote and explain how it was done and used, and what was right and wrong according to the teck, according to whatever I knew, used, read, studied, and so on….
but for me it’s all nonsense now – it doesn’t feel like I ponder about the teck or would want to – I’m just testifying as to what it was like.
but you have a cool concept. If I had allowed myself to look for outpoints instead of always looking to agree…
well… who knows what would have happened!
“If I had allowed myself to look for outpoints instead of always looking to agree…
well… who knows what would have happened!”
secret, What you just described is basically how scientific study is done when one is presented with a theory. Hubbtard did NOT want scientologists who were trained in science. For all to obvious reasons.
Have a great Christmas!
In the mid 1970’s I completed OT III. My criteria for the level was whether or not I got an instant read on the Xenu story. I got a big read.. But the fool that I was at the time, did not figure that I had read the bulletin first. This created an image in the mind which, of course, produced an instant read. Hubbard’s problem that I did not see at the time was his three fold error with fiction. He copied Blavatsky and turned that into his own fiction. He wrote fictional stories. He made us mock up fiction in our own minds. Those in Scientology should know that the fiction was rooted in his idea that he was Lucifer.
Now I don’t recall that as being part of the OTIII materials, this or rather your “my criteria for the level was whether I got an instant read on the Xenu story”! Surely you weren’t adding something in to the materials were you George? And surely the instant read should have been on each individual BT as you ran off their III incidents, not your testing of your belief or rather disbelief. Surely? And didn’t you read that disbelief was also part of the story? Maybe not eh? And (if all this is true – for you anyway), why didn’t you tell the Examiner this at the time when you attested? Or the AO D of P as you were progressing on the level?
It seems the only mocked-up fiction was what you added in to the OTIII materials to throw a spanner into your works before you had even started. I will omit commenting on the Lucifer nonsense for sake of brevity.
George didn’t read Blavatsky while he was in scientology, it was only after his involvement that he read her and connected dots, from probable sources of Hubbards thinking, foolery.
What about you?
Have you read Blavatsky?
This has about as much relevance as saying “have you read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?” My comment was about George’s additional dub-in to the III materials. Am I supposed to be suitably cowed because I haven’t read Blavatsky, although I remember vaguely looking at her stuff decades ago and drawing the conclusion she was a complete raving loon!
Quite correct george. This is why Hubtard had people study the fairy tale first. Unless they did that they would NEVER “figure it out” as there is no there there.
I recognized the scam the moment I read how the level was done.
Off-topic: Leah Remini is going to make another series daeling with cults other than Scientology:
https://www.msn.com/en-au/entertainment/tv/leah-remini-returning-to-aande-to-investigate-other-‘cult-like-religions’/ar-BBGOORW?ocid=st
Question for Rinder: Will you be in this series as well?
This is not Aftermath and this is not an official announcement. If there is a Season 3 of Aftermath I will be in it. I will not be with Leah on other shows she does whatever they may be. But I would recommend waiting til there IS an official announcement before drawing conclusions.
Mike. What would you need to see before you are at peace and no longer feel the need to speak out against scientology?
End the abuses.
?
“What would you need to see before you are at peace…” I hope/ trust you are not making any assumptions? Be nice. It’s Christmas.
I love hearing from exes how easy it was to lie with the cans in hand. Get over it, holdouts. It “works” as much as you want it too. That’s it.
I find it interesting that Tony Ortega and other e-meter “experts” claim the reactions on the e-meter come from sweat glands in your hands or body reactions.
Please explain to me how a floating needle, slow rise, rock slam, tick, falling needle, small fall, long fall blowdown, persistent FN, etc. has anything to do with sweat?
Body reactions are covered in the e-meter drills.
Are you clear or OT?
Can’t you read – he’s “Natural OT”! But I see no one attempting to answer his very straightforward question as of course, it can’t be answered, unless by more gibberish such as dermal layers or sweat glands producing reads in fractions of a second.
Can you answer what you base your opinion on that the physical body cannot react in fractions of a second to some stimuli?
I looked up reaction time and it says:
Reaction time (RT) is the time that elapses between a person being presented with a stimulus and the person initiating a motor response to the stimulus. It is usually on the order of 200 ms. The processes that occur during this brief time enable the brain to perceive the surrounding environment, identify an object of interest, decide an action in response to the object, and issue a motor command to execute the action.
This is 0.2 seconds.
That is a fraction of a second?
I am curious what I am missing here…
You provide the answer to your question in the quote above with “the person initiating the response…” The point was that it is not an inanimate piece of mest – i.e. the “sub-dermal layers of skin” or the “sweat glands”, but the person that makes the response and as if these (skin and glands) are somehow devoid from the person’s thinking (albeit reactive) and random, which is what some people on here are implying or stating directly . The skin or the sweat glands may or may not be relay points for that (reactive) decision from “the person”. But the meter reads on the thought mechanism translating itself into the mest of the body. The simple proof is just do a pinch test – why does it read on the 2nd part of the test? Or do skin and glands “think” and understand language?
You’re so clever.
Yes, I know, thanks.
Well, there’s not much arguing with that comment, is there guys and gals?
Natural OT. It is QUITE simple. IF you understand the PHYSICS of electricity & then look at solo can set up. IF you are bereft of this basic grammar school edu you won’t be able to understand the physics behind it so any further explanation would be like teaching a worm about algebra.
What “physics” is this then Wyn? Do explain, we are all ears!
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits There ya go Foolproof.
I didn’t think that you were really that stupid. But I was wrong.
Well we all knew that Wyn, so what great insight are you offering here? I’ll say it again: “But I see no one attempting to answer his very straightforward question as of course, it can’t be answered, unless by more gibberish such as dermal layers or sweat glands producing reads in fractions of a second.” No deflection please. Try and stay on theme.
You assert dermal layers and sweat glands are “gibberish” and “drivel” — why? They DO exist. That is better than the theory you support which is based on “Ron says so.” What makes you so certain your view of this is not gibberish? Just that it’s supported by the assertions of Hubbard?
You knew what Fool? You know next to NOTHING of physics nor electronics. The link explained exactly what a Wheatstone bridge (emeter) is capable of measuring. It measures NOTHING else.
Question answered. (for those with IQs >40)
Scientology is a strange thing. Amongst all the bullshit is some workable, good stuff. I’ve done date and locate drills on the E-meter that worked out pretty well. I was able to locate someones birthday to the exact day, first time around. Narrowed it down, got the exact month and day. The E-meter should not be totally dismissed. It has some validity.
of course you have achieved the state of clear, right?
What did you have for breakfast six hundred and sixteen hours ago?
Or what where you doing six hundred and sixteen hours ago?
Date locate that for me.
The many layers of “sub-dermal mechanisms” knew when it was the person’s birthday and in a fraction of a second, transmitted this through the glandular sweat and rounded it off with singing “Happy birthday to you” via the E-Meter mechanism! Really! Honest injun! You couldn’t make it up!
I’d just like to make a quick note on a related point which sometimes comes up, that the galvanic skin response (GSR) that the e-meter reads, is a complex phenomenon involving more than just sweat, including several sub-dermal mechanisms that could cause instant reads.
If there were any actual science in Scientology, this phenomenon would have been properly investigated and be fully understood, including by the independents, rather than remaining in the realm of speculative pseudo-science. Mainstream science has no interest in it, because there is no evidence – and again, no studies, such as Scientology with its vast resources could have easily produced – that simplistic machines like the e-meter, including the older and other variants that have been tried, are accurate or useful for anything. There are good reasons that more complex multi-sensor devices have been adapted such as for the few government agencies allowed to use them, and also that our legal system doesn’t recognize the results of even more sophisticated devices as sufficiently accurate to be consequential.
Yes I am sure it is very complex with its (several layers now!) of “sub-dermal mechanisms”, Peacemaker, but those that understand the meter will just carry on using it for its proper purpose without worrying about their skin grafts or warts or instantaneous sweating occurring in a fraction of a second in response to an auditing question. And wasn’t 1 layer of “sub-dermal mechanism” good enough for you? Try reading the “Understanding the E-Meter” book where it is all explained even with little pictures. It’s all really quite straightforward and then you won’t need to keep adding more layers of “sub-dermal mechanism” and non-existent rapid-response fraction of a second sweat glands to try and get folk to believe that you know what you are talking about!
Hey, Foolproof, funny you should mention the book “Understanding the E-Meter”. You know it is long gone since GAT 1, right? Dave hauled me up into his office and asked me where it came from, I had to tell him it was “compiled” by Norman F Starkey. On Hubbard’s orders, because some were having trouble understanding the e-meter. Imagine that. Hubbard also wrote a film script about it.
Of course most of the book is just cribbed from Hubbard books, lectures, notes etc. but the little explanation about the TA knob with the cute pictures is from yours truly.
So Dave trash-canned it, along with classics like “Marriage Hats” and “E-Meter Essentials” (written by Mary Sue). Too bad, the classic picture of the dead person on the e-meter is in E-Meter Essentials. Does it really read 2.0 on a dead female and 3.0 on a dead male? Has anybody raided a morgue to check it out?
Well, ok Bruce. No I didn’t know that as I have been long gone over the hills and far away. But what do you want me to say here? I am also no friend of his lordship COB.
Foolproof — you confuse me. You refer people to the book Understanding the E-Meter and that its all straightforward and answered in there, Bruce replies and tells you that was canceled as it was written by Starkey (and him…) and you say “What do you want me to say here”?
How about “Oh, my apologies, I was incorrect, I did not know that.”
Instead you assert your rightness again that you are no friend of Miscavige. Do you mean he SHOULD NOT have canceled the book written by Starkey? And you relay on Captain Morgan as a source of truth about the E-Meter?
No no, that is not what I meant. I found the book to be quite excellent! But I don’t see why I should apologize to anyone, I am not speaking on behalf of anyone, let alone Miscavige or the Church. If the book’s been cancelled by Miscavige well that doesn’t negate the book’s validity – and there are probably 1000s of copies laying about. And yes, he should not have cancelled the book. “Captain Morgan”? Do you mean Miscavige? “Truth about the e-meter” from Miscavige – no, not what I meant.
Captain Morgan is my nickname for Captain Norman Starkey who got drunk a PD hit n Brooke Shields when he was the minister at Tom Cruise’s wedding. He is certainly my opinion leader and an expert on all things electrical measurement wise.
Did Norman simply not extrapolate Hubbard’s materials? And Bruce added a few diagrams, so what is your point? Probably anyone could do the book with enough research and time. I found the book to be excellent, regardless of Norman’s shortcomings in your view.
The problem is exactly as you say: Probably anyone could do the book with enough research and time.
There was NO research.
Ask Norman Starkey anything about electronics and he will look at you with a blank stare and cough…
You don’t need research. You just need to tack L. Ron Hubbard’s name on it and scientologists accept it as gospel truth.
Just look at the “Cause Resurgence Program” — running in a circle “aligns your flows” and “puts you at cause”. It’s “whole track research”. There are also people who swear by the power of snake handlers too.
…welp. I can still be surprised by yet more lies. I assumed the Understanding the E-Meter book was Hubbard. All SCN was supposed to be Hubbard, we had supposedly banished all BPL/BTB and other Non LRH things long since…. or so we were lead to believe, over and over again.
Lied to about something as basic as a book not even being written by LRH?
and…how did I not notice that it too had disappeared with the big trash dump during the release of GAT II? I know the book was part of GAT I, I passed the terminator drill several times!
Compilations Unit authored hundreds of HCOBs based on Hubbard’s HCOBs. Most correction lists were done by Compilations Unit. Originally written by Hubbard and expanded in later times usually. There is a Dan Koon article on this somewhere on Steve Hall’s site. Books were written or put together by others, as Bruce states above. Do you think Hubbard had the time to produce every book on Scientology there has ever been? Nobody was worried about it, provided the data was hunky dory (sometimes it wasn’t but mostly it was ok), so why should you have been? The data in the book was from Hubbard, just compiled from others. What Miscavige and/or Book Store Officers stated is another matter, but any in-the-know Scientologist realizes it was impossible otherwise. And Compilations Unit usually did a fine job as well.
It’s sort of amusing. People are all over the parking lot on this. Some insist that nothing after 1982 or 1979 or some other year is valid AT ALL. “It’s not real Hubbard.”
Some insist that nothing after 1986 is valid.
Some insist that nothing written or compiled by others is valid.
Some are happy with anything and everything if it suits their purpose. From “Mayo NOTs” to Child Dianetics to KTL/LOC to Bill Robertson OT Levels.
There are thousands of lectures, books, HCOB’s, HCOPL’s and other things authored by Hubbard. He didnt lack the capacity to offer his specific expertise on everything from the reactive mind to window washing and the theory of OT III to how computers work. I think he could have done anything if he had wanted to. Because he did.
Is what I stated above incorrect then? It’s not is it? I was talking of 2 “sources” – the prime one of Hubbard and the ancillary one of Compilations Unit, which usually produced ancillary stuff (but not fundamental stuff) very close to what Hubbard would have done and sometimes monitored by him, sometimes not. I don’t see why you have to embellish the story and start adding in other’s renditions to make out there was some sort of glaring outpoint here with what I said when what I stated was quite straightforward and quite non-controversial?
what I stated was quite straightforward and quite non-controversial?
Very little you say is either.
🙂
While on the OEC I was inspired by the car washing and window washing HCO PLs… I wrote a tongue in-cheek checksheet just for shits and giggles. It included a PL on “Keys” and a bunch of other inane trivial PLs from the back of Vol 7. I put in drills, clays and essays .. the whole works.
I didn’t show it to many people… just a few others who had a bit of flippancy left inside.
Hubbards stick was to add significance before anybody else does, while also claiming to remove significance.
LOL
Ross and Carrie figured it out. It’s like WOW! If I can only go clear and then OT. LOL
I thought my grandchildren had just come in from the garden and were asking me what certain things mean or how things worked but then I realized I was reading another Terra article – straight from the Gleeful Students kindergarten. There was the sound of someone whistling Dixie behind my ear as well, which I found incongruous, until again I realized that no no, it was quite appropriate and a disembodied LRH had come back from Target 2 and was simply pointing out to me the silliness of this article! What with a non-existent HCOB called “Handling Reads” (after my time if it does exist) and the meter reading on glandular sweat or skin (but not on Bruce’s MisUs seemingly), we have the most wonderful mish-mash of confused ideas here and the “electrified” students all going “ooh! and “aah! and “yes, I know!”, “awful”, terrible” etc. etc. and simply confirming to others that they also had the same misunderstoods. For God’s sake just look up your MisUs and re-do your meter drills. Meanwhile I am not whistling Dixie but relaxing with the firm notion that I did not have any misunderstoods on HCOB 8 June 1961R Rev. 22 Feb. 1979 “E-METER WATCHING – ARE YOU WAITING FOR THE METER TO PLAY DIXIE?”
“Don’t wait for the E-Meter to play Dixie. It was made in the Nawth!”
To make it even easier for you, here is the key data from the above HCOB (no falling asleep or nattering now):
“Well, the auditor thinks the pc must consider things before he answers, waits for the pc to answer and waits for the question to sink in so the meter will react. This is entirely wrong. Based on a misunderstanding of assessment, the meter and the reactive mind.
1. The pc does not have to be given a chance to think before the needle
responds.
2. The pc does not have to answer or say one word to make the needle
respond.
3. All needle response is reactive.
4. There is no time in the reactive mind.
5. If the pc knew what was wrong with him it wouldn’t be wrong.
6. Only the meter knows.
7. The auditor has more control over the pc’s reactive mind than the pc
since the pc is influenced by the reactive mind responses and the auditor
is not so influenced.”
Why not take it up with your buddy Oracle over at Marty’s blog. And btw…
” here is the key data ”
( ……………………………………………………………………………………)
Oracle? I don’t know this dude. But is the key data you represent above a graphical image of your mind after reading the above-mentioned HCOB?
all this talk of emeter reads, F/N’s, success stories, trophies for IAS donors to save mankind,
why there are all these clears and OT’s around to prove it, isn’t that right?
Now now, let’s not stray over into other areas such as IAS in a silly attempt to derail things, keep focused on that instant read. And yep, the Clears and OTs are there, well, those that did their meter drills properly anyway.
If the e-meter works effectively for everyone who’s mastered its use, and Dead Elron’s pulled-from-out-his-ass pronouncements about the abilities that a correctly audited mark, er, PC gains as a result of achieving those processing levels are true, then where are all the many folks who should be able to objectively demonstrate those super-powered abilities, such as stable exteriorisation with full perception?
Indeed, where is even ONE clear or ohtee who can demonstrate any of these promised abilities? There aren’t any, it would seem. But if you still believe in $cn’s efficacy, then please bring one forward and we can get to work independently evaluating their claims, which is a required feature of every method seeking validation as being scientific.
You’ve been challenged to provide this evidence of efficacy many times before, but, just like Dead Elron, you never have…so why should anyone listen to you quote the fat fraud’s made-up gibberish as if it were the Gospel?
I thought the subject here was instant reads etc.? Given up on that one now have you (and the others) who are trying to deflect the subject away?
Firstly I am not asking you to listen to me, you wouldn’t anyway, and especially as of course the subject under discussion has been changed once you find someone posting who knows what he’s talking about (me) and you and all your naysayers can’t get away with your usual drivel (such as sub-dermal layers and sweat glands) without someone pointing out it is drivel!
Secondly as is pointed out above, this old chestnut of you and others who seem in terror of OTs, and which has been explained countless times (but you think you’ve hit a “weak point” and so desperately keep nattering about it) – there are no actual OT Levels released as yet, not even counting the watered down version of OT8. It is a simple straightforward fact. Sorry to piss on your camp fire (not really). Don’t ask me when Miscavige will release them either, it’ll only start Mike off saying “he hasn’t got them”, which is something else that has been discussed ad infinitum here.
Now, what else can you and the others try? Try IAS and donations etc. Can’t go wrong with that. I certainly won’t chip in.
Foolproof —
Can these “Clears” and “OTs” demonstrate all the abilities promised by Hubbard?
The subject here is instant reads. As I said above. But yes, I could answer your question but like any good auditor I will practice TR3. So – do birds fly?
(Amazing isn’t it when 1 argument is shot down in flames another is offered. Let’s save all this for Terra’s next article eh? I am ready to field all questions.)
I think the next time there are any protests against scientology, I think maybe the protests should state something like this, and I can imagine many people doing this:
Scientology please save us.
You have clears and you have pre-OT’s with abilities beyond normal people.
Please show them! The world needs you folks.
Please DM release OT9 and OT10, the true OT levels, Please!
We need you to help save the planet, please release those levels!
We need you “clears” with all your exact recall and you pre-OT’s with all your ability to go exterior, we need you to please help the planet, the time is now, please show your abilities, we need you!
You are absolutely correct, Foolproof but some will wallow endlessly in the black muck of oblivion. They believe that it does not work and they are right! It doesn’t work; for them. At least no one is likely to get any tech from them since they say there is no effective tech.
You are right Dead Men, but they shouldn’t go around spreading nonsense either, which is my point in all this. There are enough real problems without inventing nonsense.
There are enough real problems without inventing nonsense.
Oh my giggles the hilariousnessness is outstanding. Thanks for a laugh fool.
Yes I thought it funny as well – not sure of your viewpoint on it (for or against) as your remark is cryptic but, whatever…
Dead Men Tell No Tales, science works for all. Bullshit only appears to work, to the gullible.
Wrytur Man-
Bruce Ploetz commented below about the function of an e-meter and linked to a previous post he contributed here that details the e-meter: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/what-about-the-e-meter/
As far as the link above, that person &his website clearly read as though he’s an independent Scientologist of some flavor who’s made his own version of the e-meter. The reason I surmise he’s an “indie” is that DM & the CO$ have tons of trademarks and don’t allow members to buy or practice Scientology outside the confines of the CO$ (therefore would never support a site like this!) because it cuts into their profits.
I highly doubt most people here would recommend any part of Scientology (even the e-meter) for any type of therapy, but especially not a vulnerable population such as those in recovery.
I participated in a combo talk-therapy/biofeedback program in college that was interesting and helpful to me. But the biofeedback machine (similar in function to a polygraph exam) reads more than an e-meter (which is simply a form of skin galvometer – basically one small component of what responses that BF &PG both read).
PS – Thank you for your work in the recovery &rehab arena AND for getting the word out about how dangerous Narcanon can be!
jennyfurr, if you are referring to me, I am not an Indie. My experience with the e-meter was in the Sea Org.
I don’t recommend use of the e-meter.
There are units somewhat similar to the e-meter that are used in therapy and biofeedback, some much more sophisticated. In the hands of a trained therapist using tested techniques they can be very useful. I don’t object to that, only to the way they are used in Scientology.
No, I know you’re far from an indie! I was referring to the site that Wrytur Man (I meant to hit reply on his post, but must’ve mistakenly posted something new altogether) posted to ask about (it was a thetameter… something.com from Russia that was clearly an indie trying to sell their own meter) so I responded by referring him to your post discussing what the e-meter truly does.
Sorry if that was confusing!
My thought was that once he read your explanation from the engineering POV, he’d understand why most here wouldn’t recommend it. He’d asked as a professional in recovery/rehab if anyone felt it had therapeutic value from a brain science perspective.
In case he is reading…as an addict, NO, it has no therapeutic value…avoid at all costs please.
It’s also never been scientifically proven that an e-meter reads on thought. Can it be proven that an e-meter reads on body motion? You bet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wow, just yesterday I listened to an episode of This American Life titled Mr. Lie Detector about polygraph expert Doug Williams who figured out that the polygraph could be controlled by body movement and when he learned that, he went on a quest to communicate to the world the polygraphs are definitely not lie detectors. He made a living showing people how to beat it (this was during a time when employers were increasingly using lie detectors in their hiring process). Mr. Williams testified before some congressional committee and from there legislation was passed banning private companies from using polygraphs/lie detectors for hiring purposes (although the gov’t. still gets to).
In the episode, Mr. Williams says it can be controlled by tightening your a**hole… haha!! Links to the show and more info on Mr. Williams can be found here: http://polygraph.com/
What I found worked best, was wiggling my toes, and under the table calves’ muscles tensing and untensing.
The problem with becoming too adept with your “body motion” is that the the correction lists, some of them, have the “body motion” interrogation question to get you to fess up for using “body motion” as a means of escaping the session etc, etc.
Scientology currently uses a number of video cameras in the Examiners booth, where one gets the after-session meter check by the after-session Examiner. My recommendation would be to add a floor camera that can film the person’s feet movement, to see leg tensing/untensing of muscles and feet wriggling.
My real recommendation is “….quit fast…..” per KSW 1, and do the School of Life or the “In a Nutshell” video series on life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl39KHS07Xc&list=UUsXVk37bltHxD1rDPwtNM8Q
https://www.youtube.com/user/schooloflifechannel
You pick up a Scientology something, explain to us how stupid we have been believing in that and go to the next thing a week later. Meanwhile it is a bit boring.
But that meter read subject is of some more interest as the toilet paper usage by LRH advice you might dig out in some weeks to come as no other topic left on the how stupid we all have been episodes you write.
First of all do you know the word “know”?
In case yes, life is simple to explain. In case not, nothing can be explained. Let me explain:
You look and see something. As many people can do that it is of no question if that what we see is real or imagination. As imagination is seen only in my head. Some projection in the forehead usually. But… what I see with my eyes is also a projection in my forehead. If we would not know the word “know” we now would have a big problem to explain the difference between real physical universe and imagination.
If you apply that to your question is charged or not and what is the exact definition of major thought and instant then you would know, that the only possibility to answer those questions is to know the answer.
That is not only true for Scientology but for everything you are.
If you deduct the word “know” from the formula of life you have nothing left in the equation.
We had been only as stupid as we did listen to people telling us we could not know.
Nice little trap.
“instant rudiment reads”, I took that to be ‘instant ruminant reads’ and I was happy that us ruminants were finally getting some Lron attention.
Instant reads, floating needles, charges, all the Hubspeak is there just to confuse the marks and to confer legitimacy on the auditor and the ‘tech’. Same thing as the crystal ball on the psychics table.
As any ruminant can tell you, the End Phenomenon of our lives is meat on the table, milk in the glass and manure on the field.
$cientology only delivers the manure. And it is bad manure, it does not nurture, it only stinks.
Terra, how you can put Lron’s gobbledygook into words astounds me. Too bad I don’t understand it. It does not relate to anything in the real universe. And I know my shit.
Hubbard’s personality and nature prevented Scientology and the “Hubbard Emeter” from being legitimate.
You can’t make anything good of Scientology (nor a proper Emeter) if the guy who started it all and laid out the rules for governing it all never sees his bullshit is bogus.
The Hubbard mess is crippling the followers to make good of the mess, but that’s a losing proposition.
The only really good thing Hubbard finally said, was his statements to Sarge when Hubbard was near dying. He admitted failure to Sarge.
THAT was what the whole durned movement followership needs to absorb and get out of the nutty subject.
My own experience both as a PC and an auditor is that the e meter did work. I have had things read that I initially seriously objected to, only to find there actually was something there. I disagree with many things in scn, but not really the e meter and reads. I can’t argue the science of it, but I had a lot of faith in metering.
I was usually able to make my needle float voluntarily by controlling breathing, heart rate and specific thought patterns simultaneously. A sort of zen meditational state that would produce FNs on demand.
Everybody is different and the respiratory movement may have much to do with the needle’s behavior, but I do maintain that in my experience the thought pattern was also crucial to the FN.
This says nothing about reads (falls, long falls, etc.) other than FNs, however I can say my thoughts affected meter in some way. Though maybe not the way LRH intended.
Mike (& Terra),
I’m a never-in & avid reader/follower of your & Tony’s ex-sci blogs, the marvelous Aftermath Series, and the many books by escapees. I work in addiction treatment and have the unfortunate circumstance of the Twin Peaks compound as a neighbor in my community. I’m particularly rankled by Narconon, and do whatever I can to reduce their credibility in the professional community of addiction treatment. One area I’ve been paricularly interested in for a long time is the increasingly prominent role of brain science in addiction treatment, so since my beginnings in learning about the CoS, I’ve tried to learn more about the auditing function of the “tech” to explore if it has any possible value for the Assessment/Counseling area of addiction treatment. This device caught my eye awhile back also: https://theta-meter.com/about
As experts, the opinions, experiences, and feedback of both you and other ex-sci’s on here about this area would be deeply appreciated. In closing, I’ve come to consider you, Leah, and the countless survivors whose courageous stories have brought me to tears as Heroes of the Heart, and I thank you all again for speaking out towards sending the heartless CoS back to the nothingness from whence it came.
My advice. Don’t even think about it!
Thank you and duly noted.
Yes please. I’m an addict and have flirted with many things. Please stay away and stick with evidence based stuff…as you know they have made a lot of progress in that area and it will only get better the more they study.
My vision is five supervisors standing around a video monitor arguing over whether or not a read was instant, latent or prior. Watching the video over and over. Still arguing at the end. Ridiculous.
Want to know why I think they are so fixated on hundreds and hundreds of objective processes these days? Because you don’t need to worry about all that troublesome meter stuff.
In a bulletin called, Handling a Read, it even states that you don’t know what the meter read on and that it’s up to the auditor to prove out if it read on the item or something else.
The arrogance of many of the these people is pretty astonishing as they lord over both newbies and old timers with a robotic self-assurance based on mere opinion.
I’m going to butt in here as a veteran ex-Scn and successful auditor back then (until 1983); my credentials are easily found on the Internet. All this discussion and focus on the e-meter bugs me. The real reason auditing (or any other one-on-one talk therapy) works, when it does, is the high and unimpeded level of communication (ARC) between the auditor/counsellor and the PC/client on issues of intense interest, albeit buried, to the PC/client. The e-meter is, at best, a tool and is often entirely unnecessary to the process.
On the original Apollo Case VIII course LRH required students to audit PCs without an e-meter, relying only on “PC indicators”. He himself, in his recorded sessions, both solo and with PCs, flagrantly violated his own mandated TRs and meter reading.
I myself gave and received many sessions with significant or even life-changing results but my meter handling in these sessions would have doomed me to Miscavige’s deepest dungeon. And that’s where it went wrong: the e-meter obsession derailed the whole subject of auditing.
In his attempt to “standardise” and then automate the auditing process to make it “100% workable” LRH lost sight of its essence: ARC and, a word he significantly never used, TRUST.
Miscavige, with his various ”golden ages” is taking this further into “robotisation”. And thus any real benefit to the practice of Scn has been lost, and worse, become harmful.
My last session was in 1983 at AOLA with a spiffy Class IX (?) Flag auditor who was more interested in her manicure than my problems with over-run NOTs. She assessed a whole NOTs GF40 and declared a floating needle throughout. Had apparently never heard of an ARCX F/N. I walked out that day. So much for instant reads.
Well said, John Harry Watson.
John, “it all went wrong” when scamology didn’t deliver what Hubtard said it did. What it did deliver was on its BEST days nothing that couldn’t happen by taking a nice walk.
Also, “credentials” are irrelevant. Either you can demonstrate something or you cannot.
After reading this, I’m struck by one thing: all this “tech” was invented to keep people doubting themselves and thus to keep them stuck in Scientology.
This last week, I’ve been reading Margaret Singer’s classic 1995 book, “Cults in our Midst,” which deals mostly with the danger cults pose to society, and with how the systems of coercive persuasion are created that get people stuck and keep them stuck. Some parts of the book are dated — it was right at the beginning of the Internet wave, so it has nothing about how the Internet is changing the cult recruitment scene, and it focuses significantly on Large Group Awareness Training companies like Landmark, which don’t seem to be as much of a problem now. But a lot of it is absolutely right on.
Hubbard, probably better than anyone else, implemented all the techniques in Singer’s book. There are a lot of cults who left tons of money (and potential members) on the table by implementing only a few of the recruitment and retention techniques, but Scientology implements pretty much all of them (with the exception of officially requiring recruiters sleep with prospective members as a couple of extreme religious cults did in the 1970s).
One of the things Hubbard was best at was a hypnotic technique called the “confusion technique.” He’d sling a bunch of confusing and contradictory ideas at you and you would become confused, and thus much more open to suggestion. And all the confusion around whether the blip on the needle was a significant thought and whether it was happening soon enough after the thought is completed is a master stroke in getting both the auditor and the PC to worry about whether it’s working. They will labor all the harder to get the approval needed to let them know they’re doing it right.
I’m not confused. Nor worried. Thousands of other like me as well. But then I clarified the terms and did the drills.
I was on pro emeter course for over a year with 4 submitted videos that passed our qual cs in sea org.
Really speeds progress up the bridge.
Yes, this is later “management” messing things up I am afraid. I know of 1 person who was on TR0 for a year at his local Org, so it wasn’t only the meter course that was messed up. So you see, gainsayers, I am fair eh?
Geezers, good luck to the ‘never ins’ trying to decipher this gobbley gook.
Isn’t Goobley Gook the language they speak on Target 2?
A close dialect I believe. A lot gets lost in translation with the two headed people on tgt 2. The single headed ones got tired of saying everything twice and revolted. All is not what it seems on tgt 2. It’s no holiday camp!
I’ve always wanted to go to Target 2. The women have 3 boobs! And boy can they…
Absolute horse shit. I’ve read (in some cases, had to read) some pretty dense stuff: Freud, Jung, a smidgeon of Artistotle. Some things were just over my head: Kiergegaard, Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,” etc. But even with heavy stuff like that, I knew there was something “there” even if I couldn’t grasp it. With Hubbard, there’s nothing “there.” It makes no sense and there’s nothing to back it up. If “never ins’ like me can’t decipher it, it’s because it’s indecipherable garbage. That being the case, the scibots in the bubble don’t really understand it either. Oh, I’m they THINK they do, after slugging down sufficient kool-aid, but as the saying goes, ‘garbage in, garbage out.
This article is also a reminder that Hubbard knew absolutely nothing about Buddhism. One of the three characteristics of existence in Buddhism is anicca, a Pali word roughly translated as impermanence. Everything is existence is always changing, all the time. Any concept of an “instant read” or a “missed read” or a “rudiment” is totally ridiculous. Human existence is always in a state of flux, Hubbard never came close to grasping this – not surprising since he abhorred any type of meditative practice.
There is no doubt there is intentional control by creating confusion. Hubbard was a master at it.
If it means anything to you I eventually dropped the confusion about being accurate with the meter close to end of my auditing career. I actually got better results, that is, if results mean the PC was happy with what we were doing. It took many years to extract myself from the “hysteria” intentionally instilled by Scientology academy indoctrinations regarding the so called accuracy required if using the emeter, and with TRs etc. Just caring about the person your talking to does far more good than being a robot. The horrible aspect of doubting yourself over such a long period of time is what Scientology thrives upon.
I don’t like being taken for a fool and treated like an idiot but those days in Scientology are long gone. I can pick my own silly things to get involved with now and it’s a hell of lot cheaper.
Tubby abhorred any type of scientific practice, in addition to avloiding any real discussion/study of philosophy. The more I learn about him, I get more convinced that he was, himself, a tweetie weetie dilettante, preferring to get his “enlightenment” from the pages of “Reader’s Digest” and similar scholarly tomes. Couldn’t take and pass a college level course to save his life; couldn’t trust those who could and did, so never DID banish the demons in his life and he died sick and paranoid, only realizing in his last moments that he was a complete failure, fake, and fraud. (Yup, I LIKE alliteration.)
I actually got most of it in the first read-through thanks to all of you exes being so helpful in explaining things over the years. ?
Sample auditing session, pre Miscavige:
The auditor asks “What drugs have you taken?”
The person lists the drugs he or she has taken.
Some drugs read, some don’t
The largest reading drug is taken up first
The auditor asks, for example, “What attitudes are associated with marijuana?”
The person lists their attitudes.
Reading “items”, in this case attitudes, almost always can be “run” (examined)
Simple
Here is the Dianetic auditing procedure as best as I recall it from my scn experience in the 1970’s.
Locate an incident of (item)
When was it?
What is the duration of the incident?
Move to the beginning of the incident and tell me when you are there.
Move through to the end of the incident.
What happened?
Depending on whether the incident is “erasing” or “going more solid” which is indicated on the e-meter the auditor says,
(erasing) Move to the beginning of that incident and tell me when you are there . . . etc.
(going more solid) Is there an earlier incident of (item)? . . . etc.
I see no “instilling of false memories” in the above procedure. Speaking in the past tense, it was possible for a person to become a proficient dianetic auditor in two months or so of intensive training and be able to help their fellow man. Many of the traumas or losses in life might be resolved.
This might explain the Nation of Islam interest in dianetics. I doubt that many NOI members would have any interest in Hubbards’ intergalactic conflict stories, although some might. Being fully forewarned of the traps of scn, the more astute and studious members of NOI might have already weeded out, cleaned up or ignored Elron’s paranoid, sadistic and otherwise nonsensical doctrines.
The NOI might ironically be be presenting a better form of dianetics than any scn organization. The unspoken agreement might be that scn is garbage but dianetics works so use it – lol
I doubt that many NOI members would have any interest in Hubbards’ intergalactic conflict stories, although some might.
Are you saying this because it conflicts with their spaceship stories?
I didn’t know they had their own spaceship story but figured after getting to whatever their version is of Clear some people might get curious.
I’d be interested to know if the NOI uses any parts of scn or if they consider dianetics a totally separate subject. After clear do they just drop out and pursue their own beliefs? Do they use e-meters and have review auditors? Public information says they have lots of people getting auditing but I haven’t seen anything about what procedures they use.
Maybe the NOI will start a website with people posting success stories. Yikes!
I want to jump in here and opine that with our differing experiences and viewpoints as re the efficacy or non efficacy of Scientology audiiting tech, if we’re going to discuss it and share and so forth we could be more respectful of one another. What works for one person doesn’t for another…what’s the big deal? To my understanding, the essential goal or “product” if you don’t mind some Scientologese of this blog is for the abuses to stop. Think about it, is the rest really IMPORTANT? Once the abuses stop, really, who cares? Look, maybe some people do but frankly I can’t imagine why, seriously.
So Sciientology is horseshit for some, so its gobbledygook others, then others swear by it, were helped by it,
etc., etc., so what? SO FUCKING WHAT? This is Planet Earth and there are lots of viewpoints out there – can’t it just be interesting and discussable without getting all hot under the collar?
Do we all now need to just revert back the Bible where EVERYTHING makes TOTAL sense and is completely”understandable” to anyone- you know, like some one living in a whales stomach for 3 days and then coming out unharmed, feeding 5 thousand people on a few loaves of bread and 5 fishes, someone causing the Red Sea to divide in two so there’s a strip of dry land to walk across…need I go on? Has anyone ever encountered a talking snake? (No jokes OSD)
Don’t get me wrong, I could care less. But I know damned well that NO ONE has actually EXPERIENCED any of this phenomena for themselves. They simply BELIEVE it. Which is FINE. These things are taken on faith. if it comforts and sustains and makes people happy. No one’s getting hurt. Who in their right mind would argue with a devout Christian about the seeming impossibility of gather a male and a female of every species on earth onto an ark, in seeming record time. What did these animals eat for 40 days and 40 nights? Each other, maybe? How did the elephants and the zebras and the Bengal tigers get along? Alright, enough.
Well, sorry for the rant. I’ll leave you with a true story. When I was nine I got kicked out of Sunday School for asking where Cain’s wife came from. Even that far back I wanted some logic: Bible said there was Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel. Then Cain got married. I struggled to make sense of this. I was curious. Then I said to the Sunday School teacher that maybe Adam and Eve had had some daughters not mentioned in the Bible and that Cain had married his sister. I was 9, I knew nothing about incest, it was an innocent suggestion to the Sunday School teacher, but the dear soul was NOT ready for this. I was told to not come back for a few weeks. To read the Bible again so that I could “have more faith”. But what I was asking had nothing to do with faith. It was a simple, objective question. At home that day I asked both my Mother and my Father where Cain’s wife came from; each of them said, “I don’t know”. Honest, simple, direct, like all their answers to me. I then knew that the SS teacher didn’t know either. She had no clue. But she didn’t want to say that she didn’t know. Which was her problem really, not mine. And my father, God bless him, even told me not to worry about it. “Its not that important. Go out and play”. Good advice.
Good words, Aqua.
Thank you for that Aqua.
I only ever ask for those who make claims to have obtained the objective abilities gained claimed by Hubbard to put up or admit it isn’t so.
Over the years, 90% of controversy I’ve witnessed comes from this simple, honest interchange to be refused.
Aquamarine, excellent post and loved your story as a kid. I agree. Some people get way too serious about this stuff and then rain down their judgments and invalidations on others who don’t walk in lockstep with them in their opinions. It just isn’t all that bad if someone has belief and it comforts them. To try to annihilate them for their belief is like taking a blankie from a baby. Let them have their wins and beliefs and just live and let live. That’s my take on it anyway,
“As far as I’m concerned, a person can talk to his therapist about whatever he wants to”. This.
I had so many things that went unhandled in scientology because they weren’t on any list or in a rundown. You can’t glue the broken pieces of something back together if you refuse to even acknowledge most of the broken pieces.
Oh yeah, I hear you on that one. The Bridge is a “route” that varied many times in its development, carefully targeting areas leading to nowhere in particular. Clear was a smoke and mirrors affair, then it all terminated in the OT levels of the never ending variety. I found it to be incredibly frustrating in that it bypassed almost everything PCs desperately wanted to be addressed. Some hit and miss stuff made some happy momentarily. No wonder reviews became the norm and/or many simply walked out the door, penniless. Making auditing very expensive was simply a camouflage to hide the fact it went nowhere – neat trick.
The Bridge to me is like waiting for a train that will never arrive. There you are, sitting at the station in your Sunday best, bags packed and full of anticipation… oh Scientology is such a cruel thing!
Dear Valerie,
The truth, you speak the truth. From the 1970’s on, Standard Tech required all PCs to fit into the assembly line of processes, to the detriment of all.
And Terra, Prior and latent reads were taken up in the earlier days by myself and older auditors with success. And for the reasons you wrote above. Part of why i walked in the early 80’s.
There is no concept of a “therapist” in scn. IMO, having done a number of “stress tests” for NY Org 40 years ago, a decent auditor and properly-working meter can outperform any therapist I’ve known or heard about. Simply “Consider the events of today.” and follow the reads, asking “earlier similar” as needed worked like a charm. 100% of the folks who picked up “my” cans left obviously feeling much better. Made me a believer in the meter’s efficacy even when the client/pc didn’t know anything about it or auditing, or anything about scn. IMO, Tubby lost a profit source by not bothering to address short-term PTPs like that. He also lost me as a sea Borg member when I got depressed and there was no available mechanism to get someone to listen to my woes Instead, I was sentenced to the RPF — AS IF that level of abuse and punishment was going to cheer me up 🙁
Of course, I eventually did cheer up: after they “off-loaded” me from the RPF and I rode my Motorcycle about 900 miles away from the FH and reached back roads familiar from my childhood. At that moment, I realized I was FREE! That cheered me no end.
Happy Saturday morning, Terra!
My thoughts on this subject are already published here https://www.mikerindersblog.org/what-about-the-e-meter/ , and there is a great comment by the legendary Arnie Lerma right at the top of the comments. Many others also contributed, all in all it adds up to a pretty thorough survey of how the meter does and doesn’t work.
Just to be clear, the meter can be said to “only read on body motion” if you include the opening and closing of the special sweat glands in the palms and soles of the feet called the eccrine sweat glands. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-2494.2007.00387.x/full
These special sweat glands respond to emotional arousal.
I know about the scene in “How the E-meter Works” where Hubbard has a psychiatrist with a stupidly “humorous” German accent say something like “The meter can only tell if he is sexually aroused”. As he proceeds to shoot up, in parody of Freud’s addiction to cocaine. This is just a misunderstood word of Hubbard’s, emotional arousal is the body’s response to any emotional stimulus in the brain, such as fear, grief and so on.
I have done some pretty extensive experiments on this and there is definitely a response that is not attributable to muscular spasms or finger twitches etc. These same phenomena are used in biofeedback and other fields that never heard of Hubbard or dismissed him as a quack long ago.
I think Hubbard was obsessed with an “instant” response because it could be said to be a true response of the “reactive mind”, not some random ruminations of the “analytical” mind. His idea was that the stimulus response reaction would be instant because the reactive mind is supposedly composed of mental masses that have charges associated with them that would react without conscious thought.
He foolishly thought that the meter shows actual charges, flows of electricity, that result from mental “masses”. No, it is the eccrine glands in response to emotional arousal. No such thing as “mental masses” or “charges”.
Since his paradigm of “reactive” and “analytical” minds coexisting in some non-corporeal state around the body is thoroughly disproven by later research, there is no need to delve deeper into his strange ideas.
I also wonder how wise it is to chase after these ephemeral “instant reads” that seem to make the subject dive deeper into hidden or unconscious reactions. I know from experience in receiving and delivering auditing that it can seem to reveal surprising new insights, and these seem very real. Hubbard said it was a “pre-conscious meter” meaning that it could uncover hidden fears, irrational reactions, and so on that he ascribed to past trauma.
But the process of “relieving” this past trauma involves techniques that resemble the techniques used to induce false memories in people. Are we really “relieving past trauma” or just inventing fake trauma? Certainly it feels good and often results in a “win”, but does it really change anything? Or is it just another substance-free natural high like running or controlled breathing? Does it really result in long term positive changes?
If not, it is just an overly complicated means of temporarily altering brain chemistry. It seems that even Hubbard knew or sensed this, resulting in the vast panorama of changing techniques from Book One Dianetics to OT VIII. All of them failed, and at the end you have only “Knowing who you are not and interested in finding out who you are.” After hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of staring at meter needles and tracking down reactions.
Taking my shower after writing this, had a horrible thought in the shower. It is now about two decades since the “Golden Age of Tech”, where Miscavige mechanized and neutered Scientology, converting it into a rote procedure. I had a small role in this as the inventor of the Drills Simulator with its 100% mechanical simulated floating needles.
During GAT Dave became obsessed with the meter, using video to try to capture the exact instant read. He also obsessed about floating needles, demanding three even swings before calling it a floating needle. Real floating needles are kind of random, not like the electronically generated ones I put in the drills simulator.
All this meter obsession turned the somewhat informal, patient centered talk therapy of the 70s era Scientology into a robotic formulized form of inquisition, with cameras recording and the practitioner paying more attention to the meter than to the person.
So it may well be that few who read this will even remember the kinds of wins we had in the 70s. True confession – I was using a Delta MK V e-meter I the 70s that often refused to float at all. When my PC was raving about how great it all was and the needle was kind of flaccidly twitching I went ahead and told him his needle was floating. You couldn’t do that today!
Miscavige age Scientologists don’t even have that kind of win going for them. They have to make it all up every time. Mindbending to say the least.
Bruce,
As one having an electronics background prior to working in the addiction treatment field, (Bench tech, Amateur Extra license, etc) like yourself, I’m particularly interested in any thoughts you have about my post on here concerning auditing/e-meter tech being applicable to addiction treatment and the Russian theta meter device’s interface approach. I’ll also contact Arnie Lerma via his posting on the past blog page you reference here.
Thank you and most respectful regards for sharing your ex-sci experience.
Hi Wryterman.
The theta meter is about as good as it gets if what you want is an e-meter. No complicated and fragile needle mechanism, miles ahead of the MK VIII technology-wise, dirt cheap. I haven’t tested it, possibly the current through the cans is too high or too low. That can screw things up, too low and you get heart beat showing. Too high and the reads are obscured, and the PC can feel it (called “hand sting”).
As far as addiction treatment, that is outside my area of expertise. I know the Scientology techniques are harmful and ineffective, but there may be other evidence based, tested techniques that use bio-feedback. Worth looking into it.
Please, expound on the kinds of wins you had in the 70s. The more detail the better, as far as settling my curiosity. Mission auditing of some earlier eras was thought to be therapeutic, especially at missions led by empathetic people far from the strict oversight of LRH.
On a similar topic, I am curious about Rock Slams. Is there a description of this effect? What are the possible causes – could it be simple defects in the meter, its manufacture, or construction materials?
In the 70s the emphasis was on helping the person. Following the rules was considered important, but if the rules got in the way you did what you had to.
My wins as a PC seemed pretty significant at the time. I would go in session, we would go into horrible past experiences (often invented past life ones), there would be tears and pains and bad feelings of all kinds. Then as the procedure goes on these get desensitized by repetition and you end up laughing uncontrollably or on a crying jag. Or maybe just grinning from ear to ear and rambling on about how you suddenly know how to talk to girls or something.
But next time I had to talk to a girl I was just as tongue-tied as ever.
As an auditor I took my PCs through the same ups and downs. I had three PCs who sought me out afterwards to tell me they had gone Clear while I was auditing them. I did only the old style Hubbard Standard Dianetics auditing, never got up to the higher levels of training.
Basically we got the same things out of it that you would get by talking to someone about your troubles. Who doesn’t enjoy rambling on about yourself and telling stories to an attentive listener? The bad part is the forcing techniques, using the meter to get deeper into things than you would comfortably do in conversation. But in general we pulled through and came out smiling, except the few that didn’t.
I remember one day we came in and there was someone sitting on the floor in the PC folder room, staring off into space with tears streaming down. She had snuck in and looked in her own folder, found out what her auditor was writing about her, and crashed and burned. Don’t know what eventually happened to her.
As far as rock slams, most often it is meter defects but seemingly it can be caused by the same phenomena that cause the reads. I was never able to record one and analyze the component frequencies that make the needle seem to operate so violently. So I guess the best I can say is I don’t know, but there is no reason to think it is not the same basic phenomenon that causes the other reads.
Thank you for this detailed explanation. I really appreciate the research and wisdom that went into it.
“Since his paradigm of “reactive” and “analytical” minds coexisting in some non-corporeal state around the body is thoroughly disproved by later research, there is no need to delve deeper into his strange ideas.”
So true! In the six plus decades since Elron came up with his simplistic and empirically unfounded conjectures regarding how the human mind works, thousands of researchers in the neurosciences have published hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed articles describing the results of their empirical research, all of which serve to confirm the incontrovertible and fundamental fact that mind is what brain does.
There is no incorporeal depository of memory – spanning trillions of years and billions of past lifetimes — there’s only the brain, with its billions of neurons and their trillions of synaptic connections with other neurons, which physically instantiates memory. Degrade or damage the brain through illness or accident and memory encoding and recall are affected in predictable ways, depending on what sub-systems of the brain are affected. This overarching fact has been demonstrated hundreds of thousands of times and is not in any way controversial or disputed by anyone who works in any of the neurosciences.
Indeed, still-doubting $cilons can demonstrate this for themselves very easily. Just have someone hit you upside the head really hard with a 2×4 and see what it does to your memory recall ability. Or, less traumatically, just go to sleep tonight and try your best to recall any memory while in stage three deep sleep. You won’t be able to, due to the fact that the brain’s pattern of activation during deep sleep is completely different than during the awake state, when memory recall is possible.
One of the deepest MU’s that all true believing $cilons have is that the human mind is somehow disembodied and that actual memories of real events, formed during past lives, can somehow continue to exist in a non-corporeal form across lifetimes. There is NO empirical evidence to support that hypothesis at all, which makes $cn a pseudo-science from start to finish!
“techniques used to induce false memories”
This has been my opinion from the beginning. Appreciate the comprehensive response to Terra’s article.
Since El Con Tubolard never bothered to perform any proper testing on his “technology” it is safe to assume he pulled it out of nether regions like everything else he wrote that he didn’t plagiarize….
C’mon, Wyn! Let’s call a spade a spade. He pulled it out of his fat ass!
So.. he pulled cans out his arse?
No wonder they galvanised them.
I’m not sure. But if he did, I would have paid good money to see it.
As time went on in my tenure within the church, auditing got worse for the pc and more punitive for the auditor. One big reason were changes that I observed both as a pc and training as an auditor where the meter became the determining factor, the omniscient presence in the room – or was that the constant look-ins that also took over? It all became nonsense at that point because the INTENTION to do something for the pc dropped out. Whether one believes in the tech or not, once the intention dropped out to actually DO something positive for the guy in front of you (instead of what it became – the intention to get the guy in front of you to DO something for the church), then the actions of the meter become moot. It’s all blah, blah, blah.
I found in the beginning, the auditing was good because the auditor did just listen and follow a few good rules and there was very little attention paid or needed to be paid to the meter. In the end, forget it, the meter became weaponized.
So… if you threw the meter it would blow up? Now that’s my kind of auditing!
Has something occurred?
Thank Freud, not Hubbard for whatever benefit or relief accrued from the act of one person listening to another person unburden themselves emotionally from a traumatic event. It’s called abreaction therapy. The e-meter is at best a placebo, and at worst an Inquisitorial device of torture, as Hubbard intended it.
“The meter became weaponized.” That was in in a nutshell. Now if the meter didn”t read thought at all as a number of people here believe, you could not do as much damage with it. Imagine an auditor deliberately missing witholds and insisting that the PC is guilty of overts that did not read. Or worse deliberately giving someone an out-list; ie finding out what is wrong with the PC and then telling them it was something else.
I have had some horrendous “auditing” and I have had some trememdous auditing.
It is my experience that some auditors will almost always get a good product and vice-versa. The last auditing I received was from Trey Lotz and I had a number of sessions that handled stuff that was never addressed on auditing done by the Church. He has been auditing professionally since 1971. I believe firmly that a person who does not believe that the meter reads on thought just has not had any good auditing.
Dead men. Science has proven that it doesn’t read on thoughts. Belief is irrelevant. You just do not know what a Wheatstone bridge does
Oh! Really Wyn, when, where and by whom did this occur, this “Science has proven…” testing that is.
Fool Not Proof , I just sit back and nod my head at you.
Ok.
Superb comment, Mary. I had the same experience as a PC. All my auditing was great in the mid-90s. Loved it and beneifted from it. Then 9/11 caused a drop in my income for several years. Couldn’t afford auditing! Long story but looking back it was a blessing in disguise. I started doing more courses, KTL and LOC which I really loved. (Ok, Ok, to each his own :)) I’m glad now that I went broke, lol. I’m also supremely grateful that I never had either the money or the time or the people to replace me in my business so as to free me up to go go Flog. This was considered by most staff to be QUITE outpointy on my part. I considered it so. But not now! Looking back, its like I had an angel over my shoulder – never able to make it to Flog…whew!, you know?
Dead Men, I know someone who got really messed up because of what you described. Auditor insisting there were withholds that weren’t there. The almighty meter. Horrible, just criminal, to do something like this to someone while at the same time missing the actual witholds. I’m shuddering just thinking about it. I never had that done to me. As Mary Kahn or someone said, the crazy started in the early oughts.
Yes the meter can be misused. All covered in various HCOBs under things things like false and protest reads and “cleaning cleans” etc. To ask Scientologists who have been on lines for 20+ years if they are members of the CIA is another one.
Foolproof,
It seems clear to me that you have a great deal of belief tied to the functinality of the e-meter.
For those of us without the trappings of faith surrounding the device, we look at the design and see it for what it is.
Maybe one day you will see with eyes that are not so heavily filtered.
Kyle, are you an auditor? If so, did you find the e-meter to be disfunctional?