Another fascinating Saturday look at scientology from Terra Cognita.
PTS in Scientology: Bug or Baddie?
L. Ron Hubbard wrote that all sickness, accidents and injuries, pretty much all non-optimum conditions in life, were the result of a connection to a suppressive person. A person so associated was said to be a “potential trouble source,” or PTS.
“A suppressive person, SP for short, is a really, really bad person. Like Hitler bad. The worst of the worst.” Terra Tech Dictionary, 28 Apr 17.
PTS, “means potential trouble source which itself means a person connected to a suppressive person. All sick persons are PTS. All pcs who roller-coaster (regularly lose gains) are PTS.” LRH, HCOB 20 Apr 72.
Stress has been proven to lower one’s resistance to disease. Bad grades, cheating spouses, poor finances, and holiday relatives can all make a person more susceptible to illness. Interacting with SPs would certainly qualify.
It’s easy to imagine how getting raked over the coals by a suppressive boss might cause a person to get into an accident while driving home that evening.
Bugs
Physical disease, though, is ultimately caused by bacteria and viruses overwhelming a body’s defense system. Examples of succumbing to communicable disease include being bitten by the wrong mosquito, eating that old chicken salad in the back of the refrigerator, and having sex with questionable partners.
Other conditions are caused by genetic abnormalities. Multiple sclerosis, autism, and cystic fibrosis, to name a few.
Environmental factors still cause more: allergies, asthma, gluten!, and a myriad of cancers. Living downwind from a toxic waste dump might be the reason for that persistent rash.
If one weren’t connected to an SP, would these diseases have no effect? Would the body’s defense system simply destroy all these foreign invaders? Would genetic and environmental factors have no influence? Or would people continue to have accidents and get sick? And stress-out and die?
Bug Spray
LRH said that all Joe had to do to handle his illness was to locate the first time he suffered from such symptoms, spot the SP, and voila! Give Joe a series of touch assists and he would recover in short order.
Rarely is the real SP in present time, though. More often than not, the real suppressive died a trillion years ago on Qan II in the Zarkov Galaxy. The wannabe, present time baddie is only a re-stimulator for the real SP back on that distant planet Joe had hoped to forget.
In reality, PTS handling rarely works and Scientologists revert to more conventional means to get better. Aspirin, cough drops, and decongestants are used frequently. Midwives and doctors of osteopathy are preferred over “regular” doctors. Pediatricians are okay for children and many Scientologists visit chiropractors regularly. If herbal cleanses and colonics don’t work, a few intensives of Sec checking and the Purification Rundown might.
It doesn’t take long for most Scientologists to realize that “spotting the SP” won’t cure their chronic lumbago, bronchitis, or clogged arteries and most are forced to augment their trip to the Ethics Officer with “real world” remedies. It should be noted that since all sick people are PTS and automatically connected to an SP, they require “handling” by a qualified Scientology Ethics specialist. In most orgs and missions, this person is the Ethics Officer, or EO for short.
As far as I can tell, Scientologists get sick and die at the same rate as non-church members. On the other hand, by rejecting conventional treatment, Scientologists may well become sick and die at an even greater frequency. Be interesting to know.
But What about Kale and Going to the Gym?
Apparently, poor diet and lack of exercise don’t have anything to do with disease in the Scientology universe. Nor do genetics or age. Or pollutants in the environment. Or drunk drivers running late-night stop signs. Or that Eastern bitch, Karma.
Per LRH, the only reason Stan feels poorly is because of his run-in with Vlad the Impaler on the planet Ishhh, 3.678 billion years ago. The only reason Sally coughed up a lung and is having doubts regarding her “gains” on OT 3 is due to her parent’s antipathy to her involvement in Scientology.
(LRH wrote that connection to people antagonistic to Scientology is PTS Type A. Yikes!)
If connections to SPs were the sole cause of all illness and accidents, all Scientologists would be PTS all the time. As would everybody else on the planet. We’re all surrounded by suppression. Per LRH, we’ve all lived quadrillions of lifetimes. Which means we’ve all been exposed to millions and millions of SPs. They’re like land mines on our time tracks just waiting to be stepped on and exploded. Undoubtedly, we’re exposed to people every day who subconsciously remind us of these ancient, evil pranksters.
How many people walking the streets are in absolute perfect health? How many have no aches? No pains. No headaches. No allergies, rashes, or tweaky knees? How many have perfect digestion? Perfectly functioning joints? Perfectly aligned backs? Hollywood teeth? Skin the texture of porcelain? Six pack abs? A body like Hygieia, the goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation. (Everyone on Mt. Olympus was in perfect health, right?)
I’m not suggesting that all people are suffering from something all the time. I’m just saying, it’s hard for a human body to go twenty-four hours on Planet Earth without enduring some kind of stub, strain, bump, blemish, calamity, crash, cough or sneeze. Especially aging Baby Boomers. Apparently, the older you get, the more PTS you become. Damn.
Not Such a Great Example
We all know how LRH ended up: living in seclusion, paranoid, sick, kept alive by a daily cocktail of prescription drugs, his body going to hell-in-a-handbasket. By his own words, he was completely PTS! And yet he wasn’t able to handle himself with his perfect, workable tech. He wasn’t able to identify and “vanquish” the real SPs in his life and regain his health. Either his tech wasn’t all it was cracked up to be or his caretakers weren’t Keeping Scientology Working.
Last Words
No one would dispute that stress from suppression can precipitate illness. But are we wise to attribute all non-optimum physical conditions to some sort of connection to an SP? Should we discount all other factors? Is that sore throat the result of being overwhelmed trillions of years ago on some unfriendly moon? Or might it have something to do with your snot-nosed kid returning home from school every day infected with half the known diseases on Earth.
We’re all mammals—at least our bodies are. And all mammals are susceptible to disease, age, bad genes, dirty toilet seats, and the Grim Reaper. People catch colds. Develop acne. Fall down stairs. Tangle with buses, fall off cliffs, break legs, and get eaten by lions. It’s all just a part of life.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
Marildi, we see the positive pro-social intent behind your efforts to help us understand the Holy Tech too!
It’s just that, for most of us here, we’ve come to the conclusion that the supposedly infallible Word of Elron is far from being that, and the vast labyrinthine organizational and control structure that Elron purposefully put in place is the epitome of a very sophisticated set of mind control mechanisms, whose fundamental purpose from the very beginning was NOT the betterment of mankind, but the enrichment and empowerment of Elron.
Thus, in our view, everything that he created or misappropriated was used to further that purpose and draw his marks further into the long con that is $cn in its essence. Viewed from this perspective, lil davey the despicable is not some sort of wildly anomalous phenomena, but instead, just a continuation and distillation of all the evil that already existed in the dark heart of Elron, which continues to beat in the undead beast that the corporate cherch, under lil davey’s dictatorial rule, has so obviously become.
So, for most of here, any argument or point of reasoning that you might care to make here can’t rely on the internal logic that the $cn world view depends upon because, for us, that foundational set of beliefs; principles of causality; alt science cosmogony; and supposedly inviolable cherch doctrines have been utterly discredited in our minds. Thus, any point of argument that you might care to make here can’t depart from that set of presuppositions as its logical basis because we DON’T accept them to begin with. In other words, the alt science authoritative basis of $cn itself is, to us, completely invalid, so no valid argument can be made that uses it as the commonly agreed upon point of departure.
That’s not to say that a different approach to making your points couldn’t be successful; it’s just to note that any attempt to explain bad results, or lack of good results, with the Tech by attributing blame to the individual is just not going to be get very far here because that’s exactly the kind of authoritarian “we’re never wrong, it must be you!” method of coercive mind control and other-determinism that most of us here have vowed never to chump for again.
Earlier on this thread, I asked you if you’d shared your personal story of cult involvement and ultimate departure from the corporate cherch, but you’ve not responded to my query. I completely understand if you’d prefer not to, but I would appreciate some sort of response from you there, if only a brief, “no thanks, I don’t wish to share”. For me, knowing where someone is currently coming from regarding their espoused views on $cn – which is always colored and shaped by their own personal experiences within the cherch and is different for everyone – is very helpful to me in understanding and responding appropriately to them. Thus, my query concerning your personal experiences in $cn is an attempt to better understand what you’re trying to convey to us here, not a set-up to belittle you or your beliefs.
HF: “…any attempt to explain bad results, or lack of good results, with the Tech by attributing blame to the individual is just not going to get very far here…”
Obviously, you haven’t duplicated my primary focus – even though I’ve said it over and over – which has been on the church not applying what the materials actually state. I don’t put the blame on individuals, except to the degree that they bought into misapplications and group think – a valuable lesson we all had to learn. Which I’ve said many times too.
The above being the case, why would I have any interest in getting into my personal story more than I have already – and invite certain posters to glibly alter that too, through their own filters and biases.
glib: readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so: a glib talker; glib answers.
Marildi says:
“I’ve said it over and over – which has been on the church not applying what the materials actually state.”
How do we apply these Hubbard ideas that are in writing?
All critics have criminal pasts
Destroy utterly
Please help us to understand how to apply these words standardly for optimum outcome.
This entire Scientology debacle is as a result of following Ron’s words.
This entire dangerous societal pariah is the mirror of Ron’s writings!
How Scientology deals with critics IS IS IS IS IS THE REASON FOR THIS CRAZINESS.
It’s the opposite of what you think Marildi. It’s following Ron’s words that is causing this.
You look through rose colored glasses fueled by your need to make Hubbard right, based on your experience with positive experiences in auditing.
It seems to me that you have compartmentalised Scientology into categories of “real” Scientology (your wins in auditing) and all the rest:
Your misapplication argument presupposes that correct application yields standard results. That is not true. You argue that people are misapplying his writings.
How do we standardly apply these Ron words?
1) auditing cures arthritis
2) auditing cures needing glasses
3) auditing cures epilepsy (ask Tory)
4) all unresolved conflicts are from third party; ALL!!
5) auditing cures leukemia
6) auditing cures low IQ
7) critics of Ron and Adolf Hitler are moral equivalence
It is exactly by following Ron’s words that people have died because they have not gotten the medical care needed because Ron convinced people, THROUGH HIS WRITINGS, that auditing cures everything.
Your loyalty to Ron’s “benevolence” is note worthy. There is no doubt that we can have a benevolent experience in Scientology when our true independent nature is allowed to express itself.
But Marildi, your argument that all of this craziness exits because people have MUs or did not apply correctly is craziness itself.
Soooo many people here have gotten more auditing and trained more than you. There are:
OT8s, OT7s and highly trained auditors here who have studied more of Ron then you.
So many of them have now seen Ron as a demented dilettante psycho spiritual con man.
Your logic would have them all having MUs and you, Marildi, are lucky enough, or more advanced enough, or a better student to understand the REAL SCIENTOLOGY.
So Marildi, how long have you been out?
And where was your Scientology experience from?
How long were you in?
How far did you get in the church?
And if you respond with,”Brian is on a witch hunt” I can only tell you that I do not mind telling you everything about my experience in the church. If you ask me I will tell you in detail.
So Marildi, where did you have your Scientology experience?
In the states? Over seas? Saint Hill? New York? England? Scandinavia?
Where you declared? What was the circumstance by which you left the church?
So many of us have revealed our pasts. What is your past?
These are just questions.
If you attack me for asking benign questions I will have to assume there is something else going on.
Or you could simply not answer. And that will have its own communication.
Brian, here is an excerpt from the book *After the Awakening, the Laundry*.
“In most cases where the role of teacher is abused, the teachers are not purposely dishonest. Surrounded by crowds of disciples who want to think of them as perfect, they have come to believe their own press releases, to identify with the authority of being a ‘master.’ A collective intoxication grows, created equally by teacher and student, each out of good intentions. But within this climate of unreal expectations it is easy for the teacher to get disconnected and out of touch, to feel, like Icarus [a character in a myth who fell to his death when he tried to literally fly] before his fall, that he or she can fly forever.
“When a community sets itself apart from the world, or tends toward cultlike enclosure, there is no possibility for real feedback. Similarly when teachers are highly elevated and viewed as perfect they can become isolated and cut off from honest equals, partners, and spiritual friends. Community members in this situation can lose sight of what is actually occurring. Teachers surrounded by adoring students rather than peers can fall prey to…blind self-assurance, arrogance, and intolerance. Isolation coupled with inflation becomes fertile ground for delusion, thought control, and transformation from practice community to cult.”
Is there really any reason for this argument between you two to continue, after months and months of these posts? These long drawn out posts each trying to make the other wrong, what’s the point? Neither of you will convince the other, neither one will ‘win’. It’s really kind of tedious for the rest of us, maybe we can make a separate forum for you guys to argue in and keep it out of the main conversation threads.
Yes, I have said this before too. In recent times I have not been able to read every comment thoroughly. I apologize.
Dear Mike Rinder, you have nothing to apologize for, I thank you for maintaining this awesome forum where we all can freely exchange information and opinions. I also, and am sure we all do, thank you for the work you are doing with Leah Remini to tell the stories of ex-members, and for your work towards human rights.
It’s just that there really isn’t any point to these two re-hashing the same issues over and over, it seems like a personal feud that won’t be settled, the points have been made and countered many times, now it’s time to just give it a rest and leave it be for now. Thanks again! – T.J.
Actually, T.J. I rather enjoy the exchanges and am bewildered by your objection when you can effortlessly ignore it all. Mike is pretty good at lowering the boom.
This is true T.J. It is an old argument. And those who come here for years it can be repetitive and annoying.
But sometimes this argument is heard by people just coming to these sites. Maybe it’s the first time they have dared allow themselves to experience any sort of argument about Ron; pro or con. In that regard the argument is vital.
But I will respect the fact that some are annoyed and I will adjust accordingly.
BTW, the posts I’m not interested I just pass by.
Dear Mike,
I mirror TJ in saying there is nothing to apologize for. What Brian says is so true. When I first discovered your blog I fell on the comment threads like a thirsty man to water.
My creaky, see no cognitive dissonance, hear no cognitive dissonance and speak no cognitive dissonance self was frightened by the openess and at times rudeness directed at the cherch, DM and especially Elron.
But I avidly came and read it all. Daring to leave no comments myself.
The first time I saw the word BT discussed in a thread something broke down inside me. The holding, the fear, the tip toeing around what I really thought and wouldn’t hear myself say, came through. A whole raft of cooped up cognitive dissonance spilled out and I discussed with my spouse what people were saying and what my experience was.
It was a wow moment and I started occasionally commenting.
I’m trying to say that I thrive on the discussions. I read them. If they are repetitive I read them because maybe I’m different even if the conversation is similar.
I get value from Wynski going off on someone. I admire the earnestness of Marildi. I adore Brian’s and the other philosopher commenters comments on spiritual searches, great spiritual teachings and the idea that other people were plagiarized. I bask in the warmth of Ann Watson’s lovely, glowy, heart, shining in her kind and encouraging words.
And the stories, like Lowie’s. The stories fill the hole in my heart where certainty used to live.
I think the stories are my favorite thing.
Marildi you have said in response to people asking for your story or some response that you’ve said all your going to say about your origin story. But I’m fairly newly out. I know your name and feel your position, but I’ve never seen anything in comments about your story. Maybe I missed the day you spilled your guts. And for the record if you didn’t share your views these discussions wouldn’t happen. Whether I agree with you or not, I value your voice. Keep talking.
Dare to be repetitive. People are interested in where you’re coming from. I am.
I remember that Chris Shelton’s video about Ideal Orgs and his part in creating them as a Sea Org worker, and how what he saw showed him how wrong headed the program was, helped him leave. That was the pivotal moment I knew I needed to leave.
But when a few days later I saw a video of his where he said something that went against my admiration for Elron I was affronted. It upset me. I stopped watching him for a few weeks.
It was the comments on these threads that got me to open my eyes. I then went back to Chris Shelton and it was like it was a new video. It was because the Mike Rinder blogs and comments had opened my mind to look at other viewpoints and not judge and instantly “know” this was right and that was wrong. I generally responded with the instant decision making I’d been trained in through years of courseroom indocrination.
Here’s what I did in my mind before leaving the cherch when confronted with someone’s truth that was not rah-rah, the church, DM and Elron are great. I thought “that’s CI” (counter intention) or “That’s entheta” (bad) or “That’s natter” (carping critical comments) or “clearly they have overts and are justifying,” I’d been taught to dismiss as unworthy communication that didn’t agree that $cientology was great. I had blinkers on and my pat responses in my mind for why I shouldn’t listen to differing opinions.
Since this post is about PTSness, I’ll share another instant response to a truth about $cientology being told to an unwilling listener, I’d think, “Clearly they are PTS. I wouldn’t be surprised if since they are talking like this that they get declared. I wonder what SP they are connected to?”
Mike Rinder your blog, Chris Shelton’s Video’s, Tony Ortega’s Blog and Dave Fagan’s incredible story/blog (bless you Dave Fagan) these blogs and videos were my magic carpet ride out of the spiritual desert I was in.
Mike Rinder commenters. I read you, I hear you. Don’t fear to state what your truth is repetitively. Those arguments turned my atrophied ability to think for myself back on after a long, deep and terrible sleep. I appreciate you.
When in doubt, spill your shit, speak up, argufy, stick your nose in, quote Elron’s name in vain, think freely, share messily, love your commenting community by sharing your mind, your ire, your funny moments, your pivotal coming out thoughts, your meandering journey out and into a better life. And I’ll be there listening, learning, shouting back, laughing with you and loving it and loving you whether we agree or not.
Clearly not clear, that was a wonderful post. Thanks for all your thoughts. I really appreciated you sharing them.
+1
I can’t disagree, T.J. But did you also notice that I ignore the majority of Brian’s very long and repetitious posts? From my point view, this propaganda-like repetition is what makes it tedious.
Anyway, I’ll gladly let it be now.
T.J., I have contributed a bit to the back and forth at times – and have also been trying to figure out how to minimize it. I wish that we could figure out some consensus to come to, about how to have productive discussion without ignoring commenters, but without letting it drag out.
As far as other forums, I don’t imagine that our host Mike is in a position to set one up. And I get the impression that one of the reasons that marildi comes here, is that they’re looking for a chance to engage in discussion, but the indie forums and websites are uninteresting or even dead.
And as I think Harpoona pointed out, it seems like marildi’s coming here may actually be part of their dealing with some doubts. So I think some see a point to engaging, even if it’s not always done as effectively as it might be. And it does provide people coming here, with a chance to see the scientological mindset at work – arguably useful, as long as it doesn’t end up getting in the way of other topics and information.
I’m personally trying to figure out how to get to some more meaningful and essential engagement – and still keep it appropriately short.
Thanks to all who replied. It’s nice to know how people are viewing this matter regardless of if they agree with me or not.
I also enjoy a forum that has few restrictions or censuring. Mike Rinder is very lenient, and this fosters communication. But it seems that no matter what the ‘topic of the day’ is here, some of the posters will ignore the subject for the most part and instead go on to rehash many of the same arguments as in prior day’s posts, and the prior days, and the day before, etc… And it starts to feel very personal, especially when people address each other by name and seemingly bicker back and forth, it feels as if I’m caught in the middle seat of a school bus with an arguing student on either side who keep leaning over me to fuss at each other.. not pleasant.
So then yes, I do skip over these posts a lot, when it seems it’s getting bogged down in irrelevant verbal debate of a personal nature, just trying to ‘one up’ each other or prove the other wrong, and/or repeating prior assertions, or it’s just arguing with no chance of a resolution in sight (often) and it does get tiresome having to slog through unproductive stuff that I simply don’t have time to read, it’s one of the reasons I haven’t been posting much here for several months.
I think we should keep some goals in mind: ask yourself what is your post trying to achieve or communicate? Are you doing so in a direct and clear manner? Think about the purpose of the forum, and basic etiquette of posting: not too long, try not to monopolize conversations or stray too far off topic too often, no personal attacks, keep the other viewers/readers in mind, is it of interest to most? Or just a select few? Has the point been made and answered already? Another part of a successful forum is the general nature of the posts, a little humor can be good, some relevant personal stories, not so much of attacking others for their views or belligerent behavior (I’m not accusing anyone of this, just general thoughts on forum posting). It’s nice when new people can feel welcome to post, and established members feel a sense of community, part of that is not having too much interpersonal arguing between a select few posters.
PM: “And I get the impression that one of the reasons that marildi comes here, is that they’re looking for a chance to engage in discussion, but the indie forums and websites are uninteresting or even dead. And as I think Harpoona pointed out, it seems like marildi’s coming here may actually be part of their dealing with some doubts.”
This is dub-in based on your own fixed ideas. My whole interest is in truth, and the more I read of other spiritual paths, the more I see how much the tech could be of benefit to many of them. They are basically using a vague and unsystematic shotgun approach to handling their “shadows” – and/or are hoping to handle them through meditation, taking many years to do so, at best.
You are so careful to call me “they” instead of “she,” since you don’t know for sure – yet you’re very assuming otherwise.
marildi, if I may butt in. I wish to speak on behalf of spiritual practices which you regard as having a “shotgun” approach to dealing with “shadows”. Apparently you think scientology deals with personal problematic issues in a more targeted, bull’s-eye fashion. Fair enough.
Zen Buddhism, vedanta, jnana yoga and the meditations that serve them don’t deal with personal issues “shotgun” style or otherwise. They say the issues of the person AS WELL AS THE PERSON ITSELF, are mere thought forms, that they are imaginary (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist). They say what you REALLY are is an immediate reality which has no time track history, no engrams no issues. You are the peaceful, non-participating witness of that imaginary entity. The fictitious entity doesn’t get transformed into that immediate, true reality. It always remains the fictitious entity. But when you know yourself for what you are, and not as the fictitious one who has ‘case’, the fictitious entity begins to calm down and slowly becomes very quiet. It stops making noise. The thing that keeps it agitated and chasing one experience after another is the belief that you are it!!! In short, the spiritual practices don’t target the problems, they target the ignorance that is the cause of ALL problems.
Therefore, from that perspective, scientology is reinforcing the false belief that you are something that you are NOT. However expertly it may claim to do so, it is trying to fix something that is only a fiction! Granted, if you’re in a dream, it’s good to have nice dream food. And indeed, there is some benefit to personal improvement but the ones who benefit the most from it are the ones scientology doesn’t want to touch.
“But when you know yourself for what you are, and not as the fictitious one who has ‘case’, the fictitious entity begins to calm down and slowly becomes very quiet.”
Actually, the paths you mentioned are included in the book I’ve quoted, along with all other great traditions. In the context of what is referred to as “layers of the mind,” the author Jack Kornfield (a renowned Zen Buddhist teacher) states that “our entanglement in thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, those around us, and the world makes it impossible to be where we are.” He goes on to say the following:
————————————————–
“We begin to see the themes of our inner dialogue, which can be ambition or unworthiness, insecurity or hope, self-hatred or self-improvement. The stories reflect our conditioning, personal and cultural….
“Central to the stories we tell are the fixed beliefs we have about ourselves. It is as if we have been cast into a movie as a depressed person or a beautiful one, as a compromiser or a clown, an angry victim or a fighter whom no one will ever take advantage of again. Because those thoughts and assumptions are so powerful, we live out their energies over and over. These patterns of thought, together with the contractions of body and heart, create a limited sense of self. They are sometimes called ‘the body of fear.’ When we live from the body of fear, our life is simply one of habit and reaction.
“An honorable practice unmasks these stories and releases their limiting beliefs, just as it opens the body and heart. We begin to recognize the patterns of these contractions and to learn that they are not the most fundamental reality. We learn how to step from these old skins, the small sense of self, into the reality of the present. We find ways to allow the body to ease, the heart to soften, and the old stories of the mind to fall away. This is the moment when the dragon skins are seen for what they are, a karmic spell no longer needed…
“With innocence and openness we return to the simplicity of direct experience. When we step out of the current of thoughts, letting go of ‘how it was and how it should be,’ and ‘how we should be,’ we enter the eternal present.
“But even the shedding of our skins, the opening of the body, heart, and mind is still only a preparation for a deeper journey.”
———————————————-
The book includes dozens of direct quotes of teachers and students from every tradition, who describe their efforts to “step out of the current of thoughts” in order to “enter the eternal present,’ as quoted above. Many of these seekers have already had experiences of awakening with its “simplicity of direct experience” yet almost invariably they discovered that they were still greatly affected in their lives by “the body of fear.”
You wrote: “But when you know yourself for what you are, and not as the fictitious one who has ‘case’, the fictitious entity begins to calm down and slowly becomes very quiet.”
I think the operative word there is “slowly.” I can’t help but believe auditing would speed up the quest for freedom from the “powerful energies” still being lived out, and thus it could complement those paths – as could other paths complement the path of auditing.
marildi, I have great respect for anybody who is fiercely interested in matters of truth and reality.
My point is simple but it’s difficult to state briefly. The spiritual view says ‘case’ is not important unless it is so bad it presents a constant distraction. That’s when therapy may be required. Otherwise, what is important is to see that you are the ever-present, non-involved witness to the person’s thoughts, actions and feelings.
The WHAT and WHY of how a person thinks and feels is totally irrelevant. The past is totally unimportant. Self-knowledge has nothing to do with understanding the person’s unique peculiarities and behaviors. The only thing that’s important is to see that you are the peaceful, 24/7 silent watcher. So called, “layers of the mind” are just layers of baloney. The “deeper journey” can more accurately be called, “day dreaming”. There is only right now. That is the platform of the preeminent spiritual practices.
I’m satisfied I’ve made my point and I think it’s impressive you have strong interest along these lines.
Roger: “The WHAT and WHY of how a person thinks and feels is totally irrelevant. The past is totally unimportant. Self-knowledge has nothing to do with understanding the person’s unique peculiarities and behaviors. The only thing that’s important is to see that you are the peaceful, 24/7 silent watcher.”
Except for the last sentence, the above is true of auditing as well – its “sole purpose” (quoting the materials) is to release the charge (“energies”) that impinges on a person. As many spiritual teachers have attested, those energies can greatly interfere with meditation – as well as with situations in life, which then interfere that much more with meditation and its purpose to become “the peaceful, 24/7 silent watcher.”
Today I read a forum discussion on the topic of combining therapy with the practice of Buddhism, with professionals from one or both fields, including Jack Kornfield (the author I’ve been quoting, who I learned is actually a teacher in the vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism, although he had practiced Zen in the past.). Some of the forum comments were fundamentalist views and indicated
Buddhism should be kept “pure”; others pointed out that Buddhism as it moved into different cultures in different times has always evolved – in the spirit of the Buddha himself, whose teachings evolved over time.
The point I’m making is you are right that this is a big topic of discussion, too big for you and I to take up here. But let me say I respect your strong interest in the area too. And I get that you agree we should call it quits first this time, before Mike lowers the boom. 🙂
If you’re interested in reading that forum discussion, here’s the link: https://www.lionsroar.com/forum-psychology-and-buddhism/
Cheers!
marildi, “charge’ and ‘energies’ are just objects of perception appearing and disappearing in you, awareness. They can’t ‘impinge’ on you because the perceiver and the perceived are eternally distinct from each other. Indeed, an ‘impingement’ would simply be another object of perception with you as the separate perceiver. The sense of “I” is also an object. Do you see the elegance of it? The ‘person’ is nothing but a collection of objects of perception with you as the distinctly separate perceiving awareness. Awareness is perfect bliss and that’s what you are, marildi! 🙂
Why, thank ya, Rog. 🙂
It is indeed an elegant conception and you expressed it elegantly.
Nonetheless, I see no reason why there couldn’t be such a thing as an “I” (not meaning ego but soul) – whether this “I” (or soul or thetan) exists as ultimate or fundamental reality or not. Even George, the poster here who is a student and seemingly a scholar of Theravada Buddhism, stated one time that the soul is not permanent but “almost,” which I understood to mean that the soul exists for a very, very, very long time – albeit in the category of “objects of perception.”
There are spiritual teachings which describe this “I” as a “subtle body,” meaning it has very little solidity or density. That would make it as “real” as the physical body, and this would fit into the context of the belief system you subscribe to. In other words, the soul then is another part of existence – i.e. something for the “distinctly separate perceiving awareness” to perceive.
This is what makes the most sense to me and would resolve the ages-long dispute among mystics and sages. It would also account for many other phenomena and experiences in life that nonduality adherents might otherwise need to deny – such as past lives and exteriorization – whether those experiences exist as fundamental reality or not.
Of course, none of this can be proved one way or the other, but you can have the last say about it if you like.
Thank you for giving me the last word. Indeed, the “I” thought (ahamkara) is one of the 3 major components of the subtle body along with ‘manos’, the emotional center and ‘buddhi’ the intellect.
You could call the subtle body the ‘soul’ but it is just machinery. You are its consciousness. It’s terribly interesting as you obviously know and way too involved to discuss here. But it’s been fun. 🙂
“You could call the subtle body the ‘soul’ but it is just machinery. You are its consciousness.”
Yes, and the consciousness conneced with that machinery carries with it, lifetime to lifetime, the experiences it has witnessed – and in that sense the soul identity goes on. (This is just an ack! 🙂 )
And yes – an interesting and fun exchange.
Let me just quickly point out on this topic, that while someone like marildi may view other practices (which they may not have really tried for themselves) as “vague and unsystematic” and Hubbard’s work as offering the promise of being more technical and efficient than other practices, in reality Dianetics and Scientology end up delivering very inconsistent results, if at any, and take inordinate amounts of time. Perhaps that’s just the nature of the whole subject, and in spite of Hubbard’s stated (and promised) aspirations he failed to actually rise above it.
PM: “…in reality Dianetics and Scientology end up delivering very inconsistent results, if any, and take inordinate amounts of time…”
That’s just Assertion (another logical fallacy). There is no valid research that shows it is true.
OK– that’s enough. This is getting idiotic.
The response to you could just as easily be that your assertion that this is an Assertion is just an Assertion because because tyhere is no val;id research that shows that Dianetics and Scientology deliver consistent results in good time…”
Please just stop the endless “I have to have the last word” — it is childish.
marildi, the quote you offered starts out “In most cases where the role of teacher is abused…”
But Hubbard is always an exceptional case, isn’t he?
And in his case, we have first the evidence of his abuse of his wives and family before he even really became a teacher, as well as his mistreatment of his earliest associates – his behavior didn’t necessarily get worse while he headed Scientology, but rather his existing sociopathy never reformed or improved even while he positioned himself as a humanitarian and a teacher knowledgeable in techniques of self-betterment. Then there’s the evidence of Hubbard’s Affirmations of the late 1940s, buttressed by the accounts of his son L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. about how Dianetics and Scientology were actually run from the beginning, including the focus on heartless egoism and remorseless utilitarianism as espoused in Aleister Crowley’s work, and obsessions with money and power.
How do you consider the evidence that from the start, Hubbard intended such things as that:
* “magical work is powerful and effective.”
* “Your psychology is advanced and true and wonderful. It hypnotizes people.”
* “Material things are yours for the asking. Men are your slaves.”
and that Scientology admitted in court, while Hubbard was still alive and held power behind the scenes, that those statements were “written by” him?
The issue of Hubbard’s intentions puzzled me until fairly recently, when I finally saw enough of this sort of evidence, and the consistency of that with various reports and examples of his ongoing behavior patterns (though sometimes mostly concealed), to piece it all together. It is a bit counter-intuitive to grasp how someone who worked assiduously to position themselves as one thing, could actually be operating on intentions that were quite the opposite – but that’s the nature of sociopaths, they are good at convincing you that they are the most trustworthy of people, at the same time that they’re mulling over in their mind things like what recipe to use for cook your liver once they’ve butchered you.
I get the impression that you haven’t really looked into all that, and other issues of Hubbard’s sources (such as Crowley’s Thelema), for yourself yet. I think that one of the things you run up against, is that those of us who have, think that anyone who has really taken the responsibility to inform themselves about the subject to that extent can’t help but come to certain conclusions about Hubbard and his work. If you can cite anyone who has that sort of knowledge and background, but who continues to see some unique value in Hubbard’s work, I’d be genuinely interested to know about them and find out exactly what they had to say on the subject. And if you know or knew enough about those extents of the subject to discuss them, then that would also be extremely interesting.
So very well said!
” I think that one of the things you run up against, is that those of us who have, think that anyone who has really taken the responsibility to inform themselves about the subject to that extent can’t help but come to certain conclusions about Hubbard and his work. If you can cite anyone who has that sort of knowledge and background, but who continues to see some unique value in Hubbard’s work, I’d be genuinely interested to know about them and find out exactly what they had to say on the subject.”
I feel exactly the same way and welcome the opportunity to engage with anyone who’s thoroughly researched the subject, yet continues to believe in the infallible Word of Elron, Patron Saint of exorcised body thetans 😉
The trouble is, there just aren’t that many of them left. Indeed, after Marty closed up shop, it’s become increasingly rare to even find folks like Marildi, who are still true believers in the “pure” form of Hubbardism, but who have not been coerced into silence, as all members of the corporate cherch must remain if they wish to continue to be members in good standing with it.
We should treasure this rare breed and fully support them as they struggle in their own best way to come to grips with the total mindfuckery of $cn, which everyone who was once a true believer knows only too well. Getting completely out of the cult’s “prison of belief” involves much more than just cutting ties with the corporate cherch and just takes as long as it takes for each individual. The fact that other true believers have managed to do so attests to the fact that it is indeed possible.
And, Harpoona, Marty seems from what I can tell like a prime example of someone who was a Hubbard and “tech” loyalist, who looked deeply for themselves once they came out from under the CofS’ spell – and ended up determining that Hubbard’s work was plagiarized, too riddled with errors and mind control to be salvageable, and in fact was such a mess that it didn’t even achieve placebo-level results.
Miraldi is an important voice. I am glad she is here giving her views. They are hers and she is passionate about them. She challenges our assumptions and that is a good thing.
The argument is a good one. The exchange of ideas is not neat and tiddy. It is at times messy.
Dialog between disagreeing adults can get funky. But it is divine when done with grit, passion, intensity and some semblance of respect.
I honor every voice on this blog.
My take is to just move on from dialogs you do not resonate with. Why stop them if they are not vulgar and hateful.
Thanks, Brian. Very nice post. <3
(Haven't I always told you that you missed your calling? 😉 )
I agree with everyone. And I do think it’s important to try to figure out how to honor our host Mike’s requests to minimize the back-and-forth, nonetheless.
I do think that having alternative voices and challenging assumptions is a good thing. My experience is that it’s challenging to engage with that in an online forum, both in terms of communicating effectively when not in the face-to-face situations to which we are acculturated, and also in terms of being efficient in using the online space.
At last PeaceMaker is living up to his name. 🙂
PM: “…his behavior didn’t necessarily get worse while he headed Scientology, but rather his existing sociopathy never reformed or improved…”
Regardless of Hubbard’s past, or your efforts to characterize it in the extreme of sociopathy, many people have noted the changes in policy and how the church began to be run in the years that followed his initial insights and Scn writings. In fact, some of those people are posters on this very blog, who witnessed firsthand the changes in how the church stared operating as a result of Hubbard’s later policies.
In any case, my intention isn’t to defend Hubbard but to point out that the tech he developed should not be evaluated “against the man” – otherwise known as the Ad Hominem fallacy – no matter how you try to equate the two. In Scientology terms it’s an A=A.
And the excerpt I posted wasn’t just to make a point about Hubbard but about jthe rest of us too, with regard to our own failings in the situation and afterwards. Later in the same chapter I quoted (titled “The Dirty Laundry”) is this paragraph:
“When yogi Amarit Desa’s Kripalu Yoga community fell apart in 1994, an enormous sense of betrayal swept his disciples. A public disclosure of the master’s secret affairs and manipulation of power and money over twenty years disillusioned many. Yet because he was also a creative and wise teacher, students were able to use the very practices he had taught them – of inquiry, balance, and compassion – to deal with their loss. After months of difficult meetings and councils, the master was asked to leave and the students were left to work with their confusion and despair. Over the years since, the community has rebuilt itself, dedicated to the principles of yoga and healthy spirituality that the crisis of betrayal taught them. And the master too claims he has learned important lessons from this process.”
In the end, Hubbard also admitted he had failed.
marildi, I think this is worth replying to briefly, because you mention some of the important issues that also puzzled me until recently.
Look at just the 5 years from 1946 when Hubbard was practicing dark (if not black) magic with Jack Parsons and hooking up with the woman who he would bigamously marry, through 1951 when his original Dianetics organizations fell apart in a bitter feud with his original collaborators and partners. Along the way he was convicted of theft, kidnapped his child and told her mother that she had been killed and dismembered, and was deemed a “mental case” by the FBI. It’s hard not to conclude that he was a criminal sociopath.
It’s not necessarily fallacious to point out the improbability of someone like that, actually creating a workable science of mental health intended to free people. Rather it’s a prima facie case, that requires extraordinary proof of any theory to the contrary. What I (and quite a few, if not many others) finally determined it points to, is that anything “workable” in Hubbard’s “tech” likely came from predecessors or collaborators, and that what happened in the early years of Dianetics and Scientology was that idealists and enablers around him kept his worst nature in check, only later to (re) emerge. That leaves the original work a troubling mess to figure out – but also explains its problems and inconsistencies. It is certainly well documented, if not well known, that there were originally multiple collaborators and authors, who authored “tech,” writings and works for which Hubbard later took full credit.
I just wanted to reiterate those points here, rather than really getting into them. I will respond to some more relevant issues, separately.
PM: “I just wanted to reiterate those points here, rather than really getting into them. I will respond to some more relevant issues, separately.”
And I just want to reiterate that you not only take up multiple issues all at once (which is bad form in discussions) but then go on to make blatant assertions that are mere conjecture and often add up to the “No True Scotsman” fallacy: “a way of reinterpreting evidence in order to prevent the refutation of one’s position.” Examples from you post above:
“anything ‘workable’ in Hubbard’s ‘tech’ LIKELY came from predecessors or collaborators”
“what happened in the early years of Dianetics and Scientology was that idealists and enablers around him kept his worst nature in check, only later to (re) emerge”
In general, PM, your posts can be way too long. In the future, let’s keep it to one manageable topic at a time.
NO MORE PLEASE
“Your logic would have them all having MUs and you, Marildi, are lucky enough, or more advanced enough, or a better student to understand the REAL SCIENTOLOGY.”
Brian, I have now read most of the major posts on this blog. There was one other die-hard cult member that used to post on here basically stating that he and Ron were the only ones smart enough to understand AND properly apply the perfect tech and would call all others basically sub-human. Mike called him out for his illogic at points and he eventually faded away.
The mental mechanism you are encountering is the same…
Thanks for your response, M.
So, if the corporate cherch was applying what the materials actually state, would you still be a member in good standing? If so, then I think we’ve arrived at the heart of the matter here: For most of us here, the core problem with $cn IS $cn. We believe that even when the materials are applied exactly as intended by Elron, the results can be horrendously harmful and destructive…witness the policies on disconnection, fair game, sec checking, RPF and on and on.
We don’t frame our arguments using $cn materials as valid, authoritative supporting sources because the individual who wrote them was himself not a credible, respected source in any of the fields he dabbled in. Thus, when you make what to you are perfectly sensible arguments, you’re failing to realize that the sources that you’re citing to support this or that conclusion are never going to be ones that we’re going to accept.
It’s very much akin to engaging with biblical literalists, whose firm belief in a young earth can not be shaken unless support for an opposing view can be found in the scriptures – never mind that hundreds of thousands of scientists from many different fields have all come to the conclusion that the earth is far older (as in, billions of years older) than what biblical literalists so fervently believe. Your $cn-supported arguments appear to us like biblical literalist arguments do to folks in science, as being circular and based on sources which are just not credible.
You’re perfectly entitled to limit the scope of your support for your arguments to $cn materials, but since very few others here deem them to be authoritative, you might consider trying to make the same argument by citing sources that we can all agree are credible. If you’re primary argument is that $cn worked very well for you, then I’m completely willing to take you at your word there and just congratulate you on your good fortune. The trouble, though, is that many others did not have the same excellent result with it and do not believe that, if it had only been applied correctly, they too would be happy clams. We do not accept Elron’s work as even being a valid, credible and authoritative source, let alone The Source.
I accept and respect your decision not to share your own personal experiences in $cn with us here. No one should feel obligated to do so or be judged for electing to keep their private lives private. It should be noted, however, that this same freedom to speak or not to speak about your personal life is just not possible in $cn (either during Elron’s reign in the past or under lil davey’s “leadership” in the present), where your unwillingness to be sec checked would get you booted out pretty darned quick.
HF: We believe that even when the materials are applied exactly as intended by Elron, the results can be horrendously harmful and destructive…witness the policies on disconnection, fair game, sec checking, RPF and on and on. We don’t frame our arguments using $cn materials as valid, authoritative supporting sources…”
I am also against the policies you list and have never said otherwise. And I’ve only cited Scn materials when someone says something about the “tech,” or says they received such and such “tech” – yet the reference I cite shows that it wasn’t per the tech at all.
It’s not a matter of quoting something as authority – it’s a matter of pointing out that what is being attributed to tech is not tech.
Honestly, how many times and in how many ways do I have to say these things for you and others not to dub in a fixed idea of what you assume is really going on with me – or with anyone who says anything positive about any part of the tech?
M., I work hard to follow your lines of reasoning and I believe that you are sincere in wishing to see others helped and kept safe from those aspects of Hubbardism that have done so much harm to individuals and families over the years.
I too have made lasting personal gains in my own early auditing experiences which I would never attempt to negate in myself or for others. However, my attribution of exactly what the true source of those cherished gains were is different than yours.
I don’t attribute them to any kind of unique discoveries made by Elron, but rather, to the various counseling methods that others, such as Freud, Jung and Rogers, came up with and that Elron “borrowed” without properly crediting. In addition, the power of belief, or the “placebo effect’ as its also known, played a very substantial role in my subjective sense of the Tech’s efficacy at the time.
Now, decades later, after informing myself of all that I didn’t know about $cn then – including the founder’s true personal history and the work of those he stole most of his ideas and methods from – I can still value the gains that I made in $cn, while no longer feeling obligated to attribute them to Elron.
No baby need be tossed with all that dirty bath water 😉
“I don’t attribute them [gains] to any kind of unique discoveries made by Elron, but rather, to the various counseling methods that others, such as Freud, Jung and Rogers, came up with and that Elron ‘borrowed’ without properly crediting. In addition, the power of belief, or the ‘placebo effect’ as its also known, played a very substantial role in my subjective sense of the Tech’s efficacy at the time.”
Yes, those are the pat explanations used by critics who have adopted one another’s think and patter. Maybe not you, HF, but the intention of some of them, who feel justified and righteous about it, is to make little or nothing of the many precise processes, procedures, and other applications to self-betterment that Hubbard uniquely developed – which those critics seem to know little about, and which can’t be attributed to anybody else.
Anyway, I wish you peace.
marildi, first, just to let you know, I certainly haven’t adopted anyone else’s “think and patter,” though it seems quite a few of us have come to the same conclusions on our own – and then might at times, use some common terms of phrases.
More importantly, briefly, so that I can understand, can you cite a specific example of something that you think “Hubbard uniquely developed,” and that those here who have extensive knowledge and experience of Scientology as well as Hubbard’s sources, fail to credit? And are you so sure that you are familiar enough with Hubbard’s sources (like Crowley’s Thelema,, which defenders seem to know little about) that you can say with certainty that anything was actually authored by Hubbard?
PM: “can you cite a specific example of something that you think ‘Hubbard uniquely developed…”
As far as I know all processes and other specific procedures and applications of tech are unique to Scientology (leaving aside philosophy, at least for the moment, since philosophies are commonly similar to one another). Can you name any tech that isn’t unique? And please specify where you feel that piece of tech was “borrowed” from, along with a reference to support what you say.
As an example of what I’ve seen, there have been numerous comments which state that Hubbard adopted Crowley’s law: “’Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” – which then proceed to misinterpret what that law even means, and on top of it give no source for the interpretation.
Peace to you as well! Perhaps we can take up the thread of this topic at some future point and delve more deeply into the question of how much of what Elron came up with in $cn was actually his own unique creation vs. that which was “borrowed” from uncredited sources.
Okay, HF. But let’s keep in mind that an assertion about the supposed “real” source of the tech needs to be specific. For example, there is a common accusation that Hubbard adopted Crowley’s principle of “Do what thou wilt according the Law” – even though that principle is usually misinterpreted in the first place, as to its actual meaning – which would need a reference. In the second place, specifically how Hubbard “borrowed” it – i.e. where in the tech it is used – need to be given. Generalities won’t due, from either side.
Harpoona, thanks for that eloquent and kind-hearted piece.
I, too, am looking forward to a response from marildi. I want to add that for myself, and I assume for pretty much everyone else, what it really comes down to is proof. There is preponderance of evidence for Hubbard’s corrupt intents, and the poor construction of his work. And not only that, after more than half a century, is there no scientific proof for the works and claims of a vastly wealthy and resourceful organization, and accompanying movement, but what research has been done shows that the premises of the work are faulty, and there are no results beyond placebo effect; in addition, many people with enormous technical experience and expertise in the subject, and a real willingness to reexamine it diligently for themselves in the light of new evidence, have come to largely the same conclusions as the research. My own view on the subject has changed significantly in the last six months, because of the evidence I’ve come across.
marildi, I’m trying to better understand your point, and have some questions that I imagine others do, too.
Can you cite one or more significant examples of what you think are the church not applying “what the materials actually state” – and show what is the point in the past, when the church did apply them as you think that they should be? Is there an example of an organization currently existing outside the church, that you think is applying them properly? Or is your position, that they have never been applied correctly?
How do you think that “misapplications and group think” came about in the context of tech, policy, and organizations, when the founder and Source Hubbard specifically said he had set things up so that should not be able to happen?
PM: “Can you cite one or more significant examples of what you think are the church not applying ‘what the materials actually state’…”
I’ve given many examples. Here are the links to three of them from this thread alone:
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/pts-in-scientology-bug-or-baddie/#comment-173120
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/pts-in-scientology-bug-or-baddie/#comment-173172
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/pts-in-scientology-bug-or-baddie/#comment-173310
PM: “How do you think that ‘misapplications and group think’ came about in the context of tech, policy, and organizations, when the founder and Source Hubbard specifically said he had set things up so that should not be able to happen?”
See my reply to Brian.
marildi, thanks for making an attempt at answering.
I’ve seen your comments such as the ones you cite, but the crucial element of my question was the final “and show what is the point in the past, when the church did apply them as you think that they should be?” Can you please do that, provide examples that you think are illustrative, of when there was proper application, and then not? Or do you not think that there is clear evidence to be found, that Scientology has ever consistently applied what you think is ‘what the materials actually state’?
And thanks for pointing me to your other response, I will respond those issues there.
PM: “…the crucial element of my question was the final ‘and show what is the point in the past, when the church did apply them as you think that they should be?…Or do you not think that there is clear evidence to be found, that Scientology has ever consistently applied what you think is ‘what the materials actually state’?”
As I’ve also said before, there are many factors involved besides point in time – including the factors of which org or mission, and even which supervisor or auditor or ethics officer. And none of us can be accurate about any of it as no one has done any valid research. We can only state our own direct and indirect experiences.
In any case, here you are once again going off on a tangent from the point I was making. And you haven’t even indicated that you got my point – you only say you’ve “seen” my comments and immediately added the “but…”.
This is such a fascinating subject:
L Ron Hubbard made SPs more powerful than any gains you can have in Scientology.
The SP has the power to take away your wins! Take away knowledge and certainty.
Don’t you find this doctrine curiously submisive?
Let’s unpack this a little:
Ok, Ron says he has processes that can take you to stable states of awareness.give you knowledge of a spiritual kind whereby we realize our personal power.
Yet he grants SPs, critics, the power to rob you of your Scientology gains????
This is what I think is going on here:
If a person has knowledge, knowledge that is received through directly perceiving the source of knowledge; it is impossible to take it away.
E.g.
I look down on my shoes and directly perceive they are brown. I know they are brown because I put them on, they are mine and now I am looking and knowing my brown shoes directly.
Joe Schmoe, an SP, comes over to me and makes fun of me knowing my shoes are brown and tells me they are blue shoes.
So what then happens to me? Because I directly see my brown shoes, Mr. SChmoe’s views are whacky. Instead of my knowledge being invalidated, instead of my confidence in my perception being made less of, I see that something is wrong with Mr Schmoe!
Direct perception is real knowledge and cannot be invalidated because it is not based on conjecture, inference, belief, blind belief etc.
The only knowledge that can be invalidated by anybody is indirect knowing, belief etc.
So it is belief that can be invalidated by SPs.
If I only believed in the perception of my brown shoes, someone can come along and make an argument for another color and that can throw me off. Because I DON’T REALLY KNOW!!
And what are Scientology SPs in essence? In essence Scientology SPs are critics of Ron and Scientology.
So here is why SPs have so much power over Scientologists:
SPs are usually critics who call out the lies. Since Scientology is based on lies and Ron thoughts, with a smattering of real help, critics cause believers to go into doubt on their brown shoes and thus take away their wins (beliefs). That is because they never had real knowledge in the first place. Real knowledge loves scrutiny.
Because real souls of wisdom have acquired their knowledge through the power of scrutiny.
Scrutiny, for seekers of truth, is the road to new and ever expanding knowledge.
Scrutiny for believers is an attack on “knowledge” based on belief.
Knowledge is never threatened by criticism because of the unquestioned certainty.
Belief is always threatened by critics because it is not direct knowing.
Therefore Ron’s Scientology is a belief because believers come unglued from critics. Ron came unglued from critics.
To a man or women of real knowledge and wisdom, scrutiny and criticism becomes an opportunity to persuade, teach, enlighten, make new friends and enjoy adult dialog.
To a cult member, scrutiny and criticism becomes the devil (an SP in Scientology lingo).
Cult members create sacred belief cows. Seekers of truth make hamburgers out of sacred cows.
???. Wonderful post. Hope it helps those who seem confused by the con..?
Brian, your post is amazing and throws a laser beam focus on the flaws and inconsistencies in LRH’s “brilliant” invention.
How an SP can be such a threat to a “clear” operating thetan completely invalidates the so-called power of being an OT.
I think the whole cowering mass of scientology is peeing their collective pants at the thought of one or two SP’s who might be able to upset the whole organization. What a weak, weak bunch they all are, so frightened and threatened.
Brian, your comment makes so much sense to me. I have not seen this subject taken apart like this before. Brilliant!
Totally agreed, Brian. It’s all so contradictory when you look at it from the outside.
Thank you guys. I believe Ron’s hatred of critics (SPs) and making them into an absolute evil was his conscious attempt to create an impenetrable defense wall around his church.
By teaching and convincing us that anyone who criticized Ron, the OT levels, clears, auditing etc; L Ron Hubbard made certain that any direct looking at his assumptions would be fought tooth and nail.
By creating Fair Game and Bolivar he trained his cult believers to fight SPs (critics) thus demonizing those who wish to look and Scientology directly.
The true existential threat to Scientology is the truth about Scientology.
Scrutiny is cryptonite to liars. Ron has been proven a congenital liar.
Ron’s SP/PTS tech was formulated to protect his lies from the cold light of reason.
His demonization of criticism was instrumental in inspiring a culture of thugs, GO/OSA; an army of mafia like minions with the unstated goal of keeping L Ron Hubbard from being seen “as he is”.
The enemy of the liar is the truth.
The truth of Ron is the enemy of the concept “Scientology is the last chance out.”
I believe Ron knew what he was doing. He was a brilliant, unparalleled manipulator of human values.
His real unstated goal was power and money.
The proof?
At the end of life he thought not a wit for securing the future of Scientology. He did not spend the last years of life being worried the “agonizing future of those who do not do the OT levels.”
At the end of his life he wrote Battlefield Earth and obsessed over BTs.
He sold us that Scientology was the real and only truth in the history of forever. The only science of mind to free mankind.
Yet he did not work for a peaceful and organized transition of power?
He did not work to secure Scientology’s future b cause Ron knew what Scientology was.
He cared nothing for the future of Scientology, the future of every agonized trapped human being.
That is because he knew it was a sham. End of story. It was a sham that made him a pile of money.
It was a sham that helped him secure his stated goal:
SMASH MY NAME INTO HISTORY.
“The true existential threat to Scientology is the truth about Scientology. ”
There it is! The more you delve into it – along any line of inquiry or approach to the subject – the less it holds up as being credible!
The more you read up on the objectively documented facts of Elron’s personal history, the more certain that you become that he was a life-long pathological liar and that the corporate cherch has intentionally colluded in trying to conceal his true biography.
Do enough research, study and engagement with others on the subject and it’s almost impossible to remain a true believer in Hubbardism…after all, at least at the end, neither was Elron!
How do you explain the existence of the IAS?
@Brian, I was thinking the same thing this morning while talking to a client. She trusted her 3 year old son with her boyfriend, a man who other women had accused of physically abusing their children. The child died in that man’s care. The ex-policeman is now in jail.
What bearing does that have on LRH? Why would I trust a man who begged someone to rig an e-meter to help him commit suicide to have the answers to my sanity? I would no more trust a child abuser with taking care of my child than I would trust a suicidal man with saying he had the discovered the key to fix my mind.
100+++
Brian, I see your enlightened post as an opportunity to tell another part of my story and history in $cn.
I spent my first 1.5 years in scn at Flag in the Renos Project of the FH. I had just exited military service to my country and some college time in 1981 and so the SO stuff was not so unusual to me then. I reunited with a scn 2D from before my service commitment and I was already in Tampa when he showed back up into my life. My scn history from then is long and eventful with mostly nego experiences.
BUT… I never gave up searching, looking, reading, and examining knowledge and other practices. I saw many similarities to scn in what I studied. I have many non-scn friends. I found and practiced yoga. I learned to meditate. And as I never had the money to do more than some basic courses and having body issues that generated long term degenerative problems, I never had the mula to pursue any more in scn. When DM took over and things changed, I took an extreme dislike to the regs overbearing behavior and attitude and I became a fence sitter. While believing in the benefits I had received from what I had done, I was not in agreement with living as more of a pauper than I already was just to participate in the cherch. I stopped going to the 3+ hour long Shrine events in LA. The whole charade of cheering to the overly loud lauding of statistics was agonizingly painful to my ears and senses. Not to mention the gauntlet of the event hall afterwards. I even left through the front doors once and some newbie SO member tried to stop me and direct me to the hall. When I asked her if she was trying to prevent me from leaving, she was speechless!
Fast forward to Leah’s very public leaving and listening to Jason Beghe’s interviews led me directly to the Q of where are the leaders of our cherch. What happened to these GOOD people directly under DM? I knew ALL of them from Flag. Shocked to learn they were all detained in the Hole by DM and that was enough to post a public event on Facebook that I was leaving my fence-sitting days to become an activist against this hypocrisy called a church! Thank you, Internet, Leah and especially Mike!!! Who would not believe Mike!
I feel like I have a certain advantage now, over some others that I see and hear about here, in that I know there are benefits to other more advanced practices as I followed my own path and sought out things that resonated with me. I learned to use my intuition and follow that “gut feeling” that directed my actions to good people and principles that worked FOR ME. It’s still a process for me and I continue to expand my knowledge now to include sifting through what’s true for me from the false information I received and tried to live by in $cn that was simply mind control and thought reform tactics. I had my share of controlling 2Ds… called by my therapist, a cult of two! With the realization that Elron was like them, a lying, manipulative, narcissistic, demon-filled man with a golden tongue… I was out! Why would I want to continue to follow anything developed by a man who was so triggered by his own thoughts that he turned well-meaning people who wanted to help the world into blind believers of his own BS???
I love your posts, Brian. Keep it up!
Many of these arguments seem to me to amount to saying that if Hitler or Stalin told me 2+2=4, why should I believe him, when I know he is a sociopath?
Funny when examined. El Con, now a known sociopath and violent felon decreed that any scamologist who said that they were PTS to HIM or any senior Church executive be labeled as delusory and if the person persisted in the claim, to label them as crazy and kick them out.
When I studied that part of scamology “tech” alarm bells blasted and it lead me to leaving the cult.
Yeh. They’re right.
RUN….
That’s the best kind of system. If you’re good, good things come to you, if you are bad, bad things come to you, therefor anything bad in your life is your fault and I and the rest of the world are in no way culpable, contaminated, or particularly interested. It is a good buffer for people who really don’t want a main line to compassion.
So your sick are you, well what did you do to bring that on yourself, ie, how can I avoid it?
Clearly all you have to do is not have sex with chicken salad. I got that part…
Subliminal message #46 * donthavesexwithchickensalad *
Priceless!
Hmm, so tuna salad is ok? (asking for a friend 😉
Brilliant exposure of false data on PTS/SP tech. It’s funny how much false data stripping requires after serving in the Sea Org for 15 years.
“No one would dispute that stress from suppression can precipitate illness.”
I am admittedly hyper-sensitive to this type of statement, due to my ongoing desperate fight to identify and strip away all hubbardism bs. I’m not up to conceiving that I have any answers to anything, but I AM up to fighting against anything not 100 percent demonstrably proven.
I applaud you for your efforts, contribution and sensibilities, TC, but sometimes I privately think you’re not as out as you think you are.
I do not personally know of science to back up your statement.
____________
I don’t talk about any physical condition I may or may not suffer with any scio, I refuse to subject myself to their nonsense/hurtful/wrong-headed/useless silent or not so silent judgement.
I am “Clear” 3X over, and “OT” to boot, but I don’t enjoy the glorious abilities described in DMSMH regarding health and illness. I spent over $100,000.00 and applied myself diligently with dedicated fervor and achieved all kinds of hopeful thinking and no actual change in health or ability.
The utter failure of the PTS “tech” was not what broke me and made me finally “see”. But it is something I am terribly bitter about.
If it is of any comfort secretfornow, the yogis, the adepts and the sages of all persuasion, say that no spiritual effort is wasted. All lessons are valid. There are no mistakes. We experience what we experience. We learn what we learn.
We were all so trusting with him. He was successful because Ron tapped into a generation of people that had a truly honest and compelling desire for knowledge transcendent. He tapped into our innate interest in things spiritual. That quest is a noble one.
Besides the lessons of betrayal and redemption that we all experience, we also ventured into the mind, to look, to resolve: to realize. And I think we all did this in varying degrees. There WERE parts of looking within with auditing that was very educational on certain perceptions of thinking. Blowing charge is fun!
Only now I get to do it almost everyday, for free, in meditation. Having realizations (cognitions) is not something Ron invented. It is our very nature to do so; seeking truth.
We were deceived, yes. But we joined to be deceived. Some people just smelt a rat and ran. We were attracted to it.
I am glad have the memory of what it’s like to have had a cult mentality. My BS detector has gotten pretty sharp after I unpacked Ron from my thoughts.
He was a deceiver, a liar, who knew how to manipulate human values to secure paying customers.
So secretfornow, I hope you claim what was true and what was bs in your own understanding.
The hardest thing for me was separating the bs from the truth I learned frm Ron.
There are two Rons.
1) the one who seems to really care for the pc
2) the psycho mind fucker who destroys crtics. lies, and has no feeling for destroying people.
One Ron wrote “What is Greatness”
One Ron wrote “Bolivar”
What Ron said in What is Greatness is beautiful. Even if he really did not mean it; obviuosly.
My love of words comes from him. I love my American Heritage Dictionary!
And if I can sum what I learned from him spiritually it would be this:
“All I am trying to do is to get you to look” L Ron Hubbard.
I am grateful to have learned the appreciation of looking to find the basic, or cause, of something.
I learned that from him. I just do it it my own way now. I am my own solo session.
Thank you for all of this. I’m glad for you. It seems as though you’re moving along rather well with it all. Good for you.
I’m not where you are yet. I may never be and that’s OK too. The main thing is that I’m out and know I can not be lured back in.
I was in almost 4 decades, I find that the ideas are embedded so deeply as to make me worry that I’ll never be able to think my own thoughts fully. It’s hopeful that I continually recognize thoughts/concepts/evaluations as being not-mine and can at least fight against it. But I hate that I can’t make it all disappear.
(like having a bit of a worry about something, followed by the immediate thought, “oh, I’ll just postulate ______”) I am enraged, appalled, and devastated at the depth of continuing mind control. … (on a good day, I may also be fascinated)
I can’t envision that I’ll ever be at a point where I’ll sit back all healed and strong and then take a look over all those decades, staff years, sessions, books, lectures, courses and so on, and pick out the pretty things “I can still like or admire”, recall fondly various turns of phrases that had me smiling or amazed and delighted with, … keep some of the “tech” ideas and hold them close to my bosom.
The evidence is too strong for the case that he consciously chose to lie, to embellish, to deceive, and cover up. The depth of the betrayal I feel is commensurate with the depth of my prior belief and devotion to hubbard and scn.
I think it’ll always be akin to admiring Hitler’s paintings.
Kidnapped by a rapist for 40 years, but at least he had a nice trunk and I got to see Rome thorough its keyhole.
……..
I seek nothing spiritually.
All I want from here on out are campfires and BBQs, grandchildren and warm friends.
and someday…….
all my own thoughts.
Thank you secret for now.
The honesty and authenticity that you approach your situation is inspiring to me.
Your difficulties not withstanding.
I was only in for 11 years. I left in 82. If I have any clarity on the subject it is because I have 35 years of contemplating and intellectually resolving and desilvibg Ron’s lies.
Anger is a valid step in the resolution of betrayal.
Betrayal after trust?
L Ron Hubbard was gracious enough to demonstrate what it feels like by manipulating our trust and then betraying it.
He was a psychological propagandist that could make Gerbels jealous.
Thanks for the support. It’s very valuable.
secretfornow, you are absolutely owed all your money back from the scam called scientology. They did not deliver on what they promised you, after you had handed over your hard-earned dollars. Scientology registrars are the lowest of the low, and they will be burned badly in the demise of scientology that we are witnessing.
To the lurkers, currently “In”… get out now while you have the chance. In fact, before you blow, gather as much evidence as you can to use against the “church”. It will come in handy.
Oh yes, the only time when I saw more pale faces than in the org was in the army during flu epidemic. As a public me and my wife organized a whole scheme of “sickness drill”, like “Victor is on a business trip somewhere near North Pole ” (while I was on my sofa with a flu) or “Helen is visiting her sister in a far Siberian city” (she is in hospital with stomach problems). We never come clean about this)
I was always sorry for poor stuff members who have to play “i’am in the best state ever” while they were visibly ill. In my org at least 20% of stuff were woman of age 60+, the were credited as almost ideal stuff members because they can support themselves with pensions, still working husbands and children’s and still spent 12 hours a day in the org. They so afraid of pts handling that tried to play healthy even if they can hardly move up the stairs.
Drink tea, go a whole day sweating the sickness out in bed if you have too , eat healthy. It seems having chosen a game of being a human being everything learned in human history goes with that.
And chicken soup
I don’t get ill very often but I do remember hiding the fact I had a cold whenever I went to the org in order to avoid the detailed enquiry into which sp I’d bumped into this time, the reason I didn’t come up with excuses about being out of town etc was you then got the third degree from the course supervisor about when you were going to make up the time you had missed.
That used to burn me, the part about making up time so the course sups stats didn’t crash. The viewpoint that Scientology and stats are more important than “life” when life intervenes and you have to take time off to handle it. Just another example of the twisted cult mindset.
Mike, you probably know this already but you new blog post aboaut “Massive International Expansion” isn’t showing up on your site.
Posted early in error. Coming tmro.
Zarkov Galaxy?? Hans Zarkov is not amused!! He helps Flash Gordon and Dale Arden navigate their way across Mongo and destroy Ming the old vase from China.
So illnesses are caused by being in contact with a PTS? Wait, wasn’t it ‘engrams’ in Dianetics? Or was it past life thetans from the Sombrero Galaxy? Sombreros always make me dizzy.
So hard to keep the all the lies straight. Lron sure as hell couldn’t keep them straight either.
One of the main factors that propelled me out of the SO after 30 years was that my physical health and well being were slipping away. When you sleep 6 or less hours a night, eat grain/sugar/chemical laced food, are subjected to constant stress from hour work and the browbeating of seniors, it is no surprise one’s health drains away. My optimum weight was 150 or under, I weighed 200. One knee swelled up for no diagnosable reason. One eye developed serious problems. I was coming down with colds and flus every few months. Enough. I did not want to die in the SO. I left. Over time I researched nutrition and exercise and how to remove toxins from living environment, and started implementing what I was learning. My weight slowly melted away, I developed muscles again, I could sleep well, and I stopped getting sick, literally for years. I didn’t do a PTS handing, but if you want to subscribe to that theory, I removed all the suppression on my lines
– the insane seniors, insane orders, insane schedule, the no exercise, the sleep deprivation, the crap diet – by leaving the SO. And, I was free to take action to take care of my health. It was worth it.
Good for you, SSA! 30 years is a long time in any cult. Most importantly, you got your health back. And…you got your old life back.
Funnily enough I also found that scientology had been my suppresive environment, once I got away from the debt, constant demands for money, insane regge cycles etc my health and well being began to improve, leaving was the best thing I’ve done.
… and to think those assholes wanted you to suffer like that for one billion years.
SadStateOfAffairs, I am so happy to know you are free from that sinister cult and you are on the mend.
Congratulations.
Your story gives me hope that the SO members that I came to care for ( I was not in SO) may someday see the light. Thank you.
Excellent article. There is so much BS wrapped into this kind of thinking. It’s insidious. Even after 18 years out, I struggle with this sometimes, finding myself looking for the SP or some stupid thing like that, trying to decide what my bad deeds were that caused it.
A combination of bad oral hygiene and the restimulation of a wholetrack episode in another galaxy caused Billy to have tooth decay. He received a hundred touch assists and costly metered interviews. He finally went to a dentist. After a root canal his pain stopped.
What we may draw from this story: he is no longer the effect of that incident in the other galaxy a billion years ago.
Which never existed. Only in the mind of Hubbard.
+ he need to erase new engrams because of all pain and redo his purif again
You mentioned autism. As a father to an autistic son (although a rather “mild”, high-functioning form of it), I’m curious what Scientology says an autistic needs to “cure” them of that, if anything. Or do they only worry about making the “able” more able, and to hell with the other folks with mental disabilities?
And if the latter, how will they ever “clear the planet of insanity” if they refuse to “help” those folks?
Hi Mick: I’m not sure autism was recognized in Hubbard’s day, though I’m sure he would have attributed the condition to trauma inside the womb.
I think you’re right about “making the able more able and to hell with the other folds with mental disabilities.” Scientology is very selective on who they accept.
I’m afraid “clearing the planet” is a pipe dream. I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Early on in his writings, Elron espoused many of the same basic beliefs of Eugenics and Social Darwinism that Hitler adopted in his quest to create a Master Race. Later on he refined those views to make “Master Race” synonymous with “$cientologist’…everyone else are wogs who could either join up and become part of the cult or remain “children of a lesser god”.
Ghandi, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Dr. Seuss, Abraham Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and others of previous times held similar views.
FWIW Jett Travolta was autistic though his parents denied it until after his death. I wasn’t privy to how he was treated by scientology, but his parents are high profile scientologists.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2561911/John-Travolta-says-sons-death-worst-thing.html
Many fans wondered why Jett Travolta was seemingly kept way OUT of the public eye for years. When he was in his teens, it was then that I noticed his father almost guiding the child along as he walked with him, and Jett was never in the same public light as other kids of “celebs”.
Mick. Very good point you make. Scientology way of thinking on the subject is so wrong. Naive and ignorant. .Scn’s ideas should never be considered serious
I just saw this and wanted to share it.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/scientology-facilities-closed-man-alleged-151843757.html
Sorry, I submitted this before I was ready and I don’t know how to edit on this post. Anyway, the article states that: “An attorney said the Church of Scientology didn’t operate the facilities.”
It is a CO$ building, behind gates. People were arrested but are apparently being left twisting in the wind on their own. The description of how the two people taken to hospital were being treated sounds just like the way Lisa McPhearson was “treated”.
There is more information, including the names of those involved here: http://www.redstate.com/jimjamitis/2017/05/05/tennessee-authorities-shut-scientology-facilities-holding-people-will/
Back in the day when I was a trainee, I got sick once, and some intern at Flag did my folder study, and instead of a PTS bullshit wrong handling, they did a Correction List, and the item that read required a Date/Locate, and I dated some long billions of years ago trauma engram incident, and my illness subsided instantly. (Since I today no longer believe in the soul, nor past-lives trauma-engrams, I’ve learned the placebo effect of ANY “cure” is of some benefit to some people, which explains it all to me today:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/opinion/sunday/the-conversation-placebo.html?_r=1
I’m sure it was Placebo, and I’m sure placebo is the best one can get out of the boondogglry of Hubbard’s.
It’s hopeful mental placebo dodgeball benefit.
Chuck: “I got sick once, and some intern at Flag did my folder study, and instead of a PTS bullshit wrong handling, they did a Correction List”
That’s actually per the tech. One reason for apparent but false PTSness is errors in auditing.
The Tech DOES work! Once I realized that $cn was the SP on my lines and disconnected from the cult, I began to get better immediately! I’ve never again roller-coastered like I did while I was a $cilon!
Boondogology
I believe Scientology can work. If a person is an enabler and attracts ass holes to fix, the PTS/SP tech can help the person attain the courage and self confidence to leave that relation. That’s a good thing.
But any therapist worth their salt could do it.
The specialness of Scientology is make believe.
The dangerous part of the SP/PTS “tech” is when the Scientologist goes on present time and “whole track” witch hunts to try to justify ones own responsibility.
Also, critics are SPs in Scientology. That would cause those that are hypnotized by Ron to think that free thinking people are in the same catagory as Hitler and the mafia.
In that regard, the PTS/SP”tech” is a dangerous hypno-mind-fuck.
Correction: try to justify their “lack” of responsibility.
“In that regard, the PTS/SP”tech” is a dangerous hypno-mind-fuck.” Agreed. It’s one area of Scientology that can no more potential harm than just about anything else as the consequences of practicing that quackery can be widespread. Yes yes I can hear people saying that it’s misapplication. Bullshit.
So what happens to children in Scientology born with things like Autism and Down’s syndrome?
They may end up like John Travolta’s child who was autistic. He is now dead.
L Ron Hubbard was afraid of doctors and dentists. That fear of dentists put Ron in a condition of rotten, brown and smelly teeth.
There are countless stories of people not getting the medical care they needed because Ron taught that all conditions can be healed through his auditing.
People like Tory who had epilepsy and continued having seizures while in the church. She said it could have been life threatening. In John Travolta’s case with his son Jet, if Travolta’s philosophy is that auditing cures all, then it is possible that Scientology helped in the demise of his son.
Standard tech can be dangerous to your health and life.
Decayingness
Scientology has indirectly (or directly) been the cause of so much sickness, death, and human misery. How anybody can salute the grotesque visage of LRH is just astounding to anybody who has ever really looked into scientology.
That man, and his adoring minions, will be vilified and ridiculed forevermore by the cold jaundiced eye of unforgiving history. And I couldn’t be happier.
The son of the president of the church of scientology Alexander Jentzsch died at age 27 of a prescribed methadone overdose. He called a chiropractor because his back hurt rather than seeing a real doctor. The chiropractor prescribed methadone over the phone from another state. Antibiotics would have saved his life.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/scientology-presidents-son-died-of-prescribed-methadone-while-sick-with-pneumonia-6683265
His mother was not allowed to see him because she had left the church. His father was probably not informed nor would he have had a memorial service until those of us on the outside raised such a stink it became necessary to do so. If Alexander had broken off contact with his mother years earlier and she was the supposed SP in the situation, why did he even have pneumonia?
Scientologists have an ingrained fear of the medical profession and actual diagnoses and treatment that, at least in my situation, lasted many years after I left.
I still have to fight with my mind to convince myself to go to the doctor even to get antibiotics. Not because the doctor won’t think there is something wrong with me, but because I have to fight myself through the worry that I am “going to ethics” every time I go to a doctor’s office. I have been out almost 40 years and the ethics experience was still that traumatic somewhere in the back of my mind.
THAT is what LRH’s bullshit PTS policy does to people.
Valerie: Scientologists love chiropractors! I’m sure many keep one on retainer.
I feel for you regarding “going to ethics.” May the force be with you.
Wow Valerie, just wow! So glad you are out!!!!
Yeah me too. The hidden mind shrapnel planted by the scientology is not to be underestimated
That is so true. The word that describes the process, for me, is;
INSIDIOUS.
I’m still finding subtle Scientological impressions to resolve in my mind through logic, scrutiny and analytic looking.
Course study was self hypnosis. We payed to have false doctrines and dogmas, false cosmologies and world views installed in our receptive minds. Once they are in, they go into the subconscious, spring loaded to cause cognitive difficulties.
WHEN APOLOGISTS GO ON THE ATTACK OF RON CRITICS, THAT IS DEMONSTRATION OF THE REACTIVITY INSTALLED IN THEIR BRAINS REGARDING CRITICS.
THE REACTIVITY OF RON APOLOGISTS ARE A GOOD STUDY IN THE EFFECTS OF HYNOTISM.
THAT IS WHY THEY CANNOT ALLOW INTO THEIR COGNITIVE FACULTIES THAT RON SOUGHT SUICIDE WHILE RUNNING BTS.
THIS FACT OF RON WISHING SUICIDE ACTS LIKE CRYPTONITE ON SUPERMAN. THEY CANNOT STAY LONG WITH THIS FACT. THEY CANNOT THINK WITH IT. THEY MUST DENY IT TO SUPPORT THE BRAIN WASHING OF RONS UNIQUE MESSIASHIP.
RON APOLOGISTS ARE A FANTASIC DEMONSTRATION OF THE HYPNO MIND FUCK MASQUERADING AS THEIR “POINT OF VIEW.”
THE SLOW CREEPAGE INTO OUR MINDS IS INSIDIOUS.
HOW DO WE KNOW?
IF AN INTELIGENT HUMAN BEING BUYS IBTO THE FACT THAT BTS ARE THE REAL CAUSE OF THE HUMAN CONDITION……….
that is how insidious Scientology is. No matter the proof that Hawaiian islands did not exist 75 million years ago, apologists will go on line and seek confirmation bias to support the pathetic lies.
And when you tell apologists that at least 3 people can confirm that Ron desired suicide? They go into denial and make up stories. Make up stories; that is true Scientology. Made up stories.
in•sid•i•ous (ĭn‑sĭd′ē‑əs)
adj.
1. Working or spreading harmfully in a subtle or stealthy manner: insidious rumors; an insidious disease.
2. Intended to entrap; treacherous: insidious misinformation.
3. Beguiling but harmful; alluring: insidious pleasures.
Insidious is the word I use too, Brian.
Brian, how is this – “Course study was self hypnosis. We payed to have false doctrines and dogmas, false cosmologies and world views installed in our receptive minds. Once they are in, they go into the subconscious, spring loaded to cause cognitive difficulties.” – different from any education offered by the societies in which we live, with their pledges of allegiance, religious or secular indoctrinations etc? We pay for our kids to get “liberal” educations at colleges and Universities…
Well said, Val. Your other comments were spot on too. I guess no one wants to take the challenge and reply. 😉
Valerie, the love of my life died at age 50 because of this very same thing.
TC, thanks once more for your writing. You exemplify perfectly the sort of balance, that is lacking in Hubbard’s and Scientology’s approach.
It is interesting to note here, how things like exercise and diet, because they weren’t Hubbard’s interests or priorities, had their importance underplayed if not overlooked. And Hubbard didn’t bring in some associate or collaborator to address them, like someone responsible and professional would.
One of the reasons that I think it can be useful to deconstruct Hubbard and his life, is because it can be illustrative of his behavior and intents. If he was so unscientific, biased and lazy about such obvious things, how can his work with the subtleties of the human mind be trusted?
It would be fascinating to find out conclusively whether those who decline traditional therapy in favor of alternative medicine do indeed have different outcomes, such as higher mortality rates or shorter lifespans. As it stands right now, of course, we can only rely on anecdotal evidence, such as my personal experience with my mother and my aunt.
My mother became a Scientologist at age 16 and died at age 65 of heart disease. She did not go to a traditional doctor until her mid-forties. My aunt never became a Scientologist and died of emphysema at age 82, after a lifetime of smoking. (My mother never smoked, at least.) My aunt always went to doctors her whole life. One of the medications she took for many years was for blood pressure, a similar prescription my mother began at a much later date than my aunt.
I always wonder if my mother might have lived longer if she had gone to a goddamn doctor when she first started showing symptoms of heart disease in her thirties: fainting spells, migraines, angina, shortness of breath. To address these symptoms, she resolutely tried to eradicate the suppression in her life, real or imagined, and when that failed—as it inevitably did—she went to her chiropractor who often did double duty as a naturopath, even though I’m unsure whether she was actually certified in naturopathy, which does, at least, offer certification.
My aunt lived much longer precisely because she got medical care, to the point that any incipient trouble with her heart was caught early enough that her only real concern became the damage she did to her lungs with all that cigarette smoking. At least, in my opinion. After all, I am not a doctor.
I feel that my mother died of a broken heart. And I can never shake the feeling that it was Scientology that broke it.
IMT: I always love your stories, heartbreaking though some are. Thank you for sharing.
TC: Thank you for your thoughtful essays. Sometimes they restimulate painful memories, but it’s astonishing how reliving them here is far more therapeutic and less expensive than auditing ever was.
Bless your heart, IMT. I feel your pain. My Mom started smoking at 14. She died in my arms, a week before Christmas, at age 56. I became an orphan that day. She was all I had…
That really touched me. I wish I could go back in time and comfort and console that little 14 year old surfer dude. Being so vulnerable, I can see how Scientology was able to draw you in. Heartbreaking. I’m so glad you made it out to fight the good fight for another day. Surf on silver dude.
❤️ God bless your momma❤️
OSD — I’m so sorry. Your post broke my heart.
I started smoking in my early 20s (I’m 41 now). I would quit on and off for periods of time before I let it take over and became a pack-a-day smoker for many years. When my husband and I found out I was pregnant, I quit immediately of course. But like a fool, I started up again when my son was about 3-4 mos old. I never once smoked in front of him but always felt guilty and gross that he could smell it on me. Finally, I quit when he was 3 because I didn’t want to die an early death and leave my son too soon.
Granted, I may still die early from smoking. I wish I would have never started. It’s one of my biggest regrets.
Anyway, sending hugs your way.
Infinitely, having now spent the last 2.5 years finishing my bachelor of science degree, I’ve learned that there ARE plenty of scientific studies out there to prove the efficacy of “traditional medicine” versus something else. Yes, I have a bone to pick with the “something else” approach, because the love of my life died at age 50, because he had that Scn mindset that he was so OT and nothing could kill him and natural was the way to go and he just needed his next auditing action and he didn’t need doctors and blahdefukingblah. The training that naturopathic “doctors” get is in no way comparable to that of a medical doctor – not even close. I am not suggesting that natural remedies can’t help, but I am suggesting that medical doctors are much more thoroughly trained, especially when it comes to specialists, in the science of what’s been proven to work thus far. They’re not perfect, of course, but in most cases, they are very well trained and keep up with the current science and WANT their patients to get well,
I’ll mention an interesting observation I saw year after year while in the Sea Org. At Flag there was usually 1 to 5 staff members in Iso (isolation) at any given time. The exception was during Xmas time when there would be about 100 staff members in Iso every year. Efforts would be made to hand out packs of vitamins, improve the food before Xmas, etc. Nothing ever worked. Every year without fail Iso would fill with about 100 staff members during Xmas. I can’t tell you the reason but that was the observation.
Maybe they were all PTS to having to buy friggin David Miscavige another friggen Xmas present while they, themselves were BROKE. I would have definitely considered that to be suppressive.
More like criminal activity…
Escape rates also increased around the Christmas Holidays, throughout Sea Org history also.
Did the cult send out people to bring them back? And, did they secede?
Maybe those poor folks were remembering the joys of Christmas in the wog world. Remembering being with friends and family.
The stark contrast between where they were in the prison of belief in abusive environment of Sea Org and Christmas with loving family may have caused this pathetic increase in sickness at Christmas.
In hospitals, the ERs would fill up with patients from nursing homes. Really sad.
Mat: An old friend of mine working at the county jail says it fills up every full moon without fail.
Medicine, like illness, is a constantly changing subject and, in many cases. wildly argumentative. What works for one often doesn’t work for the guy next to him. Same “disease”, same environment. Just as Hubbard’s single reason doesn’t apply to all, neither does medicine, psychology, psychiatry, drugs, or any other “solution” we incomplete humans have discovered or dreamed up. Virtually NO ONE understands the workings of the human mind. Thus we find it impossible to understand why the SO people, and those still in at other levels, can possibly be sane in respect of the subject. “Brain washed”, a subject which is about as vague as one can get, is somehow used to “explain” why all these folks are “hypnotized” into being mindless human beings. Really? Even though who have recently left take years to process what their journey is. And even on this excellent blog, people keep posting something they’ve just realized, though 30 or 40 years of distance between then and now have occurred. Scientology will wither and die, sooner or later. Miscavige may or may not be brought to justice. He could fly away and spend his billions on high living in some ritizy enclave in Brazil. Who knows? Or truly cares.
In any case, there will be more such movements and organizations in the future. In general, it appears humans never learn any major lessons overall. Just think of war!
I’m just glad to see folks waking up and getting out. Or potential joiners learning the real story and avoiding the trap.
This, and many other blogs, are doing stellar work in bringing the truth about the current scio to many. And Leah and Mike’s tv show is doing wonders in more broadly disseminating the dangers of this cult…and, hopefully, similar organizations. However, there will be many others popping up like mushrooms throughout the world.
Nothing less than a brilliant post, thegman. No matter the cure, be it physical medicine or therapy or emotional or mental therapies, what works on one person does not necessarily work the same way, or even at all. on another.
Hubbard was bipolar with a narcissistic personality disorder with a myriad of psychotic features. The ‘magical thinking’ involved in some of his tech was designed to create a large group of similarly skewed beings that he could interact with and then control. If he had been obsessive compulsive, he would have had everyone knocking three times, checking the stove 5 times and hopping over sidewalk cracks.
This is not joke. From his Crowley influenced pre Dianetics stuff with his patron goddess spirit that he felt influenced by, to his final “body-thetans” which he couldn’t shake loose with his own OT 7 exorcism procedures, Ron Hubbard thought spirits influenced him, he really thought that, and got a whole lot of other Scientologists over the decades exorcising all their Xenu caused “body-thetans.” Hubbard’s “body-thetans” were in his beltry at the end. He planned at death to do off to do the OT running program around Arturus if one is to believe what Hubbard said and wrote, to rehab his soul.
If the results of his actions didn’t go on to hurt so many people, I would actually feel sorry for him. He was terrified of psychs because he knew that he was mentally ill. Then, Because of his success, he actually bought into his own mad creation and it tortured him to death. He may not have believed in karma, but karma believed in him.
Oh how I dreaded any kind of PTS handling. I have to say that during the 30 some odd years of my participation in the cult, this was a subject I always felt was total bullshit. Never once did any PTS handling (and I had several) ever turn into the “textbook results” stated. I remember one time in a 10 August (a PTS auditing process), I came up with such a bizarre SP item of an aunt I had only seen once or twice as a young child and I actually liked her (she was a cheerful old lady who made delicious pot roast and dumplings). But she turned out to be the evil SP??? It didn’t make any sense, but I used her as a scape goat to end the torture of that grueling process. After that experience, I tried to keep secret any physical conditions that surfaced from time to time. I didn’t think it was wrong to do that because I felt like I was being true to my own beliefs even if they contrasted with Hubbard’s rules.
There is no wiggle room with the dictates of those PTS policies, and they don’t work in so many cases. Right there by that fact alone, it does cast doubt in one’s mind about the insistence of the workability and rightness of the rest of the tech. But even still, I stuck around for way longer than I ever should have.
Maureen: Oh God! The 10 Aug! If I only had a nickel for every time I tried tracking down the SP by locating the first time I ever had those damn cold symptoms.
I know a Scn who had to get a heart valve replacement to save his life. So on his next visit to Flag, the MAA did metered PTS terminal finding. He protested and said that the Dr said it was a birth defect that got worse with time and age and finally hit critical mass. The MAA robotically quoted the LRH reference that “all illness to greater or lesser degree stems from and only from a PTS situation.” He said yes, that is true in most cases, but not in his case because he was born with a deformed heart, so there was not PTS terminal. The MAA would have none of it and forced him to “find an SP” etc. Talk about robotically following policy without being able to think with it!
A Flag MAA is probably a prime example of a sick mind incased in a twisted fanatical nazi youth on a power trip. That organization in general is certifiable bat shit cray cray. Hubbard said something about a policy should not replace a thetan being there in order to make an intelligent conclusion. If that were true then no “thetan” is in the vicinity of the church, just a mass of “circuits”.
“A Flag MAA is probably a prime example of a sick mind encased in a twisted fanatical nazi youth on a power trip”… You hit the nail on the head with this, Doug. Wells said.
After having some health challenges while off course, at my local org, I read books and decided to eat better and exercise more. During my experiments I found eating gluten free and sugar free and low dairy was a good fit for me. But it made finding tasty meals a bit more challenging.
I didn’t tell my local org I was sick because I didn’t want them to force my husband to give me daily assists or make me come in so they could “handle” me. Ka-ching.
One of the reasons I’d gotten run down enough to “pull it in” was that I was deeply in debt and working long hours to get my debts under control. Debts from regging for the next level again and again. “But your income will increase as you gain more abilities. So just up your credit card limit. Here let me help you with that.”
One of our, my husband’s and my cognitively dissonant jokes was, “we’re a major illness or a good car wreck from bankruptcy.” If you can’t laugh, you cry right? And if you cry you might question your shitty existence right? So laughter it was. Confronting the is-ness of our on the edge, awful existence, was off the table. Because we loved our wins right? Not that the wins were foremost in my mind. Who had time to remember or bask in the wins when one had five more days to meet the stiff financial target?
Life went on, I got healthier, no thanks to the cherch. My bills lowered and life got better. That was a huge win, we made it go right.
Then a Flag reg made it go right and regged me into a trip to FLAG in Florida. (Somewhere a tiny voice screamed, “WHY?”)
While on a sec check it came up that I was very focused on my healthy diet. I had complained to a Sea Ogre at a restaurant on the Scientology base about the sugar in a salad dressing or some horrible sin. God forbid that you be truthful to a client of your restaurant. So I’d quit eating on base. Oh, the shame.
The next thing I knew I was being routed to the MLO (Medical Liaison Officer) a pimply teen aged boy who with full “certainty” read me some LRH reference about not fixating on the body because what you give energy to has power over you or some such. Then I read some references about postulates, like I was going to postulate my body to work while swilling the crap food I could eat the fastest or some unspoken cognition I was supposed to have. I could smell the cigarettes on him. Clearly he was using postulate power to negate the known bad effects of cigarettes.
Then he pulled out an Adele Davis book on health that suggested healthy eating, and everything in moderation. The point being that I wasn’t being moderate about taking care of my body, but being the effect of it. Being overly fixated on my body health.
Hmmm, I’d healed myself from a low energy sickly phase, I had more energy and stamina, I could work longer hours, and think more clearly from my health choices, but this was ‘wrong’ because the answers to my problems were thetan answers, not body answers. And I was ‘fixating’ on body answers.
Somehow I got past this dreadful MLO interview and started eating at the on base restaurant (Ka-ching) and got on my auditing program. I wish I could tell you any win I remember from it.
The trouble with being on the outside of the bubble is the clarity with which I view my past ‘wins.’ I did increase my earnings after that trip to FLAG. It was because my necessity level went up. I wished to stop feeling like a slave to my debt. I wanted a vacation. And two weeks at FLAG was no vacation. I did increase my income, I did pay down my debts and I did take a vacation and I told none of my scino friends I was taking one, because it was like a withhold, that I didn’t have groaning debts like them, and I wanted to have some uncomplicated fun and waste some time doing activities that weren’t income productive.
Terra, in my roundabout way I want you to know that I shared this story because I was theoretically PTS when having the health crisis that precipitated my change of course health wise. But my strong feeling was that I was rundown, toxic, un-healthy and it was on me to fix it. I knew that if I went to the org, it’d be writing up O/W’s, getting on the PTS/SP course again because here I was sick, so clearly I didn’t ‘get it’ the first time. That would cut into my overly workaholic schedule and keep me from handling debts sanely. So I chose my own PTS handling which was be nice and use best practices health-wise to handle the situation with my body. I knew the huge debts were a big stressor and if I handled them I’d feel better.
When that debt was paid off, I felt a happiness and glow that lasted for a long time. Just thinking about achieving that from the depths of where I was is huge. But I did that, not the cherch. With the teamwork of me and my spouse, we crawled out of a very scary financial place, inch by inch in sickness and health. That was a win.
After that point I often concealed my sicknesses, colds etc from the cherch because I no longer believed that they helped. I no longer subscribed to the PTS/SP theory. And yet I stayed. WHY?
I don’t know.
Clearly not clear: “I knew the huge debts were a big stressor and if I handled them I’d feel better.”
In a bulletin about “false PTSness,” one thing listed that can be mistaken as PTSness is out-ethics. Going into heavy debt is generally out-ethics, when you consider all dynamics. The resulting stress can make a person sick. And virtually all professionals now agree with this point about stress.
This is just one example of how both staff and public lacked full understanding of the materials and misapplied them, especially reg’s. Terra Cognita is again giving a demonstraton of this.
So tell me Marildi, was Ron applying the SP/PTS “tech” correctly when Ron sought the destruction of Paulette Cooper? She was an obvious SP, no?
Was Ron applying the correct gradient when pistol whipping his wife, Sara? Maybe she was an SP. Maybe it was Sara making Ron PTS to her and she was making him beat her? If only he had the tech back then!
What about that little boy in the chain locker? The one who had to excrete and eat in solitude in the chain locker for two nights? The boy who people heard crying? Past life SP? Maybe the little boy was a past life SP and Ron the great anti Buddha saw with his big powerful thetan that this is how we treat past life SPs masquerading as children.
And how about how Ron destroyed the SP Mission network? Maybe he was out list, or bypassed charge, or over run, or an MU, or did not apply the tech properly?
Remember, Ron saw SPs everywhere. His publicist who has a YouTube vid said that when they were dating, Ron would walk fast and frequently turn around.
She asked, ‘him why are you walking so fast and turning around?’
Ron says, “you don’t know what it’s like to constantly be followed.”
Ron saw everything, outer entire culture and civilization as suppressive. He saw religions as suppressive.
It is my strong belief that L Ron Hubbard was the SP and anti social personality he warned us about.
Here is the YouTube vid of a women who was dating Ron while he was married to Sara.
It’s my view that the PTS/SP tech was birthed in Aron’s delusional persecution complex. Don’t believe me. This women dated him.
Check it out fence sitters.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hicxJSg0ygY
Ron’s failings and the tech are two different things. The can be differentiated, IF you understand that the tech is not what the CoS applies – or even what Ron added to it when he conflated critics with SPs. SP is a technical thing that has to do with specific case manifestations.
Should be “THEY can be differentiated…”
Marildi, your logic seems awfully circular O.o Ron’s failings have nothing to do with the tech? That’s like saying the engine is blown in my car but it has nothing to do with why the vehicle won’t start. Ron is the engine for this behemoth of an organization he created. His logic, mental condition, and reasoning process were are all critically flawed DUE to his chemical imbalances.
You may have a few parts of the tech that work for you. That’s awesome. But looking for workable parts of Scientology is kinda like digging through a huge garbage dump looking for a few precious items.
Yes, he was a madman. And you are following his teachings. Lets be honest, standard tech doesn’t work for ANYONE in the long run. I’m not belittling you hun, I just hope you’ll be able to move on from this someday….
Mr. Hubbard’s personal failings and the tech may be two different things but they are conjoined. The proof of the pudding is in the eating you know. The tech is the pudding and Mr. Hubbard is the proof, as it were. If the tech worked then at the very least, the guy who developed it would be a shining example of its efficacy.
Ironically, he WAS an example of its efficacy but he wasn’t very shining. I’m afraid the pudding wasn’t as good as advertised. It was bad pudding. You should spit it out into your napkin if you don’t want to end up like Mr. Hubbard, nutters and looking like something your cat brought in from out of doors.
What an insult to intelligent cats! LOL
M, Elron didn’t “conflate” critics with SPs, he defined them as such. You seem to be forgetting here who sets the rules, defines the terms and makes the Game in $cn…it’s Elron’s game, so whatever he changed for whatever reason IS $cn.
You seem to be intent on imagining some pure form of $cn, in some halcyon golden era when it was all good and pure and perfect. There never was such a time. Elron was a lying, wife beating, fraud before Dn ever existed.
The tech promised freedom and sanity. The tech promised to make you clear.
If the tech, which Ron created, did not work on him; why will it make you totally free.
Would you pay for a weight loss program from a morbidly obese person?
BTs are a, “tech” term, all critics are criminals is SP “tech”.
You can separate a scientist from the hard science discoveries. Or an invented from a new mouse trap.
But you cannot separate Ron from Scientology.
That is because this argument, the one that attempts to justify Scientology and Ron’s madness, does not work with a philosophy.
People who discover actual universal scientific laws or make objects are discovering something that everyone can see and agree to.
Joe Schmoe was a bank robber but invented a biodegradable type plastic. If it helps the environment people will not much care about Joe’s personal life.
Here is Joe on one side and his invention on another. They can be desperated.
But Ron created a religion, a philosophy, a world view and ethics system.
Scientology and Ron cannot be separated. Scientology is Ron’s mental state become an actual practice.
The law of gravity is perceivable by all people. Non scientists as well.
Scientology is a subjective subject that seeks to mold people. And that mold that molds people’s world view and gives a cosmology comes from Ron himself.
If you are running BTs to cure high blood pressure and yet eat a lot of salt; you cannot separate Ron from the process. Denial of real causes and accepting make believe is Ron in your head. Can’t differentiate. They are the same.
Ron created a philosophy to follow. You cannot separate the two.
This is a new phase for Scientology. Whereby Indy Scientologists acknowledge Ron was crazy but Scientology is not.
It is a desperate attempt to normalize a dying hypno mind fuck.
Are psyches from Farsec?
Are all critics criminal?
Are cigarettes dramatizing volcanoes?
Are BTs the cause of human suffering?
Are all unresolvable relations from a third party?
Does auditing cure deseases 100 percent of the time?
Ron is now universally understood to be a congenital liar. Except for maybe true believers. They still think he was a sick old man and we should not be so disrespectful.
Ron, a congenital liar and religious con man, is still seen by people to have found the road to truth.
OK, GET READY FOR COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. THIS ONE SHOULD JIGGLE UP THE BRAIN A BIT…………………
A CONGENITAL LIAR HAS CLAIMED TO FIND THE ROAD TO TRUTH.
Sit with that one for a moment.
The man who created 2d tech was a completely abusive father and husband and polygamist
The man who said he can cure all disease and mental problems needed VISTIRIL injections and was a demented madman.
Giving this man credibility for finding the road to truth and freedom while knowing these facts is evidence of brain washing.
Marildi,
That, is what you got out of Terra’s post? You think that he was giving a demonstration of THAT? To give you the benefit of the doubt, I went back and reread his excellent as always article. He is saying no such thing., as far as can tell.
I’m really glad that you post here, Marildi. You show all the people who are new to dealing with Scio’s just how hard it is to communicate with them. You are an excellent example of a person who is indoctrinated and dogmatic to the core. Frustrating, you are,,,,,as Yoda would say.
I hope that you can shake it all off someday. I really do. It’s obvious that you are very intelligent and that you are yearning for spiritual fulfillment. I sincerely hope that someday you can find your true path.
Terra does a pretty good job of describing the CoS, but he makes errors in his description of tech. That’s my view and to his credit Mike allows different viewpoints on his blog besides what the majority think.
So who are you to interpret Tech? Are you claiming that you’re Source? Why don’t you go off and found the First Church Of Marildi, Scientologist if you’re such a fount of knowledge? And what would your precious LRH think about your claims to possessing all knowledge regarding the Tech? He wouldn’t have liked that very much.
I have to hand it to you, Marildi. Every time you post, you prove that you’re the suppository of all wisdom.
Marildi , do you realize that if people didn’t borrow money for the auditing side of the bridge , at least, the orgs would have been mostly empty .
There is no way to reconcile policy with that one.
Only a minority could afford the bridge cash.
Marie, I wasn’t talking about simply borrowing money – overdoing it and going into too much debt is what I was referring to as out ethics on one’s dynamics. The church has its own propaganda about the greatest good across the dynamics, but it violates the actual policy, which does not state that one dynamic takes precedence over all the others – not even the church as the (or “a”) third dynamic.
marildi, it seems to me that you may have ventured into the realm or what some refer to as Hubbard’s law of commotion:
“HUBBARD’S LAW OF COMMOTION: For each and every policy or piece of tech, there is an equal and opposite policy and piece of tech.”
You may always be able to find something that supports the interpretation that you want to advance. But in the case of something like this, we can look and see, for instance, that Hubbard pushed “hard sell” and said “MAKE MONEY. MAKE MORE MONEY. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE PRODUCE SO AS TO MAKE MORE MONEY.” – not much balance in what he wrote, directed, and had his organizations practice, the result of which, tricking down from Source himself, are the sort of abuses at issue.
Hubbard also clearly wrote some pieces intended as propaganda to hide actual practices and intents, and especially later on deliberately created plausible deniable so that the policies and actions that he dictated, could not conclusively be traced to him. What sort of person even dose those things, and how could such a person possibly then be trusted on any matter?
Also, it occurs to me, that maybe the person with whom you really have a beef about not following the tech as you think it should be, is Hubbard himself.
“When that debt was paid off, I felt a happiness and glow that lasted for a long time. Just thinking about achieving that from the depths of where I was is huge. But I did that, not the cherch. With the teamwork of me and my spouse, we crawled out of a very scary financial place, inch by inch in sickness and health. That was a win.”
I TOTALLY understand. The ONLY wins I EVER had that EVER did ANYTHING truly good in my life were the ones I accomplished totally and solely by myself and on my own. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER did anything done on cherch lines EVER come close.
Clearly, I have a similar story to yours.
I remember being so in debt to the cult that I was holding two jobs and raising a young family and being on course and all the org committees and events, and, and, and… When I mentioned to a reg that I felt tired all the time, stressed just trying to keep up all the debt payments, she suggested the problem was that I was not taking enough vitamins! What an idiot!
Another reg said to me “Now, it’s never really about the money, so what is the REAL problem here you are not confronting?” Ugh.
Then, I started secretly cutting back on all the stupid org committees and events and began working out and eating better. Basically, clawing back time for myself, to take care of myself. I got fit, I got healthy, I got trim. It came up as a big win in my auditing session that I was finally feeling fantastic, healthy and super happy–and guess what? I got HANDLED on it–for doing “other practices!” I was sent to ethics!
So very glad you’re out of the insanity! You got your old life back! Congrats!
“I was finally feeling fantastic, healthy and super happy–and guess what? I got HANDLED on it–for doing “other practices!” I was sent to ethics! ” I made a comment about astrology and got written up for it as well. “Other practices” This is a prime example of how Scientology is dangerous.
Awesome post!
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I’m aghast. A pimply faced teenager MLO, chastised you for improving your health by making healthier eating choices? Egads.
My favorite line, by far is “I did that, Not the cherch.” One of the best cognitions and insights that I’ve seen. Bravissima!
Amen to that. I applied that across the board, including auditing wins. It wasn’t LRH who was doing it, OR the tech. I was the one who had to dig, had to look, had to puzzle it out and find MY answers. The tech does NOT do the work. It’s the being holding the cans! Yes, we are ALL responsible for our lives, what we’ve done with them, what we’re doing with them. And when something in life goes awry, if I don’t take responsibility for it, who will? Or should? The difference here is that I conceive responsibility as “the ability to respond”. It has nothing whatever to do with BLAME, as scio interprets it.
thegman77: “It wasn’t LRH who was doing it, OR the tech. I was the one who had to dig, had to look, had to puzzle it out and find MY answers.”
Of course. That’s all part of the tech and essential to it doing what it’s meant to do.
marildi, I think you reveal something important here. That’s “essential” to the tech as Scientology construes it – and yet it’s just what often happens in the normal process of life and maturation, particularly when people commit themselves to something with real intention (see the phenomenon of attribution error, and related cognitive biases of attribution).
I’ve recently been reading a book about people do extreme things, often with an element of self-seeking – everything from climbing sheer rock faces with just bare hands and no safety equipment, to BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism) and particularly being subject to pain. They report “wins” that sound just like what people such as you describe – including psychological catharsis, and even exteriorization.
Maybe thegman77 will actually speak up. I doubt he sees his experience the way you twist it.
You are very practiced at casting anything and everything as something negative.
PTS “tek” along with word clearing commands in an auditing session have to be the biggest was of time ever in scientology. Other than the general waste of time the whole subject was in the first place. My guts churn just thinking back on all of that.
Personally, I don’t know of anyone who benifitted from PTS handling or anything related to it. I certainly didn’t. But hey, when stoned on KSW we all really wanted it to work. Of course I wanted to read minds, exteriorize with full perception at will, have perfect recall and be immune from that hazards of the “MEST universe”. These days I’m content to take the good with the bad in life and revel in that.
Thanks for yet another great article TC. Keep it up.
Some auditors knew NOT to count wordclearing and wasteful humdrum auditing off of the pc’s bought hours, collusion out of guilt that that time wasted really was wasted.
The whole operation is quackery and a waste to me now. I wish I could wave a magic wand and give back ALL monies people wasted in Scientology’s quackery.
Agreed Chuck, a complete waste. Losing money was bad enough, but for me, I got out when I was young enough to make up that loss. What really hurt though was the time lost whilst in the cult. That time can never be recovered. I feel for those who got out later in life. Much harder to recoup the loss of money, retirement savings, debt of any kind, etc.
Mrs B, there was a time when I wanted to be able to read minds and know what everyone was thinking,also. Then I got a Facebook page. Now I wish more people kept their thoughts to themselves.
Seriously though, I’m glad you found contentment with life on life’s terms. It’s pretty cool, most of the time.
Hi Mike its Henry again and I wanted to thank you for helping us non scientologist with helping define all the acronyms that are used in the articles. I can see the effort to try a help with that so I just wanted to say thanks.
This is like an extreme version of “New Age Guilt”. The New Age idea is that having bad thoughts creates disease. So, if you repeatedly say “he’s such a pain in the neck” will will develop neck issues. People with cancer and other conditions are made to feel guilty that they’ve had a bad thoughts. Thought policing, excessive mediation, obsessive affirmations are all supposed to cure cancer.
Yeah. No.
While having a negative attitude can contribute to making one feel worse, there is no voo doo woo woo explanation that makes one sick.
Animals and plants get sick. Was Fido a bad boy and is that why he’s dying of cancer? Did the Azealia have a negative attitude to get that root rot.
It’s all very silly and it’s all very snake oil. Hubbard made this stuff up as he went along.
Sadly, in practice this nonsense has ripped many families apart.
Such a disempowering doctrine. It takes away personal cause and responsibility from the individual.
Just like the third party law: all unresolved conflicts come from a third party…ALL!
L Ron Hubbard’s philosophy was one of victimhood; blame.
Blame and hiding were Ron’s chronic tone. Here are a few of the top L Ron Hubbard blame game for the human condition:
GE
Marcabs
Third party
SPs
Religion
Xenu
Body space aliens
Implanters
The reactive mind
Failed abortions
Psyches from Farsec
MUs
L Ron Hubbard did not have awareness of self. He was unaware of his personal responsibility with his condition. I do not think he even had the clear cog.
Ron had an inability to see himself because he always defaulted to some outside force for the reason of his condition.
WE are the cause of our own suffering. Our actions, our ignorance, our lack of experience, our karma.
If we magnetize an SP into our field of experience, it is US who has attracted that. It is us who can extricate ourselves from it.
Blame……….that was Ron’s chronic tone level.
“By oneself evil is done. By oneself evil is undone” Lord Buddha
Ron was not a wise man. He was a victim of himself, his own thoughts, his own moral deficiency, his own ignorance.
All experience is self generated. That is the philosophy of the wise. It is a true OT doctrine. Because it states that it is our cause that brings about the effects in our lives.
So in the final analysis it was L Ron Hubbard who was the non OT, the implanted, the inverted eighth dynamic.
He taught; I will teach you to be cause by blaming externalities.
Scientology leads to ignorance. Because it falsely assigns blame to his fake science of believe.
And because Scientologists buy into this blame game, they can never find the true cause of conditions.
The condemnation of criticism may very well be at the root of this inability of Ron to see the actual cause of his condition.
He blamed BTs until the very end.
In my group of seekers, the teacher says 90 percent of illness is caused by wrong diet.
How many 100s of thousands of dollars was spent in auditing to find the SP when the person should have stopped drinking 4 sodas and 3 packs of cigs a day.
Eat your hamburgers! Your smoking cigs is only dramatizing volcanoes!
Ron was a very sick and demented man at the end. It was not SPs that were the reason. The reason was Ron himself. He mocked it up. End of story.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BLAME. L RON HUBBARD’S WORLD VIEW. SCIENTOLOGY AND THE “STANDARD TECH” PRACTICE OF DENIAL:
“Blame is an excellent defense mechanism. Whether you call it projection, denial, or displacement, blame helps you preserve your sense of self-esteem by avoiding awareness of your own flaws or failings.
Blame is a tool we use when we’re in attack mode. Falling into the category of a destructive conflict resolution method, blame is a way to try to hurt our partners.
We’re not very good at figuring out the causes of other people’s behavior, or even our own. The attributions we make, whether to luck or ability, can be distorted by our tendency to make illogical judgments. And we’re just as bad at making judgments involving the blameworthiness of actions in terms of intent vs. outcome.
It’s easier to blame someone else than to accept responsibility. There’s less effort involved in recognizing your contributions to a bad situation than in accepting the fact that you’re actually at fault, and changing so you don’t do it again.
People lie. As my colleague, Robert Feldman, discovered, “Everybody lies.” It’s pretty easy just to lie and blame someone else even though you know you’re at fault. You may figure that no one will know it was really you who spilled coffee all over the break room, so you just blame someone else who’s not there (and hope that person never finds out).”
Brian: Thanks for bring up “blame” “cause” and “responsibility.” Well said.
Thank you Terra:-)
Hey guys, Terra is a she not a he. Not that it really matters. But I think that is the truth?
Such a relief not to have to descend into endless navel gazing every time I get sick these days!
I can actually see the doctor if it is really bad, I have insurance!
Not like the Sea Org days when there was always a little crowd of folks outside the Medical Liaison Officer’s door. Mostly they would get some vitamins, or if it is really bad a trip to the Emergency Room. A colon cleanse. Some Anti-I (alcohol, tree sap and red pepper mixture for cuts). Anything infectious gets a trip to Isolation.
If you really really need to go to the doctor, they will glumly say they will submit it to the Financial Planning committee. And maybe some day it will be approved. Meanwhile, take some vitamin E.
But no matter what, you are supposed to figure out what you did wrong to “pull it in”. Even if you have a relative who sends you clippings of nasty newspaper articles, the theory is that you did something to the antagonistic person to make them upset. What comes around goes around, and it always goes back to YOU! What are your crimes? Never the poor food or the sleeplessness or the work with hazardous substances without proper protection. Never the stress or the dip in the lake on a cold morning. Never the endless bickering and in-fighting. No, it was always your fault and if something is not perfect what did you do?
Praise be I am out of that now!
“…it always goes back to YOU!”
Brian’s comment below says just the opposite – that others are always to blame. He stated: “L Ron Hubbard’s philosophy was one of victimhood; blame.”
Bruce, you bought into others’ misunderstandings and misapplications, and must have had your own as well.
Why the constant direct and indirect “make wrong” from you?
Everyone who speaks up to say that $cn sucks you dismiss or insult as not having applied the tech correctly or as not understanding Elron’s nonsense thoroughly enough.
Is it within the realm of possibility that, instead of them being wrong, it was Elron who got it wrong? Could it be that not all illnesses and accidents are the result of being connected to an SP? Is it possible that not everyone who criticizes $cn has hidden crimes?
I’d suggest to you the possibility that your demonstrated need to correct folks; to judge them as being at fault for having inexpertly applied the Holy Tek (or having it inexpertly applied to them); to assume that they have a faulty understanding of the Tech while yours is correct, etc. is just you trying to convince yourself that you didn’t waste most of a lifetime learning all there is to know about something that is mostly ineffective, except as a con.
In reality, you’re not trying to convince them; you’re trying to convince you…which is mighty damn hard because $cn is so full of errors, contradictions, outright lies and confabulated mumbo jumbo that it would near impossible for anyone to believe in it who looked at it objectively.
You’re trying to use $cn to fix what can’t be fixed, which is $cn itself. Elron forbade questioning or disagreeing with any part of it, on pain of expulsion. But you’re no longer stuck in that nightmare group, so why not just get all the way out and rid your mind of all that nonsense? Either that or realize that TC’s take on the subject is every bit as valid as yours and leave off with the constant make wrong and arrogant dismissal of others views.
HF, as usual you can’t refute the specific point I’m making so you go on a rant about all kinds of other things, including lots of personal remarks.
You made several points, but what I particularly taking issue with was your “I know better than you” attitude and your compulsion to make others wrong, seemingly for no explicable reason than to reinforce your need to be right.
I was just tired of it, that’s all. Others have told you the same in their own words, so you can either take it to heart or not, it’s completely your choice…which is exactly what it wouldn’t be if we were back in the cult.
To be clear: I’m fine with you valuing your experiences in $cn; if it worked for you 100% wunnerfully, then great, it worked for you. It did worse than just being ineffective for many here; it was an actual harm. For you to continue to tell them that, oh, you did it wrong, or they didn’t understand it is arrogant, condescending and not how you’ve been treated here by folks who think $cn is total crap, but respect what you feel you got out of it.
So, why not leave off with the make wrong and the “I know $cn best” bullshit? Can you do that for us here?
HF: “It did worse than just being ineffective for many here; it was an actual harm. For you to continue to tell them that, oh, you did it wrong, or they didn’t understand it is arrogant, condescending and not how you’ve been treated here by folks who think $cn is total crap, but respect what you feel you got out of it.”
^^^^ Straw Man fallacy
I haven’t said that people weren’t harmed. They were. I just disagree with blaming it all on the tech when it’s obvious to me from what the poster has said that the “tech” they experienced was altered – and I disagree with discounting that fact, especially knowingly.
I usually take up a specific point and give the reference for it from the actual materials. You usually have no effective response to that, so you either put out generalities about it or about me personally.
And certainly not everyone here has treated me with “respect for what you out of it.” Once again, you’re just throwing around words.
I cannot let the idea go by that the ONLY reason people are hurt by scientology is “altered tech.”
No, the standard application of “tech” also hurts people. Many of them. All over the world. Disconnection. All critics have crimes. Ethics conditions. Freeloader debts. Sec checking. “Hard sell” regging. etc etc.
These are not “altered” practices. Period.
Mike, I’m not saying that “the ONLY reason people are hurt by scientology is altered tech.” I specifically said “I disagree with blaming it ALL on the tech, when it’s obvious to me from what the poster has said that the ‘tech’ they experienced was altered.”
I’ve stated more than once that I don’t claim the tech is 100% workable. But I disagree with those who basically say it’s all UNworkable.
From my view, you appear to disagree with those who say it has not worked for them by asserting that it is because what they experienced was altered. Which is what Hubbard says. It works 100% of the time — unless it is not applied correctly. It’s the perfect caveat for failure.
Perhaps I am wrong. Can you answer these two straightforward questions?
1. Is there any part of AUDITING tech you think is not workable? If so, what.
2. Is there any part of it you think is harmful?
Mike: “From my view, you appear to disagree with those who say it has not worked for them by asserting that it is because what they experienced was altered.”
Most of my comments have been about tech other than auditing, especially ethics tech – the way the church applies it. In this particular thread, I’ve only objected to descriptions of some specific handling the person got in the church – which I don’t doubt happened, but it wasn’t per the tech and that was my only point.
With regard to auditing, I personally haven’t experienced it not working or observed that it didn’t work on others that I knew of. However, I’m open to the possibility that the tech hasn’t worked on some people. For example, I posted a comment recently where said I had asked a former NOTs auditor I know about the workability of NOTs. He said that he himself had great gains and so did the vast majority of his pcs. As for the few who didn’t do well, he wasn’t sure whether it was because the pcs weren’t set up well enough, including their auditing skills being adequate, or if in fact that particular tech doesn’t work on everybody. He basically had no way of knowing – and neither does anybody, IMO, since there hasnt been any study done.
Note that this NOTs auditor audited NOTs for the first several years after it was released, and there apparently have been a number of changes DM has made to it since then, such as the out-tech of doing 6-month “refereshers” – so this is probably a significant factor too.
To answer your questions directly, I don’t doubt the possibility that not all auditing is workable on all pcs. Or that some of it may even be harmful for some of them, but I don’t see solid evidence one way or the other that it has harmed anybody when applied according to the HCOBs. But as I’ve said before, there are just too many factors involved to be able to make a valid evaluation.
So, to attempt to make this simple, you believe auditing tech works 100% of the time — though you equivocate by saying “I don’t doubt the possibility that not all auditing is workable on pc’s” but that is not YOUR experience because you have not seen evidence of it.
The things you feel may be harmful are “tech” that is not auditing “tech”.
Thanks for offering a relatively clear answer.
M, please see my post of today at 11:13 a.m..
Harpoona, thanks for spotting for me with Marildi. Yesterday was much too nice a day out here in flyover country to spend on the computer. I took a walk with my mom instead. XKCD said it best: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
Watchout Harpoona,
Debating with Marildi is like passing over the event horizon of a black hole. Once you get started you can never escape. And Marildi is very good at pulling you over the horizon.
Harpoona doesn’t debate. He just throws words around.
Sorry, Marildi, but you just proved Harpoona’s point.
If you can’t own and take to heart the critique of your attitude towards others here, then you can’t. I won’t dwell on it or try to give you my interpretation of why YOU are the one with the misapprehension of the Holy Tech and what $cn represents at its essential core.
I’d just make the observation that you’re an intelligent person whose intent is to be helpful to self and others, and I hope that you find a way in the future to communicate with others who share those same laudable qualities in a way that doesn’t defeat your intent in communicating in the first place.
M, I don’t think that I’ve ever heard your personal history story of your life in the corporate cherch and the causes and circumstances of your departure. Have you told it somewhere else? If not, I’d really like to hear it as there seems to be very, very few folks who are like you, in the sense of being out of the corporate cherch and opposed to lil davey’s reign of terror, but continuing to value $cn in its “pure” form, despite Elron’s own life pretty much being completely at odds with what he preached.
HF “…but continuing to value $cn in its ‘pure’ form, despite Elron’s own life pretty much being completely at odds with what he preached.”
It is possible to separate what he preached from what at least some of us have observed of the tech. And I feel that there are those who simply refuse to do so regardless of the positive they’ve seen which they won’t admit.
Isaac Newton was into the occult and practiced alchemy – yet his scientific findings are recognized for what they are. On top of it, he was considered to have serous mental problems.
marildi, Newton was doing hard science, that wasn’t affected by his personality or intentions. And, he was doing real science.
Hubbard was engaging in sloppy pseudo-science in areas where his personal issues, as well as his dubious intentions, could completely corrupt the work. And, all the scientific studies ever done, have showed the Hubbard’s basic premises were flawed and invalid, and produce no results beyond what could be expected from the placebo effect.
Besides the placebo effect, everything reported “observed” from the supposed tech can be explained by illusory phenomenon. I’ll say just a bit more about that in another comment.
I think marildi and others believe Hubbard, who was clearly eccentric, had remarkable insights quite possibly BECAUSE he was eccentric. The insights of this crazy genius were too advanced for most people to understand. We who criticize him for his character flaws are so focused on the effluvia of Hubbard that we can’t know his extraordinary perspicacity. We’re discarding the diamonds with the ore.
For whatever reason or cause, something great came through him that was clearly bigger than he. He was perhaps just a vessel through which advanced knowledge was revealed. Perhaps he, himself, was mystified by it. But whatever the case, he delivered something extraordinary that only the few who delved deeply into it can really appreciate.
Or something close to that.
You’re closer than you think. 🙂
Aside from that topic, you surprise me sometimes with your writing talent. You’re very good.
“For whatever reason or cause, something great came through him that was clearly bigger than he. He was perhaps just a vessel through which advanced knowledge was revealed.”
Thanks for the laugh.
Roger, I was looking forward to seeing what you would have to say about this.
The supposition that Hubbard had some unique insight in spite of his now-undeniable aberrations (as well as his sloppy and unscientific technique) seems to be one of the current lines of Scientology apologism, and Ken Urquhart one of its popular proponents. It has arisen as a straw for true believes to grasp on to, as Hubbard is increasingly discredited by the revelation of undeniable facts including the extent of his plagiarism from other sources.
The problem is, that theory falls under the old dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The burden is on the proponents of the theory to present evidence to demonstrate that it actually is true, not just that it hypothetically could be true – and not only that, but that evidence such Hubbard’s Affirmations of the late 1940s (accepted in court) and the verification of his real intentions by his son, have to be dismissed.
Even Urquhart doesn’t seem to find any of the actual tech workable and only practices basic “book one” auditing (essentially, Rogerian person-centered therapy, combined with some abreaction) himself. And while he seems to hold on to a notion that Hubbard had some unique insight in more esoteric areas, I suspect that is because he, like many others, have yet to really look into the subject and study Hubbard’s sources such as Crowley’s Thelema, and hypnosis (Urquhart reports Hubbard playing classic recognized hypnotist tricks on him, and yet is still clueless that is what they actually were). I’d listen seriously and with great interest to anyone who’d been responsible enough to inform themselves to that extent – but it seems like all those who have, have discovered things that caused them to abandon their remaining faith in Hubbard (I’ll cite the possibly controversial example of Marty Rathbun in that regard, who concluded Scientology actually didn’t even achieve placebo affect levels of real results).
It would take more than reports of effects attributable to the placebo affect and wishful thinking (including false attribution). Even people convinced of ideas that the earth is flat (yes, they exist even in modern times) provide supposed reports and observations to buttress those false beliefs, too.
‘”When satellite images showed Earth as a sphere, Shenton [the head of the International Flat Earth Society] remarked: “It’s easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye”.’
Ah, yes, the problem is lack of proper training in seeing things the right way – doesn’t that have a familiar ring to it?
Nietzsche said there are two types of people: those who want to know and those who want to believe. Some people have a need to look up to somebody and adore them, idolize them, worship them even. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing especially when you’re young but hero-worship is an egotistical enterprise, make no mistake about it. You diminish their hero and it’s fisticuffs.
Hubbardists want to believe in the mystical vision opened up to them by scientology. I remember the intoxicating feeling of reading the Axioms. They seemed like high, esoteric knowledge that was over my head. I loved that feeling of there being high knowledge unknown to me that MAYBE someday I would be able to fathom! It’s a wonderful aesthetic vision you can can’t see but can only sense. “Space is a viewpoint of dimension” WOW! (high-sounding gibberish)
Hubbardists want to hold on to that. They look for little things that support that intoxicating vision while ignoring the less romantic truth revealed by the ‘bottom line’. The bottom line of course is the absence of a remarkably positive and high-functioning demographic of scientologists in society after 65 years (much less a homo novice master race). No, scientologists have not distinguished themselves as superior to their non-scientology counterparts.
But then how could they? The tech has been corrupted! So…never mind.
Newcomer, if you want to see that insanity full throttle, search for the FIRST thread on the Purif that Mike made.
I just read it about a month ago. Oh boy…
Marildi, are you joking around or do you still seriously believe this cray cray? How long were you in the cult and how long have you been, sort of, out? No disrespect meant, just curious …?
Miraldi, it’s because in Scn it goes both ways. (I haven’t yet read the other comments) You are PTS to the big bad SP, making him/her “cause over YOUR life” but you’re also the big baddy because you commited overts. It’s bullshit. You gonna tell me that my friends kid being killed in a car crash happened because of her overts? Well? Hurricane Katrina wiped out my friend’s house because her overts? Oh, and the overts of the many thousands of other people who lost everything they own, being all PTS and stuff. I’m very well trained in the tech, honey, administratively and technically and I’m going to outright evaluate here and say that you need to step back and look at this stuff a lot more objectively. You can be right. But you damned well need to accept that you can also be wrong.
“Well? Hurricane Katrina wiped out my friend’s house because her overts? Oh, and the overts of the many thousands of other people who lost everything they own, being all PTS and stuff. I’m very well trained in the tech…”
You must be forgetting this, T-Marie:
There are no good reasons for any outness except
(a) Natural catastrophes (such as earthquakes, lightning, etc)
(b) Suppressive persons
(c) Persons who are PTS to suppressive persons.
(HCOB 7 Dec 69 Issue II)
Quit-er-ology Works!
Indeed! Walking out into the light of freedom is a life changer! That’s what I did. I just walked away, never to return.
Bruce: So right! I’ts always something you did to pull it in.
What if SO person was say 30yrs old and was in a serious accident. Went to hospital, surgery, rehab, does CoS pay the medical bills?
Here is a story similar to what you describe: http://tonyortega.org/2013/03/01/is-thelos-angeles-bicyclist-nearly-killed-in-hit-and-run-a-scientology-sea-org-worker/ Apparently he started a charity, “Finish the Ride”, and presumably benefits from the donations. No mention of Scientology paying for anything.
What happens is they try to get anything they can from Workmen’s Compensation insurance. Since the SO are working practically 24/7 just about anything can be called an “on-the-job” accident. I got my hernia fixed that way. Failing that, they use the Emergency Room to get as much as they can. When the bills roll in, they are supposed to pay for them from the weekly income. Sometimes there is a “Medical Liaison Officer Float” which is money that is earmarked for medical emergencies. In practice there is never enough money in these funds.
If you are eligible for Medicare or Medicaid, they will do that. They do deduct from the pay for Medicare, so if they make it to age 65 they can go on Medicare if they have enough credits.
Important note: at no time would they ask for funds from other organizations, from the IAS funds, from Hubbard’s estate, anywhere else. You work for a local organization. All the funds come from that organization. There are $billions in IAS funds etc. but not one penny for a sick Sea Org member. Every Sea Org member is also a member of a local organization which has its own sources of income. If they sell a lot of courses or books or whatever, there is money for food, pay, medical expenses. If not, no money, rice and beans to eat, no pay, no doctor visits. A pretty Darwinian system, survival of the fittest, devil take the hindmost.
If you are really badly injured and unfit to serve, there is a good chance they will simply throw you out on the curb. Or give you cheap quack treatments like colon cleanses and shark cartilage. There is no health insurance. Since they pay no taxes, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t help them. Unless they are in a state that expanded Medicaid.
I have also heard of folks that get sent back to their country of origin, like Australia or Canada. If they came from a country that has universal health care they will try that.
The basic idea is that if you got badly injured you are PTS, just as TC says, so not deserving of any sympathy or real help.
Bruce, That’s sad….no help when a person needs it most.
Bruce, thanks for the info. What I find outrageous is that when LRH died, he left his estate, most of it, to the SO. So where did the money go? That money should be paying for sick SO, aying bills, upgrading things for the SO members. So who got it and where did it go?
I am having trouble finding where I read it, but from what I understand Hubbard’s estate went partly to his surviving relatives and mostly to the Church of Spiritual Technology. These are the ones who preserve all the writings and lectures of L Ron Hubbard in titanium containers in the desert. As I understand it this was mainly done to keep it out of the hands of the IRS.
It is complicated, because a lot of his belongings are at Gold. Some of the cameras and audio equipment they use were originally bought by Hubbard. And there is a huge mansion at the International Base that is stuffed with his old books, equipment, cameras and so on. I think they even have the Blue Bird trailer he was living in when he died.
I know there are tapes where he says he left his estate to the Church and moved off the lines etc. but these are mainly lies. He kept full control through his messengers despite what he tried to tell the public.
But the way it is now, there are funds in the Sea Org Reserves. It is possible to get access to these funds if you are doing a project that is approved by Dave Miscavige. SOR was used to renovate the Int Base and make it the show place that it is. The “Berthing Buildings” (apartments for the crew) and laundry were probably done with SOR. Otherwise, I never heard of those funds being used for crew welfare other than buildings and I doubt it ever happened. Also, Dave used to tell us at Gold that the SOR funds we used were just a loan, that we were $millions in debt to SOR.
There are also $millions in the International Association of Scientologists “War Chest” from straight donations. These get used sometimes for grants to do show projects so Dave can say “100,000 Way to Happiness leaflets were distributed at the disaster site” and so on. This is just so he can award Freedom Medal winners at the yearly events. And I think some of these funds sometimes have to be used for Ideal Org renovations, when the local Scientologists are not rich enough to pony up for it themselves. Again, Dave considers this his own play fund for lawyers and private jet trips around the world. None of it goes to crew welfare unless you consider fancy shoes and suits and haircuts for Dave to be “crew welfare”.
Bruce, I read some of the details about Hubbard’s estate a while back, and can fill in a few things.
I’m pretty certain that Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue was the only relative who benefitted. However, if I recall correctly, the child he claimed wasn’t his, Alexis, did make a challenge and get some sort of settlement, and there might have been other settlements as well.
Hubbard’s estate went into some set of trusts, I think focused around preserving and promoting his legacy, rather than supporting Scientology. If I recall one of them is an author’s trust and probably holds copyrights and gets money from Author Services and Scientology entities like CST (who might have gotten some copyrights). But the IRS agreement specified some changes or adjustments, to settle issues around the money having come from Hubbard’s inurement from Scientology. It’s probably quite complex both in how it was intended, and in how it is currently working.
When I was 18 and I was going to the Church of Scientology of New York I learned from my studies at the church what a real SP is and went out on the subway and spotted one for the first time. LRH says:
“Those who attempt to suppress our tech do not themselves have the faintest clue of how to better anyone”
Which is what an SP is.
At the org in New York there was not ONE TRUE SP on staff or on course anywhere. Just Scientologists. Scientologists who spent their time and money trying to injure “unconscious” people in off the street looking for answers from a Dianetics book.
Even an SP would think people from the church were nuts. Which is an opportunity they deserve. 🙂
Lawrence, there was never a true SP anywhere I went either.
One of the real seeds of doubts when i was i was seeing that picture of LRH at the typewriter, with a cigarette, long ouly hair and awful teeth. I mean WTF. I could never shake that pic i. The sea org. This guy was OT 15 or 20 or whatever?!?!?!?!?! He looks like an insane man who hasnt showered in a week.
Plus the obvious question. How do you handle being a sociologist and conected to miscaviage the ultimate SP
It was the SPs that gave Ron his bad teeth. Ron was affected by Interpol and the Russian cabal to destroy “man’s only hope.”
The suppression on Ron was so great that it restimulated the Rotten Teeth Implant. Ron was affected by the reactive mind command, “my teeth suck and dentists are evil”.
Oh poor Ron. Look what they did to him! So sad ?.
Then, as the onslaught of suppression increased on Ron, it restimulated the Boil On The Head The Incident, that we can see in that photo of him in Queens in 73.
Battle scars on our messiah! He did it all for us! I can ?.
The suppressive boil on his head was all of those druggie BTs seeking freedom. But the Boil On The Head implant occuled poor Ron from seeing the true case. But he failed because of all the suppression.
So brave that Ron!
And to add insult to injury, Ron was restimulated by the Betray Your Friends And Family Implant which forced him to dramatize betraying his wife, family and friends.
Bastard SPs!! I hate you!!
If only Ron got the right auditing to resolve these implants he would not have been forced by bank command to betray Mary Sue, Mayo and all other personal connections.
Hip hip hooray-hip hip hooray-hip hip hooray!!
Blame, that was Ron’s philosophy. Projecting internal states of mind into a space opera delusion is the essence of Scientology.
Blame and hiding……….. Ron’s MO.
Blame and hiding, smoke and mirrors, tools of the NPD.
The problem again was stating this as “the only one that discovered” that all illness, accidents, mistakes are the result go being connected to an SP.
The hallmark of ‘nobody knows this, we are the only ones that can help’ and so on has only invited parishioners, and staff alike, to introvert.
Got a cold? Start introverting and figure-figure who is the SP. Dropped your cell phone? Oh, this is a mistake!! Well, introvert yourself into the figure-figure who you are PTS to and so on.
Lets keep it simple and use other’s knowledge too on how to prevent/handle colds and, as you noted, exercise and a good diet can take care of a lot.
They ran out of Golden Rod paper, that may be why you are not declared Terra Cognita! But whatever the reason, is OK.
Hubbardism makes incredible claims which, if proved true, actually would be worth adopting on a planet-wide basis. Unfortunately, as TC points out so succinctly, it’s central premises (e.g., all illness, accidents and “roller-coastering” are caused by being PTS to some current or past SP) fly in the face of accepted empirical science and none of its extraordinary claims have ever been objectively validated.
To get folks to chump for this sort of rubbish in the 50’s and 60’s – when an understanding of how brain enables mind was in its infancy – is one thing, but in this day and age it is so far beyond the pale that it constitutes a form of deluded ignorance so profound that it deserves its own DSM category of serious mental disorder, e.g., “Cult-Induced Psychosis”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKPZurJ4U_U
And now we’re finding that Mind enables Brain. Interesting how science progresses.
thegman77, you almost admit sometimes that LRH got it right.
marildi, what is it LRH got right? The mind having governance over the physical body/brain?
I’m afraid MRI research buries that idea. Before you have any kind of intention, the brain does a little spinning and whirring which registers on a screen. You just can’t get a jump on the brain for apparently it’s privy to your thoughts before you are. So if you’re planning a surprise party for it I promise you it already knew about it before you did!
See this: 0:12:40 What are presentiment / precognition experiments about ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCFeVeNZT-E
Here’s shorter one that summarizes the findings in about 4 minutes.
“Presentiment: Scientific Evidence for Precognition”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjnT3-Gpjlo
I don’t know what “0:12:40” means. Also, “presentiment” and “precognition” imply intuition and clairvoyance. Whether or not one believes in such things, they are still conscious thoughts. I’m merely saying all our thoughts are generated on the basis of preexistent conditioning in response to conscious perceptions. It supports the (mainly useless) argument that there is no free will. It doesn’t support the case for believing in ESP. Otherwise I don’t understand your question.
I wish I could offer you some shelter from the storm of drubbing you’ve been taking lately. 🙂
Who knew that Roger was such a nice guy? 😉
Actually, there are some other nice people here too. I just want to acknowledge that I do see the intention to “help me out.” Even Wynski. 🙂 (He earnestly tried to explain the e-meter to me one time.)
This applies particularly to several posters’ comments just recently. You know who you are.
Silvia, agreed. Very introspective, introverting and individualistic approach. And you obviously aren’t OT enough if you can’t just make it go away. Hogwash.
As far as I’m concerned, the PTS/SP Crs should go in the dung heap with KSW and the Ethics Crs. There are so many factors as to why one is sick or gets in accidents or has a chronic condition and the Human Condition is a biggy. (Many are born with a bad hand and it ain’t because of something they did in some other effing life or that car running a red light and bashing into you was cuz of the other guy and couldn’t be avoided.)
Applying common sense to living life (and maybe reading The Sociopath Next Door) is more appropriate than “PTS Handling.”
Common sense flying out the window should be all the red flag one needs to alert one that he/she is in the wrong group or connected to the wrong person but then leaving windows open might just be another factor of the “Human Condition.”
Are you sure sense is common? Looking at the world as it is, I’d bet against it. 🙂
Most problems will go away if you do nothing, change nothing, just wait. In these instances PTS handling can be very effective provided you give it enough time to kick in. 🙂
I understand this is what is taught in Scientology, but do most actually believe it? I suppose it’s hard to discern, as no one can really speak out about disbelief. Surely many still have some common sense?
When you find common sense appear inside the cult you will shortly thereafter find a person leaving the cult.
Bingo.
Common sense and logic kept me OUT of joining anything even remotely like CO$ when I was 16, 17, 18. I had friends who joined the Moonies, Hare Krishna etc….but as I mentioned before, my dad always said “You can have all the brains & college degrees in the world, if you don’t have Common Sense, you have nothing”…….that simple statement kept ME out of a lot of trouble!
I found it varies from scientologist to scientologist but scientologists do tend to introvert when their “graph goes down” on one of their eight dynamics (eye roll) and figure figure on “Who am I connected to?” or “What bad thing have I done?”
McCarran, an old friend of mine, many years out of the slurch, and I reconnected a few years back. She was extremely introverted (later diagnosed with PTSD) because she was forever trying to figure out how she “pulled in” hurricane Katrina, which demolished her home on the Gulf Coast down to the slab. Well, I talked some sense into her and finally got her to see the illogics of that kind of thinking and she realized just how brainwashed she had been for all these years with this PTS BS thinking.
Good for you, T-Marie!
That’s great. That was a real relief for me too once I looked at the illogic of it. That’s why I think PTS/SP tech should be shit canned. It is a dangerous mind f— and is a centerpiece in the church today for handling anyone. It’s this or your overts – period.
Agreed McCarran.
If you were raised, as a child being told these.. truths..you might believe it.
Here is an OAT TEA ATE with Super Powers confronting and shattering suppression – using LRH’s Tech .
a few of us SP’s in Clearwater shattered him/her – on the beach.
https://www.facebook.com/kate.taylor.75641/videos/10212972086886333/
Yes, one has to ask, “How do they breath when they are so full of sand and bile?”