Scientology Condition of Liability
I’m always amazed at the ability of Scientologists to turn a blind eye to the LRH tech and policy they’ve sworn to follow and uphold. I should know. From my first week as a student on the Communication Course way back when, I put on blinders every time I walked in the mission. The more I studied, the more I knew things weren’t completely right. Then again, there was this young blonde girl… But I digress.
Per L. Ron Hubbard’s Condition of Liability, “Below Non-Existence there is the Condition of Liability. The being has ceased to be simply non-existent as a team member and has taken on the color of an enemy. It is assigned where careless or malicious and knowing damage is caused to projects, orgs, or activities. It is adjudicated that it is malicious and knowing because orders have been published against it or because it is contrary to the intentions and actions of the remainder of the team or the purpose of the project or org. The condition is usually assigned when several Danger and Non-Existences have been assigned or when a long unchanged pattern of conduct has been detected.”
How many Scientologists does it take to detect “several Danger and Non-Existences” or “a long unchanged pattern of conduct”? One to hold the lightbulb; two to…
Not only are patterns and condition assignments within the church regularly discounted and ignored, they’ve gone on for decades.
Terra Math
Let’s pretend Scientology has been in decline since 1978—an even forty years. And let’s assume that for three quarters of those weeks the organization was assigned a condition below Normal. That would mean the organization has been in a lower condition for at least thirty-nine weeks per year (52 weeks X .75 = 39). If we multiply that by forty years, we come up with 1560 lower condition assignations (39 lower conditions X 40 years = 1560). Yikes!
Picture a filing cabinet stuffed with all the condition write-ups of a forty year Scientologist. That’s over two thousand weekly write-ups! (40 years X 52 weeks per year = 2080.) OMG! If that isn’t insanity, I don’t know what is.
Who Are Your Friends?
LRH further wrote that the condition of Liability is assigned, “for the benefit of others so they won’t get tripped up trusting the person in any way.” “It is a liability to have such a person unwatched as the person may do or continue to do things to stop or impede the forward progress of the project or org and such a person cannot be trusted. No discipline or the assignment of conditions above it has been of any avail. The person has just kept on messing it up.”
Wouldn’t you think that rank and file Scientologists would have been able to apply step one of the Liability formula by now: “Decide who are one’s friends.” And that after forty years under the reign of leader, David Miscavige, they’d recognize that the man “cannot be trusted,” and that he just keeps on “messing it up”? After hundreds and hundreds of applications of the Condition of Liability, they continue to give him and management a pass. Unbelievable.
Seriously, how many times can Scientology staff apply the formula and still think David Miscavige is their friend? How many times can ordinary Scientology public apply the formula and still think the organization is friendly to their “intentions and actions?” I would think that after forty years of “applying” the condition of Liability, management and public alike would have gotten it right by now. But that’s just me.
And that’s just applying one condition.
Hammer Blow
Step two of the Liability formula reads, “Deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger.” Lots of ex-Scientologists have correctly decided who their friends are and have delivered effective blows across multiple media channels. I suspect most of you reading this know who I’m talking about. If not, just Google “Scientology” or enter “books on Scientology” in the Amazon.com search window.
Even if one believes that DM and Scientology are their friends, wouldn’t you think that after delivering a thousand “effective blows,” one of these blows would have made a difference?
LRH reinforces the concept of “us vs them” by saying that anyone in this condition has only been “pretending” to be a good group member. If I’m not mistaken, this is classic cult mind control technique.
Interestingly, my spouse interpreted this formula to mean that LRH was saying that a Scientologist in this condition was only “pretending” to be a Scientologist. Others interpret this formula to mean a Scientologist in this condition was “pretending” to be part of a lesser, non-Scientology group. Which is it?
Give More
“Make up the damage one has done by personal contribution far beyond the ordinary demands of a group member” (Step three of the Liability formula).
One could argue that the average Sea Org member contributes far beyond the ordinary demands of a group member. Unfortunately, their “contributions,” haven’t made a positive influence on the planet since the corps’ inception. Many would contend that despite good intentions, their work has had the opposite effect: caused pain and heartache to tens of thousands.
As for the public making up the damage, how many times do local orgs and missions need to be painted? How many times do they need to hand out the same Way to Happiness pamphlets to the same street people? After forty years of public “contribution,” I’d think Central Files in every org in the world would be in perfect order.
After applying the Liability formula hundreds of times, Scientology has not made up the damage they’ve done. Not the organization, not management, and not the Kool Aid drinking public.
Jonny’s been a Bad Boy. Grovel, Grovel
Step four: “Apply for reentry to the group by asking the permission of each member of it to rejoin and rejoining only by majority permission. And if refused, repeating (2) and (3) and (4) until one is allowed to be a group member again.”
Except for divulging escapades of sexual deviancy to one’s auditor in session, little is more humiliating than applying for reentry. Then again, that’s part of being in a cult: degrading yourself in front of your peers. What could be more fun and life-affirming?
Has any person in the history of Scientology ever signed a Liability petition by David Miscavige? Can you imagine him asking people permission to rejoin the group? Maybe when he was first in the Cadet Org. Within the last forty years? Not a chance.
But that’s what he’s supposed to do per the condition formula: ask the permission of “each member.” I was a staff member for close to two hundred and sixty weeks and he never asked me. And rest assured, there were many, many weeks the organization was in a lower condition. I wonder if the man even does conditions anymore. LRH probably granted him some sort of special dispensation.
Just for fun, can you imagine DM’s reaction to someone refusing to sign his petition? The man would go ape-shit crazy.
Last Words
How do Scientologists wrap their minds around decades and thousands and thousands of failures in applying LRH conditions? How do they rationalize doing the same conditions, week after week, year after year, with no positive results? How do they explain their dwindling membership? How do they excuse not being in the condition of Power by now? How can they believe David Miscavige is really their friend? And think that Ron’s tech works.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
P.S. If any OSA member reading this has the balls, forward copies of your last dozen condition write-ups to Mike so we can all see how LRH’s formulas are really supposed to be applied. Let us see how you “made up the damage done.”
Well, our local newspaper gave this account today:
A hunter in Easton, Maryland shot into a flock of Canadian Geese flying overhead….the goose he shot fell out of the sky & knocked him out cold……doesn’t say if his goose was cooked….
Sending a VWD to that goose.
Oh Aqua my dear concerned friend,
The Washington Post indicated that the man ended up in a hospital with head & facial injuries…..he was down for the count…knocked unconscious…..when he awakened at the hospital, he knew who he was but could remember nothing else. He was in stable condition, awaiting the outcome of further tests at a Baltimore Trauma center………NO word on the goose, don’t know if his goose is cooked or what…maybe he should have “ducked” instead….too funny!
Balletlady, I cannot tell a lie. My sympathy is totally with the goose. I hate hunting. I can’t even confront fishing – watching them gasp for breath – can’t stand it.
And this is COMPLETELY hypocritical on my part because I’m not a vegetarian, except for American veal I eat meat and adore fish. So this is very wussy and non-confronting of me.
In my heart of hearts I would LOVE to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian and in fact I WAS one faithfully for 5 years but went back to eating meat because I was compensating by eating too many crap carbohydrates.
Basically I can do anything necessary to cook an animal or a fish as long as its already dead.
Not that cleaning a fish is at all my favorite thing to do but I know how.and I’ll do it if I have to.
Don’t ask me to throw a live lobster into boiling water though!
And I adore lobster.
Pathetic, huh? But I can’t lie about it.
I have this LOVE for all these creatures and I HATE factory farming and all the cruelty to the animals that goes with raising meat for slaughter. So to date my only solution for this cognitive dissonance is to buy organic meat (and everything else) whenever possible. I also contribute to a humane livestock raising organization and some organic farming political groups which promote Non GMO products, etc.
Well, this is no doubt far more info than you needed and wanted provoked by your story of a goose dropping out of the sky and falling on some guys head
Aqua, I am a 6 year “recovering vegan/vegetarian” and have done a tremendous amount of reading and research on ethical treatment of livestock. Here are some of my favorite books on this vitally important subject:
Cow Save the Planet by Judith Schwartz
The Ethical Butcher by Burlin Reed
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth
Primal Mind Primal Body by Nora Gedgaudas
Allan Savory-YouTube presentations
Kimodo Dragon, what is the vegetarian myth? I’m interested to know as I’m going back and forth on whether to be vegetarian/vegan or not. I read pros and cons all the time and both can make convincing arguments for either side. What does that book by Lierre Kieth say? Just a thumbnail sketch for me please?
Cindy, a throughout study of human biology shows that we are NOT herbivores but omnivores. Humans can live indefinitely on meat and animal fat as its sole diet and not get ill. It is EXTREMELY difficult, even using modern tech and know how, to force the body into a herbivore diet.
Would you force a horse to become a carnivore?
I only took one biology course in college. The professor liked to refer to humans as “large dirty mammals”, biologically speaking of course. That would be as opposed to “the beauty of the human form” or “created in God’s image”. Just saying – lol
In 1960 there were 3 billion humans of either description walking the earth and today less than 60 years later there are almost 8 billion. It would seem the be fruitful and multiply crowd still holds sway.
On the discussion of food, we now have almost 8 billion large hungry mammals walking around and the number continues to rise. Houston, we may have a problem.
Naw Richard. I remember when there was only 3 billion and the “experts” said we would be extinct and never reach this current level.
We don’t even leverage the tech we have now to feed everyone. No problem to double, tripe, etc.
My dearest Aqua……
I am not a veggie lover, I do enjoyspinach, broccoli, cauliflower etc in small doses……I am a “cannibal”, I love meat! However, my own immediate family, no one hunts….my cousins are “murders row”….they hunt consistently all year long with whatever might be in season. My son in law & his brothers do hunt & fish, and they enjoy it.
Sadly, the wild animal population continues to grow…..we live in the country & seeing dead deer that have been hit by cars or pick up trucks or even an occasional “semi truck” are horrific sights…..I’ve had several close calls when a deer or a herd of deer come running across the road without warning. A decade ago, a deer ran into the front end of my mother’s car damaging the head light…she did NOT even SEE it, just heard a loud BANG & the deer was gone, with a hunter hot on it’s tail (she lived in the remote country at that time)…..
Friends who own acreage & raise cattle are troubled by wild coyotes & even wolves…they will kill YOU if you get in their way. We have bear population in the area…. we see bear two or three times a year in our backyard, front yard, across in the neighbor’s properties…..if you want to stroll through the woods nearby, best to carry a firearm with you. We have to wait until the early a.m. to place our trash cans at the curb, the bears continually dump them over to eat anything they can find. We turn on lights & look around in the early a.m. or at night to make sure there are no bear in the yard before we go out. These are bears that weight 300 to 500+ lbs….wandering around and WE are more or less in what they consider “their territory”. Their population continues to grow in the area as well & there is the need to cull them too.
For me, despite all I know, I cannot slaughter an animal. I KNOW what happens at these places, yet since I am not a “veggie lover”….it’s my main food of choice.
My BFF & her daughter are Vegetarians, her son went totally Vegan….I could never live that way, but give credit to those who do.
The way I look at it sometimes…is “ripping a vegetable out of the ground” is in a sense stopping it from living too…that’s what I tell my Vegetarian/Vegan friends!!!!
Balletlady, I hear you on everything. We encroach on their territory and eliminate their natural predators and they over populate. I understand, they have to be culled. Killed, so they don’t overpopulate. I understand. But – and I know how this sounds – so – whatever – I love them! These creatures – all earth creatures – they’re so beautiful! Nature is God, to me. I know I joke around a lot but I’m serious now – nature and God are the same to me.What’s more miraculous and God-like than the billion miracles that are occurring in nature every minute? What’s more beautiful than looking into the face of an animal whether its a wild one or a domestic pet? Look, I’m being neither coherent nor logical as I’m this city girl who eats meat which is raised by others and slaughtered and packaged by others so that I can buy it at a supermarket. Must the animals suffer so that we can eat? I would pay – I DO pay extra for free range chickens and eggs and humanely raised meat (Thank you, btw, Komodo for those book suggestions!)
No, this is not logical. I just love mammal and aquatic life. I love to see them alive, doing their things, out there. Insects not so much but live and let live. This Nature is God thing started when I was a kid. Never had much use for church. God, to me was being with my dogs and cats and horses , stray pigeons and squirrels, I was a suburban Ellie Mae Clampett 🙂 I probably should have been a veterinarian. 🙂 Ok, enough. 🙂
Earth creatures are indeed beautiful, but the wild ones learn from birth that the natural order of the Universe is the need to survive…..you are either Prey Or Predator. Wild animals have a strong instinct to survive at all costs. Even our domesticated animals at times will turn on the person who has loved & cared for them for years with little to no cause, because they ARE animals.
For many the purchase of organic or free range foods is not affordable. Senior citizens, those living on disability or low income pay check can’t afford high priced foods. As some in Alaska do, they grow their own vegetables, can their own veggies, can their fish & meats & MUST hunt to survive the need for protein in their diet to get through the long dark winters.
No matter how much you want to look into the face of the wild creature of God, that animal will have no trouble “taking you out at a moment’s notice should they feel threatened in any way. Animals kill other animals to survive, just as we kill them to survive at times.
Please read up on LONG TIME bear enthusiast “Timothy Treadwell”, he was a devoted Pro Bear spokesperson who didn’t heed the dangers of being in “their territory…..
Same with me, not much use for Church anymore….do love our grown kids, cats & assorted dogs who all lived to be 13+ years old before becoming seriously ill. Sometimes with animals (or people) you get BACK what you give out….sometimes you don’t.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/1617588fc17eb9ae
for YOU Aqua!
I don’t recall any heavy duty ethics going on in my pre DM days but I never held an administrative position. In business there is usually someone out to get you, often someone above you who won’t take the blame for anything.
I recall listening to a cassette tape where a successful mission holder was ranting about “Who put me in coach instead of first class!?” He called it “getting dinged”. LOL – He believed in flowing power to power, yet another scn concept which makes some but not total sense.
So Marty Rathbun is/was in the Scientology Condition of Liability?
Considering his videos…
“Deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger.”
Very effective;-)
I have found that so many of the cult policies and reg’s contradict one another and that most of them are ignored anyway. I suppose it’s probably easier to just pick the ones you want to beat over the heads of others with then out-ethic someone if they challenge you.
I believe Cook’s email was a direct hit to these policies that were being ignored and we all saw how the Manboy responded to that. Not much guessing required to figure out what his reponse today would be if someone actually challenged the status quo.
And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why bubblers are denying the inconsistencies and “red flags”…. Self-denial is a powerful thing.
Loved this article, Terra. “I feel your pain” (read: exasperation). I don’t know either how the still ins stay dumb to Miscavige being (in vast understatement) “not their friend”, but reading what you wrote, I recalled a quote I’d read somewhere that seemed to give a clue. I googled it to share here.
“When the Nazis came for the Communists
I did not speak out
As I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats
I did not speak out;
I was not a Social Democrat.
When they came for the Trade Unionists
I did not speak out
As I was not a Trade Unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out
As I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
– Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)
In other words, applying this to people leaving the cult; when abuse gets up close and personal, it can wake someone up.
People ARE leaving this cult. It IS shrinking, individual by individual. Perhaps its when the abuse becomes REAL because HE or SHE is suffering abuse from the cult the person KNOWS is not deserved. That’s when, as Mary Kahn aptly phrased it, “the mental dam breaks”.
This is only a theory. I can’t speak for everyone. I know that what shocked me was being lied to. No abuse. Just some lies told to me. I was shocked. It got me looking, questioning…what else were they lying about? So for me it was just lies I uncovered. That these people would LIE to me was – unthinkable! Yes! That’s how naive I was!
Life is pretty simple actually. Keep your hands clean, help people, love people, continue to better your relationships while constantly creating new ones, enjoy and appreciate the little things, stear people clear of the COS, and drink beer ?
? Cheers to that! ?
Sign me the fuck up, Gary! When do we get to drink beer? That’s important, you know.
I’d do those in reverse order, but can’t argue with that list.
We could add that, by doing this, we inadvertently teach others to do the same in life if they are willing to see the joy it brings us and want it for themselves. If only the bubblers would be willing to lift the veil and truly acknowledge how truly happy the ex’s are since leaving the cult.
“….“It is a liability to have such a person unwatched as the person may do or continue to do things to stop or impede the forward progress of the project or org and such a person cannot be trusted…..” …….”
That’s what Hubbard has written, and that snippet justifies untold abuse by the movement on its members.
A person used to have recourse to condition assignment. There were at times, some recourse so as NOT to fall into this zone of being “WATCHED”.
Due to the prolific history of Hubbard’s writings and policies, the “watch” category a member falls into, if they are assigned the condition of “Liability” and are under the full extent of the rules that spread out all around this “watch” category, for instance ALL of the RPF members are within the “Liability” condition, and when you arrive on the RPF, you first do your ethics conditions below Liability step to rise up to Liability, and then you are within this “watched” category for the REST of your RPF assignment, and are not out of Liability until you graduate the RPF.
The Scientology intricate actual step by step rules that engulf the Sea Org staff members assigned to the RPF justifies so much of the abusive behavior of the Sea Org and the RPF.
Thankfully the RPF might be gone now.
At least the worst might be somewhat gone.
The Hubbard ideas are just so pervasively pernicious, and a person should NEVER step one toe into this damnable subject and Hubbard’s defective mind influenced world of Scientology organizations.
Most hated in hindsight, to me (my years in the movement were Sea Org course supervisor/”scribe” for the administrative rules–routing forms, later computer branch) were the Hubbard bureaucratic and theoretical ideas that lead to member to member unwarranted abuse.
Liability formula and the “watch” justification, and presumptions of guilt without recourse and full rights to defend oneself, is one of the worst policies in the movement.
“Watching” the “enemy” adherents who “can’t be trusted” is one of Hubbard’s foulest policies that the movement is stuck with.
It is a control justification ripe forever for blowback and hatred by anyone who gets that keep into Scientology that you agree to be “watched” because you have betrayed Scientology and deserve no trust from them, but you ARE one of them.
One of the foulest Hubbard ingrained policy conundrums members attain in their minds by going that deep into the movement.
If a member hasn’t been assigned “Liability” a few times, and suffered the mind crap that that entails, then they haven’t even gotten into the full bullshit of Scientolgy.
No one would wish this on anyone, and if Scientology could evolve out of doing these self punishing Hubbard “lower conditions” steps, well, NO ONE SHOULD DO ANY damned piece of sick L. Ron Hubbard’s crap in fact.
Expecting logic about Scientology is just wishful thinking, the same sort of wishful thinking that kept me in for a decade: hoping beyond hope that SOMEthing would click and it’d all make sense.
As for DM doing conditions: We can see that by his own measure, his normal condition is POWER, with all the cathedrals out there just ready to attract the millions who are too insulated to use Google or watch Aftermath.
As well, like he don’t need no stinking auditing, he don’t need no stinkin’ conditions; as long as the money and Scotch holds out, he’s cherry, whatever damned condition he’s in( 3 sheets to the wind?) I keep seeing pictures of him getting on that penis-mobile of a bike and having the real world SHOW him what condition he really was in at the time. Wishful thinking, I know, but Karma is a right bitch when you keep flaunting her rule as long as he’s been doing it. You can naysay the laws of the real world all you want, but gravity STILL sucks you down to your rightful place in the Cosmos nonetheless.
Jere Lull, I get where you’re coming from as regards billionaire DM skating thru this lifetime with his bike and his scotch.
But let me point this out: Scientologists believe that a being is immortal and lives again and again in a different bodies. Presumably Miscavige believes this too. For now lets presume he does.
So, as re his next and future lifetimes, how can he KNOW that he’s not going to be some poor kid eating a bologna sandwhich on white bread with mayonnaise while his drunken unemployed father bashes his bottle blond mother around the trailer park with an empty beer bottle?
Or how does DM KNOW that his next lifetime won’t be as one of those children on the TV Save The Children infomercials, one of those hungry scrawny Third World toddlers with the huge pained eyes, rooting around in the garbage for something to eat or cupping dirty water in their palms for something to drink?
You can’t take it with you, you know. And if you believe in karma – and I do – I would NOT want to be the being, the soul, the thetan or whatever you want to call it, that IS him, that has, this lifetime, the body with the name “David Miscavige”.
We joke that “it sucks to be Miscavige”. A VAST understatement, IMO.
PS: And the Catholics and other Christians have even worse news for Him, “Burn, baby burn” for all eternity is what’s in store for Him if THEY’RE correct. Think about it! From ANY quarter, religion-wise, there’s NO happy “life after death” scene pending for the Dwarf! Floating on some cloud listening to angels playing harps? In the bosom of Jesus? Guess again, Dave! YOU is goin’ to dat OTHER place. You might want to start from now getting used to no air conditioning!
Boy does this bring back the memories. I was at Flag for my obligatory six month check on OT VII. I had been so good. I’d volunteered at the org to ‘show contribution,’ I’d audited a bit more than usual, and hadn’t had time to commit any overts because I drove myself like a slave to work, audit, be ‘contributing to the motion’ for the local org and I went to events I hated to ‘set a good example.’
When I got to ethics there was some out security or some trumped up BS and I had to do a liability condition. My mind was bending into pretzels trying to figure out the strike a blow to the group you were pretending to be a part of thing. Was it ‘pretending to be in the I am ‘in security on my materials, but not perfect’ group? Or was it the I was pretending to be, ‘on source, but a flake about it’ group? So what do I do to strike a blow? Who do I strike a blow against?
I was made to read stuff that didn’t make sense and do hours of amends in the C/S office doing folder summaries. Cause that’ll teach me!
Then having to go around getting it signed. One guy said I didn’t show enough remorse and signed no. How did I let myself get in the position where this guy I didn’t know who was clearly more miserable than me used his piety to bust me back to ethics to re-write my Liability. They wanted me to show it to him, but happily he’d left.
Oh the memory, I feel three feet off the ground knowing I’m never going to have that awful feeling or be there ever again.
Scientology is, thankfully, it’s own worst enemy.
Everyone is miserable and fucked up, and doing insane mental gymnastics.
To just say fuck it, throw all that bullshit off one’s shoulder, and embrace happiness is the most refreshing drink of cool water for a thirsty soul.
To everyone that leaves scientology, I am so happy for you.
I have never been involved in scientology. However, I have worked in a business owned by a scientologist. The owner also hired people from their scientology church whenever possible. What you have posted here matches my observation. I would say I have never witnessed a more miserable and screwed up group in my life. All of us non-scientology people started following scientology documentaries and programs out of curiosity because what we see in/from these scientology people at work is completely insane.
Oh I hear you. Walked a similar path as both public but particularly remember very nasty experiences as staff (regular as clockwork they were enforced upon staff). It’s very much an introverting, make wrong regime. Complete nobody’s with extremely questionable life experience playing God over others. Flag seemed to be full of those types and the EO’s, especially the teenagers revelled in that crap.
With Scientology ethics leading the pack of whacky tech. Yes indeed, memories…
“One guy said I didn’t show enough remorse and signed no.” Oh yes, don’t we love all those righteous mother f**kers that we all had to deal with one way or another.
When someone in the cult is given “power”, they will often abuse it because they have been taught to do so. The cult is notorious for giving people titles and teaching them they are better then others. It’s a power trap…on one hand one wants to contribute honestly to the cult’s progression forward….on the other hand the individuals are attempting to progress up the “plank to total peed’on” that the journey leaves behind a road littered in carcasses.
Your comment makes me want to focus on one person … Hello Lou.
Excellent!
Oh yeah, I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.
Well you’re in Liability and have to go to Ethics.
And they said Kenny Rodgers and the First Edition was a psychedelic band.
I was in a condition once. But everyone thought I was a liability. You just can’t win for nothin’!
Once one gets into the mindset of “Scientology is mankind’s only hope” (a held down 7) then all viewpoints lead to what keeps the church (david miscavige) surviving.
There are so many things in scientology that if truly applied, members would not last. I mean take a look at the Code of Honor! That’s another one that once the held down 7 is firmly in place, it’s all about the survival of scientology or david miscavige. Think of how many scientologists (past and present) have deserted their friends or family, have withdrawn their allegiances once granted, have denied compassion or succor, have cut their communication to friends and loved ones, have permitted their affinity to be alloyed, while being in this group. Or how about being their own adviser, keeping this own counsel and selecting their own decisions? Yea, right.
Mary,
I think you have hit on it. Much Hubbard wrote has use in life, but NOT as absolutes, never to be questioned, never to be evaluated, and never to be tested (objectively).
There are conditions in life, but Hubbard’s Ethics conditions are nothing but another control system that has nothing to do with life–just org stats.
Right. The conditions are truly mind and behavior control techniques – especially the lower conditions. Imagine if Amazon or Apple had used the lower conditions and weekly stats as a method to run their organizations.
I think now that the contradictions kept us there.
All the “what the hell ” moments were soon replaced by hope of things getting true and better.
It’s a complex thing , not easily explained in a few words, Terra is doing a good job of taking it apart.
Marie, its like this: some people believe what they see, and some people see what they believe.
As regards the latter group, no matter what the key subject is, be it religion, politics, families, friend, lovers, whatever, – they’re not observing what’s in front of them.
Instead, they’re looking at their own picture. It doesn’t matter what you point out as provable fact because their picture is always in between the actual facts and they’re looking at their picture and relating to their picture only.
They need and want something or someone to be a certain way,whether good or bad – so they post this picture of what they need and want up there and relate to it. They listen and watch only that which reinforces to this picture; everything else is rejected. Talking to them, trying to make them look beyond their picture at provable facts is a waste of time.
People who operate this way get hurt and abused A LOT. All you can do is pity them and hope they eventually learn from their pain. Its painful to be around people like this. They keep getting hurt, defrauded, betrayed, and there’s nothing you can do except hope that some day soon they wake the fuck up.
Sure sounds like politics to me!!!
Good point Mary. I was told the Code of Honor was a piece of “advice” and that it was not senior to HCOPL’s or HCOB’s. Every time I referenced such a thing I was basically told to sit down and shut up or else. Ethics conditions especially the liability formula infect a persons thinking in order to justify further degradation of themselves. I’ve been on the sharp end of that stick, all it does is degrade and punish and set the person up – soften him really-for more manipulation degradation and intimidation. Another social control mechanism to strip away any sense of autonomy or self- determinism while “on the bridge toward greater self determinism.” Hubbard said something about how cruel it is to take away Scientology from a person, that it’s really the most frightening horrible you could threaten someone with. Here is Joe Blow stumbling around in the dark for all eternity and by the slimmest of chances he found Scientology. Now they are going to take away the entire bridge, his ETERNITY” if he doesn’t goose-step in exact cadence with the rest of the good little sheep. Hubbard didn’t care if you made OT, neither does Miscavige, as long as they keep you on a continual reach-reach-reach. Your “eternity” is just…beyond…your…grasp…but you are SO CLOSE…….DON’T SCREW IT UP! Do your liability condition and learn to SHUT UP, and then go see the Reg , next on your routing form.
Mary Kahn, on that note … 2006, a teenage chief MAA is screaming at me at ASHO (at 1130 am, Thursday of course) demanding to know how much money I have in my bank account … I gave him the same answer I had just given “captain” Lundeen, that I did not desire to communicate that and that as a Scientologist, I had every right to apply The Code of Honor … before I could even get the last word fully out, the MAA screamed at the top of his voice, “SHUT UP, THAT’S ENEMY LINE” … oh yeah, the agonized future of every …
Wow. (Head shake)
Applying the Code of Honor is “enemy line”…nuts. Ties in with my own experience, though, Joe. An ethics officer at my org told me that Debbie Cooke’s email was Enemy Line. I asked her if she had read it. She said she had. I said that ALL the email contained it were LRH references that weren’t being followed, to the detriment of orgs and Scientology, that needed to be followed. Still Enemy Line, this insisted. She was a highly ethics and admin trained, 45 year in Scientologist. LRH policy is Enemy Line now. Yep, that’s how bad it is, folks.
Extreme typos. Too emotional, sorry.
El Con Tubolard’s failed tech,
Next on History Channel’s Criminal Cult Week.
Criminal Cult Week? Outstanding! Is it Scientology? Cuz that would be bitchin’.
Condition formula’s hey? Biggest load of crap ever invented to corral the sensibilities of their users and turn them into mindless, unseeing, guilt obsessed robots. They are the most ridiculous set of rules I’ve ever tried to make work. Still feel a bit stupid for ever believing them workable. As soon as I stopped using them, life improved!
I Yawn, I had a B of I done on me. I had to go and hand out Scientology leaflets to people on the sidewalk. Then I had to go to everyone in the mission to sign off on me. Many wouldn’t sign it. That was my first inkling that I had joined a cult. It wasn’t long before I was gone.
You’re a smarter man than I. Oh wait….
No am not! If I were anymore stupid, you’d have to water me twice a week!
Only once, if I use beer, Dude! 🙂
Didn’t the young female members have sympathy on you ?
Yup.
Like your comments, Mary. Someone who has the tech vols help me out here. There is an LRH reference that says (and I’m paraphrasing): money can’t buy you out of a condition and that it takes deeds done and work, not money. I quoted that reference to the MAA who tried to shake me down for money so that he would sign my formula. I think at that time it was, “buy the Lectures from me” (after I already had bought a series of them.) I found out later that every SO member got a commission paid to them on every set of lectures or basic books they sold to public. And it brought money into the church (DM’s) coffers. So of course they were being leaned on to get us to buy them. So when I told the MAA flat out that I was broke from paying for all those years on OT VII and that I would do conditions with deeds and actions, but not with money, he quickly lost interest in the cycle then. Can anyone post that reference? I don’t have my red vols anymore.
It’s not an HCOB. It’s a PL that talks about what is acceptable “amends”
What…10 years in the RPF?
Yea. It didnt matter any way. Money could buy you out of lowers, atleast once the Basics came out. Refreshers (6 month checks) were cash cows in those days.
“Seriously, how many times can Scientology staff apply the formula and still think David Miscavige is their friend?”
It’s just their particular org. It’s just them. They’ve pulled it in. There’s an SP on their lines. Maybe. They’re not applying the tech correctly…or enough…or something.
Everything and everywhere else is expanding 47x…like never before…greater than the last 50 years combined…or something.
Look at all the new buildings…so much more square footage…Colombia is a crime/drug free utopia thanks to TWTH…there’s a TV studio…not producing anything now, sure, but it will…there are super cool ads on during the Super Bowl…maggie went clear last week…there were loads of awards handed out at the last event…an actor just won an emmy…for something…
WOW!!! That’s all down to COB! He’s upstat! You leave him alone! You have O/Ws…M/Us…you’re a criminal…DB…SP…disaffected…
…or something. ???
“It’s just their particular org. It’s just them… Everything and everywhere else is expanding 47x”
Many exes have said things like that — they thought it must be great everywhere but their org. But can the people still in still believe that today? When their petition against Leah’s show didn’t get 7000 signatures? When people at the LA org were astonished when 2 podcasters showed up for classes? (They asked things like, “You haven’t heard anything about Scientology on the internet?” suggesting that they know perfectly well that most people HAVE heard about Scientology and how abusive it is.) When the Aftermath has won an Emmy? When the photos of all those other orgs that are supposedly doing so much better all show rooms completely empty of people? When the events held are fewer with ever smaller attendance each year? They may TELL themselves that the other orgs are doing better, but I suspect there’s far more cognitive dissonance going on. Even Tom Cruise, in his well-protected celebrity bubble, has learned how much the world of Scientology has shrunk. They KNOW it’s not doing well, whatever they tell themselves. (Like Hubbard’s “Affirmations” that reveal what he actually believed. I loved, “You are honest and proud of your honesty.” Because no honest person in the history of the universe ever hypnotized themselves to believe that they were honest.)
I loved “You are honest and proud of your honesty.” Because no honest person in the history of the universe ever hypnotized themselves to believe that they were honest.
Haha, yes! ?
So much can be learnt from The Affirmations. It is my belief that Hubbard, a self-described “magus”, was ultimately attempting to ascend his own “bridge”, Crowley style (see A∴A∴) From his early mystic dalliances, his dubious dealings with Jack Parsons and the OTO, his Adeptus Exemptus, publishing “a thesis setting forth His knowledge of the Universe and his proposals for its welfare and progress,” to his “Creative Magical Word” or “Logos” (scient-ology) that would “transform the planet on which he lives by the installation of new officers to preside over its initiation.”
According to Crowley, this endeavour will mark the dawn of a new age (or “aeon”) and should be pursued only when the word of the previous magus becomes outmoded or unworkable. Crowley died in 1947.
Hubbard “failed” (his words).
‘It is my belief that Hubbard, a self-described “magus”, was ultimately attempting to ascend his own “bridge”, Crowley style (see A∴A∴)’
Yes, mwesten, I believe you are correct. I got a similar impression. For most of it, I got the impression that he thought self-hypnotic affirmations were the ultimate life-hack to cheat your way to any goal you chose. Want to become a master adept? Do you have to study within an established lineage for decades? No! Just give yourself the affirmation that you already ARE a master adept and believe it. Don’t want to be humiliated by all the lies you’ve told? Do you stop telling lies? No! Just give yourself the affirmation that you are honest and proud of being honest. And so on, down the line. One thing I’ll give Hubbard — he was amazing at believing things in the face of mounds of contradicting evidence. Horrible scientist — just absolutely NOT a scientist — but impressive feat of believing. If that’s even a thing.
What people don’t realize about beliefs, conscious or subconscious, is that they have limits. Your reality is created by more than your own belief — by more than you individually. That entire New Age idea, from Jane Roberts, LRH, and all, going back, is provably false millions of times over. We live on a planet with billions of other people. There are collective realities. There is Physics. There are ecosystems. Actions have effects. Believing they don’t does not for a moment change that.
Agree. The truth about Hubbard.
I’m unfamiliar with the AA symbol and what Adeptus Exemptus means. I assume it’s from OTO and not Hubbard.
Now that Elron’s biography is known it’s clear that he had mystical and occult beliefs years before publishing DMSMH. He wisely omitted any references to the above in Dianetics. 1950 Christian America would have rejected it and let the book sit on bookstore shelves.
Elron stretched the imagination of Book One readers by mentioning pre natals, a sperm dream or two and a few other things – haha. I need to go back to Crowley and start all over.
(joke)
The A∴A∴is a “hierarchic and spiritual initiatory program” that, like the OTO, grew from the ashes of the Golden Dawn. It involves advancing through a series of “grades”, gaining further wisdom and magickal mastery (“scientific illuminism,”) towards the exalted states of “Magus” and “Ipsissimus”. See http://www.ordoaa.org/onestar.htm
mwesten – Thanks for the reference. Crowley was adventurous. A group of people seeking spiritual enlightenment. The debate continues about who’s right and who’s wrong.
Thanks for the write-up.
With the last remaining cherch members entering into senility and geriatric staff having nowhere to go and therefore shouting louder:”We are right you are wrong.Handle your ser facs!”I am afraid you will not get too many takers.
Cherch members have long since made the make-brake point.Group IQ below room temperature
Nice essay Terra. This jogged my memory about my first encounter with ‘ethics’ in scientology. I wasn’t in any trouble but I observed a fellow student on the Comm Course getting the treatment. It was one of my first red flag experiences that I ignored like so many others. Here’s what happened. A young woman was late for course. Big no, no. The course supervisor asked her why she was late and the woman said she was late because the bus she was riding was late. The course supervisor wasn’t buying this excuse, gave her an ‘R-factor’ on why it was her fault that the bus was late and sent her to see the ethics officer so that this wouldn’t happen again. At the time it seemed harsh and bat-shit crazy and it was. (This was at a mission, well before Hubbard went into hiding, DM took over and the IAS was created, etc.) In hindsight, it was probably the best thing that happened to this woman because I never saw her again. She was smart enough to head for the exit and stay out. For me, I stayed around many more years and endured all the wonders of the life changing scientology ethics tech. Even though I applied the conditions dutifully, I was never able to be cause over bus schedules myself. I guess that is only for ‘OTs’ and our OSA friends.
Hey, Ms. B, since Scientology is completely make believe, why don’t we call ourselves fully functional OTs? Without having to take the courses! Make believe is fun. Scientology is just a downer.
Make that Oh Tease. I believe. I believe in make believe and I can walk thru walls, read minds, postulate, make it go right and remote view just as well as any scientology OT. I’m about as Clear as a mud puddle but I’m happy most of the time and WAY happier now than when I was in the cult doing hours and hours of TRs and endless soul sucking ethics conditions. I believe, therefore I make believe. You wanna pass me that pipe OSD?
Not a mind reader myself, Ms. B, but I surely won’t state that for my wife!!! LOL!
Before I read further: how can a being cease to be non-existent? Just a little food for thought. If I don’t exist, there’s no ‘me’ to choose anything.
Responding to my own comment: Hubbard was not as smart as his sheep think he was. A manipulator and conman to the max, but not any kind of a logical thinker and not very well read.
Bix – This was the sticking point for me in my very brief sojourn into sctgy. When doing the online course for the Human Tone Scale, I just could not get past a tone lower than ‘Dead’. I couldn’t convince the CS either.
Anyway, I am a Christian and ‘never in’, but needed to experience for myself, just a minute portion of the insanity that is scientology. The one benefit I can claim, however, is that I can now at least follow the conversations on this blog with a little more understanding. Knowledge is Power.
OhioBuckeye: doing any “course”, or even saying you’re going to puts you and your thousands of BTs in the ranks of Scientology, and being able to follow these comments confirms that you’ve sipped too much of the kool-aid. They’ll keep you in their files and spam you forever unless you take positive steps to get declared and tossed out. For what’s left of your sanity,get declared now, move to an off-the-grid shack in southern Mexico and automatically trash anything incoming that mentions Scientology, Clear, OT, Freewinds or Ms. Cabbage…. In addition, forget everything you’ve read on your trip down this rabbit hole. You’ve already been too infected for your good health. Sadly, there’s no psychic penicillin to rid you of the scourge. The only effective vaccinations are sites like this which tell the real truth, not Tubby’s so-called “acceptable truths”.
Never fear…..no kool-aid drinker here. No money paid, no spam, no snail mail, no reg phone calls. I am a bit smarter than to go down the rabbit hole.
I continue to enjoy the sunshine, church, family, friends and this blog.
No inoculation necessary.
I got an email notice that someone (un-named) had responded to my previous comment, but I don’t see it here on the web page. The comment:
“We are forever. It’s really as simple as that. Our bodies die, but our essence never does.”
To which, my response is at simple as this: if our essence never dies, then we’re never in a state of non-existence. End of story.
Bixntram, well there is the thing about “Hats Not Wearing” about having a job to do or a hat, and failing to wear that hat by doing the functions of that job title, and when you don’t do the corresponding functions of it, you are non-existant as “THE_______.” (Fill in the blank with the post title or job title of the person. Such as you were the Bottle Washer and you stopped washing bottles, thus dropping your hat, so you became non-existant as the Bottle Washer even though as a thetan or spiritual being or the you that is your personality and you, you still existed. It was just the hat that you dropped that went into non existance because you were not being the bottle washer.
Cindy and Jim, well, silly me, I didn’t take into account “hats” and bottle-washing. let alone “ethics” and “conditions.” I used to be a paralegal before I retired. I supposed I could say my paralegal career is in a “condition of non-existence” but isn’t it easier just to say I’m a retired paralegal? Or whatever. I guess I was being far too logical when I assumed that a “condition of non-existence” (i.e., dead) implies no self, and therefore, no volition, and therefore no transformation to a state of “liability.”
One very simple and valuable thing I learned in the legal field is the “reasonable person” test. What would a reasonable person think or do in a given situation – and I assume that a reasonable person encountering a “condition of non-existence” would think that it means what it says: non-existence, no person, no self to choose another condition. But hey, what do I know? I was never in the bubble.
bixtram, Scientologists believe that a person IS his soul. He doesn’t HAVE a soul, who he IS is a soul. Who he truly IS is not mortal. Who he truly is, is an immortal being. In Scientology this is called the “thetan”. The thetan HAS a body, which gets born, and dies. Then that thetan gets ANOTHER body. And so on and so on. Bodies die and get replaced with new bodies. The thetan never dies. Similar to getting a car and keeping it for as long it it gets you around without too much trouble. When it starts giving you a lot more trouble than its worth, you junk the car and get another one. Scientologists believe that a person is NOT his or her body, that “he” or “she” is actually genderless, and an immortal being. Hope this helps.
The only problem I had with this was the idea that I might have to “come back” as a man. Don’t get me wrong; I like men. Sometimes a lot. They’re mostly nice to have around. I’ve even deeply loved a few of them. That said, I just don’t want to BE one. is all. Can’t shave your legs, have to shave your FACE, can’t wear pink, always have to CARRY things…for starters. So I’m hoping that if its true that we DO live again and again, that I can keep coming back female. But then, I don’t want to RESIST the idea of being a man TOO much because then, with MY luck, it’ll definitely happen. So I’m trying to keep an neutral mind about it. Accept that it may happen. You think I’m kidding? Uh uh!
You could always come back as “gender fluid”. Or any of the other 70 “genders” Facebook believes exist. ?
Well, Aqua, I hope you continue to get your desire. I hope, too, that many of the women I’ve known also continue to be women. Definitely the more interesting of the two main choices. And it has been and still is my joy to appreciate and desire them. The one I have now is an absolute corker! So remaining an appreciative male works for me.
mwestern,
Thanks for the suggestion, but Facebook is misinformed 🙂
Peter,
Lord & Taylor, L’oreal, La Perla and I thank you 🙂
So a thetan is ‘genderless’, but a meat sack being ‘gender fluid’ is misinformed?
Giggity.
That remark about Facebook was meant as a joke! It is actually I who am misinformed or more accurately uninformed, as I have no clue what “gender fluid” means, gtsix! Will have to google that 🙂
Sorry Aquamarine! Lost in print speak. I had to google it myself awhile ago… and I’m not sure I’m not still confused as it is.
The thing with ethics condtions is how you produce in whatever dynamic. If you go to your work place and doesn´t produce enough that makes a profit i.e Zero on your stat´s, then you´re in Non ex. If you start to cost your company by stealing or going around and talking BS etc you are lowering the company in different ways and so are going down in ethics conditions,,,like liability, treason , enemy etc.
Or on yr first dynamic, if you stop brushing yr teeth, you will start to go down in condtions i.e yr teeth will deteriorate.
Then one day you do the Happiness rundown in an Ideal Org somewhere and cognite that you have to start to brush yr teeth and up the condtions you go. And you also buy a bunch of WTH-pamphlets, go to a country in South America, hand them out and after a while the crime rates are plummeting, i.e they go to Non Ex, and the Dentists will start Ideal orgs instead etc.
And the whole country will start to flourish and prosper i.e High Ethics conditions.
Bix,
Per my comment to Mary: ‘There are conditions in life, but Hubbard’s Ethics conditions are nothing but another control system that has nothing to do with life–just org stats.’
Thus, the post/terminal/job can go below non-existence (no stat?) and still be occupied and there physically, eating chow and occupying a berth. Sorta like life-long bureaucrats, civil servants, and lifelong politicians. If someone’s idea of fun is arson, killing, and other assorted criminal activities then the the rest of society just might place then as a negative asset, a liability, enemy, etc.