My old friend Bruce Hines forwarded this recent National Geographic article (emphasis mine).
It says in part:
From infrared saunas to hot yoga, towel-soaking activities are being touted not only as relaxation tools, but also as ways to stay healthy by flushing out toxins.
Too bad you can’t sweat away toxins any more than you can sweat actual bullets. Recently published calculations back up what scientists have been screaming into their pillows for years: Sweating out toxins is a myth.
Humans sweat to cool ourselves, not to excrete waste products or clear toxic substances. That’s what our kidneys and liver are for. Of course, there’s usually some grain of truth at the heart of a myth, and toxic sweat is no exception. While sweat is made up mostly of water and minerals, it can contain trace amounts of various toxic substances.
But the new findings, published in the journal Environment International, show that even when we do excrete environmental pollutants through our pores, the amounts we can sweat out are minuscule.
…
So, what are the levels of harmful substances in sweat?
For most pollutants, they’re so low that they’re essentially meaningless, says Pascal Imbeault, who led the new study. Imbeault is an exercise physiologist at the University of Ottawa in Canada who’s studying pollutants that are stored in body fat….
Because these chemicals are attracted to fat, they don’t dissolve well in sweat, which is mostly made of water.
The full article is found at the link above includes a woman dying in the sauna (Terra Cognita’s novel not too off the mark…).
This of course is directly contradictory to the “research” that L. Ron Hubbard did when he came up with the Purification Program. But in truth, he did not actually research, he merely had people “pilot” his “sweat program” and collected anecdotal information from them that “proved” it worked.
The Purification Program no doubt makes people feel better. They are sweating in a sauna and exercising, eating and sleeping well. And they are paying for the “result” that they will be free from the harmful effects of drugs and will be able to “think more clearly” so they want that to occur. Just like those who attest that handling snakes cured them of arthritis or speaking in tongues made their cancer vanish.
Of course, the true believers will tell you that science will eventually catch up with the genius of L. Ron Hubbard and that there are volumes of “success stories” from people who attest to the workability of this “technology.” But what they will NOT tell you is that there HAVE been attempts to scientifically prove the claims made for the Purification Rundown and they have never confirmed any of the “science” that is the underpinning of the entire theory. There was even an organization formed called FASE (Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Education) that spent many years trying to prove this. They failed.
Nor will they tell you that L. Ron Hubbard considered his “discoveries” on the Purif such a magnificent accomplishment that he directed a campaign be done to get him a Nobel prize for his genius because this was going to “change the planet” and “save mankind from the ravages of drugs.” Needless to say, that didn’t happen. He also ordered the ex-Guardian Office personnel that he considered had betrayed him by getting caught to sell $20 million worth of Purification materials and programs as “amends.”
This is not even contemplating the high doses of niacin that are added to the sweating in the Purification Rundown (see my earlier post The Danger of Niacin).
Scientology should not be allowed to continue to sell this service with claims of “evidence” and “research” that it “removes toxins from the fatty cells through sweating”, nor without adequate warning about the dangers of niacin.
Here is the explanation of the Purification Program on the scientology.org FAQ page — the most conservative explanation/pitch anywhere (some of the claims you will hear about the Purif when they are attempting to sell it are truly mind-boggling):
And this is from the “Clear Body, Clear Mind” sub-site.
This is the best they can do to support the “research” — a quote from Kirstie Alley’s FSM and general scientology celeb hanger-on, Michael Wisner:
Funny, you cannot FIND any of these “independent scientific studies” and you can bet everything you own that if they DID have them, they would be being HEAVILY touted.
The Purification is another of the “well-researched breakthroughs” of L. Ron Hubbard that are nothing more than his ideas wrapped in claims of “research” to make them sound like they are not matters of faith. After all, who wants to have faith in a science-fiction author? But everyone wants to believe “science” and “research.” And to this day, scientology STILL presents Hubbard’s ideas not as things you should do because you have faith in them, but as truths backed by research and science. This is the overriding con of scientology. Their “faith” is no better or worse than believing in a virgin birth or Moses parting the Red Sea. But they try to pretend it is NOT faith, that it is “science” and “proven by research.” It is nothing of the sort.
Actually, I headed a team doing research on the purif. We took samples from the skin, but more importantly, we took samples of subcutaneous fat. We compared before and after the purif and then 6 months after that. We found between 60 and 80 % reductions in fat-stored “xenobiotics”, i.e., things that don’t belong there like PCBs and PBBs (polybrominated biphenyls) and several other chemicals. We published this in the peer reviewed literature, including in an International Agency for Research on Cancer symposium proceedings. You don’t get much out through the skin. We had intended to look at feces as the main route out of the body, the chemicals being savaged by the bile and then to the lower gut and out. Unfortunately, we didn’t get funding, and I left Scientology shortly thereafter. After I left, reference to our work, which had been prominent in Church and Narconon publications, were scrubbed. Apparently the church cared more about who did the science than the science itself. In any case, the Purif can reduce body burdens of chemicals you really don’t want in the body. If you want specific references to the papers, let me know and I’ll dig them up.
Thanks so much for taking the time to post this.
Pity it comes so far after the original posting. I would like people to see this.
Would you be willing to give a more comprehensive write up that I could separately publish?
Was there any evidence of DRUGS being stored in the body?
Mike:
Contact me so that I have your email address. I’ll do a brief write up and cite to papers, to include a link to the most often cited one.
We did look at THC and it was found in fat and we did reduce the load. The more important part of this was, however, reduction of known and possible carcinogens.
I left the COS over 20 years ago. Most of my papers have been erased from their websites, but the medical/research community continues to read them.
Best regards,
David Schnare, Esq. MSPH Ph.D.
I sent you an email David
David, thanks for chiming in, it’s very interesting to hear from you. I’m hoping you’ll take Mike up on his offer to write an article.
I’ve followed this particular subject a bit, and may actually have read at least the abstract of your study, and even cited links to it (though I don’t have them at hand). I have a couple of questions that I’m hoping you can address at some point:
* Was your work through FASE, and can you tell us more of the big picture of Scientology’s research attempts?
* If not much comes out through the skin, which is what I’ve seen confirmed in other research and by other authorities, then doesn’t that contradict Hubbard’s and Scientology’s theory about how the purif works – and might that have been why funds weren’t made available to further investigate and understand the actual mechanisms?
* Is there anything about the purif itself, particularly the niacin, that is more effective than a simple regimen of saunas with fluid intake?
* What do you think about the niacin dosing, and the safety of the purif?
* Could it be that water consumption is mostly or entirely what stimulates the flushing of toxins through excretory mechanisms, and if so could it then be the case that other regimens, including just fluid consumption, are just as effective?
* Was other research, or aspects of research, effectively buried by Scientology, in order to hide data showing that Hubbard was wrong, and the purif either didn’t work or didn’t work in the ways claimed?
* Following on Mike’s question, could failure to demonstrate that drugs were stored in fat, also contradict Hubbard’s and Scientology’s theories, and be a reason that Scientology wanted to cover up the existence of the research?
I’ll try to address each of your questions in a post Mike apparently would like me to prepare.
d.
Can you please make these research results available- it would help clear up a lot of questions.
I addressed this in a later post.
David,
I would be so very interested in your findings. You would think though, being you published your work in peer-reviewed literature, that you would be able to find that article there. But, its nowhere to be found.
They are up on the web. I’ll cite and link to the most often cited one in an article Mike apparently wants me to prepare.
d.
I am unclear and unfamiliar with the research you are referencing. I work for the worlds largest research institute in the world located here in the USA it is where the world does research. There has been no studies or academic scholarly accepted research on this “Purif” BECAUSE as stated in Rinders comment we as researchers have known for a very long time the purpose of sweat and the function of the liver and kidneys. Who funded your nonsense?
Civility would have been nice. I haven’t worked in this area for many years. None the less, the work I did do includes peer reviewed publication. The first cite is probably the best and is often cited. Others may be of interest to ;you. The most significance clearnece route is probably fecal. Maybe as much as 2% comes out in the skin. We did, however, clearly document reductions in body burdens of some persistant fat-stored xenobiotics.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/20046351_Reduction_of_the_human_body_burdens_of_hexachlorobenzene_and_polychlorinated_biphenyls
https://www.academia.edu/67608552/Body_Burden_Reductions_of_PCBS_PBBs_and_Chlorinated_Pesticides_in_Human_Subjects
https://www.academia.edu/78849015/Diagnosis_and_treatment_of_patients_presenting_subclinical_signs_and_symptoms_of_exposure_to_chemicals_which_bioaccumulate_in_human_tissue
https://www.academia.edu/78849011/Evaluation_of_a_detoxification_regimen_for_fat_stored_xenobiotics
https://www.academia.edu/78849014/ABSTRACT_Reduction_of_Human
David W. Schnare, Esq. MSPH, PhD
Mike,
Might be interesting to do a follow up post with all the findings David reports here, and also refer to the post he provided at https://www.mikerindersblog.org/does-the-purification-rundown-work/
And on another level of bad… In the late 1970’s I was (once again) on the EPF for not completing some impossible project as assigned by the WDC. I was assigned to the project to rip out the insulation from the basement of the LA Cedars (blue) building basement. The EPF and RPF staff were told the project was high priority because a new sauna area for the Purification Rundown was desperately needed.
Because I was CMO EPF, I was put in charge and given more information. The project was urgent because government inspectors were scheduled to come and verify there was friable asbestos present in the ceiling and pipe insulation (which would greatly delay and increase costs for further remodel). The basement needed to be cleared of all asbestos materials before the inspections began.
I “led the troops in” with little paper nose masks I was allowed to purchase and provide. In one short week we had the new, large, “sauna area” all cleared of “debris” and ready for building… By the time the inspectors came there was NO sign of asbestos (friable or otherwise) in the basement. We (CMO/WDC) told the inspectors the basement was the same as we had found it upon purchasing the building. Although they knew it wasn’t true, they had no way to prove it.
So… to anyone out there who helped with this “urgent project”, I apologize for having been a seventeen year old idiot!! I had NO idea what friable asbestos was. There are only two reasons I try to forgive myself. 1) I was by your side as a part of the rip-out, clean-up crew for 10+ hours a day. 2) I was a child.
After we completed the build of the sauna area (that had to still must have had friable asbestos in the air), as a part of completing the CMO EPF for a 2nd, or 3rd time, I spent many hours in the sauna.
Among the many other reasons the purification rundown could be/is dangerous… Do you know what’s in the walls, ceilings, or otherwise behind the façade of the “beautiful” new sauna?
A part of our brainwashing (sorry if that offends anyone, but it certainly applied to me) as Scientologists (or particularly Sea Org Members), is a complete distrust, disregard, and hatred of any governing entity… I know these entities are far from perfect, and often a pain in the *ss; but many exist for good reasons, such as SAFETY!
CMO,
To perhaps ease your conscious OSHA allows someone to breath 500,000 asbestos fibers in an 8 hour shift/day without a high-efficiency respirator. It takes a bunch of trying to get to that point. You would not see mesothelioma until 35 plus years after exposure.
I mechaniched from 1956-1992 and blew clutch and brake dust into the air regularly and I am still going.
Thanks Jim!
That does ease my conscience. I worked with an amazing environmental engineer at a waste disposal company (many years after leaving SO) who did not smoke, and died of lung cancer (mesothelioma).
That’s when it hit me – what have I done!?! I smoke, and I’m still okay, but are the rest of them?
I have no idea what levels of asbestos my coworker was subjected to before coming to our company.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
CMO,
You are welcome. Another aspect that has been revealed since the human genome was mapped is that there are genes in our cells that make some people susceptible to certain tumors and cancers. Meso is likely if a person carries or has 2 specific genes ( and some additional ones I think). If those genes do not ‘turn on’, or they are not working, then you don’t get meso even though exposed into a bunch of asbestos.
Awesome! Thanks Jim 🙂
honest question: what is the deal with the yellow/black/orange stuff the 9-11 responders sweated out?
They stained towels and pillowcases with mainly black sweat, but also orange and pink and blue. They’d wipe their foreheads and it’d come away with grey smudges sometimes.
There was no trickery, it just happened.
would this just be stuff in the skin coming out…. ?
JohnDoe, that was stuff stuck in the epidermis pores that the sweat pushed out. Go work around coal dust and you too can do the same thing in a sauna when you sweat. 😉
Yes! “Beautiful, clean coal.” And its dust and waste. Breathing it in, drinking it. So good to know that our President wants to preserve this legacy for us.. MAGA!
It’s just dust that got in their skin. Rubbing alcohol or peroxide will do the same sort of thorough cleaning, getting what soap misses, especially if you open up the pores first with a hot shower or similar. Try swiping your face with rubbing alcohol after a busy day and see for yourself how much more dirt comes off.
To begin with, did you actually see that for yourself – or could it just be urban legend? Someone else telling you that they saw it, which may actually mean that that someone else told them that they saw it, and so on, doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Particularly if it has to do with Scientology, it’s quite possible that it’s made up and has no basis in fact or reality.
Since we don’t necessarily even have a real question here, I’ll just throw out the general point that 9/11 first responders were exposed to all sorts of environmental contaminants in the air that could have gotten onto their skin, as well as to attempts to clean and decontaminate them afterwards that might have left substances on their skin, which could in turn have colored things that they came in contact with.
In a case where you think you may have a question, it’s actually your responsibility to be sure that it’s even a proper question to begin with, and not spurious – and, often, to provide more specificity. Did this supposedly happen to just some 9/11 responders, many, or all? Did it happen just while they were at the site, or did it go on for long after they had left? Do you have any sort of link or reference that better explains, and documents, the situation that you are asking questions about?
“what is the deal with…?” is how I began my question. “would this just be stuff coming out..?” is how I ended the paragraph.
I used question marks and everything, so yes, I was asking.
and if I didn’t have to be JohnDoe, I would answer your question as to whether I saw it or not myself and a whole helluva lot more….. But you’ll have to take me on faith for now that I’m not just trolling.
It’s unfortunate, then, that you can’t be more specific, or detailed. But in the absence of anything clearly extraordinary, that would require an extraordinary explanation, to paraphrase a relevant saying, I think you have to go with what several of us have come up with, that any seeming phenomenon likely just resulted from superficial external contaminants coming off of the skin or back out of the pores. There could also have been some strange but explainable reactions going on based on the chemical composition of the dust that rescue workers were exposed to in different areas.
This applies to much around Scientology:
“The Sagan standard is an aphorism that asserts that ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagan_standard
Regarding the dust, see, for instance, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-was-in-the-world-trade-center-plume/ – note that there’s a link to a whole book about 9/11 dust
Seemed a perfectly legitimate and sincere question. I suspect as others have opined that it is dirt/residue caught in the skin. But I don’t have any personal experience or evidence.
Why are you giving the guy a lecture about what questions he can and can’t ask? Are you the new moderator or something? Sorry if my questions do not meet your lofty guidelines.
thanks for the answers, guys.
Not being quite sure where the OP was coming from, I was pointing out that his question had some of the characteristics of types of trolling – as the OP themselves acknowledged in a follow-up – that I think we have to watch out for getting sucked in to.
Nonetheless, I did also try to make a good-faith attempt to answer the basics of the question.
There is a problematic line of questioning that unfortunately popular nowadays – especially among 9/11 conspiracy theorists and others of that ilk, and particularly online – a sort of loaded question which tries to put the burden on the party being posed a question to disprove the questioner, when the question is based on assumptions that may be unfounded, including rumors, urban legends and outright fabrications (the latter particularly likely, in something that could be a propaganda opportunity for Scientology).
“The complex question fallacy, or many questions fallacy, is context dependent; a presupposition by itself doesn’t have to be a fallacy. It is committed when someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_question
I still remember to this day the sales pitch that the Purif I/C used at the Munich org during the late 1980s. During the break he would come into the course room and tell the students anecdotal stories about the wonders of the purification program. My favorite was a story about an oil platform worker who had been sweating out actual black oil droplets during his turns in the sauna.
Firemen breathe in and absorb thru their skin all kinds of pollutants and carcinogenic substances.
Anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean it is false or incorrect, just unsupported from a truly scientific perspective
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy Note that this therapy is done under very strict supervision of an M.D. The M.D. who did the physicals for the Purif for us did chelation therapy in his office. I heard stories from him about some of their “wins” which were very similar to what some people experienced early on in the Purif (for reasons you mentioned, Mike).
Notice there is absolutely NO sweating involved in that therapy. Also notice there have been numerous scientific studies done on the therapy. Also notice the side effects, etc.
Wish I would’ve know what a true scientific study was back then…
What you don’t know CAN kill you.
I understand why we’re debating whether or not toxins can be sweated out thru the skin. I don’t know but here’s a fun fact: for thousands of years before the Purif, the Scandinavians were sweating in their saunas. This started as a pagan practice and continues today. The American Indians had sweat practices too. Possibly others; this is just off the top of my head. It can be assumed that for whatever reasons, sweating actions or programs have long been considered healthy things to do, for whatever reasons. But like anything, you have to use common sense. And certainly, if the Purif claims are false because toxins are NOT sweated out but eliminated via the work of the kidneys and then the bladder and colon, well, they should be made to stop selling it based on those false claims. Its possible – I’m not a medical person but I’m thinking that its possible that intense sweating can ramp up circulation which causes the blood to carry body toxins to the liver – faster? And in that way, aids detoxification? Again, I don’t know. What I do know is that when I go in and out of a sauna for a few hours, alternating with very cold showers, I feel GREAT afterwards AND the next day or so too. Have no idea why, and don’t care. I’m addicted to doing this. Maybe I was a Dane in a former life? 🙂
I’m coming back to re-read and something just occurred to me: toxins can definitely be absorbed THROUGH the skin. That is a well known fact. Now, if the skin can TAKE IN substances, including toxic substances, medications, lotions, oils, nutrients, drugs in the form of patches, etc., – if stuff can go INTO the skin, can it not be sweated out too? Or is the organ that is the skin only capable of absorbing, taking in, but not eliminating? I do know that salt gets eliminated thru the skin.
NOT TRYING TO BE RIGHT ABOUT THIS! Just asking. Just trying to learn and understand! Any feedback appreciated, if anyone’s still around.
The idea of the Purif is that Niacin is required to”loosen” toxins that then get sweated out. The examples in the original text do not include niacin. Furthermore while only anecdotal it should be noted that in the narconon program people who are detoxifying from drugs finish the sauna not only feeling fantastic but the the phenomena of PAWs (post acute withdrawal syndrome) is virtually non-existent in my extensive experience. If one was to compare this with withdrawal undertaken in the absence of the sauna rundown where PAWS is a fairly regular occurrence this supports the idea that sweating does indeed reduce the amount of toxins in the body. While this does not constitute empirical evidence it nevertheless does suggest that to write off the idea ear sweating reduces or eliminates toxins is premature.
What a load of rubbish. Just because wins from one type of therapy resembles another doesn’t render one of the therapies invalid. People may have wins from behavioural cognitive therapy including feeling free, confident and and even beating phobias that a few sessions of hypnotherapy has also the potential to produce. Using your logic that would suggest cognitive behavioural therapy is invalid. Isn’t it possible that both the Purif and Chelation therapy have the potential to produce wins?
I wrote an article at the Scientology Money Project in which I quoted a secret LRH PL wherein he states that Niacin and B1 cause BT’s to drop out restimulation. Per Hubbard, “This too brings about an improvement in the case condition of the person.”
The undisclosed secret of Narconon is this: The Purification Rundown component of the Narconon program is designed to address the body thetans (BT’s) that are being chronically restimulated by the mental image pictures caused by drug residues. The “Purif” is actually handling BT’s. Hubbard, Narconon, and the Church of Scientology have never publicly disclosed this fact. See: https://scientologymoneyproject.com/2015/09/03/the-real-truth-of-scientologys-narconon-drug-treatment-program-is-body-thetans/
The Purif’s a cure if
Your body’s a cold stiff
And let us not forget that OT 8s are recycled to go redo the Purification
You see these OT8s need to flush out their drug toxins.
Earlier Purifs be damned, What happened to so called “EPS” of NED Drug Rundown, Scientology Drug Rundown, OT 4 Drug Rundown, NOTs Drug Rundown ?
LOL
OT 8s need a *new Drug handing” …$$$$$$$
Beyond amazing how these OT8s can be so easily hoodwinked, Karen.
It’s nothing unusual. They do it to themselves. Just as anyone falls for any con. I did it, too.
You’re right, Peter. Each of us can be utterly susceptible to a con in one way or another.
Regarding why OT VIII’s fall for the con of doing their Bridge actions over again, sometimes more than twice, here’s an idea: If you completed OT VIII in the 80’s or 90’s, that means that you have endured 30 years or so with a “no auditing” situation. As an OT VIII you’ve been waiting impatiently for OT IX and X and on to come out so that you can do your next step on the Bridge. So with no OT IX and X out even 30 plus years later, these guys have no game. and they want a game. So when someone tells them they have to re-do this or that step on the Bridge, they do it just to have a game, even if the game is being sick from doing the Purif twice!
Absolutely true, Karen, and a good point.
I completed new OT IV, the OT Drug Rundown in 1986. It was tedious, useless and worthless. We went through the effects of every conceivable thing that could act as a drug on a person, from fragrances to chemicals to actual drugs ingested to environmental drugs.
The best thing I can say about it is that I became more cognizant of how bourbon and beer affected me differently, lol. Of course they still affected me after OT IV, I just had never bothered to put so much time and thought into such trivial nonsense as figuring out the precise differences between the two if I got drunk with one or the other. Of course bourbon makes me sick faster – it has a much higher alcohol content.
These are the sorts of things non-Scientologists have to be drunk to think are important and to bother to discuss. But it cost about $5000-$7000 to discuss them with an auditor in Scientology. Crazy!
What a tedious, ridiculous waste of time OT IV, the OT Drug Rundown was, especially when I discovered everything affected me the same as it ever did.
I was just talking to my sister the other day about this! Our mother was called by my school after sending me off in the morning post-mega dose niacin. She was piloting the Sweat Program in the late ‘70s and typical of her, thought I should do it too. Smh that she thought my turning beet-red meant I was sweating out radiation. That interaction between her and the school was the beginning of her pulling us out of everything mainstream, the end of her grasp on reality. Thanks for this article!
Some support for the notion that the reaction is in part due to elimination of radiation is the observation that ladies while under the influence of niacin went red all over but had distinct lack of redness exactly where the bikini top straps traditionally lay. How can this be explained?
Interesting information from National Geographic. I was never in scientology but I always thought there was a detox benefit from sauna and steam room use. I always noticed my skin was clearer when I used a sauna or steam room. But that would obviously be just a skin cleanse type thing, probably cleaning out mostly dirt.
Great for the circulation. Come out of a sauna or steam room and then take a very cold shower! Then, go BACK in the sauna, get all hot again, come back, take ANOTHER needlepoint cold shower. Doing this 3 times together really helps to improve circulation, all organs in the body, including skin. Dreadful shock to the system though so build up to the icy cold shower; start with cool water first.
Errr you can’t see toxin’s as you would surface dirt!
“What’s true for you is what’s true for you”. For instance, I did the purif and I have Theta-Clear knowingness I sweated out stored radiation, LSD and cancer. Knowingness is senior to empirical science because postulates are senior to MEST. Or whatever. Pretty good, huh?
Also… there’s a psychiatric conspiracy to present false science against the tech because there are people who don’t want mankind to be free. Or whatever. That always goes down like cough syrup.
Laughter!
Hilarious satire and sarcasm.
If you are a slave to social norms sure!
M.Osa, what lower condition are you working out of? You KNOW you are trying to start arguments with people who commented on an article over 3 years ago? A bit out of PT aren’t you.
Wow, please forgive me your highness for daring to voice an opinion that doesn’t fit in with your time table of reply times! I had no idea you were master of who, what and when an individual may post. Comment police as a title perhaps? But apologies anyway. Out of interest, do you actually disagree with my statements? Again, sorry for my presumptuous belief that I may have something to offer! For the record if I were looking for arguments then recent posts would be a better target as many more “marks” would be available for my alleged amusement via arguments. Seriously???? Are you a little challenged or something? I am interested in your opinion though.
Anybody who seriously researches the psychiatric industry will find that money talks! A fantastic quote states that healthy people don’t make money, dead people don’t make money but sick people, a gold mine. It is interesting to note that there are very few physiological tests capable of supporting psychiatric claims. Any alternative therapies that could potentially cost the industry money are subject to the full weight of a multi Billion Dollar industry. A simple example is Kratom, the leaf of a tree with medicinal powers that have helped numerous people kick pharmaceutical pain killers. Despite a multitude of anecdotal reports attesting to the fact, the DEA and general media attempt to demonize the plant because, yeh, profits are more important. This example easily validated with research should bring into question anyone who blindly believes the pharmaceutical industry has the public’s best interests at heart! So comments that rely on said industry as a tool to invalidate the Purif or even Scientology in general need to be taken with a grain of salt.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22253637
J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:185731. doi: 10.1155/2012/185731. Epub 2011 Dec 27.
Human excretion of bisphenol A: blood, urine, and sweat (BUS) study.
Genuis SJ1, Beesoon S, Birkholz D, Lobo RA.
Author information
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Bisphenol A (BPA) is an ubiquitous chemical contaminant that has recently been associated with adverse effects on human health. There is incomplete understanding of BPA toxicokinetics, and there are no established interventions to eliminate this compound from the human body. Using 20 study participants, this study was designed to assess the relative concentration of BPA in three body fluids-blood, urine, and sweat-and to determine whether induced sweating may be a therapeutic intervention with potential to facilitate elimination of this compound.
METHODS:
Blood, urine, and sweat were collected from 20 individuals (10 healthy participants and 10 participants with assorted health problems) and analyzed for various environmental toxicants including BPA.
RESULTS:
BPA was found to differing degrees in each of blood, urine, and sweat. In 16 of 20 participants, BPA was identified in sweat, even in some individuals with no BPA detected in their serum or urine samples.
CONCLUSIONS:
Biomonitoring of BPA through blood and/or urine testing may underestimate the total body burden of this potential toxicant. Sweat analysis should be considered as an additional method for monitoring bioaccumulation of BPA in humans. Induced sweating appears to be a potential method for elimination of BPA.
PMID:22253637
PMCID:PMC3255175
DOI: 10.1155/2012/185731
J Environ Public Health. 2012;2012:184745. doi: 10.1155/2012/184745. Epub 2012 Feb 22.
There are quite a few actual scientific studies available on-line where actual MDs and researchers are grappling with the issues of toxicity in the body.
Doing it only L Ron Hubbard’s way at Co$ prices with the ideal uniform and proper vitamin dispensers and pretending that all the research that will ever be needed has been done is, of course, silly. The incredible lack of any kind of formal training of the staff in the Co$ can also make it deadly. Their arrogance knows no bounds.
Here is another interesting article by a real surgeon and MD.
https://www.thefinleycenter.com/uploads/3/7/7/4/37741423/niacin_detox.pdf
All I’m pointing out is that there does seem to be a lot more research needed in this area and some pretty intelligent people are researching it. And just because I despise the Co$ doesn’t mean that sweating in a sauna doesn’t have some verifiable health benefits.
As one of the research sources that Mike cites states:
“So, what are the levels of harmful substances in sweat?
For most pollutants, they’re so low that they’re essentially meaningless”
Yes, there are detectable trace levels of toxins in sweat. But that does not mean that sweating, is an effective way to remove such toxins from the body – and research shows, that it is not.
It’s possible that there might be other heath benefits. But there may also be health risks – there’s certainly some anecdotal evidence of that, too. Further research might address other aspects of saunas, but it seems as if the toxins aspect has been settled – and debunked.
There were small, but detectable levels of toxins in sweat in a one-time sample from someone exercising. That’s what I assume from the article anyway. The National Geographic and the NYT article it quotes and gets it’s data from. But what if you take megadoses of vitamins, niacin, oils, fats, fatty acids, cal-mag and sweat in a sauna for five hours a day for a month? Is that the same thing? Will it produce different results?
See my earlier answer.
Look, you have every right to BELIEVE the Purif cures lumbosis and attest to the anecdotal stories about it’s wonders. I enjoyed doing the Purif myself.
But don’t try to justify the lack of science when this is how it is promoted. As scientifically proven through “research” by Hubbard.
You avoided the question though. I’m not choosing to believe something any more than you are.
Well said, Mike. Very clear.
Well said Mike.
Chris, I am glad if you had wonderful results but I don’t think that was the point.
Of course exercising, having a sauna, and taking mega loads of healthy vitamins and minerals will make anyone feel better! For many people in the SO the purif was a mini (and ONLY) vacation from 15 to 20 hour work days. Having time to exercise and sleep, WOW, awesome!! Extra bonus, read an entertaining book while in the sauna!
Sounds great to me!
Something else occurred to me: a treatment for an alcohol hangover has long been a steam bath or a sauna. Does anyone know why this works? I suppose I could google it…safe to assume the excess alcohol is not being sweated out thru the pores of the skin, but anyway, the 2 heavy drinkers I knew back in the day were each big steam room aficionados and I imagine a sauna would have served them just as well as it was that heat and the sweating they needed that cured their hangovers, they said. I’m thinking it would have to be the heat making their blood circulate faster,
Hi Aquamarine,
Hmmm… Yes, I think a google search is in order, but probably your guess of increased circulation is correct. From personal experience (blush)… On a hot day at the lake, drinking cold beer while skiing and swimming, the alcohol seemed to have minimal effect.
I should reclassify that statement. From PRIOR personal experience… Ya still need to drive home in your air-conditioned vehicle, so don’t test this theory!
Test only if you are camping at said lake, and have a stone-sober boat driver 🙂
It is a well-documented fact that the body uses the sweat glands as one method of eliminating alcohol in an attempt at cleaning itself adding support for the Purif rundowns ability to clean the body!
I would be interested in seeing these documents…
@Mike Rinser: can’t reply to your message underneath as the option isn’t there but do a quick Google search, the internet is littered with examples. Agreed that it is only a small percentage but valid nonetheless. Factor in Niacin’s purported influence on top and the notion becomes that much more realistic!
Here ya go Mike. “Can you sweat alcohol out of your system?
Yes and no.
A small amount of alcohol is broken down in your stomach lining, but your liver metabolizes most of it. Most of the alcohol you consume is broken down into byproducts through metabolism within your body. ”
https://www.healthline.com/health/night-sweats-and-alcohol#alcohol-night-sweats
Now, as to the purif. When your body “burns” fat it goes through the liver as part of the energy extraction. After THAT, poisons are excreted through urine and feces. The liver doesn’t put the toxins from fat burning into the glands that produce sweat.
Agree totally in that “scientific claims” made hold no water, they clearly aren’t anything of the sort, but anecdotal evidence also has a place in research. It is worth remembering that empirical research costs money. Whoever is paying is likely to have a vested interest. This vested interest normally influences the goals of the research, i.e. wanting to disprove the validity of the Purif rundown then influences the design of the research to achieve that goal. The scientific method acknowledges these shortcomings but it is lost on the general public who generally believe science is absolute. In the same vein, just because evidence is anecdotal doesn’t mean it is meaningless.
“There were small, but detectable levels of toxins in sweat in a one-time sample from someone exercising. That’s what I assume from the article anyway.”
This shows the illogic and irrationality of your thought processes. Instead of reading the actual article and referring to the actual study, you made an assumption because any other assumption would prove your beliefs about the Purif wrong.
Your assumption was wrong.
This was a controlled study. There were many, many samples. As a study, it will be repeated by others for authenticity.
This is how real research is done. What you describe, “a one-time sample” is exactly how L Ron Hubbard did what he called, “research” when he wasn’t busy plagiarizing unverified claims others wrote or just letting his imagination run wild and making things up.
We’re they samples from people doing the purif? I’m probably not going to read the studies unless there is a good, free link. It sounds like they took samples from multiple people after they exercised. I’m pretty sure they did not do anything like the purif. If they did, fine, but I’m assuming not. I would be very interested in a study of a group of purif PC’s over the course of their entire purif. If I saw something like that from an unbiased source I would accept the results.
That was what FASE was established to do. They were unable to prove the claims so the studies were not published. This has been tried more than once and failed. Problem is that because they are funded by scientology or scientologists the studies are NOT made available.
You take the view that there are no studies disproving the Purif claims rather than the more logical that there are no studies proving them – let he who makes the claims prove them. Even though is plenty of evidence indicating the claims are false. That is your faith and you are free to believe anything you want. Arguing science isn’t your strong suit. Assert your faith, that is unchallengeable. Scientologists are stubbornly unwilling to do so because they have been told that scientology is NOT faith. And THAT is an article of faith!
There are some things I would like to test or do studies on. The Purif, the E-Meter, etc. Something like doing dating drills on the e-meter would be interesting. Those are tough drills, but I passed them four or more times I recall. I’m not sure I could do it now. There must be some auditors out there who could rattle off one on camera. That would be something. I’m not sure what it would mean exactly. I think it would show that it’s not “hand sweating” that the meter is showing. I’ll leave it for now Mike. I was just bored today. Don’t take it personally.
I dont take any of this personally Chris.
Interesting you bring up the dating drill. Curious about your thoughts on WHAT the E-Meter is reading on when that drill is done? It is certainly not something “below the conscious awareness of the pc” and is not generated “by the bank”. What IS the meter reading on? And does that mean someone thinking about something can influence the E-meter completely in the control of the person thinking it?
Haven’t you ever just held the cans and watched the dial, or done solo auditing? I did the metering course at Flag. I don’t know exactly what’s going on. LRH explained it in his terms with an electronic field around the body and mental image pictures being restimulated, etc. To me it seems that the mind causes changes in the body which register on the meter. It’s a bio-feedback meter. There are medical and research devices that register electrical changes in the body, EKG, EEG etc. I guess the e-meter picks up on some electrical signal in the body that is affected by thought or brain activity.
The question is not whether the body or soul or thetan affects the meter. Not what I was asking.
Auditing is based on the premise that the meter reads below the awareness of the pc and thus is a guide to the trauma/aberration. It is not something the pc has will or control over. All auditing rest on this premise and you often hear people say “well, I just follow the meter says, I don’t need to know if it’s true.”
How does this square with the dating drill when it’s obviously reading on NOTHING subconscious, just something made up by the person doing the drill?
That is my actual question.
Honestly, I don’t know. At Flag I had that same question about assessment meter drills where you assess a list to find out which musical instrument the coach prefers for example.
One twin on the dating drills would get a twitchy needle on the correct answer. I would ask “is it before 1970” and have a free needle. Then “is it after 1970” and the needle would get a little twitch, similar to a dirty needle. The sup and I re-read the bulletin and it says the student “uses the meter”. It doesn’t say you have to get an instant read. So that’s what we did. In that case it was like a withhold (I guess). I don’t believe the coach intentionally created the read or was even aware of it. The other coach I had would have a slightly latent fall on the correct answer.
I find the e-meter interesting. Maybe some of the Scientology theology surrounding it is unnecessary or even wrong, I don’t know. A lot of it is based in belief as far as thetans and engrams from past lives and all that, I’ll agree with that.
What about a basic pinch test? Doesn’t that show something? You give the guy a good pinch, ask him to recall the moment of the pinch and the needle goes bang.
I don’t know if it’s reacting to the spirit or the brain or what, but I believe it does react to thoughts and mental activity. If you set up the meter correctly and just hold the cans and watch the dial and think about your day it will react when you think of something that has some charge on it. If you think of an argument the needle will react instantly and you’ll see a change in characteristic, changes in TA position, etc.
I agree that this is a fascinating topic. I have often referred people to the movie “I Am” where there is an e-meter like device that registers on yogurt based on the emotion of the individual. Fascinating.
What I am most interested in is the idea that the meter “reads below the conscious level of the pc” because I think this is the trap of auditing that leads people to invent things that are “confirmed” by the e-meter. As with much of Hubbard’s “research” and his many pronouncements about “how things are”, I don’t think it is all as he claimed it to be.
If I was a course sup I would answer your question with “Drilling is not auditing”. Maybe the meter reacts to thought, both conscious and sub-conscious.
Yeah, and how do you differentiate? I(t’s “conscious” when drilling but not conscious when auditing or sec checking? Yikes. Confusion reigns.
In 5 minutes one can falsify what El Tard says about the mind and the Emeter.
1: He says the emeter “reads” (detects change in electrical resistance) on thoughts (mental mass).
2: He says that the mind (Mips) surround the body (hence “close your eyes and point to an apple”).
1: Take a pair of cans and connect the appropriate test resistor for your gender.
2: Place the resistor set up ~1/4 inch from your off hand that you would use to solo. But don’t touch anything with your body (cans cannot be touching anything that conducts)
3: Start session.
4: If what Hubtard said is true you will get reads.
Electricity travels through path of LEAST resistance. On solo set up it travels from part of the hand on one can, across that fraction of an inch of skin spanning the can gap and back to the other can. So, it i reacting to physical changes in the skin in that small area (I’m assuming you have run the “thought” falsification test above so you know KNOW it doesn’t change resistance because of “mental mass”).
As for the rest of the crap about auditing, as soon as LRHs copious scientific research notes are found (LMAO) we can start reviewing for plausibility.
I’ll acknowledge that auditing I considered “bad” or a waste of time involved this problem you’re talking about. Sec checks where the auditor got a read and has to chase it down, guiding the PC. “There, that, etc”. Then you dive into your subconscious, or imagination to figure out what the read is. That’s one example. WHen you have an auditor and PC who have been studying LRH materials on past lives and space whole track I think you can end up with “unscientific” results.
The auditing I did enjoy and get benefit avoids this. The Grades are mostly without this phenomenon.
I think auditors are trained to be mechanical where good auditing is relaxed and not as serious. A good auditor can quickly clean up a false read or incorrect item, but the problem you’re talking about is real.
Can you please cite these studies you comment about?
You’ll have to ask the commenter who claimed there were those studies. I have never claimed there are studies proving the Purif is valid.
The debunked conclusion does not take into account the effect the Niacin supplement has upon the toxin level does it?
My son Alexander Jentzch dead at 27 years old has done 3 Purification Rundowns which is supposed to make you drug free AND with no desire for future drugs.
Alexander who grew up in a drugless Sea Org… died of methadone and pneumomia.
He was fighting walking pneumonia with DRUGS !
Even while he was being monitored weekly by Donatella of Office of Special Affairs Int.
Here’s what the coroner found in autopsy
These were the other drugs found in Alexander’s bed that the Coroner removed
Methadone
Meloxicam 15mg:
Gabapenton 300mg:
Hydrocodone:
Pseudoephedrine
Vicks NyQuil
No Mom No dad.
He never took anti-biotics to fight the pneumonia. He took more drugs and methadone !
A $20 prescription of an anti-biotic could have saved his life.
Story of a 27 year old dying of cocktail of drugs after 3 Purification Rundowns.
Great essay Mike Rinder.
So sorry Karen.
I’m so sorry Karen. I can’t imagine your unbearable loss. Alex was an exuberant part of my life when I knew him, and loved you very much. ❤️
Karen, I am so sorry this preventable loss of your son occurred.
God damn scientology.
And the sooner LRH’s quackery is forgotten, the better will be the human condition. I am so angry right now.
That adorable, handsome boy – I saw a photo of him when he was small. Senseless, needless tragedy, a tremendous loss for you. No words for this, Karen.
How can you blame Scientology? Addiction is notoriously hard to defeat. A Purif Rundown handle’s the physiological aspects but the psychological aspects are another kettle of fish altogether. People turn to drugs as an escape. The reasons for this escape need addressing. While sauna is excellent at removing toxins (postulated) it doesn’t do anything to handle the psychological aspects. You can’t blame the Purif for not fixing escape issues.
Hi Karen. OMG, I am so sorry to hear this 🙁 I have lost a son, and it is the worst thing ever. One thing could make it worse, and apparently you have lived it… I know it probably doesn’t help, but cyber hugs
I remember two people who went blind because of the Purif in the 80’s. A gal named Carrie and a guy with the last name of McCann. They both went blind from detached retina due to the sauna and regime of the program. Carrie was a public at AOLA later.
Jesus Christ.
I remember Carrie (Atkins?) as public at AOLA. That was in the 80s. She was a sweet lady, around 30 years old. It’s true, she went blind on the Purif. I remember her before and after she did it. She still came around the org and ASHO a lot, blind, ever the dedicated Scientologist, convinced in some way it was her own fault for being PTS or something, and was treated with kid gloves. She told people about what happened, too.
She was given all sorts of reviews, but of course, nothing restored her eyesight.
Bingo Sheila. Atkins. She thought it was her fault because she was PTS. So she was constantly doing volunteer Org work as amends for being so out ethics as to go blind on the Purif.
🙂 Thanks! I USUALLY get names right. Not always. Once I got two Mikes mixed up, so I check last names with others now. Carrie Atkins was in an oppressive atmosphere, involved with a crazy, paranoid, deluded cult.
Carrie was one of the nicest, most compassionate people I ever met. Tricking that kind woman into believing it was her fault. Grrr!
You’re close but not quite. Her name was Carrie Alkins, not Atkins. She did go blind from the Purif but even after that she never realized that the Purif did it to her, and the Purif tech didn’t work. She remained the biggest Kool Aid drinker until her death. I read on the blogs that since it was the “fault” of the church and they didn’t want a lawsuit, that they offered her some free NOTS auditing as restitution, but without calling it restitution of course, and never admitting any culpability. Even her husband, Robin Alkins, never blamed the church and he is a huge KA drinker now too. I worked at the same place she worked at one time in the 80’s after she went blind and I overheard some high ups in the company trash talking about Carrie behind her back saying that she was dramatizing being the victim. OMG. The church R/D causes the blindness and they say it is your fault and stop dramatizing being a victim! Only in Scn.
I see so much accusations that the Purif caused the blindness but even the most sceptical explanation makes no mention of any aspect of the Purif capable of causing blindness. Enlighten me? Mainstream psychological literature however acknowledges the existence of conversion disorder that clearly explains the phenomena.
Keep defending the criminality Mr. OSA. It just shows your own insanity
Wynski and Sheila, I am not disagreeing or challenging or trolling, but as a non medical person I am asking for your honest opinions:
If someone goes blind doing the Purif would this be indicative of some pre-existing physical condition the person had which would make intense sauna sessions and running and high doses of vitamins and niacin and so forth dangerous in general and liable to cause blindness in particular?
What was this person’s eyesight like BEFORE doing the Purif?
Had she been experiencing other symptoms which, leaving aside whether or not they had been medically diagnosed, would have, or should have precluded her from being allowed onto this program?
Sheila, based on your observations, would you feel comfortable saying to anyone, “Be careful. The Purif causes blindness”…? Or would you classify what happened with this unfortunate lady as a tragic anecdotal Purif experience?
I seem to recall that I heard Carrie had Diabetes and that she shouldn’t have been doing the Purif at all and that that condition was exacerbated by doing the Purif.
Yes Cindy, she had diabetes, got a Scamology Dr. OK and was C/Sed for it as her next Bridge step with that condition known. Nice try at taking scamology off the hook but no go!
Well, Cindy and Wynski, thanks for supplying and confirming the missing data.. Makes total sense now. A diabetic, dependent upon insulin to prevent a coma, C/S’d for the Purif. She had diabetes and with it all the related body issues and health risks of a person with that disease, and the cult got a cult doctor who OK’d her, and the cult C/S’d her for the Purif, and she said, “OK, I’ll do it”, And did it, and went blind. well, there are no words I can summon up right now…no words, actually. Thanks again for the info.
How about conversion disorder as an explanation?
Wrong Mr. OSA aka M Owen. Nice try but your criminal insanity is showing. Best you leave the cult.
Can you supply the sources of the information for us to evaluate?
THC is stored in fatty tissue. There is some evidence suggesting exercise can temporarily increase THC blood levels (ie. “dislodging” the cannabinoid back into the bloodstream) but it is kinda irrelevant. THC is not expelled from the body unless it is metabolised. It is specifically the THC-COO-glucuronide molecule that is expelled – via urine, not sweat – and no amount of exercise or sauna has been shown to have any effect on this process whatsoever.
Again, please supply source regarding claims.
Making someone run around a tree till they drop: torture. Making someone sit in a sauna for six hours a day for sixty six days: torture. Making someone take so much vitamin B their hands turn purple and ache: torture. The purif is just another way to make people pay for their own abuse.
“…just another way to make people pay for their own abuse.”
agp, I couldn’t have said it better. You nailed it, my friend.
Have you been addicted and then undertaken the “solution” as dictated by the Purif? If not then from what authority do you speak?
I am NOT going to do the purif and then die like SOUTH PARK actor Isaac Hayes. All the people I’ve talked to who took it hated it. One man had to spend 6 hours per day for 66 days in a sauna. Stupid.
I can speak from both first hand experience and also from observations of probably nearly 100 people over a decade that undertook the sauna program, the vast majority not only enjoyed the experience but also felt “like new” after completing. I should note that both I and all the people referred to are ex drug addicts doing the Purif as part of an overall program. It is worthy of note that the prevalence of PAWs or Post Acute Withdrawal syndrome was pretty much zero. Compare this with standard treatment and you will find PAWS a recurring factor in many individuals. While not empirical evidence, it does support the idea that sauna does something benefical.
There is real scientific evidence that taking Magnesium by itself is good for many things in the body, especially for the heart. The only side effect of Magnesium used this way (alone and without Calcium) is that once you hit a high enough dose, it gives you diarrhea. If that happens, you just cut down on the magnesium.
True. Magnesium is critical to the body. But a level teaspoon is all that is necessary for most folks to have a very positive effect. If one has gout, for instance, the magnesium quickly stops the extremely painful swelling and sensitivity in the affected area.
The problem with bias is that it colors how we see things. A Scientologist would look at this same article and not see “debunked”. The Purif is a program, not just sweating in the sauna a few times. This in no way debunks anything.
The first time I did the purif I thought it delivered the goods. I had to do it again 10+ years later and had problems with the vitamins. I thought I was done, but the higher doses of vitamins, especially B vits were making me sick. The CS said I needed to “run it out”, so I false attested. I was pretty much done with Scn at that point anyway.
So, I don’t know if the program is perfect or needs improvement or what. I’ve seen a lot of people who seemed to be helped by it. I’ve seen people who got no results. Regardless of that or my opinions and just being logical, I don’t see how the article debunks the purif.
In other words, I think you’re biased, this Michael Wisner guy is biased, and the Church is obviously biased. The end result- I don’t get to find out the truth.
On sweating and detox:
Chris Wark, cured stage 3 cancer naturally, and has become a world wide coach and lecturer on healing cancer and chronic diseases.
Highly respected in the alternative medicine field, he educates people on health issues.
His incredible web site: https://www.chrisbeatcancer.com/ is a must for anybody fighting cancer.
Here, in a live Q&A session of yesterday he quotes from a study on sweating and detoxification.
Worth listening.
https://youtu.be/TPWK8KPzkmg
It would be useful if he actually cited the study he claims to be reading from… I wonder why he doesn’t? His statements are contradictory to an enormous amount of science. That he survived cancer doesn’t make him an expert in all things relating to the body.
But thanks for sharing.
It was just a Q&A airing, he was answering a question on a wide subject, helping people. That’s what he does. If you ever dive into chris’ work, research and many lectures, including mentioning of numerous researches you will see, I think, that he is very reliable. Of course in the eyes of that part of “science” which only directs and recommends pharma drugs and medicine, in that multi billion $ industry, all alternative medicine and practices and researches are ignored as “no science”…
of course when things are normal, liver and kidney do the job..no sweat. 🙂
But sweating alternative detox orogramms relate to an OVERLOAD toxic situation that the body can’t handle and so gets in a stress and bad shape.
Well, the point was that Hubbard claimed the Purif is based on science and the research he did.
Factually, the entire program is based on a single premise — sweat rids the body of toxins. The other things (oil, exercise, vitamins and niacin) are ancillary to his actual “research” about sweat excreting drugs and toxins through the pores. SWEATING IS what the Purif is about. Everything else is secondary. The reason for the sauna is to induce “profuse sweating”. You exercise “to get the blood circulating” so the toxins will be “stirred up” and can be sweated out better, you take vitamins and minerals and oil to “replace” what is lost through sweating. Niacin is supposed to make the toxins “release” better and handle radiation burns.
Sweating expelling toxins IS is what is debunked. This is the entire premise of the Purif.
As I said, I am sure people have been helped by the Purif. Just as I am sure some people have been helped by faith healers and snake handlers. But those folks don’t claim their cures are based on science. They’re more honest and say they are based on faith.
Which was the point of this post.
On the Purif you take megadoses of vitamins, niacin, cal mag, minerals, oils, fats, fatty acids, exercise and sweat in a sauna for weeks or months. I’ve been around the purif a lot and my wife was the Purif I/C and later OES at my org. For some reason I ended up twinning or sitting in as a twin for purifs other than my own. I’ve personally observed many people on the program. It takes a few days or longer for the purif to “bite” as the say. I really don’t see that the author wrote about the purif at all. It’s like saying quitting smoking for one day doesn’t produce any benefit to the lungs to debunk the assertion that smoking is dangerous. The article also says that trace amounts of toxins are excreted in the seat (of someone not doing the Purif). I’m assuming in this study, participants sweat once. I could be wrong, I think I could poke holes in the argument that this debunks the purif. I would have to look a this guys published study. I don’t know what it says. I assume you don’t either. I don’t know where to find it and don’t have time to read it. Maybe someone else can find it and read it. I’m just debating guys, don’t take it personally.
Chris, you are confused as you have no formal scientific training. If you DID you would FIRST be asking to see the clinical trial data from Hubtard. BEFORE anything else. As that doesn’t exist. There is NOTHING to debunk.
Get a complete basic education before tackling such issues.
+1000000
+1000000 for being rude and hateful?
Sorry Chris, sometimes the truth can be painful to the deluded. This is just the beginning of your journey to total freedom from the Cult of Scientology.
Once you are no longer brainwashed, truth won’t seem so rude and hateful. It will simply be viewed as truth.
No, Cbris. +1000000 to looking for clinical trial data first. I didn’t read further.
WYnski, no it’s not that. I’m objecting to your condescending attitude towards me. I think it’s totally unnecessary. You don’t know me.
As are you Wynski. If you truly believed in the scientific method then you would realize the an open mind in paramount to discovery. For a start, the very text you use to “debunk” the theory doesn’t factor in Niacin as a variable so how can you conclude based on an uncontrolled variable? And a look through your previous comments suggests a mind already made up. Again, not conducive of true science. People in glass houses shouldn’t thrown stones!!
Imbeault, Pascal & Ravanelli, Nicholas & Chevrier, Jonathan. (2017). Can POPs be substantially popped out through sweat?. Environment international. 111. 131-132. 10.1016/j.envint.2017.11.023.
It’s a correspondence paper, referencing multiple studies. Paywalled, but you can access it for free via sci-hub.tw using doi ref 10.1016/j.envint.2017.11.023
Did you read it or any of the studies? I’m not saying it’s not interesting data, but I’m thinking they didn’t really test the purif. Collecting a sweat sample from someone who is exercising and testing it for toxins really isnt the same thing as the purif program is it? If trace amounts of toxins can be found in “normal” sweat, what about sweat from a subject who has been taking all the purif vits, niacin, oils, fats, cal-mag, exercising and sweating five hours a day for weeks in a sauna? Will that increase the amount of toxins in the sweat? I’m not saying it will. I am asking a question that is being overlooked here due to bias.
Did you read the article even?
It talks about the levels of toxins in sweat? Because you CAN extract water from the Hoover dam with an eyedropper does not make it possible to empty the dam…. You are saying “yeah, but what if the guy had really strong dropper squeezing fingers and amazing stamina and lightning reflexes, what about testing that?” It’s just not even in the same area code.
Chris, you’re right. They did not specifically test the Purification Rundown®. The paper is essentially consolidating results data from multiple studies as a response to Lee et al. 2017 [1] who proposed that exercise might aid cancer survivors via the excretion of “toxins” (aka POPs/persistent organic pollutants) via sweat.
Their findings are hugely relevant, none the less.
The jist of it is as follows:
* there is some evidence that suggests induced perspiration appears to stimulate the elimination of certain PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) congeners (variants) from the body. [2].
* The actual significance of this evidence is what the authors have attempted to determine.
* Using data from multiple studies, including Chevrier et al., 2000 [3], Takemura et al., 1989 [4] and Baars et al., 2004 [5] a 70kg individual, sweating 2 litres a day, would eliminate less than 0.024% of daily PCB intake (from food and the environment).
* Citing Genuis et al., 2013 [2] who reported increased levels of 4 specific PCB variants (there are 209 in total) in their sample, when calculated per the above, would actually be sweated out naturally, beyond that which is ingested, without any inducement whatsoever.
In conclusion, the authors find that there is no evidence that suggests a) sweat inducement has any significant effect on the levels of “toxins” that can be excreted †, and b) the levels of those that can be excreted are seriously insignificant when compared to what we ingest on a daily basis.
Refs ‡
1. Duk-Hee Lee, David R. Jacobs, Ho Yong Park, David O. Carpenter. A role of low dose chemical mixtures in adipose tissue in carcinogenesis. Environment International, Volume 108, 2017, 170-175
2. Genuis, S.J., Beesoon, S., Birkholz, D., 2013. Biomonitoring and elimination of perfluorinated compounds and polychlorinated biphenyls through perspiration: blood, urine, and sweat
study. ISRN Toxicol. 483832 (2013e).
3. Chevrier, J., et al., 2000. Body weight loss increases plasma and adipose tissue concentrations of potentially toxic pollutants in obese individuals. Int. J. Obes. 24, 1272–1278.
4. Takemura, T., Wertz, P.W., Sato, K., 1989. Free fatty acids and sterols in human eccrine sweat. Br. J. Dermatol. 120, 43–47.
5. Baars, A.J., et al., 2004. Dioxins, dioxin-like PCBs and non-dioxin-like PCBs in foodstuffs: occurrence and dietary intake in The Netherlands. Toxicol. Lett. 151, 51–61.
Footnotes
† Based on this data, it would appear that even if you spent your entire waking life in the sauna, the % of “toxins” excreted would still remain insignificant compared to what the body ingests.
‡ These refs are only the ones I’ve cited to compose this comment. There are many more cited by the authors.
It’s interesting, but it seems to be an extrapolation based on short term studies. My understanding of the purif is that it takes a while to get going or “bite”. Like, on day one you just feel kind of tired. Day two you feel a little “icky” or toxic. Day thirteen you are having LSD flashbacks, etc. So, maybe if you tested people after a week on the purif you would find more toxins than day one? I’m just going by my personal experience and what I’ve seen. I think the purif is a lot more than a sweat inducement. I’ll try to pull up some of these studies when I get home. I do appreciate that you took the time to reply in a kind manner.
There was a study co-sponsored by the USDOD back in 2012 that specifically tested the Purif on gulf war veterans – although I believe the focus was on blood PCBs, not sweat. The study ended in 2015 yet no results have been published. Odd. (One individual did die…but apparently it was unrelated).
See Carpenter et al., Gulf War Illness: Evaluation of an Innovative Detoxification Program; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01672710
This one is for Chris. The young lady who wrote this article has two degrees from the University of Colorado at Boulder. BS in Ecology, and a MS in Evolutionary Biology . I wonder why you question her work without doing your homework. Google” National Geographic” if your network nanny will allow it.
What is her work, the article? I don’t have a network nanny. I’ve been talking to Mike on the “network” since before he started this blog.
Did old L Ron do the ‘purif’ himself? Ha!
Of course not, I don’t think his research was very thorough, considering all the cigarettes and coffee he consumed every day – it would have probably killed him.
Ron wasn’t from this planet so didn’t need to do it. He gifted it to us mere mortals as a token of his generosity. After all, he was mankind’s greatest friend. Or as my mother used to say, ‘with friends like that, who needs enemies?’ ?
Gifted, Mike??? LOL
Chris, if you look at what Mike reproduced from Scientology’s website, the primary benefit is supposed to be to “rid…toxins and other chemicals that lodge in the body.” The research Mike cited disproves that. Mike also states that Scientology had their own research effort to prove it’s efficacy, and could not. What that means is that any apparent benefits observed – including what you thought you got or saw – were just placebo affects, which can seem impressive and even be somewhat significant.
So it seems as that both external and internal researchers have come to the same conclusion, that there is no provable detoxification occurring. How does that leave the “truth” of the matter unclear?
There might possibly be some secondary or tertiary benefits – but, again, apparently none that even Scientology themselves could quantify or prove.
p.s. I checked into FASE and, founded in 1981, 26 years later in 2007 they did apparently sponsor publication of an article in the journal Medical Hypotheses which was, indeed, hypothetical and lacking any research demonstrating their hypothesis.
I knew it. My parents made me take hand fulls of vitamins daily. From the age of 8 on till I joined the sea org. Where I was not forced to take vitamins daily. I was c/seed for the purif twice though? Which seemed a bit odd as I had never done any type of drugs or even tried alcohol. My first taste of wine was during/after a New Years event at flag.
I’m glad this info is getting out and confirming what a lot of us knew all along. The purif is bunk technology.
Isn’t everything in Scientology bunk?
No, OSD. As I’ve noted many times, in order to run a good scam, there has to be SOME truth in it. He did that by taking some real discoveeries by others and claiming them for himself. Many – including me – got some wonderful gains from the Comm Course. Just having it pointed out that communication has to be at least two way made a major shift in my thinking back then. If it’s only one way, it’s a speech. And Lordie, did Hubbard know how to speechifie!!!
In the 70’s, I was on the precursor to the Purification rundown which was called the Sweat or Running Program, where I ran around the streets of LA for hours every day in the summer for a couple of months in a rubber suit sweating my ass off. That was grueling but the result was only a rapid loss of weight. Then very shortly after the Sweat/Running program was completed, I was routed onto the new Purification Rundown which I did in the bowels of the LA Org at the Cedars complex (Big Blue). Jeeze, I felt like a guinea pig on both programs (and probably was) and I wondered at the sanity of Ron and the C/S’s involved. Both programs were grueling and neither program worked as promised! I was hoping for at least a few flashbacks from the LSD I had taken so much of in the 60’s but no such luck! One day on the Purif I experienced a heat stroke and the C/S indicated to me that it was due to released toxins and not to a heat stroke from the heat and dehydration from the sauna (that evaluation did not indicate to me!……I am from the deserts of California and know what a heat stroke is and what it feels like and what it does to a person). I should have been taken to a doctor. I am lucky I did not end up being in Terra’s novel!
Eh=Eh: I too did the Sweat Program (56 days). Not only did I run for hours in a sweat suit, I was allowed to eat only six fruits per day. A week after I finished, I routed onto the newly released Purification Rundown. By the time I’d finished, I weighed what I did when I was fifteen.
I never experienced any flashbacks, either. Bummer.
Oh yea, the fruit diet! Me too! Avacados were my saving grace and got me through! And now I am a vegan……(no relation!) You and I must have been doing this all at the same time! As soon as I completed the Sweat/Running Program I was routed onto the New Purif too!
I guess in reality I do not need the “purif” program as we spend 4 months every year at our second home in the Philippines. Talk about sweat, i do that the entire time we are there. My wife is from there so she is cold at 60 degrees. My only relief is hugging the small air conditioner in the bedroom. BEST OF ALL IT COSTS NOTHING BUT ELECTRIC BILL.
Great article, Mike. It is very important to understand that Scientologists don’t consider these tenets to be matters of belief. They are supposed to be scientific facts, just as reliable as the law of gravity.
But as soon as anyone hints that they may be guilty of fraud by pushing their pseudo-scientific agenda, they are quick to hide behind the First Amendment, pretending that they are just exercising their “religious right to believe as they choose”.
Probably the most egregious example of this is the use of the “Purification Rundown” in drug rehabilitation programs for non-Scientologist drug addicts. The Narconon program.
It should be as obvious as the nose on your face that you have to convert to Scientology to complete this program. Otherwise you can never finish the Purification Rundown. To finish you have to say you have received a spiritual benefit, so you have to believe. It is perfectly acceptable to lie about it just to get out of the sauna, but you have to lie sincerely enough to fool an e-meter.
So this part of Scientology is a straight up recruiting scam run on the most vulnerable segment of the population. It risks their lives, sanity and health, costs around $30,000 and does not include any actual drug rehabilitation counseling.
And it violates the most basic Hubbard policy in that it supposedly helps the helpless. Hubbard said to make the able more able, probably reasoning that the able would be able to pay the mounting costs of going up the Bridge.
No wonder Dave is turning these Narconons into celebrity boutique operations, just when the opioid crisis is getting critical. What do you do with a bunch of Narconon grads who can’t pay for anything more? Using them as Narconon staff has backfired badly. Naturally they go on using after “graduating” Narconon with no real drug rehabilitation. So the Narconons became opiate dens with resulting overdose deaths and abuse of all kinds.
It is enough to make you sick, but it can’t go on too much longer. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
What, the Purif is not a scientifically valid treatment for radiation poisoning? Oh, you have to smoke a lot of cigarettes to get out all the radiation. If so, why is there no officially branded cigarette fit for the minions of $cientology? I am surprised that Miscavige hasn’t started up his own cigarette company. There’s money in that addiction.
The vitamin business in $cientology is a very lucrative business. The largest supplier is a well connected Clam who kicks back the required amount to the CO$ and his reg is a very happy person. Everything in $cientology is about the money, except when it is about fealty to Miscavige.
Why hasn’t anyone sued the CO$ for making false health claims? The FDA seized a lot of e-meters because of bogus health claims in the ’60s. Maybe they should put padlocks on the saunas of $cientology.
Waiting for any state or federal agency to come down on $cientology is as fruitful as waiting for Karin Pouw to get back to you.
“The FDA seized a lot of e-meters because of bogus health claims in the ’60s “.
True that, but then the FDA had to return these same meters when an agreement was reached that they would be considered “religious artifacts” or something like that.
Yea, the Purif is 100% unworkable. I’ve been saying this for years, here and other places. Another very obvious unworkable aspect of it is drinking straight oil. What?! Drinking pure fat is such a ridiculous thing to do. It’s supposed to “replace” the bad fat. Sorry, just doesn’t work that way. If you drink pure fat, it simply adds additional fat to the body. Just another harmful aspect of this “rundown”. I do suppose you could add it to the Kool Aid. Make it a bit more palatable anyway.
Like claiming that eating something like hog jowls can replace bad fat with good fat. Anyone can tell you that adding fat just increases fat. Why are so many diet plans low fat?
Eat hog jowls to replace bad fat with good fat.
The Hillbilly Rundown.
I just might try to market that.
I suspect there are health benefits tied to the stress response of the body, which can be triggered by such things as sauna, fasting, or ice swimming. Some people go all in and do great, but people have also died. Obviously you would want to start slowly and pay close attention to how you feel. The problem with the purif is that it is sold as being developed by an expert, a true professional in 29 different fields! And obviously valuable, since they are charging a lot of money for it. This discourages people from doing their own research and evaluating the risk.
Another problem is that “how you feel,” if you feel badly, is *always* interpreted as something “running out.” It’s never a medical problem, which would cause bad PR (as if scientology isn’t the poster child of bad PR already). So their solution to heat stroke is to go back in the sauna. Idiocy.
I had benefits from the Purif by way of a nasal drip thing clearing up. The year before my first Purif I had stopped smoking after a 20 year habit and had never minded smelling other peoples’ cigarette smoke, but after the first Purif to my surprise I found I was was repelled by anyone lighting up near me, really sensitive to cigarette smoke, just as I had been when a child.. Other than these two differences I was pretty much the same afterwards as before. In those days I exercised a few times a week via a class that was similar to today’s Pilates. Sometimes I’d take a double class. I was in good physical shape and I had a strong heart so the extreme sweating and intense vitamin dosage and running on the Purif didn’t hurt me. In fact, I liked coming out of the sauna and taking an icy cold shower. I still like doing that. What I hated was the oil. The Cal Mag I didn’t mind.. I didn’t feel mentally more bright and clear after either of the Purifs I did but then I had never taken drugs anyway whether legal or illegal, except for dental Novocaine, I suppose. I did both Purifs because I was told to do so. Both of them were pretty much non-events for me.
Thank you this.
Thank you for reminding me of Hubbard’s claims and his methods of “research”.
Somewhere within I still in some way have had some faith in the Purif. I know it’s all made up and just more scn nonsense, but yet somehow I was still clinging to some sort of agreement with it. I had thought that the vestiges was a result of my extensive history with the purif on various posts I’ve held, coupled with basic agreements of sauna-exercise-nutrition, and that rat-bastard-of-all trap, “hope”. It was also sorta sciencey.
Reminding myself just what brand of “research” Hubbard did has now finally lifted that last little glued down piece of agreement with the Purif. For this, I thank you and am grateful.
If Hubbard fell face down in a mud puddle after tripping on a shoe-lace, he’d’ve gone back inside and written a new HCOB on his research into breathing underwater.
If Hubbard fell face down in a mud puddle after tripping on a shoe-lace, he’d’ve gone back inside and written a new HCOB on his research into breathing underwater.
Comment of the day (so far at least…)
LOL. …. Agreed! best one liner of the year!
Secret – “If Hubbard fell face down….” – thanks for my first belly laugh of the day!
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Great article, too bad they didn’t mention the cult by name!
Despite that oversight, Nat Geo may very well have performed a very important community service with the article by reporting on the cult’s super secret Golden Age of Purification II pilot program’s early results:
“A 35-year-old women in Quebec died
after a detoxification spa treatment plastered her with mud, then
wrapped her in plastic and put a cardboard box over her head. She lay
under blankets for nine hours, sweating. Hours after the treatment, she
was dead from extreme overheating.”
That’s $cn at work, “clearing the planet” the old-fashioned way…one dead cultist at a time;)
Two Scientologists talking.
Ed: Remember when Steve Jobs died?
Pete: Yeah.
Ed: I just had a cognition.
Pete: Okay, continue.
Ed: He was a drug case – he took LSD.
Pete: Uh-huh.
Ed: If he’d done the Purif, he could have flushed it out of his system and be alive today.
Pete: Wow, you’re right.
Ed: I’ve got to write a success story.
Pete: Very well done!
MJM – thanks for the second best belly laugh of the day. Second only because ‘Secret’ above was my first.
Two belly laughs are better than one three-swing F/N. ?
Their lying Truth About Drugs crap, which is presented to school kids (how I detest this part), also tells the lie about drugs stored in body fat. The re-stimulation effects are lies. $camatology is a lie. How I wish school administrators would do research before letting lying charlatans address students.
OTD,
Whenever I get the opportunity to ‘educate’ school administrators about the bogus drug spiel I send them this:
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/at/narcononevaluation.asp
OTD,
Whether or not drugs are stored in fat, you can’t believe that kids being given a lot of drugs as a matter of course is a good thing, right?
How did children survive and grow for so long without drugs?
Herbs and alcohol for pain aside, how did adults survive throughout the ages without drugs to help them eat, digest food, eliminate body waste, sleep, wake up, handle their grief, socialize and have sex?
Seriously, we are in an epidemic of legal and illegal drug taking with its accompanying addictions. Its insane that human beings are supposed to require all these drugs to the degree that they’re being pushed to assist with every human physical, mental and emotional function.
I don’t care if this makes me sound like a cult apologist. Its what I think. As a race we’re getting sicker and weaker. End of rant.
I doubt anyone would seriously disagree that today’s society is over medicated.
And big Pharma is a wash in sky high profits.
Aqua, apples and orange. Saying that the purif is a fraudulent program in no way comments on the drug problem in America. In fact, it is necessary to ferret out FALSE drug handling programs BECAUSE we have such a drug problem.
No argument there, Wynski. I was just responding to what I perceived as OTD’s defense of all the drug taking going on nowadays. However ineffective or harmful the Purif is as a drug handling program, the ONE thing I DO like that Co$ does is publicly condemn all the drug pushing and taking going on nowadays. Originally that was the only point I intended to make but while writing I let my emotions take over, turning it into an off-topic, anti-drug rant.
There are anti-drug programs for schools that do not resort to un-scientific claims. I taught kids and we teachers/admins. had to do research and decide as a group what was appropriate for our students. We read over materials and interviewed reps. from the various programs. It seems to me that schools that allow TAD presentations are not doing sufficient research.
I get it. Agreed on all, OTD.
Yes Aqua, most drugs I see pushed are not good. Drugging children might at most cover about 1 in 100 or 1,000 rather than the double digit % we see now. MDs prescribe mind altering drugs because they have no cures and need to make money and shut up the patients.
Wynski, see below where I responded to you and Peter together.
“How did adults survive throughout the ages without drugs to help them eat, digest food, eliminate body waste, sleep, wake up…”
They didn’t. They died. Before modern medicine, bodies just died if they stopped working. Sure, there’s an excess of pharmaceutical intervention for everything under the sun, but I bet the people who are able to survive to enjoy their children and grandchildren instead of dying appreciate them. I think it’s far worse that the CoS condemns all drugs, even for people who desperately need them. The truly mentally ill are better off being treated by real doctors than being locked in a room until they dehyrdate to death.
True, people did have a much shorter life span than we have today. They didn’t have antibiotics and died like flies from infections and such. And they lost their teeth early. But I also believe they ate healthier. Much healthier, than we do today and while they lived they were much stronger physically than we are today. Years ago people ate “organic” food ALL THE TIME because there WASN’T anything else to eat! The boxed high sugar high carb crap that’s so addicting , that wrecks our health and saps our energy and causes obesity just didn’t exist back in the day. But look, let me stop now as I’d best not even get started on THIS line of rant. 🙂
Aqua, you are closer to the truth than most. Drug use is driven by extremely high profits, whether legal or illegal. Both criminals and politicians (or did I repeat myself?) benefit greatly from the sale of drugs. The major drug companies spend fortunes coddling politicians and governmental groups at all levels of government. After spotting the truth, I stopped using even aspirin, much less any medical drugs. High crime rates and drug use are closely related.
Wynski and Peter, debating can be stimulating and fun, but when when one considers an issue to be truly a life or death issue its heartening to hear that others think along exactly the same lines. Thank you.
I don’t mind rants. Good (organic) food for thought. 😉
Ha ha! No artificial ingredients in our rants 🙂
I had to do the purif at 14 years old. I had taken acid in high school to keep me out of the Sea Org (which worked!) but had to do a purif to please my parents. The niacin and ungodly amounts of vitamins and sitting in a sauna 4-6 hours a day can NOT be safe for a 14 year old kid. This was in 1989. Took me 24 days. My school work was behind, I weighed about 80lbs and was just wishing for sweet sweet death in that box.
Bless your heart, Badafuco. I’m glad you got through that, my friend. But, walking away shows that you do have Super Powers. I can’t imagine what you went through.
The Purification Program $old by the Cult of $cientology is nothing but the 1st step in the BITE model – Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotion control… and this is how the brainwashing works…
the cult cleverly implements behavior control its various methods to scam a trusting soul unfortunate to fall into one its many clever traps…
You start your program “having a twin” so you get used to having someone with you at ALL TIMES because that reactive mind wants you to GET OUT of the cult….
The Purification program is the BEHAVIOR modification program…where the cult is going to get you to change your normal routine….so the cult can start the implanted suggestions and indoctrination.
That is how $cientology gets the Show on the Road….
There is absolutely NO SCIENCE behind the Purification …
It makes money for the cult and it gets people to change their behaviors – so they can get brainwashed into believing Ole Hubbturd.
NOI members are buying into the purif.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1ZS3TwLMcs
And you used the right word Mike: “sell”.
That is what the “Church” does, it sells its services and, by the way, does it wrongly.
Per Hubbard’s scriptures a person does an OCA to see IF he needs or not the Purif pending on OCA’s results AND only if he has consumed heavy drugs, lots of medicines, etc…
Well, greed led the Church’s selling and everybody has to do the Purif even if you only had a couple or very few analgesics since you born.
The foundation of this “Church” are lies, greed and severe narcissism. Pity there is not a Purif to get rid of these ‘foundations’!
Love your comment.
I recently looked for scientific research on the subject – of course, there’s none supporting the theory that sweating flushes toxins – but my takeway was, that as with a lot of other pseudo-science and pseudo-medicine, what may be going on is that there is an incidental benefit occurring: consuming lots of liquids in conjunction with the sauna does actually activate the body’s primary method of actual flushing, i.e., urinating. Which is to say that one could skip the sauna (and the dangerous amounts of vitamins), drink the liquids (preferably in conjunction with exercise), go to the bathroom, and get the same benefits (if any).
Yes, as gone over earlier on this blog, the Purif in no way runs out radiation nor causes any meaningful amount of toxins to be flushed from the body. THEREFORE, it is useless as advertised. AND very possibly harmful
+1! Outstanding post, Wyn!
🙂
” THEREFORE, it is useless as advertised.”
Bingo ………….. just like the rest of El Cons mental magic tricks codified as a cherch.
Thank you for this.. it goes to show how crazy the thoughts are in regards to the Purif.. even the thought of being able to sweat out Vaccinations.. is ridiculous..
‘Ridiculous’ is Scientology’s middle name. It never ceases to amaze me that they’re paying money for make believe.
Ridiculous? I am wondering what makes you an authority competent in assessing the Purif and it’s validity?
HI – Purif Guinea Pig, I mean, Research Subject, here. First experiment we had to see a Scientology “doctor”. Second time, what’s a doctor know anyway? The scene in those make shift saunas in the dank bowels of ASHO/LA Org stank worse than the morgues that used to be nearby when it was Cedars Hospital. I am proof there was never any reserarch or science.
The scenes I remember were stark, dark, raving, slimy, nauseating, screaming, mystery emergencies, sobbing, pleading insanity. It was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Sweat. Red lights blurring, aching, sizzling, burning, crazed stares, vomit mops, the alien blob puddles, hyenas laughing, thoughts flying, frying, lying, benches spinning, minds tearing until finally, broken. Only Fight or Flight survival instincts saved us. Most of us.
The extreme vitamin supplement regime, especially niacin and -for my misdiagnosed condition by Scientology “doctors” – exessive calcium, was sucking the marrow from my bones. When I tried to leave later, as Running Program (“Cause” Rundown) Guinea Pig on RPF, that sealed my fate – painful permanent injuries for the rest of my life. Did I mention most of us lab rats began this experiment already tortured to mental oblivion via long term sleep deprivation, intentional nutritional deficiencies, 24/7 stress? No one, absolutely no one would have continued to park their butts in that hellacious hold for a second day if they were of sound mind. We blabbered gibberish if we could speak at all.
This is Why – I would like to see an Aftermath 3 Episode (it could be its own Series) called “The Doctors of Scientology”. This Purification Rundown epitomizes the core of Scientology’s major crime: Scientology practices medicine without a license. Period.
Good point THDNE,
Hubbard said on the PDC tapes that Scientology addresses the thetan, not the body. DMSMH was to fix a mind, not a body. When he went off the rails and ‘played’ doctor to fix bodies was an opening/opportunity the AMA missed. The FDA went weak in the knees, and bought off for a label on the emeter stating it was not for medical use. But the FDA nor the AMA, or Justice department never pursued action against scientology ‘playing’ doctor.
I was told that even with NOTS #34 in their possession the feds sat on their thumbs.
Jim, “I was told that even with NOTS #34 in their possession the feds sat on their thumbs.” What do you mean? What was NOTS # 34?
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Cindy,
It was a 1978 Bulletin that spelled out the steps to handle a physical condition with auditing. It was about curing physical issues—– ‘playing doctor’!
HCO BULLETIN OF 14 NOVEMBER 1978
THE SEQUENCE FOR HANDLING A PHYSICAL CONDITION
There is a definite sequence for handling a physical condition. All steps must be done in this sequence to fully handle the condition:
Step One – The Item
The item producing the physical condition. This could be “dust” as an irritant. Or “poison”, “bad food”, “paint fumes”, etc.
The item is handled by finding and blowing off BTs and clusters who are:
(a) being the item
(b) resisting the item
The item will then cease to read.
Step Two – The Body Part
The body part affected by the item. E.g. for the item “dust” the body part was “lungs”. For “poison” or “bad food” the body part could be “stomach.”
On this step you handle BTs being the body part, i.e. being “lungs”. This includes the negative of BTs being “a no body part” such as “no lungs”. And BTs and clusters stuck in and on the body part, or area of the body, or affecting the body part or area. When all such BTs and clusters are handled, the body part will no longer read.
Step Three – Illness
The next action is to handle illnesses of the body part (i.e.BTs and clusters being “sick lungs” or being a condition of an illness or disease or the body part.) “Illness of body part” will cease to read.
Step Four – Cures for Illness
You will now find BTs and clusters being cures for illnesses of the body part. Handle all such BTs and clusters by blowing them off. “Cures for Illness” will then cease to read.
Step Five – Protest of Cures for the Illness
You will now find BTs and clusters protesting cures for the illness. Blow all these off and “Protest of cures for the Illness” will cease to read.
Step Six – Body Part
You will find that the original body part will now be reading again. You handle all the BTs and clusters, on or in or being the body part, until they’re all handled and the body part just F/Ns.
Step Seven – Item
Now the original item (from Step One) will be reading again and so you blow off all BTs and clusters on the item. This includes BTs and clusters with engrams on the item, BTs and clusters who have been run on
the item when they didn’t have that item (i.e. wrong item for them), and BTs and clusters who copied it. You may even encounter BTs who went Clear, and thought they had engrams on it when they didn’t.
Step Eight – Illness On It
There are periods of time when the person had the physical condition, sometimes years of illness, (which due to mutual shared experience of the illness), made a cluster.
This is the period of the illness or physical condition as a cluster-making incident. These are BTs and clusters who were not actually connected with the item, or illness themselves, but were made into a cluster and added on, due to the period of illness which they experienced.
The above are the full steps and sequence for handling a physical condition or illness. If not done fully or omitted, the condition will recur. So all steps must be fully done in that sequence.
Gawd is this painful writing; a great example of fantasy parading as fact.
MJM,
The scary thing is, I could charge up my old Mark V meter and still know how do it! Fortunately I never learnt that robotic approach, so it would come off more like conversational guiding along the PCs interest line.
It’s all about “The Sequence for Handling a Physical Condition”. That’s what it used to be about. I don’t know what the legal vultures have done with this level, what forms the victims have to sign. I only know I can’t fathom how any of this continues.
Most of the wealthy are aging and know by now it ain’t working. They can throw their money at the feet of their 2nd and 3rd gen’s, but They can look at ma and pa and granny and see for themselves it ain’t working.
THDNE, that HCOB is in NO way a problem for the church. As it IS an HCOB is perfect for them as a religion. You don’t understand how the laws work in that regard.
THDNE,
If the kids and grandkids really look at what the results are with parents and grandparents they will head for the doors. Why, I even heard rumor that Kristie’s lemurs refused auditing!
Well, its a complicated situation, jim. Krustie’s lemurs are each mid their PTS Rundowsn, and rumor has she’s their item.
They’d get much better results if the men and women in the sauna were nude, and that’s the naked truth.
Now that works for me! Sign me up!
Be careful what you wish for. You might be sitting next to the person in TCs story………… and based on your past life photos in Hawaii, that’s not going to cut it OSD!
LOL! I’ll take my chances!
You three are sick.
That would be in the mental sense.
Funny, I grant you – but sick.
Just saying.
Sometimes sick is ok. In Hawai’i it’s just normal.
Agreed 🙂 Why do you think I love Mel Brooks? No one does it sicker 🙂 But then, you guys are shaping up 🙂
We just want to make you happy, Aquamarine! I’m the original Sick Puppy! Especially when I was doing stand up. You’ve got to push the envelope.
OSD, Napolean Bonaparte said, “A woman laughing is a woman conquered”.
Presumably he was very good at making Josephine laugh.
Not sure I’m with the General 100% on this particular maxim, but it sure is a great way to fall in like. 🙂
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MJM,
I am a strong proponent of routine sex vitamins. OH! I am sorry, I totally misinterpreted your top comment. It must be my dirty mind.
jim, you’re joking, and I’m not into food fanaticism but each morning I drink a protein shake and take lots of vitamins daily and find that they help with, well, let’s say everything 🙂
But……. but………..
RON GOT A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR THE PURIF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
http://www.xenu.net/archive/ronthenut/nobel.htm
More like a Piss Prize…
The Nobel committee is a bunch of SPs for not giving him that Nobel prize, ya know
Most human bodies will respond to doses of nicotinic acid (Niacin) by red flushing of the skin, accompanied with itching. As little as 50 milligram will produce this result whether or not the body has been exposed to radiation. One could repeat this ‘experience’ every 3 months or so forever. Niacin is a vasodilator and that’s what vasodilators do.
I did the purif in the early 70’s knowing the above, because I wanted to to stay on the upper levels. Half of my sauna mates agreed it was bogus. Two called me out to the AO MAA, who requested I NOT criticize the purif or Ron’s pronouncements on what the purif did. After 3 weeks I attested that my skin was cleared up and felt fresh, they were happy to be rid of me enturbulating the sauna, and I moved on with my life.
Scientology: 95% bogus, and less than 5% genius; but always with the lies.
I like your style, Jim!
The purif r/d is just like everything else in the cult, it does nothing good really. This has been obvious to me for decades. Dave has diverted the purpose to raising money and investing in buildings. Making MEST more important than theta. The promotion of spiritual benefits was dropped out so many years ago and clearly demonstrated the direction Dave was taking it all. I wondered recently, if he wanted to really raise membership why not announce that L Ron has returned and is back developing the “upper levels” or something? The fact that the Founder of a science based religion which promises eternal life and salvation has not reincarnated surely must make intelligent folks see through the bullshit. Many keep asking “where’s Shelly”. Think it better to begin asking “where’s L.Ron”.
I think the lack of medical research on the Purif was because they could not figure out how to make money with the Purif outside of Scientology.. LRH said his research was free. Of course it was free because there was no research.
And, no koolaid drinking Scientologists need any proof of the Purif’s efficacy… such scientific proof wouldn’t increase sales of Purifs to the true believers.
The Purif is about the money, not the improvement of man.
Isn’t EVERYTHING related to Scientology all about the money?
Great article. Very informative.
In the early 80s, My ex-husband was the NOTS Ned for OTs (new OT5, NOTS for short) folder page/admin.
Among other duties, he was responsible for keeping a huge jug of Cal mag available for the NOTS pre-OTs, which they were encouraged to drink between sessions. Sessions generally lasted less than 20 minutes, so the pre-OTs were rotated. Between rotations, they sat in the NOTS lounge and drank their cal-mag.
One particular man was a Mexican national who had flown in. He was high-strung and excited, according to my ex, and kept returning to the Cal mag. Apparently he drank about 15-20 cups of it over a period of a few hours.
He had also recently completed the Purif as a prerequisite to NOTS.
One day he left the NOTS Division early, saying he was sick. He was staying with Scientologists and reportedly died a few hours later from toxic amounts of calcium blocking his liver and kidneys.
The Purif apparently didn’t work. Neither did NOTS. In fact, the Purif precipitated this man’s death and the Cal-mag on the Purif plus what he drank while on NOTS was dangerous. It was assumed he had undetected kidney or liver disease prior to the Purif.
The Church of Scientology kept that death hushed up and still did not investigate the effects of Cal-mag or other supplements on those with kidney or liver disease and carried on delivering the Purif, same as ever.
The NOTS Division (Jerry Mulkey was NOTS Tech Sec at the time) began limiting Cal Mag on its own to 2 cups per person and not letting them help themselves, just out of decency, but there was no policy change to either the Purif or NOTS from this. The Church of Scientology simply didn’t care – he must have been PTS, they said, and hushed up the incident.
Thank you Sheila. We will never know the real numbers of Death by Scientology. But I am grateful to those who do share their knowledge to help prevent future tragedies as best we can. Yeah, NOT’s didn’t help me “heal” either. I do remember jumping into AO’s PDC course room in between sessions with the other NOT’s peeps – yet another scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Fortunately I escaped not long after.
Thank you THDNE and Sheila. I really do wish your stories and others be told to the world.
You’re welcome, THDNE and Dee. I don’t ever want anyone’s death brushed aside or forgotten. We did that when we were in, so I make a point of remembering them since I’ve been out. What an awful thing we did by being silent and not reporting these things to police and other authorities at the time. 🙁
Unfortunately, I never remembered that man’s name. Hopefully someday, someone will.
Jerry Mulkey was never the same after that. He had a lot of heart and was deeply upset. One day you think you have the tech that saves lives, the next day, a man no older than 50 suddenly dies from that very same tech.
THDNE, I’m so glad you’re out and here with us. 🙂
TheHole, your walking away shows that you really do have Super Powers. Congrats! And walking away seems more & more popular now!
LOL It was a sad day when I had to let Mr Hole in on the real OT secret – they don’t exist. But I kept my frock. They can’t take that away from me 🙂
(Music). No, no they can’t take that away from you!
THDNE, so you were not defrocked? You’re just a bitter apostate?
I’m an apostate. But, I’m not bitter.
That was meant as a joke. Should have put a 🙂 at the end.
Correct, OSD. You’re not bitter. You are a sweet, defrocked apostate. On the Fringes of the Internet. Now, I myself was never defrocked. But that’s because I was never frocked.
That’s horrible that people have died with this treatment! Too bad somebody didn’t bring suit against Scientology claiming wrongful death or at the most negligent homicide! People have been health affected for the rest of their lives because they had to do this.
Yeh, too bad for his family, too. I wonder what story they were told? I’m sure one that kept Scientology out of it. I wonder if the Mexican man had children. Nobody talked about it, so I couldn’t find out any details. Even my ex told me he wasn’t supposed to have mentioned it to me.
This is why The Purif needs to come with legally implemented warnings – at a minimum – and a note as to the point of Mike’s post today.
Agreed, Mary! This is the difference between bogus research and real research. If it was a pharmaceutical drug, every negative effect experienced has to be noted from then on as a side effect, even if it isn’t related. In the case of Scientology, these negative effects are never mentioned, just swept under the carpet. People have been hurt and people have died. It is NOT science.
Lol if it were a pharmaceutical drug then the experimenters would be looking to make a fortune from it. And with such a vested interest results from the aforementioned studies are at best dubious!!! If you are really that naive to believe different then just study psychology 101!!
I saw this Nat Geo article and hoped you or Tony would write an article about it. Thanks!