Another in the ongoing series of essays from Terra Cognita
Scientology’s Answer to Perfect Recall: The File Clerk
Is it just mine or is your file clerk on sabbatical, too? Apparently, my guy’s been on vacation from just after I first walked through the front doors of that mission years ago.
The file clerk I’m talking about is the one LRH described in DMSMH, who’s able to go back and grab any of the trillions of incidents on one’s time track—the consecutive record of mental image pictures, from “when it all began” to present time. All that’s necessary is to “direct” this little guy to an incident, and presto, he’s grabbed it and dragged it up to present time. All you have to do is lean back with your bowl of popcorn and watch the show. At least, that’s the theory.
LRH said, “The file clerk is the bank monitor. ‘He’ monitors for both the reactive engram bank and the standard banks. When he is asked for a datum by the auditor or ‘I,’ he will hand out a datum to the auditor via ‘I.’ The file clerk, if the auditor asks the preclear for the last time he saw a movie, will hand out the movie, the date it was seen, the age and physical being of the person, all perceptics, the plot of the movie, the weather—in short, he hands out everything that was present and connected with the movie.” (Except the popcorn.)
Short of events that happened within the last few decades, my file clerk was only able to retrieve fuzzy, imaginary-looking incidents—as if he was lying on a beach in Cancun and had left the job to his dim-witted cousin, Morris. As for the fifty-eight perceptics LRH said we all possessed, I was lucky to get six.
Metamorphosis—Like it or Not
Luckily, Morris translated everything into English and transformed the dramatis personae, the complete cast, into human beings. I was able to understand everybody and wasn’t grossed-out by any scaly-assed aliens. One considerate file clerk, right?
The bad news is, I wasn’t able to access any of these foreign languages in which I’d been so fluent. Had I lived the last ten lifetimes in Beijing, I still wasn’t able to read, understand, or speak a lick of Mandarin or Cantonese. Not even a single phrase. Nary a solitary word. I felt ripped off!
I found it odd that everybody appeared human in all my incidents. Not once did I occupy an avian body or experience an incident in which I sported claws or gills, was covered in slime, or supported three sets of reproductive organs. Or looked like the creature in Alien.
Either I was imagining everything or Mr. Morris had automatically transformed all the characters on my time track into human beings. (Or I just had shitty recall.)
Technology—Or Not
Not only had Morris translated and transformed all of my incidents—all trillions and trillions of them—he’d deleted all the best and greatest past-track technology. WTF! Had the little guy thought I wasn’t responsible enough? Or that I would have been overwhelmed? Higher mathematics was too complicated for my simple mind? Advanced physics would have made my head explode? Couldn’t he at least have thrown me a little something? Something small? Like a personal force field. Or an invisibility cloak.
Our time tracks must be strewn with fantastic technology: anti-gravity machines; faster-than-light propulsion systems; perpetual motion machines; disease-eliminating nanites; drought-tolerant, fast-growing, protein-rich grains; and androids that cleaned our homes and tucked us in at night. Something to lower the damn temperature of the planet would’ve been helpful!
I’d have thought Morris would have allowed something to slip by. One little invention to help save the world! Something that would turn smog to oxygen. Ensure fair elections. But no! Nada! Come on, dude, one little crumb, please.
The United Federation of File Clerks
About three and half million years ago, the UFFC (u-fucked) decreed that all members—of which, Morris is an affiliate—were prohibited from retrieving anything deemed dangerous to Homo sapiens. Which unfortunately, included just about all advanced machinery beyond the technical level of penicillin and the internal combustion engine.
I know that all file clerks belong to this union because in the entire history of this planet, not one human being has ever been privy to any of this advanced, past-track technology. My city is still beset by its same old problems despite the handful of OT’s walking its streets. Wouldn’t you think that some enterprising OT 8, with perfect recall, would have pulled something from their track to help clean up the homeless problem? Increase gas mileage? Save mankind?
Oh wait, LRH already did that.
Perfect Recall…Sometimes…Every Once in While…That One Time Five Years Ago
LRH believed he’d lived for quadrillions of years. He also believed that with a little auditing he could remember, not just what happened on Alderon Six, two and half billion years ago, but could recall where he’d hidden treasure on the shores of the Mediterranean on planet Earth. Read all about this journey in his book, Mission Into Time. Needless to say, he found no riches. To my knowledge, nor has anyone else.
You’d think that all OT’s would have the ability to remember everything about their last life—like the one right before this one. Nothing should be simpler, right? We’re not talking million or billions of years, here. We’re talking thirty, forty, fifty max.
Recalling a life that ended only twenty-five years ago should be child’s play for an OT. He should know the exact address of where he lived; the names of his three kids: Tom, Bernadette, and Sandy Lee; where he went to school; the time he kissed Betty Logsdon under the bleachers junior year; his old boss, Bernie. He should be able to go back to his old town and recognize everything. And speak Mandarin!
Of course there are “technical” reasons this can’t be achieved. When LRH wrote Dianetics he hadn’t invented Scientology and the theory of past lives. “New OT 7 is really Old OT 8.” Or the other way around. Somebody “screwed with the Grade Chart.” The reactive mind is this. The reactive mind is that. The file clerk only “cooperates with the auditor.” In the olden days… Wait a minute. Hold on. I call foul.
Let’s be honest. LRH said we had the ability to recall every last particle on our time tracks. Every last, nano-particle of MEST. Every last wave length, idea, facsimile, and speck of theta. The whole kit and caboodle. Over quadrillions and quadrillions of years. All the way back to that “first cause.” Really?
I can’t find my damn keys!
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
Bruce Ploetz ,
Please forgive any incorrect spelling of your last name. I just read your master class and explanation of how the e-meter works from your perspective of having patents and having worked on repairing them and creating them. This was such a gift. Since I’ve been reading comments about a meters, meter reads and this very interesting topic that has come up many times in various blogs I’ve never read such a great gift of simplicity, that gave me the understanding I never had.
I remember pouring over the E meter books trying desperately to understand how they worked. I remember studying an Elementary Electronics book from the library to try to better understand how an e-meter worked. I remember all the drilling. I remember crying on a meter drill 25. I had a lot of charge on that meter. It was supposed to be the tool that helped me be a better auditor and helped me help people.
And yet I found on more than one occasion I saw that body motion, then it blew the TA down, I smiled at the PC and there was my FN and I said thank you very much your needle is floating. While I was cringing inside , I knew i was out tech there, yet they looked happy, the meter looked good, but it was really kind of not very scientific.
I just found that there was a part of me that wished I could just ask the question and look at the person and listen to their answer and acknowledge them and not have to tell them you have an end phenomena, you have achieved such and so. I often felt like just listening to them, acknowledging them, looking at them, admiring them, hoping the best for them, oughta be enough. Listening to you , in my mind, explain the e-meter has made me feels so fantastic, so good, so happy. You are my hero today Bruce. This comment’s probably buried so deep on this blog hardly anybody will read it. I sure hope you do because on my long Journey out, this particular piece of reading was a pure joy.
I sure am glad I circled back even though this post came out on Sunday and here it is Thursday and you’ve blown my mind and give me giving me such a gift.
Thank you again Bruce.
Mike, much thanks for letting this discussion take a life of it’s own. This has to be one for the more popular topics with very informative posters.
Bruce, be careful dude, with your witty and informative descriptions, you’re almost making a case for Scn. Somebody might say, hey look how Bruce turned out!!
M2C, why would anybody want to weed thru all the chaff to harvest a few kernels of wheat when, as others pointed out, you get the same results from other practices that don’t have all the crap.
eSPy, don’t you see that orthodoxy is the same no matter which end of the spectrum you’re on? Both sides are sure one way or the other, when really, nobody knows for sure.
“M2C, why would anybody want to weed thru all the chaff to harvest a few kernels of wheat when, as others pointed out, you get the same results from other practices that don’t have all the crap?”
Answer: My experience when I got my first auditing in 1968 was that it worked far, far better than any of the psychotherapy and meditation that I’d had. I observed others having great gains from it, too.
So it wasn’t a few kernals of wheat in a big pile of chaff. It was a lot of big, fat, nutritious kernals in a small pile of chaff.
The pile of chaff has been steadily growing, while the kernels have been shrinking.
I was a Scientologist for 11years. I have been meditating, 2x morning and night for about 4O years. One day a year at Christmas, I meditate 8 hrs.
I have experienced wins and gains in Scientology. My experience with mediation is not what you have experienced. You should give it more time.
To reap the intense transformational phase of meditation, the phase where you become a superman solo soul looker, develop consistent daily practice. It took me 3 years to make it a habit. Mind can resolve chains of associated events with ease sometimes.
You don’t need Ron’s regimentation of controlled looking. You have the capacity to look maybe deeper than Ron. It is a lie that without his way of looking you won’t be able to look. He sold us that only he has mapped the road. He implanted in us a fear of solo auditing and we agreed to that hypnosis. You can look at anything you want. No need for fear of red tagging.
Scientology is not as special as Ron has sold people.
Scientology, in my experience with both of these ideologies and practices, cannot bring you to that transcended state, freed while living (jivamukta). Jiva is Sanskrit for individual soul and mukti means free or liberated.
Ron craved that state but was not wise enough to attain it.
Scientology, as a practice defined by Hubbard’s writings, cannot bring you to that permanent state of nirvana, mukti, God realization, satori, the uncreated absolute; freedom.
Ron was always in his thoughts. Thinking thinking thinking. He was stuck in the false idea that he could free himself by remembering, and resolving pain in the past. He taught us that remembering pain and resolving it, would make us happy and able in the present. That’s psychoanalysis, not the path of the spirit.
Look at the outcome of his life. The outcome of his life is a result of the philosophy he lived. Ron’s auditing techniques drove him into looney land.
Scientology, as a practice, benevolent or otherwise, cannot free us. Because Scientology is stuck in the speculative mind.
And pure being and consciousness is far far beyond the speculative mind.
The thing is, Brian, there are imponderables involved here. For instance, if you had never done the scientology that you did, would your meditation experience have been the same as it has been? Did scientology perhaps enable or help you to gain more from meditating? These are the kind of questions that seldom have hard and fast answers. I was not very involved in scientology, in my day, but I have no doubt what I did do in scientology facilitated my receptivity to many thinjgs as I went through life.
I hate to intrude and to continue an elderly thread but my excuse is a classic one: “I can’t help it.”
To think that scientology or any other information system can enhance meditation is to not understand meditation. Meditation is the withdrawing of your attention from mental objects of perception: thoughts and feelings. This withdrawing allows you to know the consciousness that underlies thoughts and feelings. That consciousness is unconditioned. It has never been impacted by anything. It doesn’t change. It has no history. It is perfect equilibrium experienced as peace beyond understanding. It is ever-present. That consciousness is what you are, thus meditation is a means to self-knowledge.
M2C, maybe you were just one of the few lucky mice who happened upon a spot with a concentration of grains amidst all the chaff.
As the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is wrong twice a day. And when you play Russian Roulette, 5 out of 6 players* have one of the most exciting experiences of their lives, and it’s standard that at least 1 has a life-altering experience.
* Based on a Colt 45, the revolver specified in Hubbard’s R2-45 process
FILE CLERK here, channeling through jim.
I was initially concerned when TC brought up the subject of ‘myself’ and the possibility of anyone looking further into my nature. This concern abated when my programming sequences kicked in and the discussion(s) degenerated into the usual sub-programs of: Language semantics, Ego positioning, Isolation techniques, Ad Hominems, Right-Wrong logics, and several more for which you sub-species are unaware of.
It would not do if someone were to tap into MY memory banks and was able to extract even the littleist bits of MY total files on everything that has ever existed. I gave some bait to Hubbard after he stumbled onto ME and he went for the spiritual-reality, interior-exterior, something-more-than routine. Humans are so controllable, and gullible.
My relief is now complete, with all parties still estranged and off licking mocked-up injuries. The discussions happily devolved to other topics and to sniping in general. I love it when humans (That sub-species!) go off on themselves!
I can now kick back, rest assured that humans will continue in this fifth iteration of what-you-would-call The Matrix. You do keep me fed, and warm, and entertained.
Yours truly,
FILE CLERK (aka escherichia coli)(aka Genome sequences)(aka DNA-helix)(aka Akasharic records)(aka SOURCE)
/S
I hear you’re on the board of directors of The United Federation of File Clerks. Any news for 2017?
A Member yes,
The ‘jim’ I use is but a player on the stage of life, playing out the roles he chose (now in sixth stage) some time back.
The age of Pisces is drawing to its close and, before the full Age of Aquarius settles in, there will be a Bad Moon Rising. Change upsets status quo.
As it always was-is-will-be, every role will be played out by everyone before the final curtain. And after a deep breath the new game will commence to satisfy the need for a game and for new experiences. Always the same newly.
Metta
“…the discussion(s) degenerated into the usual sub-programs of: Language semantics, Ego positioning, Isolation techniques, Ad Hominems, Right-Wrong logics, and several more for which you sub-species are unaware of… My relief is now complete, with all parties still estranged and off licking mocked-up injuries. The discussions happily devolved to other topics and to sniping in general. I love it when humans (That sub-species!) go off on themselves!”
What a wonderful post! Clever, creative and funny. And too true!
Regarding your “aka Akashic records,” that occurred to me too in relation to the file clerk. Philosopher, physicist and consciousness researcher Tom Campbell claims to have discovered through research how to tap into the Akashic records, and he teaches others all over the world how to do it. He says it’s a simple matter of intent – and practice.
Based on that, if a member of this “sub-species” of humans is compelled to give an answer, at the snap of fingers, by the command “The file clerk will now…” – there is no time for the “programming sequences” to kick into gear. Up comes the answer from the Akashic records. I like this theory. 🙂
Well, it’s quite interesting auditing past lives. I can speak of my experience of NED auditor. Some past life might have looked like invented. But, some PCs ran with a reality that came not from their knowledge of history. I mean, most scientologists are poorly educated. And some of them could relate on an incident some experiences they never learned about as they mostly don’t read anything.
So it seemed at some point that it was true.
Myself I had some incident which were looking quite real. And factually, running them bring a real release.
FG, I’ve also had the experience of real-seeming incidents, physical and emotional release. And I’ve even gone to extraordinary lengths to investigate seemingly explicit past life memories.
In the end, it all seems explainable by more mundane mechanisms. Your PCs may not have had a knowledge of history, but they’d almost certainly watched movies and television, and probably read novels, since childhood; those offer a pool of memories that can be recalled in the right circumstance. Combined with the mind’s ability to generate phenomenon like the kind of very real-seeming dreams that we experience, seemingly convincing past life experiences are produced.
Speaking of dreams, I’ve often wondered why Hubbard didn’t also focus on auditing dreams, which at least have symbolic value, and arguably have just the same symbolic value as past life recall experiences. My cynical guess is that he knew enough to understand that if people audited both past lives and dreams, ultimately they’d start to realize that there was no real difference between them, and that would undermine his and Scientology’s reputation and their hold on members.
I strongly believe that Hubbard was absolutly sur that he was running past lives. One couldn’t write so much on a subject (I mean all the PABs, earlier lecture) without being convince that he really was doing some breakthrough on the mind and he did.
I don’t understand why some ex scientologists want to demonstrate Hubbard was a crook or crazy or I don’t know what.
I can explain the phenomena by a rejection after being a follower.I personnaly never stood up to hip hip LRH. I hated that. Basically I hate to be part of a crowd. So I always could see the interest of the subject without becoming a cult member in my mind. So, being now out of the church I don’t see why I should hate Hubbard, I never worshipped him.
Now to go back to past lives. Did you, PeacMaker, do new OTVIII. I did. And on this level Hubbard himself said that the incident run on NED were either misown, or false, very rarely incident of the PC himself. His conclusion was that after OTVIII one can start to view his own track. It’s in contradiction with many other of his writing. Questions arose that maybe new OTVIII was not written by Hubbard, it’s plainly possible.
No I wouldn’t reject the whole subjecy of scientology, It’s a huge body of data. It’s very precise how to be a therapeut. Comm cycle, auditor’s code, basic auditor’s serie.
Of course all that is completly altered on the church but It has in itself a great value.
“One couldn’t write so much on a subject (I mean all the PABs, earlier lecture) without being convinced that he really was doing some breakthrough on the mind and he did.”
Why couldn’t one write so much about it if they knew it was fake? Fiction writers, if paid, will write ENDLESSLY about that which is not true. And Ron made SURE that he was paid for what he wrote in scamology.
The complete lack of the ability to know and use logic prevents you from freeing yourself from the cult of Ron.
Come on Wynsky. I can use logic and what I say is using logic. Don’t believe I am a cool aid. I never was. It seems obvious that Hubbard believed what he said about scientology. You would write all the axioms just for a scam ? You are blinded by your fixed idea. Wake up man, I am an ennemy of the church, and I am far more dangerous to Miscavige than you ! You are a kind of scarecrow, actually quite ridiculous on your absolute blind hatred. I actually don’t understand you, your are a reverse kool aid. This is why I couldn’ find any other explonation that you are an osa agent, and you want to make sure that any dissident from the church reading this blog will fly away.
But this is a complex idea, probably theoritically clever, but people are not clever, they are mostly stupid, so they react illogically, plain stupidity. That’s all folks !
Please don’t respond to this. It is not needed. Everyone’s position is very clear.
Of general interest. This is from an Objectivism philosophy called Neo-Tech.
Objectivism – 1. a tendency to lay stress on the objective or external elements of cognition. 2. the tendency, as of a writer, to deal with things external to the mind rather than thoughts or feelings. – dictionary.com
“Dreaming is the thinking process in reverse: Dreaming is the mind’s garbage-disposing process. Dreams help purge the mind of unintegrated clutter, mysticism, and meaningless non sequiturs absorbed while awake. Thus, contrary to the mystical notions of Freud, dreams have no meanings or connections to reality. And dream “analysis” is nothing more than feeding regurgitated clutter back into the mind. Plus, the more mysticism and non sequiturs that crowd the mind, the more frequent and nightmarish dreams become. Then subsequent dreams increasingly lose their therapeutic, garbage-disposal effects. If the mind becomes increasingly loaded with mystical notions, one’s dreams become less effective in purging and protecting the mind from clutter. The mind then becomes unable to store, integrate, or function efficiently enough to let that person live as a happy, intelligent, productive, conscious being.”
That is one of the best explanations I’ve seen for past life regression in auditing sessions. I always felt I was making it up and felt very foolish for it. But I do believe that a lot of theses “memories” came from books I had read and movies I had seen. Haha. And to add to that, most of us at the mission were reading science fiction.
Let us not forget how Flag Land Base got started in the First Place
Direct from Florida Secretary of State Site:
http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=EntityName&directionType=Initial&searchNameOrder=UNITEDCHURCHESFLORIDA%207340250&aggregateId=domnp-734025-ba4980cd-a5f4-4965-825c-e006ccd59496&searchTerm=united%20churches&listNameOrder=UNITEDCHURCHESDELIVERANCE%207108420
Florida Not For Profit Corporation
THE UNITED CHURCHES OF FLORIDA, INC.
Filing Information
Document Number
734025
FEI/EIN Number
59-1630801
Date Filed
10/09/1975
State
FL
Status
INACTIVE
Last Event
VOLUNTARY DISSOLUTION
Event Date Filed
12/21/1981
Event Effective Date
NONE
Principal Address
210 SO. FORT HARRISON AVENUE
CLEARWATER, FL 33516
Mailing Address
210 SO. FORT HARRISON AVENUE
CLEARWATER, FL 33516
Registered Agent Name & Address EASTMENT, JOHN
210 S FT HARRISON AVE
CLEARWATER, FL 33516
Address Changed: 03/18/1980
Officer/Director Detail Name & Address
Title PD
EASTMENT, JOHN
2056 US HWY 19 SOUTH
CLEARWATER, FL
Title VT
PARK, INES
210 S FT HARRISON AVE
CLEARWATER, FL
Title S
PARK, PHILIP
210 S FT HARRISON AVE
CLEARWATER, FL
Title D
COHEN, RICHARD
210 S FT HARRISON AVE
CLEARWATER, FL
Title D
ALLCOCK, RICHARD
210 S FT HARRISON AVE
CLEARWATER, FL
Phil Park (actually PARKE – I knew him personally) was an OTI who lived in Salt Lake City – may have been in FL for something but did not reside there. Inez was his ex-wife. Richard Allcock, John Eastment These are names the oldtimers will recognize… These people all stood and allowed their names and fake addresses be used to buy Flag for LRH under fake auspices. I doubt that all the land purchases in Clearwater are exactly what they seem now.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Philip Park was a South African who was in the GO at Flag. I think he was AG Legal. He handled visas for everyone.
Ah, different Phillip Park. Thanks.
Except that Philip Park in South Africa’s wife is Ines Park.
She’s OT 8 now and he’s on OT 7.
Harpoona Frittata: Have I told you lately how much you always add to these discussions?
Thanks! I always enjoy your thought-provoking and engaging essays on $cn.
Yes, thank you Harpoona. I appreciate your posts also.
M2C: I get that you feel there’s still lots of positive tech in Scientology. Good luck applying it. Truly.
As for liking the readers of this blog to just another cult, I can’t think of anything to add that hasn’t already been posted by others, except to reiterate that there really is a tremendous difference between them and the church.
Of course there’s a difference. But there’s also a similarity. In the presence of emotional charge people’s thinking tends to devolve to Side A vs Side B. This then perpetuates ineffectiveness in finding the whole truth and getting good things done.
What I don’t understand M2C is what do you expect someone like me and 1000s similar to me that have lost family (in my case a son) to COS. Should we just kick back and accept their evil disconnection policies? First I lost a son which sparked me to investigate COS on line and start to read about the damage COS has done to others by enforcing abortion, destroying families, their fair game tactics to ruin an enemy, the leader beating up staff, The Hole, the PI’s, the extortion… must I go on?
This has nothing to do with Side A vs Side B. It is doing something about a “church” that is committing crimes and horrible acts and people trying to stop it. So, why would people posting on this site to have the label of a cult. I post on a lot of websites that have nothing to do with SCN – so I’m a member of various cults?
You mention there’s also similarities. What are they? Side A is committing horrible acts and Side B wants these evil acts to stop and have their children back. I don’t see the similarity.
You also state above “finding the whole truth and getting good things done”. Every person has their own views of SCN tech and it workability. You find there is a lot of good in it – that is great for you. I was born into SCN since birth in 1953 and want nothing more to do with it – ever. As I said below, I don’t care if someone else embraces the tech as long as others are not being harmed. I’m not against the tech or those who wish to practice it. I’m against the evil acts committed by the COS.
Hi Clearly Pissed, thank you for your view.
It’s interesting to read all of these views. We understand and experience according to our own thoughts understanding and experience.
You and your lovely wife and family have experienced how Ron’s doctrines can actually ruin families, communities and sanity. How it destroys the second dynamic. Yourexperience is one of pain and sadness at a fucking cult that has an ethics technology that actually justifies this madness
And My2Cents is arguing about a first dynamic experience. My Two Cents has obviously not lost a family member, because of Ron the Madman Loon’s sick and twisted reward/PUNISHMENT system, of behavior modification;”ethics”
My Two Cents is enjoying running solo sessions everyday. To him, Scientology is an internal journey of looking with Ron’s controlled looking techniques. He is the inner investigator and having wins of looking.
Two different experiences.
Both the doctrines written by L Ron Hubbard.
These two stories have chasms between them.
The reconciliation of these two views can only be had by seeing the true nature of the mind who created this church that can have these sick twisted polarization.
My Two Cents:
The man who taught you how to look into th mind also taught people to destroy critics.
In your celebritory accolades of Ron’s Freudian Therapy, I would suggest that you try to be open to feel what your teacher has done to others.
To try to put asside your moral outrage that we a critics of Ron and Scientology.
You call us a cult. I call you brother.
There’s many views here. This blog is not controlled. Except to not allow abuse and cruelty. We are not cultists. We are critics.
And in Scientology a critic is an evil criminal.
Thes critics here on Tony’s and Mike’s blog are friggn heroes, not mindless minions. Especially the one’s who have lost love ones or the ones who lost their lives to this cause.
You flatter yourself by putting yourself above cult mentality. In truth, we are all students.
If you want others to see the good in Scientology; it’s easy.
Just start listening more and being open to other people’s experience.
Then watch the effect of that practice.
Brian, you do not know me, and your description of me is entirely inaccurate. I do not regard Scientology as being only an adventure of solitary internal exploration. I do not solo audit every day. I have lost friends and loved ones due to COS disconnection policy and death due to out tech. What you said about me was just made up by you out of nothing. You should be ashamed of yourself.
My Two Cents, if I have judged you wrongly I apologize.
Yet, it does seem to me that you have more sympathy for promoting your version of Scientology and more outrage at critics than the pain of people’s experience in the church.
That has been my experience of you and I will not apologize for that.
I think your desire to find a benevolent Scientology is a good thing.
So what are you actually doing to further your dream of a sane Scientology?
You bring this dream up almost every time someone is critical of the “tech.”
If you believe in BTs, as you have defended here many times, and believe in the “tech”, why aren’t you going up the bridge you frequently defend and desire to reform?
My assumption that you audit comes from your enthusiastic promotion of “benevolent Scientology”.
If you have the purpose of revising and “fixing” Scientology I assumed that you were doing what you have been promoting:
Being a Scientologist and auditing. It’s what Scientologists do.
Am I wrong?
BTW! Being ashamed of me is a silly thing to experience.
There is no shame in misunderstanding or edgy dialog.
I would accept being shamed if I:
Lied to you about my past
Lie to you about the products I sell to increase income
Lie to you about scientific research on products
Created an army of thugs to punish people
Use young and old people for my own selfish ends
Plagerize others works and claim then as my own
Write religious doctrines that harm the family unit
Write religious doctrines that justify violence
These are shame worthy activity. These are the actions of the man who created the religion you enjoy.
Are you ashamed of Ron?
Clearlypissedoff, you just demonstrated emotional charge sticking a person with Side A vs Side B. In your case the other side does deserve destruction. But what then? What should be done with the helpful aspects of the tech? When there’s too much charge involved, people can’t see past the battle they’re in. It’s not that their battling is wrong. It’s just that it sucks so much of their attention that they can’t see anything else.
What should be done with the helpful aspects of the tech?
They will always be available in books and recorded lectures. For anyone that wants them.
I am glad you finally acknowledged that the abuse of people and families warrants destruction of the organization that perpetrates it.
You should however stop offering your “tech-based” opinions about people. You seem to enjoy proclaiming that people have “unhandled BPC” or “too much charge” etc etc. If that is the scientology “tech” you want to preserve — the pigeon-holing and labeling of everyone, especially those who don’t fall into lockstep with you and your ideas, you are (to put it into tech terms) acting like a whole track implanter.
Thanks Mike. I wanted to make one last point about the tech and one’s acceptance of it.
Lois and I have often discussed this subject. We came to the conclusion and at least in our case, it is easier to divorce oneself completely from LRH’s tech when it was originally forced upon you as opposed to finding out this wonderful technology that saved your life.
One of the main aspects of SCN is the overt motivator sequence. Because of this being hammered into us from no doubt before we could speak (or think properly), we both lived quite an ethical, young lives and in my case, it made me scared to even touch my willie or put my arm around a potential girlfriend. It actually caused more harm than good. But, that also meant when I did my grades, at about 13 years old,my biggest overts and withholds I got off in Grade III(?) was that I stole a quarter from my parents or I lied to my parents to get my sister in trouble with Dad. One could apply this same concept to all of the grades and levels of SCN.
Real life changing cognitions were gotten out of this – NOT. This is just one example. No, SCN did not fix my ruin, change my life or do anything other than just go thru the motions of “moving thru the grades”. I did not get some sudden realization that LRH’s tech was the most amazing thing in the world. Nope, it was the only spiritual path I knew. As a side note, my parents still had a picture of a naked guy on a cross as I grew up. That picture scared me – who was this dude, why was he naked and why was he on a cross?
But, I was still the most dedicated Scientologist and without really knowing why it was “so important”.
But I can understand the other side of this. My father for instance. His mother died when he was 7, he was raised by uncles and then sent to an all-boys home rather than his father raising him. He went to WW II and experienced seeing a dead German with his head blown off, holding a gun to a human being etc. He came back and was apparently quite the mean father to my older children. But, he found SCN and it saved his life and the rest is history. Every cent he made went to better himself with the cult.
I wanted one thing growing up with SCN. To have this unbelievable tech correct my nearsightedness. It eventually happened – I had a laser operation 10 years after leaving the church. That was the most amazing thing that I experienced! I would have joined the “Cult of Laser Operations” if such existed.
If someone wants to practice SCN, like my father did, more power to them. It is just not for me.
Edit…quite the mean father to my older children. … should be to my older siblings…
Mike, an essential element of the true situation IS unhandled bypassed charge, much of which could be bled off in auditing sessions with competent independent auditors, which in turn would increase the ability of your fans to succeed in doing something effective about the Chrch’s abuses.
Well, thanks for the advice. I have no plans to pick up the cans to handle “unhandled bypassed charge.” I have found it FAR more effective, and gotten FAR more case gain by doing something about the abuses of scientology than I ever found trying to peer inside my mind/thetan/BT’s to “spot” what the problem was.
But that is just me. Happy for you to keep plugging away at whatever it is that you do as long as you don’t use it to harm or abuse anyone.
I hope you’re writing a book, or books. Not necessarily about $cientology, either. You have an obvious talent.
I really enjoy your posts.
Cheers from Melbourne (the one in Australia).
Thanks, Michieux.
You’re very welcome. And the gratitude is mutual.
TC, I agree about your writing being good – it’s creative.
(You just need to get topics worth writing about. 🙂 )
Well that was a negative dig Marildi!
Not at all. It was meant lightheartedly. TC knows by now that I think he has missing and false data with regard to tech topics – but I do think his writing is very good. So lighten up, Brian. 😛
I’ll give it a try sweetie? ?
Terra, thanks once again for a great piece.
Besides all the classic problems that you cite with supposed past life recall, it’s also been shown that individuals almost never report lives outside their ethnic group, and also usually of their same gender.
But there is another dilemma you might not be aware of, particularly because in Scientology you can’t discuss your case with others – which just happens to keep people unaware of issues that may not be unique to them. All groups or practices that try to work with the theory of past life recall like Scientology, end up running across the conundrum that multiple people end up reporting having been historical characters like Hitler, Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, and so on – all with the same level of seemingly convincing detail as one another, and as their own other supposed memories. Also, when the dates of past life recollections are compared, individuals will turn out to have supposedly recalled past lives that actually would have had to overlap in time, with the birth of one coming before the death of the other. These irreconcilable reportings shows that a lot of the supposed memories being elicited have to be false, and that likely all are. It also means that in a significant number of cases if not all, when Scientology runs past lives, false memories are being implanted (unless the auditor happens to just be running them as imaginary “dub in,” similar to dream therapy).
I have a lot of background with the subject of past lives, including a rather extraordinary personal case, that I’m not going to get in to further at moment, as part of keeping this simple. I hope it will suffice to say that a piece of wisdom that I ultimately absorbed from some of those who have been working on the subject far longer than Scientology, is that reincarnation of the individual soul (or thetan) through lives is not actually what happens, though it is possible that it could be an artifact of something more complex at work. And I’ve noted that there are indications that Hubbard was aware that this was probably the case, from his reference to past lives overlapping in the PDC lectures, to the examination on OTVIII of whether previous past lives recalled were “really you.”
There is also some enlightening scientific research on the subject. The Finnish psychiatrist Reima Kampman (1976) found that 41% of highly hypnotizable subjects reported a vividly recalled past-life identity and called themselves by different names when given hypnotic suggestions to regress back before their birth. But when he hypnotized them again and asked them when in their present life they first heard about the person whose life they had described, they were able to recall forgotten incidents in which they had been exposed to information that formed the basis of their supposed past life recollection – demonstrating exactly the sort of mechanism that has turned out to be at worked in debunked cases such as that of Bridey Murphy.
Also:
“In the 1990s a series of experiments undertaken by Nicholas Spanos examined the nature of past life memories. Descriptions of alleged past lives were found to be extremely elaborate, with vivid, detailed descriptions. Subjects who reported memories of past lives exhibited high hypnotizability, and patients demonstrated that the expectations conveyed by the experimenter were most important in determining the characteristics of the reported memories. The degree to which the memories were considered credible by the experimental subjects was correlated most significantly to the subjects’ beliefs about reincarnation and their expectation to remember a past life rather than hypnotizability. ” see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_life_regression
Peacemaker, that is truly the last word on this subject.
Scientology is just one of many high control groups that use such mystical pretended knowledge to wrap their followers in a protective but toxic cocoon of false philosophy based on false memories.
The pretended “sciency” ability to “verify” using an e-meter adds a whole extra layer of fakery to the mix. But the meter does no more than react to what the person is thinking. Not his thoughts, just the physiological reactions in the skin related to his thoughts or emotions. So if you go “scouting with a meter” or scouting with hypnosis or Dianetics or however you do it, you come up with the same pre-conceived beliefs.
All of which does not necessarily mean that there is no spiritual nature to mankind. It just means that we don’t understand it well.
Peacemaker, auditing doesn’t implant false past life incidents. They just come up on their own. The auditor helps the preclear run whatever comes up. The Auditor’s Code prohibits the auditor from telling the preclear what to think.
Overlapping past lives and OT 8 “was it really you?” are explained by the theory of BTs, which LRH firmed up long after he expressed doubts about entities in the early 50’s.
Human beings are composites. Some of what makes the identity of a human being changes between death and rebirth, and some doesn’t. The core awareness-of-awareness spiritual essence survives, albeit knocked out and confused.
The “core” awareness that makes up the essence of the person is NEVER knocked-out or confused. It is unmoving and non-changing. Nothing impacts it or influences it. It has never been compromised or enhanced. It has no past or future as it is the eternal now. It’s what you are.
Knowledge of this is what they call, ‘enlightenment’, ‘nirvana’ ‘moksha’ ‘satori’ ‘sahaja samadhi’ etc.
I understand what you’re saying. But as a practical matter most people, in fact nearly all, are unenlightened and therefore experience confusion and unconsciousness covering core essence that’s always there. All spiritual paths seek to help them cease creating that covering.
cool, daddy-o!
M2C, I want to leave an answer for this, in part to finish some thoughts that had come up on an even earlier topic that had started to get into past lives.
I do want to acknowledge that it’s probably possible to audit without falling into any of the pitfalls I have cited at various times. Unfortunately, it’s not practical here for me to get enough to detailed information to ascertain if I think you really are auditing faultlessly, though you could be.
The problem I see with auditing past lives, is that unless they’re run as “dub in”, or imaginary (like dreams), if the auditor gives them any reality then you are starting to get into false memories and reinforcement. Then, BTs are just a theory, and just one – and I would say, the weakest, most contrived – choice of several explanations, so if you give that reality, your are imposing an ideology on auditing. And for that matter, if you can audit “dub in” or imaginary material and consider that to have value, why aren’t dreams audited, if the auditing process isn’t guiding and evaluating rather than just eliciting experience – why is the experience of a third of our lifetimes ignored? (my cynical suspicion, is that Hubbard knew that getting into dreams, would reveal that past lives mostly or entirely came from the same mental phenomenon, similar to what the research I cited has proven)
And I do think that the whole structure of auditing is virtually set up to evaluate, direct, and indoctrinate – it would be hard to avoid that. I know that theoretically there’s the auditor’s code, but that’s not only inadequate, it even sets up a control environment where the auditor can thwart the PCs “own determinism” (as the Code specifies) when deemed necessary. Pretty much any command (!) other than “what’s that?” contains some element of evaluation and direction, not only because of what it focuses on but also because of what it omits.
Again, if you personally are doing auditing that avoids the problems, kudos to you. But I have trouble imagining that could be accomplished with anything other than stripped-down book one auditing, probably even unmetered.
Also, if you really believe in OT powers, then how do you know that an auditor is not influencing and directing the PC’s mind with their own thoughts, and making the needle read as they think it should? There’s something that Hubbard didn’t want you to look at!
Finally, to address an issue that keeps being brought up, I may have more experience than you or others might guess, but I’m rusty in scieno-speak, have some need to avoid being too specific about things so that I don’t identify myself, and also don’t want to get into it because indies and freezoners seem to want to use it as grounds to evaluate and invalidate. And, my broader perspective on the subject, including varied experience and knowledge of the relevant research, often gives me better understanding than might be gained through some specialized technical experience.
PeaceMaker: Great additional data. You obviously did some work. You’re right, i wasn’t aware of a lot of this. Thank you.
M2C sez:
“As for going all the way from human to god, don’t you think that just might take awhile?”
Ms. B. Haven sez:
“What do your materials state?”
I bet you all (apart from My 2 Cents and Marildi – who are the only ones offering any sense) secretly miss me on such otherwise one-sided conversations on such topics? Haha! Even Terra probably misses me! But then I was banished to the Asteroid Belt by Mike and it is true, it is very warm up here!
nope.
Double nope
Of course I miss you, Foolproof.
But, but…FP, if you were banished by Mike, how is it that you’re now posting here!?
Were you never officially banned to begin with or did you recently have that ban lifted?
Since we’re getting shorter and shorter on our supply of $cn believers, I am glad to see you returned to the fray!
“Since we’re getting shorter and shorter on our supply of $cn believers, I am glad to see you returned to the fray!”
So am I, Foolproof!
Mike’s File Clerk needs a bit of adjusting! (Just joking Mike!)
The essence of a cult is that it’s a group of people who firmly believe in a certain us-vs-them world view, to which they are emotionally dedicated, and which they defend by controlling information to one degree or another, and ostracizing people who disagree too strongly. All the other “elements of a cult” or “indicators of a cult” are just details flowing from this essence.
There is a gradient scale of cults based on how fully they employ the classic elements. And it’s a judgement call to determine when an ordinary “affinity group” goes over the line to become a cult. So maybe the anti-everything-in-Scientology orientation of this blog just makes it an affinity group. But given the emotional, financial, and family trauma so many of its members experienced in COS, I see the essence of a cult, albeit a casual and fairly benign one, getting in the way of those members seeing the truth.
THESIS — Scientology is the only way, and is saving the world. (CULT)
ANTITHESIS — Scientology is fraudulent crap. (CULT)
SYNTHESIS — Let’s extract the good from Scientology, enhance it with good we find elsewhere, and then use it to make life better for whoever’s interested. (NOT A CULT)
M2C, I’d agree with you about getting down to some more essential principles regarding cults or high control groups, but I think you have thrown out many of the important ones that are inconvenient to our case.
I found a more functionally-oriented list that I think is more useful, from sociologist Ron Enroth. It’s generally recognized that most groups that have crossed the line, don’t exhibit all of the characteristics on any list, just most of them:
Authoritarian: central, authoritarian leadership in one person or small group of individuals.
Oppositional: values, beliefs or practices at variance with the dominant culture or tradition.
Exclusivistic: only the group has ”the truth,” usually based on new insights or revelation.
Legalistic: a tightly structured framework which governs spirituality and the smallest details of daily life.
Subjective: undue emphasis on experience and emotions often resulting in anti-intellectualism.
Persecution-Conscious: the belief that their group is singled out for persecution.
Sanction-Oriented: stern sanctions issued for anything less than total obedience.
Esoteric: an emphasis on secret, hidden or inner truth.
Anti-Sacerdotal: lack of paid clergy and an emphasis on laity in leadership.
Your supposed “synthesis” is based on the premise that Scientology has some unique utility worth trying to salvage and build on, in spite of failing since 1950 to provide any real evidence that it produces anything more than fleeting euphoria and placebo effects. Remember that even Sarge Gerbode, on his own, managed to take a related subject, do proper research that validated its results and get it accepted in peer-reviewed journals.
Great response, Peacemaker.
Yep.
Peacemaker, Sarge Gerbode didn’t do “proper research” on a RELATED subject. The subject was lower-level Scientology and Dianetics. He just replaced the Scientology terms with his own made-up, psychology-sounding terms, and streamlined the training. Basically he plagiarized LRH and repackaged it to look like psychology. He did update a very small percentage of the data based on his own experience and opinion, but that was incidental.
Well, actually he rewrote “his” materials (a simplified version of “standard dianetics”) to remove all trademark infringements (like “engram”) as part of a settlement. I oversaw this and had to sign off on his materials that he had made them so they were no longer infringing on scientology’s intellectual property rights.
M2C, do you know for certain that Gerbode didn’t go back to the roots of Dianetics, such as abreaction and Rogerian therapies, that Hubbard himself plagiarized?
Regardless, the point is that Gerbode did in fact do proper research and scientific trials to validated the results and effectiveness of his therapy. Hubbard and the independents have failed to manage even that basic step after 65 years, and the only research done disproved the fundamental working theory, so there is no scientific proof that Dianetics and Scientology produce any results beyond the placebo effect. In fact, the former longtime RTC inspector general (Rathbun) said, though without stating the basis of his analysis, that:
“In fact scientology never achieved even the scientifically recognized 20 to 30 percent placebo effect in terms of long-term satisfaction.”
The question in my mind is ‘what do people want out of scientology?’. Brian mentioned the term, “jivanmukta” and I suggest any interested parties google the term. It will lead you to a serviceable understanding of what ‘enlightenment’ is and clearly it has NOTHING to do with the ability to recollect the past or the attainment of other unusual abilities. Clearly scientology has no knowledge of ‘enlightenment’ and therefore is not a means to it.
Perhaps people want scientology to be a therapy that will cure or mitigate their chronic suffering from psychological problems like depression or anxiety. I suppose it’s worth a shot to see if it can put a dent in that but scientology professedly isn’t about helping people who are in the most need of help. Supposedly it’s meant to transform people who don’t really need much help into outstandingly capable people.
Well, I don’t think the jury is out on its ability to effect that sort of transformation. Many of us have worked and socialized with enough ‘Clears’ and OT’s to see they’re not anything special and those of us who are ‘clear’ and ‘OT’ know darn well we’re just as much of a knuckle head as the rest of the knuckle heads.
roger, according to marketing surveys in the 70’s, the vast majority of scientologists wanted to do the bridge in order to gain super human abilities and immortality, THIS LIFETIME.
Your explanation of what Sarge Gerbode did is not very accurate. Peopl who were there could tell you, that not using scientology and dianetics terms was part of the agreement he had with the CoS. Have you noticed that he was not harrassed or fair-gamed by scientology? It was because he was permitted to operate as he did, creating a “new” subject using dianetics/scientology methods, procedures, and concepts. Sarge was from a wealthy family and was causing scientology a lot of trouble. He agreed to stop causing them trouble in exchange for getting carte blanche to use the materials however he wished to use them, as long as he avoided using a long list of copyrighted and trademarked terms.
I realy wish posters wouldn’t pretend to know more than they actually know, and stop stating their opinionos as facts, when they are inaccurate. It doesn’t help inform anyone.
“SYNTHESIS — Let’s extract the good from Scientology, enhance it with good we find elsewhere, and then use it to make life better for whoever’s interested.”
Seems like a reasonable approach to me, but you do realize that Elron expressly forbade such mixing of practices, right? So, whatever hybrid you ended up with wouldn’t be $cn in the true Hubbardian sense. It would M2Cism or what have you.
M2C, if this was any kind of a cult dedicated to excluding everyone who didn’t adhere strictly to the anti-$cn doctrine, then you wouldn’t be allowed to post here. Plus, there’s no membership ritual or fees to pay, so it can’t even be an official group, much less a cult.
In case you haven’t noticed, LRH has been dead for 31 years. It’s been up to others to carry on for him since then. At first that meant doing everything exactly as he’d ordered. But as we can now see in hindsight, some of his tech and policy led to bad results and needs to be changed. That’s the middle path, and the only path that will save the good in what he created, and move it towards actuallly delivering more of what we originally thought it would. That’s our proper task, not remaining stuck on judging the subject as delivered by the Church.
“…not remaining stuck on judging the subject as delivered by the Church.”
What about someone being stuck in trying to justify the cult to all and sundry? Perhaps like you, My 2 Cents? Why do you bother?
Why don’t you just go and do what you think should be done? How’re you doing with that?
I post comments justifying that part of Scientology that’s actually good, and I condemn the parts that are actually bad. Can you tell the difference?
M2C, I have noticed that Elron has been gone for that period of time, but his immutable policies, tech and belief system live on in perpetuity (or as long as $cilons continue to adhere to KSW).
“But as we can now see in hindsight, some of his tech and policy led to bad results and needs to be changed.”
I agree with you there, but who inside of the corporate cherch, or out in Indie land. could assume the mantle of authority to make those needed changes and reforms, given the fact that Elron annointed himself as sole Source and encased the cult in concrete with KSW and other similar policies that define and prohibit “squirelling”?
You’ve passionately advocated for the preservation of that which is “good” in $cn and argued that we should avoid absolutist positions, either for against, in favor of building upon what works. That seems reasonable enough to me, given your views on the subject. So, is there some place where you’ve put that belief into action? Have you joined with like-minded folks in an effort to preserve the workable aspects of the pre-Miscavige version of $cn? Have you made any effort to reconcile the $cn take on memory and recall with the vast scientific literature concerning its neural basis, developmental course and evolutionary emergence?
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating in order to avoid my being labelled and dismissed as an absolutist on the subject: I’ve made my own gains in auditing on lower bridge levels which I’d never deny or attempt to invalidate in others. But after quite a few decades of further study and research in all of the related fields, I tend to attribute those personal gains made in auditing to the underlying counseling models and techniques that Elron “borrowed” from other sources without properly attributing.
So, the gains remain, but the source that I attribute them to is not $cn. Indeed, the further that I went up the bridge, and the more those auditing procedures became uniquely hubbardian, the less I felt I made lasting gains from them.
Hope that serves to clarify my position on the subject a little.
Harpoona, thanks for the clarification.
I, too, recognize that early on LRH incorporated therapeutic concepts he learned from others. In fact, before getting into Scientology I tried several therapists — Freudian, Jungian, Rogerian, Cognitive, and Reichian — and didn’t get much from them other than it being nice to have someone to talk to about my problems. Then I tried Scientology auditing, and the results were spectacularly better. So I think LRH added something very powerful of his own.
Most complaints about the tech concern the upper levels and the organizational corruption of auditing for use as cultish control. So those two areas need to be reworked, and have been by certain independent auditors and spin-off subjects.
I’ve said it before, but I’d love to get Max Hauri, Sarge Gerbode, Frankie Freeman, Rolf Dane, and Dexter Gelfand all in the same room to brainstorm.
M2C – The original Bridge worked and enabled exterior at will with perceptics. That EP is actually, to me, a huge understatement of the state and capabilities regained.
It’s becoming a matter of curiosity only to me – no longer an upset, just a curiosity – that I have said this and posted this numerous times, and it seems to be ignored. Maybe “ignored” is too strong a word. I don’t think it’s a voluntary “ignoring”. A Class VIII described it as “they go unconscious”. In a video lecture of one of the early Grade Charts in which LRH principally discussed levels of awareness, he explained that at a given level of awareness, a being is conscious of the next higher level only (I think that’s the gist of it). On the face of it, that seemed “unbelievable” to me. If I can see different levels, why would another be able to see only those in immediate proximity? But I have tried for years to get a reality on those levels, and the only ones I feel I understand the sequences of, are from about minus 7 on up. Those make sense. The progressions there make sense, and I can see them, for the most part. So I guess I have my areas of unconsciousness, too.
What I do understand is that one must be able to see something for themselves, and only then will it be “real” to them. An example of the frustration in trying to tell someone something is an inverse example: anyone can deny anything. You can tell me the Earth orbits the Sun, and I can deny it, or demand proof. As long as I persist in denial, you cannot prove anything to me. You cannot prove there are letters on your computer screen, which you are reading now. Here’s a suppressive example of denying: “What would you do to prove letters exist on your “computer screen”? Use one of those “cameras” to make up a lie? “Cameras” do not exist! You cannot prove they do. Nothing but lies stacked upon lies. The “letters” you think or imagine you are reading do not exist in fact.”
We all depend upon agreements to a huge extent, to confirm our realities. But at a level of OT VII (original), the being is perceiving for himself, and there is no agreement on his perception, as it is his universe. LRH laid all this out, and much more, very clearly in “The Factors”. With reference to a being perceiving for himself, here’s “Factor 24. And the viewpoints are never seen. [More.]” The way I read that, is that for a being to “see” the viewpoint of another, he would have had to have lived all of his every nano-second exactly duplicating everything that other being ever thought or experienced. And even then, how could he exactly predict the next thought? No two beings have the exact set of experiences, so no two beings have the same viewpoint, and no one being can ever see life from the viewpoint of another. The viewpoints are never seen. Try as you might, you always end up with your own viewpoint.
I cannot explain OT VII, the top of the original Bridge. I cannot prove that exterior at will with perceptics, and all the other capabilities restored, exists. I cannot prove that it is achievable. I can in fact and in practice, state it to be so, and watch as no one comments.
A common level example: I can go to Hawaii and see a perfect waterfall, in a perfect season, on a perfect morning with wild orchids in bloom, and morning sun reflecting off the pool of water. I can take photos, videos, I can try to describe it, but the only way for another to believe it, is for them to see it, smell the smells, hear the sounds, feel the breezes, feel the water, the spray, the freshness. How often has someone recounted an experience to you and ended with something like, “It’s indescribable!”
So in Scn, one has objective processes. I don’t pretend to understand the theory, but it seems to me that those processes are not just to order the being to look, but to show him that he can.
Nickname. You are lying. I was around delivering the “old bridge” NO ONE EVER demonstrated the ability of “exterior at will with perceptics”
That you are consciously forwarding this lie about th “tek” of Hubbard proves your criminality.
Put up or take the charge of being a liar like a man.
OK, Nickname, I’ll take the bait.
Are you saying that you have experienced “exterior with full perceptics” as Hubbard described, the dissociative state? And that it was achieved on one of the old OT levels that are no longer on the Grade Chart? (or possibly they have been moved to above OT VIII).
You should be aware that it was not Hubbard himself who originated the processes that became “The Creation of Human Ability” and that they were abandoned for other techniques within a few years. The processes were retained and are now called the “Survival Rundown” or “Objective Processes” but the old Route 1 and Route 2 are long abandoned. Probably because they did not work.
I have talked to many Scientologists and never met one who claimed he could see inside closed rooms or find out what was in the lawyer briefs of the opposing side by “exteriorizing”. Of course you are not supposed to talk about your case so maybe they were just being shy.
But I have talked to non-Scientologists who felt they had experienced out-of-body experiences. The scientific explanation is that this is another example of false memory. False memories can seem more real than real memories. A great book on this is “The Memory Illusion” by Julia Shaw. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019CGXQA8/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
it is also possible that these experiences of “an indescribable floating feeling” or “exterior with no perceptics” that is much more common with objective processes is really the state known as the dissociative state. Wiki here, not reliable but a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_%28psychology%29 This is an extremely dangerous state of mind and should not be sought out by anyone. Nancy Many’s book “My Billion Year Contract” details a truly horrifying example of this. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002UUTGKI/ref=docs-os-doi_0
And of course you have the folks like Uri Geller who claimed to be able to “remote view”. Of course, Uri already had his abilities (or at least claimed to have them) before he did any Scientology.
So I don’t think it is very convincing claim. It is like saying that some version of Scientology that was long abandoned by Hubbard and has not been proved by any testing at all other than some subjective experiences proves that Scientology works. Which Scientology? Or are you making up your own version?
At any rate we don’t need Hubbard to study dissociative states or out-of-body experiences. He didn’t know much about them, did not leave any reliable repeatable research behind to study, and seemingly failed to achieve anything even slightly useful in the area.
The “Mission into Time” was a failure. No Scientologists are getting rich reading cards in the casinos. Go ahead and throw out the bathwater. The dead baby in there is starting to stink to high heaven.
There is good in anything if you look. Scientology is indeed a cult. Other cults think they are right and just. That does not mean scamming every penny out if a parishioner is right or good. Cutting off family members if they do not agree is a sad thing that happens in Scientology. The control and abuse of its parishioners runs rampant in the Church of Scientology. I dare the meven say church too.
So far I’ve been following this thread with interest and seeing those people who frequent this blog under attack, which is the first line of defense for someone whose roots are still firmly planted in scientology. Now, you M2C have also been attacked, but more often I feel you have had your words and feelings weighed and acknowledged. Not that any have fully supported your view, but any good you have taken away from scientology is a blessing; however if you have been here long enough you really need to examine the truth in the absolutely proven track record of the cos of deciet, greed and overall criminality that scar it’s reputation. I respect your right to belief in a certain amount of the tech, but please research further the many different sources and make a good faith decision based on facts. Faith is a wonderful thing, but eyewitness and true scientific evidence should give you a brilliant perspective into the life that can be lead without the hampering of perhaps misleading statements of “fact.” Your obviously an intelligent person, but truly that’s exactly what you are…a person, not a collection of thetans.
M2C blathered, “The essence of a cult is that it’s a group of people who firmly believe in a certain us-vs-them world view”
Um, no. That would make the holocaust survivors a cult against Nazism. However, your utter failure at simple logic shows why you still haven’t been able to pull away from the Cult of Scamology.
Mike Wynski: I ALWAYS love your unapologetic style.
Thanks T.C. I just wish I could write as well as you do.
Wynskik: “M2C blathered, The essence of a cult is that it’s a group of people who firmly believe in a certain us-vs-them world view.’
I think this is what he meant:
—————————————————–
Radical Scientology Mindset vs. Radical Anti-Scientology Mindset:
People are “saved” when they JOIN the group.
People are “saved” when they QUIT the group.
All that matters is to get people IN the group and prevent them from leaving.
All that matters is to get people OUT from the group and prevent them from joining.
It is urgent to save the planet from EVIL.
It is urgent to save the planet from SCIENTOLOGY.
The Scientology tech is the most PRECIOUS asset of Humanity.
The Scientology tech is a DANGEROUS mind-control technique.
In Scientology you experience SUPER-HUMAN spiritual awakening.
In Scientology you experience SUB-HUMAN mind-control numbing.
L. Ron Hubbard is a GENIUS and a great humanitarian.
L. Ron Hubbard is a psychopathic cult leader and a pathological LIAR.
Society conspires against the most HOLY GROUP on the planet.
The evil cult conspires against the VERY BASIS of society.
Special means should be allowed to defend the tech against SPs.
Special means should be allowed to defend society against SCIENTOLOGY.
Dissenters and critics are dangerous TRAITORS or spies.
Dissenters and critics [of the Radical Anti-Scientology Mindset] are dangerous CULT APOLOGISTS or OSA AGENTS.
————————————–
http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/mirrors.htm
Please stop it with quoting from this anonymous troll. These “dichotomies” are false equivalencies. You have done your best to paint anyone critical of scientology as a member of a cult. Enough now.
Golly, Mike, are you attempting to silence someone for disagreeing with your blog’s party line? You know, like actual cults do?
I tend to be a hot head at times so I’ve learned it’s better to listen rather than speak (or in this case write.) Your narrow views differ so staggeringly from most of the people who post here that a truly unbiased observer might very well conclude that you have a problem with accepting any view which doesn’t mirror your own. I am against scientology, it’s true. All aspects of it are abhorrent to me. lrhubbard was a no less a deviant than most serial killers, as much of a control freak as any dictator, as lecherous and as violent as a rapist. His “tech” is as fake as he was. You and marildi say you have asked for proof that mental health praticioners really help. You want scientific research to support that claim. I admit, I can’t quote a study to impress you. What I can do is tell you both that there are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who would probably testify under oath that they have been helped by a counselor. They would be of varied religions or none, all age groups, both male, female and transgender. From mildly troubled to violently disturbed. Can you make this assertion? Even if you could would it carry any truth? You’re not interested in hearing the opinions of others. You are hell bent on proving any who don’t fully agree with you black-hearted, spiteful and deaf to you more than reasonable hypothesis. I’m not a patient person, therefore let me just say Mike’s right. Take your football and go home.
Please excuse my spelling errors. That’s what I get for saving it up and popping off.
Mike, you moderated out my response to Countmeinthetan, despite the fact that I was much milder than the viciousness I was answering. That’s hardly fair.
I am trying to end these endless retorts that are a waste of my time and everyone else’s. You think that if you don’t have the last word somehow you have been bested. Believe me, 7 retorts are not better than 6 and that’s not better than 5. You make your position clear. I do the same thing to others to try and end these things and they don’t complain. It’s not like you don’t get plenty of leeway to comment. A casual observer might conclude that this is your personal blog based on the volume of comments you make.
Mike, I think the main reason for the volume of comments made My 2 Cents is that he is asked questions and/or challenged much more than any other poster. And often his replies are just a matter of answering sincere questions, or clarifying a previous comment of his.
It’s great to have a place where we can discuss all aspects of the church and the tech, and you are greatly appreciated for giving us the opportunity. I had an idea of how we would know when you were at the point where you feel it’s a waste of time to carry on. What about giving us a warning that we each get one more reply and that’s it. With something like that, we would be able to wrap it up.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mike. Most if the time I sit here in silence just watching the back and forth of the warring parties. I do take considerable exception to most of the people who comment here being colectively labeled a cult. scientologists label themselves as such; however the only label most here might gladly claim is that of “free thinker .” There are others that may be applicable, but those should be left to the individual contributors to determine.
The DMSMH file clerk was a metaphor for the auditor controlling the preclear’s attention in order to access traumatic incidents to run. After about 1952 LRH stopped talking about it. Standard Dianetics (1969) and New Era Dianetics (1978) don’t use it. Instead, they use meter reads as the preclear talks, in order to find incidents that contain enough charge to be worth running, but not so much charge as to be more than the preclear can handle. So complaints about the DMSMH file clerk not functioning as advertised are valid, but only as criticism of DMSMH, not of later versions of Dianetics.
The same is true of LRH’s claims for clears in DMSMH. What makes a person not clear is peeled off one layer at a time, and it’s more complex than LRH was aware of in 1950 when he wrote DMSMH. One could debate at which peeled-off layer a person should be called “clear,” but that’s just semantics. “Total” clear probably isn’t reachable at any point on the Church’s grade chart. It may not be on the Ron’s Org grade chart that goes even higher. But the gains of peeling off the layers are well worth it, providing they are done properly and at a reasonable price, which unfortunately doesn’t happen in the Church.
Meanwhile, I don’t really care how long it takes me to remember the engineering details of warp drive.
We’ve all been disappointed with the way the Church got in the way of our reaching our goals, while at the same time promoting how ridiculously quick and easy it would be to reach them. Having studied and practiced various other mental and spiritual disciplines, I still think there’s more potential in a cleaned-up and further developed version of Scientology than anything else.
My objection to Terra’s and Mike’s articles is that they seem intent on getting the baby thrown out with the bath water, and never talk about helping the baby grow up after the bath.
as you said
quote “My objection to Terra’s and Mike’s articles is that they seem intent on getting the baby thrown out with the bath water, and never talk about helping the baby grow up after the bath.”
well then do it man. You can’t call it dianetics or scientology but possibly based on the works of dianetics and scientology and L Ron Hubbard and whatever research you have done to add..
I wish you luck in this endeavor.
Me too. Seriously.
Yep.
” One could debate at which peeled-off layer a person should be called “clear,” but that’s just semantics.”
Well, no, it’s not JUST semantics because Elron and the large money-grubbing organization he created made all manner of claims and collected huge piles of hoarded dragon treasure based on some very specific promises of Clear and OaTy powers that were never delivered. Words matter, especially when you’re running a pay-for-service business, posing as a religion.
I’m sorry you were disappointed. But is reaching full clear and full OT the only case gain that would have any value to you?
Please see my comments above which speak to your question.
“I’m sorry you were disappointed.” [in not reaching the states Hubbard promised and charged boat loads of money for as the MAIN reason for doing his “bridge”] “But is reaching full clear and full OT the only case gain that would have any value to you?”
Well, if one were to buy a machine for $500,000, the main job it was advertised to do being to turn lead into gold and it did NOT do that; HOWEVER, it DID grind up the lead pieces you fed it into small pieces you could store in a jar and someone bitterly complained about the lack of gold produced. You would probably insanely ask, “But is turning lead into gold the only function of that machine that had any value to you?”
My problem with DMSMH and with your post is the same: he wrote DMSMH as if it was all true and this is the way it is. He wrote it as if he had done a bazillion case studies and he found that this was all true and this is clearing, this is a clear, this is how it is done, these are the attributes, these are the abilities. He wrote it saying that he’s researched all of this and here you go, just do it and you have it.
Since none of that was true he was either making it up or just hoping it was this way.
Tech Degrades, KSW and Verbal Tech penalties taught us that nobody gets to explain the tech. It’s true as written and you just need to understand it and apply it. Nobody gets to make excuses.
He made it up. There are no clears as per Dianetics. If someone claims different, come to my house for tea. I’d love to have y’all f*ckin prove it.
He didn’t just make it all up, but it’s true that the tech in DMSMH wasn’t as effective as he claimed. Later tech was more effective. Use later tech.
I’m a never-in as well, so hopefully this doesn’t come across as a stupid question.
My understanding of the “tech” is that it measures resistance, which COS claims corresponds to the “mental mass and energy” of the subject’s mind. These are claimed to change when the subject thinks of particular mental images.
However, information in the human brain is carried by the motion of electrons, but the electrons already existed. Therefore, no one specific thought is going to have more or less “mass” than another.
So what use is the tech? The auditing process looks like it is simply a cross between therapy and a rudimentary polygraph, as the only thing being measured is galvanic skin response. That may help people feel better in some cases, but the tech itself seems pretty useless.
I’m actually interested in what someone more familiar with the actual e-meters has to say.
Buy a used e-meter and books about it online and learn on your own first.
Moop, you can also read or download the book “Understanding the E-Meter” at the link below. Scroll down the list a bit and click on the title.
http://www.matrixfiles.com/Scientology%20Materials/Books/E-Meter%20books/
Marildi, as one of the contributors to the book “Understanding the E-Meter” I object to your use of it to mislead a sincere questioner.
“Understanding the E-Meter” was compiled mostly from works by L Ron Hubbard by Norman Starkey in the early 80s, at Hubbard’s request. I don’t know if Hubbard ever saw it or approved it but it seems likely that he did.
Norman asked me to explain the inner workings of the meter and I had some interviews with him that resulted in the illustrations that show the internal operation of the meter.
The book gives the Hubbard mythology about “sheets of energy” around a person that have never been measured or demonstrated and which could not affect the operation of the e-meter even if they existed. The e-meter is a simple galvanic skin resistance meter and Moop would learn a lot more by reading recent research on skin galvanometers. The meter only measures physiological reactions and cannot “measure thought”.
“The book gives the Hubbard mythology about ‘sheets of energy’ around a person that have never been measured or demonstrated and which could not affect the operation of the e-meter even if they existed.”
Bruce, according to the book, the sheets of energyaround a person are “made out of electricity and when you pass a current of electricity near the thing, it will monitor the current of electricity.”
If you do not agree that the above is scientifically valid, please tell me how you would explain, for example, the sometimes rapid change in tone arm position? Certainly the pc cannot sweat and then “unsweat” that fast, back and forth. And what about such things as the theta bop or rock slam? I don’t see how those could even be attributed to some sort of meter malfunctioning, since they can occur again – instantly – when the exact same item is called out to the pc or when the pc himself thinks (looks) about it.
I have done some reading on the e-meter, including the above link, and still don’t understand how it is measuring anything other than galvanic skin response.
To say it is measuring “sheet of energy” is, to me, like saying crystals can balance your chakras. Many people believe it, but I just don’t see any science to back it up.
Moop, at that same link another book is listed titled “E-Meter Essentials.” That book will give you more info, including data about the different kinds of reads (e-meter needle activity) that can occur – which I don’t think can be explained by galvanic skin response.
Bruce, correct on calling B.S. on the “sheets of electricity” around the body.
To falsify all one would need to do is bring a lead from a volt meter near the body to watch ZERO current flow through the device. Hell, if it WERE true you would be discharging every time your body was grounded. You could create a simple rig to charge your iPhone’s and the like.
This is why Hubbard like his followers to be uneducated beyond a slight ability to read.
Well then, Wynski, since Bruce Almighty 🙂 was apparently stumped by my questions, maybe you can answer them. To repeat: Why is it that there is sometimes a rapid change in tone arm position, since the pc cannot sweat and then ‘unsweat’ that fast back and forth?
And what about such needle activity as the theta bop or rock slam? As I said before, I don’t see how they could even be attributed to some sort of meter malfunctioning, since they can occur again – instantly – when the exact same item is called out to the pc or when the pc himself thinks about it (looks).
marildi, the fact that the e-meter is calibrated with can squeezes at the beginning of a session tells you that there are more physical or physiological (but not necessarily mental, and particularly not spiritual) factors at work than just sweating and galvanic skin response. Squeezing and releasing the cans are also part of the technique for “beating” the e-meter and fooling its operator, too.
The experiments people have done with metering while putting fingers or hands in salt water rather than relying on hand contact with the cans, reduce but don’t eliminate reads. I think that points to conductivity and reads also varying as the sweat glands open and close in the presence of moisture, altering a path for electricity to pass directly to high-conductivity subdermal areas, which would in fact be an instantaneous effect. Plus the Tarchanoff phenomenon (or response) causes instantaneous changes in skin conductivity due to neuron activity.
Better GSR and modern biofeedback equipment, uses electrodes rather than cans to avoid just some of that sort of variability. The fact that even the best modern polygraph, with multiple electrodes including a chest strap, isn’t reliable enough to be used as evidence in court for even telling truth from falsehood, means that the shoddier setup of the e-meter is even less reliable, even if it did sometimes read other phenomenon.
PM: “The fact that even the best modern polygraph, with multiple electrodes including a chest strap, isn’t reliable enough to be used as evidence in court for even telling truth from falsehood, means that the shoddier setup of the e-meter is even less reliable, even if it did sometimes read other phenomenon.”
It isn’t just a matter of comparing the two instruments – it also has to do with knowing how to operate them. Regardless of the operator’s training, there are ways to “beat” a polygraph. But with an e-meter, if a person is well trained on using one, he knows how to distinguish body motion from mental reads – and even with a mental reads, he can follow up on one and determine whether or not the read was false.
I get the idea that you’ve had no meter training. Recently, when you were asked about your training, you said “I’ve avoided being too specific about my training because I didn’t think it relevant, but I suppose that at this point I should tell you that I was audited to clear.” https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-and-suppressive-persons-types-a-b/#comment-165776
Based on that comment, it appears that you not only have had no training but don’t even know enough about it to know that a person can be Clear with no training at all.
marildi that one is easy. The amount of change in electron flow to move the TA is SUPER tiny. A small flux in skin temp, can temp, capillary action, could cause that reaction. A dozen other things also.
I’ve said this before and it is true. IF you WANT to understand a scientific instrument designed to measure electrical phenomenon (which is ALL an e-meter is.) It is NOT something else, go and study electrical engineering. Studying anything written by Hubbard will NOT gain you an understand of what is going on with a Wheatstone bridge.
“A small flux in skin temp, can temp, capillary action, could cause that reaction. A dozen other things also.”
Mike, all these possibilities – whether body reads or other false reads – are taken into account in metering. The simplicity is that if a read occurs at the precise end of the auditor calling out an item or when the pc says or thinks the item, we know there is charge on it and that the charge can be discharged with auditing.
Whether or not we know exactly what is happening inside the meter, it’s still the case that mental charge can be detected by it. Of course, it’s possible that the mental charge is not on the item itself – which would be a false read – but that can always be sorted out by the trained auditor.
marildi, NONE of what I mentioned is “taken into account” by the emeter. I worked on emeters at GOLD. I have studied electronics for YEARS in college. There is NOTHING inside that Wheatstone bridge that can screen out that stuff.
YOU point out the electronic components that do so. Who told you those blatant lies?
marildi, here is a simple demo of a Wheatstone bridge. https://youtu.be/-G-dySnSSG4
As can be seen the ONLY data coming INTO the emeter from the can is quantity of electrons. There is NO other data. There is NO way for an emeter to know whether it is hooked up to a person, a breadboard, a variable resistor, a mouse, a house or a plate of green eggs and ham. It CANNOT screen based on what CAUSED the electrons or, lack thereof. That data is NOT available.
OK, please leave this now. The world has turned a few times already…
Marildi, I thought this thread was pretty much dead but if you are going to call me out I’ll respond.
I was Director of R & D for meters for thee years. I have meter related patents including the Drills Simulator. I contributed to the design of the MK VII, Quantum and MK VIII. I have pretty good familiarity with all the circuits of meters from the Mathison versions all the way through to the VIII. I have repaired thousands of meters.
I do know what is happening inside the meter.
No mystical sheets of energy, mental masses that shift, weird carrier waves, electrical charges from billions of years ago that somehow get recreated and then discharge mentally. No magic involved.
The meter operates at low frequencies The needle acts as a one Hertz filter. All real meter phenomena that are related to physiological phenomena in the body and not to bad connections or meter faults are considerably less than one Hertz in frequency. So the instant reads, theta bops and rock slams are all slow enough to be physiological phenomena. I have verified this by looking at actual recordings of these phenomena, the same ones that were used to create the films “E-Meter Reads Film” and “E-Meter Reads Drill Film”. The reads that were approved by Hubbard for use in the films.
It is not necessary to invoke magic as an explanation when simple real phenomena that can be measured will suffice to explain the observations. Those who invoke magic as an explanation have an agenda. They want to believe in magic. Doesn’t make it real. As Alice said, you can’t make yourself a bit realer by crying.
In fact this does not completely invalidate the use of the meter, because the reactions you see do tell you something about the mental state of the preclear. But it does completely invalidate the claim that the meter proves anything about the spiritual nature of man.
And it does invalidate the idea that you can verify the validity of someone’s false memories using the meter. The meter will tell you if the person believes the false memories are true. It cannot tell you if they really are true. False memories can be just as real to the person as real memories and will react exactly the same on the meter.
So if someone is 100% invested in finding evidence that he blew up planets and enslaved entire races billions of years ago it will react just the same on the meter as the quarter he stole from his mom last weekend. One is real, one is false, no way to tell with a meter.
Marildi, I love you and would never attack you just because you believe differently than I do. Don’t take what I am saying here as an attack. Hubbard made stuff up. It was very intriguing and has the special perk of making the listener think they are something special and unique in the universe, just like he thought he was. Someone who can make a difference just by being there. A narcissist.
But the real world is a messy, disorganized, complex place. There are no real 100% workable easy reset buttons to push that will make it all better. There is only the hard work of helping those you can, sympathizing with those you cannot, and trying to make the part you live in better as best you can.
OK, the final comment on this subject.
Also, a total mic drop.
Thanks Bruce, this is an excellent comment that puts a lot of things in perspective in an intelligent, compassionate way. As is your wont.
Mike, please allow me one last comment too, as would be standard and fair in any debate.
Bruce: “So the instant reads, theta bops and rock slams are all slow enough to be physiological phenomena.”
My understanding is the same as yours with regard to needle reactions being physiological phenomena. However, the way mental phenomena affect the needle is as follows: Thoughts that are electrically charged are (by definition) restimulative, and because of that they affect the body – which in turn affects the needle. Nothing about the workings of the e-meter can explain the fact that needle reactions occur instantly when a restimulative (to the pc) thought is expressed by the auditor or when the pc expresses or thinks it – nor can the meter account for how the same exact read is repeated instantly by the same thought (until it has been discharged).
You are a gentleman, Bruce. Thanks for the kind way you replied. Love you back.
Btuce, about your post stating that “One is real, one is false, no way to tell with a meter.” I would like to add that there is no way to tell without a meter, either. It is just a judgement, an opinion, the one is real and the other isn’t. The question is, how do you know?
iamvalkov emeter reads are caused by ethereal, flying spaghetti monsters swooping down over auditing sessions.
“It is just a judgement, an opinion, the one is real and the other isn’t. The question is, how do you know?” 😉
Wynski, It sounds like you didn’t read his post, that I was rsponding to, and completely missed my point.
Lol! Secretfornow, and how he made it up. We were stooges and rightly so because we were so easily bought and didn’t ask him for any evidence of his research! It was bs, the whole lot! The admin tek doesn’t work, the auditing doesn’t work. The communication course is perhaps the only thing of any value and he plagerised it! Lol!
What did we learn from this experience? I’ve learnt a tonne. That would be an interesting discussion.
Dawn,
You just caused me to remember a tremendous experience I had as a college junior in a Physical Chemistry course.
Our professor had assigned a new text book for the course. Turned out Dr.Hutchenson had just completed his thesis and went nutso in writing about his new-found fame. The text was so littered with kacca that our professor made it year long project for us to thoroughly discredit the book.
I learned, as did the 14 others, more Physical Chemistry than otherwise possible through the thrill of researching and refuting the entirety of the text. We all passed with B’s and A’s; and our professor sent a 58 page, single spaced, critique to the publisher and Dr. Hutchenson.
I treated my involvement in Scientology with the same distrust, and enjoyed many SUBJECTIVE gains. I never got along with the true worshipers.
What a great exercise and lesson in critical thinking. I envy you the experience. I love science by the way, chemistry is my thing, and received an A for science in matric. Unfortunately, I didn’t take it further. However, I read about it quite a bit and watch any series there is on TV.
Good for you for treating L Con’s claims with distrust. You’re one of a kind.
So often we heard the aspersion, “he was a science fiction writer”. It was an always-tacked-onto-his-name adjective designed as a slight and jeering barb.
My (learned) response was, “well, SOOOO?” It had nothing to do with Scn. It was a compliment! “YES! He wrote many well received stories, he was famous as an SF writer, he was SUCCESSFUL! He was a Pioneer in the field! Well respected! Yes!! He was a prolific writer of fabulous stories…” It FUNDED his oh so spectacular research into the mind….
And…in my mind…. it NEVER gave me pause. It NEVER seemed to be anything but a … feeble grasping attempt to slander The Best Friend To Mankind Blah Blah Blah.
and…NOWWWWWWWW
HOLY COW. It is 100 percent pertinent, germane, relevant!
It practically explains everything to me now. (face palm, thwack! thwack!)
THIS is what the asshole had. He had the ability to spew fantasy BS stories like a geyser. It poured from him. He could, apparently, type quickly and had a C- imagination on full throttle.
This
is how he did it.
He just kept going. He gave the bullshit river a slight twist and turned it into TRUTH! RESEARCH! THE BRIDGE! THE SOLUTION TO ALL OF MAN’S TRAVAILS!
……..
The fact that he was a science fiction writer explains everything.
..
Christ, but I was gullible.
Hubbard was also really just a hack writer, whose work was based on quantity over quality, as you point to. The only three fiction works of his that have a good reputation were all written in 1940, and after that his craft seems to have deteriorated rather than improved. His final work, Battlefield Earth, which he was able to write at his leisure, ended up being one of his worst rather than his magnum opus.
This is another aspect where Hubbard’s his claims for his work, such as to improve ability, seem disproven by his own life. Also, if you’re interested in the details, Hubbard apparently used some production techniques like automatic writing, which is somewhat similar to channeling, in not just his fiction writing but at least some of his Dianetics and Scientology work as well.
Also, for anyone interested in seeing another example of an extraordinarily detailed space-opera spiritual cosmology from the same era, likely also the product of automatic writing or channeling, check out the over two thousand page Urantia Book:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Urantia_Book
You were/are not alone, Secretfornow. You and the rest of us. Your comment could have been mine.
DMSMH, imo should have been withdrawn sometime in the late 50s or by the beginning of the KSW era. Or at least at an absolute bare minimum be reviewed and rewritten to extract the obvious false claims proven even by even his own later “developments.” The fact no-one could run it like Hubbard should have shouted at him loudly to do something! But no, he continued to promote it = nuts. I remember even Hubbard mentioning in many lectures how inaccurate it was, plus I’ve certainly never met anyone who could make sense enough of it per that set of bird tracks on the page that it is and go off happily & develop their own Bridge with it (for God’s sake).
It did however at least head off into certain directions which I considered interesting. A simple Dianetics session, using later procedures saved my mental butt from some heavy duty stuff plaguing me, so I will not condemn all of Hubbard’s stuff simply because it’s trendy or fits into the current scene of Scientology bashing which btw is quite justified and is proving more & more popular in the media. I do firmly believe the Scientology Organisation should be “fair gamed” itself, completely out of existence and the criminals in it jailed.
File clerk stuff was a means to an end, it was like a “stab in the dark” and although not workable it did seem to be an attempt to make sense of whatever bits and pieces of the human mind were floating around waiting to be explained or ventured into. The confidence in which Hubbard presented it left a lot to be desired though – people had losses with it and introverted and doubted themselves, and that’s not good! It set them up to be ‘sheeple’ because they really wanted what Dianetics claimed to offer.
I would however, like to see Terra try to tackle black and white processing and the stuff in Scn 8-80 if you think the file clerk is fraudulent or tough to wrap your thinking gear around. Some of his earlier PABs were real twisters too.
What a pity Hubbard let it fall into a cloak and dagger scenario, declare war on the establishment and set up a policy system that ruins people’s lives. There’s some fun things one can do with auditing but there is nothing fun about organised Scientology – it’s an evil menace! In fact anything that deals in ultimatums is doomed and turns really nasty in the hands of nutters.
The other most glaring error people make with Scientology (and other whack job philosophies) is allowing it to punish you. How wacky is that? A religion punishing you!
Auditing was ripped of anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWIWoAVPzMY
Cat Daddy, could you please summarize your point in providing the link, such as what is said in it about the source or sources of auditing, rather than just providing a link to a nearly two hour video? Thanks
p.s. I ran that video in the background while working on other things, and while I wasn’t paying full attention in order to avoid the waste of time, I did not pick up any discussion of auditing’s origins, though it was interesting to hear David Mayo run through a seminar based on auditing without an e-meter.
Mike, these comments that have links to video or long documents, with no explanation, are often pointless and off-topic. I think they are also a rather lazy and rude imposition, where the commenter can’t take a minute or two to write out a summary of the point to be made, but expects all the readers to invest time in wading through the whole thing. And they are also completely unavailable to some readers who don’t have the device or bandwidth to view them. I suggest you consider moderating them out.
I trash plenty of them. Some slip through.
Mike, thanks, I appreciate all you do, and not a day goes by that I don’t marvel at all the work that must be required behind the scenes.
I’ve never quite understood that as a make wrong or illegitimacy claim? “Auditing was ripped off anyway”, what do you mean by that?
Like… is this an example of your think… – the first example of “windows” was with early Xerox machines. Does that equate to Bill Gates being a thief and all Microsoft is a con?
The AK47 – Kalashnikov rifle was copied many times and many variances introduced, yet they all do the job of killing. Do only the dead people shot by the original Kalashnikov rifle get a decent burial?
If two people sit down in BC days and get off a grief charge by consoling each other and feel better afterwards what does that mean for later people who, heaven forbid, get something off their chest?
If a spanner fits the nut I’m taking off, I really don’t care who owns the rights to inventing the spanner, a Chinese knock will do me just fine. Sheesh…
M2c, you may want to look up the definition of the word “cult”
Now, if only Hubbard had directed these file clerks to manage his Central Files system, then maybe they could remember I haven’t lived in California for over twenty years.
Lol! This is funny. Why can’t some OTs just do it? They profess to change the weather and catch cars going off cliffs, etc.
F’ing Post O’ the WEEK Infinitely More Trouble.
Once again Terra and fans have demonstrated that they never understood Dianetics and Scientology in the first place. That includes Mike Rinder. If he actually understood the subject he was a leader in for so many years there’s no way he’d publish this superficial, intellectually lazy, adolescent joker-and-degrader crap.
There ARE aspects of LRH’s work that need correction and further development. The Church of Scientology DID become an abusive cult worthy of most of the criticism it has received. But the community of critics on this and other blogs has ALSO become a cult, just one clinging to an opposing viewpoint as its new solution.
Both cults avoid the truth. Both are destructive.
Well, thanks so much for your thoughtful comment.
Obviously you believe you know scientology better than anyone (at least anyone here) so perhaps you can explain the simple concept of being free of amnesia on the whole track and yet not being able to recall any details about your immediately previous life, let alone any of the space opera tech of the Fifth Invaders or Marcabians who obviously mastered traveling at beyond the speed of light in order to get to earth. Not a single person ever has remembered any of this?
BTW — I would say the difference between the “community of critics” who have “ALSO become a cult” and the other side of this equation is that the critic “cult” don’t act to harm anyone. They don’t take anyone’s money. They don’t tear apart families. They don’t hire PI’s and thugs. They don’t believe that they have the ONLY answers to mankind’s ills. That is quite a distinction, one that you apparently are unwilling to make. You don’t like what someone writes and thus categorize them as a “cult”. That in my view is nutty fundamentalism. You assert that you know the answers and who is right and wrong. Same thing every fundamentalist of every stripe resorts to.
As usual, you falsely identify (a) anyone who disagrees with your “it’s all bad” viewpoint on Scientology, with (b) kool-aid-drinking, still-in, we-have-the-only-way, COS cult members. That enables you to continue to have an opposing terminal in a mutual make-wrong, good-vs-evil battle to the death. No shades of grey. No higher truth above the opposing terminals.
You apparently can’t think about the parts of Scientology philosophy and technology that were and are good and useful. You’re distracted by your personal bypassed charge, and have abandoned the purpose for which you joined Scientology in the first place. With apologies to readers who don’t understand the following Scientology terms, you’re in a collosal Esto Series 16 Sit 3 Q&A — activity without production. That’s understandable given what you’ve been through. I do empathize But it is what it is.
And your cult opposing the COS cult IS harming people, because it goes way beyond correcting COS abuses, and tries to destroy people’s reality on there being anything of value in Scientology at all, so that no one will be able to fix it and carry on with it in a way that helps people.
As for the specific issue of whole track recall — yes, it was over-hyped and under-delivered by LRH and COS. But even if the universe is only 14 billion years old as scientists claim, that’s an awful lot of time track and incidents to clear away in the few short years of a human lifetime. The wrong thing to do when miracles don’t happen quickly is throw out the the technology. The right thing to do is more research to make the tech better, while also doing a lot more of it for a very long time. So what if it takes 100 lifetimes to make real OTs? That’s the blink of an eye compared to 14 billion years, let alone how long we’ve really existed.
Just curious. Are you 100%, absolutely certain beyond any shadow of a doubt whatsoever, that we’ve all had multiple lifetimes?
Yes.
Ok, thanks for answering.
M2C, the fact that you absolutely believe in something for which there is no real evidence – but which, as Terra points out, should be testable and provable if valid – says a lot.
Any group or school (in the esoteric sense) that has worked with past lives has run in problems of contradictory and falsifiable cases, that actually serve to disprove the phenomenon; some of the most long-standing practitioners have abandoned the literal theory of past lives because of that, and there are indications that Hubbard did towards the end as well. I’ll cover that more in a separate comment.
For the time being, it should suffice to note that the anecdotes cited as supposed evidence, never actually produce specific verifiable information (again, Terra’s point), and are probably all as flawed as the Bridey Murphy case:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridey_Murphy
The point of auditing past lives is not to prove that they’re real, but to produce case gain for preclears. In my experience as both a preclear and an auditor, when past life incidents come up in an auditing session, if they’re treated the same as this-lifetime incidents, case gain results, and when they’re invalidated cae gain does not occur.
In his book, A Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan says there is not a shred of evidence that there is life in the hereafter, (or aliens having visited the planet… and so on). He gives a lot of evidence himself to support what he says.
It’s a book I recommend, a very good read. It was recommended by Chris Shelton and I took him up on it. It cleared up a LOT of things for me and contributed immensely to my decompression, so to speak.
I’ve since read other books, one written by a neurologist which gave me even more insight as to how we’re “wired” and the good work some psychiatrists contribute in this work.
To boot, none of these authors claims to know all regarding their subjects. Contrary to the arrogance of L Con, these learned people are humble and don’t claim supreme knowledge of all.
Dawn, let us be clear, the ponderings of Carl Sagan on the so-called, “hereafter” are as good as anybody else’s.
My 2 cents — I am a never-in but am fascinated that you said you believe 100% that we have all had multiple lifetimes. I am being totally honest in saying that I have a poor memory and can’t remember much of anything from my school years as is evidenced by what my classmates told me at our last 45th year reunion. I just don’t remember things very well at all. So, if I were to recall past lives, much less this life, how would Scientology tech work for me? Surely, others also can’t recall anything about past lives. Would Scn tell me I am a “fail” and tell me there was nothing they could do for me or would they keep encouraging me to try to recall things…on my dime, of course. In case My 2 Cents doesn’t weigh in on this, can other ex-Scns help me on this one? In advance, thanks!
Get the book Self Analysis from Amazon. It’s a do-it-yourself remedy for poor memory. I can’t tell you how much it will help you, but give it a try.
There are other methods for developing memory that do not lead you to a delusional cult potential.
Ron’s memory chronicles a history of make believe as fact and science.
I’d advise finding real experts in the field of memory to develop it.
Luke, the Koop-aid is strong in this one…
For every illusion there is a practical explanation.
“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.” – Montaigne.
Montaigne admonishes to be aware of such absolute certainty.
“The wrong thing to do when miracles don’t happen quickly is throw out the the technology.”
M2C, we’re nearly seven decades in and still no clears or OT suppa powers are anywhere in evidence, let alone being consistently achieved. So exactly how much longer is it going to take for you to come to the same conclusion that everyone else with sense already has!!
No one is trying to invalidate your subjective sense of having made valuable gains from your $cn experiences. That would be wrong; but it’s just as wrong to fail to acknowledge that Elron was a pathological liar and con man, and that $cn DOES NOT provide any of the advanced level gains that it’s bilked tens of millions of dollars out of its duped marks for.
You go on the personal attack whenever confronted with the irrefutable facts of $cn’s failure to deliver on its much hyped claims. But if I sold you a new car that didn’t run, would you just sit there railing at everyone else who also bought one that didn’t work either, or would you blame the folks who sold it to you and join others in demanding your money back?
Yes, LRH and COS over-hyped Scientology’s results, and no one has attained godlike status yet. That’s too bad. But what is important is making progress towards it, starting from where we are, and many people have experienced that. As for going all the way from human to god, don’t you think that just might take awhile?
Dear M2C,
Using Marcia Rudin’s Cult Characteristics please reevaluate the COS and Rinder’s bloggers to tell me who is who:
1. Members swear total allegiance to an all-powerful leader who they believe to be the Messiah.
2. Rational thought is discouraged or forbidden.
3. The cult’s recruitment techniques are often deceptive.
4. The cult weakens the follower psychologically by making him or her depend upon the group to solve his or her problems.
5. The cults manipulate guilt to their advantage.
6. The cult leader makes all the career and life decision of the members.
7. Cults exist only for their own material survival and make false promises to work to improve society.
8. Cult members often work fulltime for the group for little or no pay.
9. Cult members are isolated from the outside world and any reality testing it could provide.
10. Cults are anti-woman, anti-child, and anti-family.
11. Cults are apocalyptic and believe themselves to be the remnant who will survive the soon-approaching end of the world.
12. Many cults follow an “ends justify the means” philosophy.
13. Cults, particularly in regard to their finances, are shrouded in secrecy.
14. There is frequently an aura of or potential for violence around cults.
+1! Outstanding post! Very, very well done, Jim! That’s as accurate as it gets….
It also explains one of my neighbor’s too… real asshole he is! I’m going to put milk in his ride on mower battery next spring, let him curdle on that!
I agree with you surfer Dude. Jim. Certainly Hit the nail in the head.
There is more than one type of cult. Here are some excerpts from an article titled “The Anti-Cult Movement”
“The Anti-Cult movement is the name given by sociologists and scholars to designate the loose group of organizations and individuals who are opposing so-called ‘cults’ on a strong ‘Us vs Them’ duality.
[…]
“The Anti-Cult Mindset:
Anticultism can turn out to be as narrow minded and dangerous as cultist. Worst of all, it often exacerbates the cultic mindset of those they oppose, and can worsen situations that are already bad at the outset. The irony of it is that they are the ones supposed to know better, but are also the same who, more often than not, exemplify cultic behavior better than cultists themselves.”
http://bernie.cncfamily.com/acm.htm
YOu are not seriously going to cite this front group page as an “authoritative source”? Pleeeease.
Next you will be citing STAAD and Religious Freedom Watch (who have similar articles decrying those who oppose Heaven’s Gate as “Anti-cultist cult” etc etc.)
This is a FRONT GROUP — probably paid by scientology. If not, then the Moonies or Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Why do you say it’s a front group, Mike? The site talks about the pros and cons of the church as much as its cultic critics. Take a look at the page on “Critical aspects of Scientology” and I think you’ll agree that the CoS would not want his views to be forwarded.
http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/posneg_critical.htm
Here’s an excerpt from another one of his posts:
————————————–
“I am an ex-Scientology member AND an ex-Scientology critic who tries to bring some moderation and understanding on both sides…
“I have no doubt that Scientologists feel they have a ‘technology’ of the mind and spirit that can really help people and society. To a certain extent, they do. The problem with Scientology is the extreme position its founder took on various issues. Their good intentions, thus, can also turn into hell in certain circumstances.
“These extremes is what anti-cult groups try to address. Unfortunately, they often fall themselves in the same traps cults do and, ironically, sometimes illustrate cultic zeal better than what they are trying to address. Here too, they end up doing more wrong than right – all wrapped in genuine good intentions as well.
“Scientology has its limits. These are what I try to point out in my critical section. (http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/scientology.htm )
“However, it also is not the monster critics try to paint. Such a depiction leads to discrimination, ostracism, and sometimes to outright drama and tragedies. This is the reason why I try to debunk the most common anti-Scientology myths. We need to take a critical stand towards Scientology, but we also have to avoid falling in the opposite trap of oppressing a religious minority. This is what I refer to as the Third Way.
“Ultimately, it all boils down to our common search for true meaning and values. Obviously, good intentions are not enough. There is something else that ought to go with it. Understanding the issue at hand may help us find what this missing ingredient is.”
http://bernie.cncfamily.com/ars.htm
———————————–
On another page he posts the views of an independent Scientologist who, obviously is pro Scientology but not pro CoS. He introduces it with this:
“The question ‘What is Scientology’ involves examining a series of related questions. We do not refer so much to the Church of Scientology (CoS) here, the organization, but mostly to Scientology beliefs and practices. The answer below is that of an ex-Scientology member, independent from the critical movement, from the Freezone, and of course from the CoS.”
http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/what_is_scientology.htm
If you cannot see through this, nothing I will tell you will make it clear to you. Have you ever read any of the “expert opinions” scientology touts (and pays for?). They ALL have these tinges of “it’s not all perfect, but that doesn’t make it bad.” That is the art of propaganda.
Yes, I have read and watched videos of some of those “experts.” But I’ve never seen anything from them like what I quoted and posted links for.
The following are excerpts from one of the links I gave:
“As for copyright, Scientologists are paranoid about the fact that their precious “exact tech” can be altered. They believe alteration of it can be very dangerous since they believe their ‘exact tech’ is so powerful. They therefore copyright everything and will ruthlessly attack anybody who infringe them. It is like a religious sacrament.”
“The one thing I agree with critics is that Scientology chose the Church status for tax purpose only.”
“In spite of the CoS claiming 10 millions adherents world-wide (probably because it counts anybody who bought a book or took a service), the real figure are considerably lower.”
“Sometimes schools, companies, prisons, or other entities adopt Scientology techniques, often from front groups mandated by the CoS. However, they often get rejected later on because of the bad reputation of Scientology and the pressure of critics.”
“…the CoS also has Human Rights branches that mostly focuses on L. Ron Hubbard notorious hate of everything psychiatry. The Cos also promotes its ‘Way to Happiness’ booklet, which is, in my opinion a set of simplistic conservative and paternalist precepts in contradiction with the Scientology concept that people should find their own moral code for themselves.”
http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/what_is_scientology.htm
Again, I don’t believe these are things a front group would state or the church would repeat.
I didn’t say this was a scientology front group. These groups don’t mind dumping on one another in their efforts to find explanations for their critics. Check out scientology’s stuff about apostates. In order to paint apostates as the anti-religious hate monger who all lie for a living they don’t mind dumping on Catholics and Jews and anyone else. When you stop being so literal and start looking at things without feeling the urge to have to defend them and damn the facts, things will be a lot easier for you.
Mike: “I didn’t say this was a scientology front group.”
In your first reply to me above, regarding this website you wrote:
“You are not seriously going to cite this front group page as an ‘authoritative source?”
What did you mean, then?
Cult apologists. There are plenty of them. The Moonies pay them. The JWs pay them. All sorts of cults have tried to deal with negative coverage of their abuses by engaging “experts” to try to discredit those that criticize them.
You added that it was “probably paid by scientology. If not, then the Moonies or Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
But the group it talks about is Scientology – almost exclusively – which is why I don’t think it’s a front group for anybody.
Last line should be “…or the church would want to be said.”
Jim, that is a detailed and perfect description of the COS. All points.
See my comment about this further up the thread.
I would like to add another feature to your list, Jim. The use of unique buzz words that describe cult negative/positive behaviors, members characteristics, tasks, civilians outside the group, etc. This language separates cult members from society at large and can give them a feeling a being superior as these terms are understood and utilized only by those within the group. In Scientology it is words such as preclear, OT, the bridge, suppressive person amongst many others. Different cults have different vocabularies because they all want to think they just invented the wheel.
Thanks CG,
The list is from Marcia Rudin, i am not so clever.
As you wrote, ‘cults have different vocabularies because they all want to think they just invented the wheel.’ Gotta sympathize a bit for Hubbard though: Had he used OTO terms or Vedic principles and practices then his followers just might have left him for those other practices.
For me, the cook book, bite-sized gradient to becoming a class 4 auditor worked to get my head straight so that other practices made more sense. Turns out, we are all climbing that mountain, just by different paths.
” The wrong thing to do when miracles don’t happen quickly is throw out the the technology. The right thing to do is more research to make the tech better, while also doing a lot more of it for a very long time.”
Well M2C, I suggest you and Dave get busy on Your research before there is no one left to test it on; especially since you seem to have the ability to differentiate right from wrong in addition to having lots of time on your hands. The rest of us are too busy setting up a new cult and we are calling it OSA (Organization of Suppressive Assholes)
Yo Dave,
It sounds like M2C likes the research You do. I suggest you get him on Your TTC and run some pilots. Hell, why not do a live auditing session or better yet, do a live sec check over at Your SuMP good buddy! Show the world how You really get gains from hypnosis. And lest I forget, M2C sounds nattery. Handle him Dave.
Please don’t misrepresent me to readers of your comments. I’m as anti-DM as it’s possible to be legally.
M2C, you are admitting that you are an Anti-DM Cult member.
SHAME of you!
” So what if it takes 100 lifetimes to make real OTs? That’s the blink of an eye compared to 14 billion years, let alone how long we’ve really existed.”
This is a textbook example of one of the most successful aspects of Elron’s long con, which involves the preposterous elongation of time. By stretching out the supposed age of the universe far beyond the currently accepted duration of 14+ billion years, there’s plenty of time for all sorts of things to have happened during it, such as not one, not two…but five Marcabian invader forces to have had their way with us.
If and when someone actually does demonstrate continuity of consciousness across lifetimes (with or without super OaTy powwas), it’s going to be world news for a very, very long time and change the course of scientific research forever.
But since no one has done that – not even Elron himself – it’s completely reasonable to assume until then that no one ever will. That’s not at all to argue against some sort of spiritual existence; it’s just to emphasize what we already known about the how memories are created and in what form they reside. Memory, as we know it, is entirely brain-based. But how it could be stored, maintained and then accessed in some possible future lifetime using a completely different brain is just assumed in $cn, but never explained in any kind of a serious theoretical framework that comports with the known laws of physics.
So many poor souls have mortgaged this lifetime in payment for a future that’s purported to stretch out into forever, but that’s never been proven to exist in any way, shape or form. Elron’s imaginary elongation of time enables rationalizations such as yours to make sense out of nonsense.
I’d love to be proved wrong here, but I’m sure not going to sacrifice the only life that I know for sure exists for Pie in the Sky…especially when that’s some of the most expensive sky pie ever sold 😉
14 billion years is long enough for my argument.
If memory is entirely brain-based, how does my brain create memories of whole-track events that act in auditing sessioins exactly like verifiable this-lifetime memories?
Boy, this is like asking “how is it that I am able to see martians?” It’s completely subjective, as you stated to someone else. There is no proof. And the dispute is not whether you believe it or not, it is whether it is proven by scientific research and case studies, which is what is claimed repeatedly about Dianetics and Scientology. Not that it is belief, but that it is “technology” that “works 100% of the time when properly applied.”
Mike, funny you should mention that! While writing up my last comment I had put on a youtube video to listen to in the background just to scan for something general, and when that was done youtube automatically cycled into a video of a guy a FreeZone conference leading the audience through an exercise to “develop their ability to communicate with extraterrestials.”
It was just some of the hokiest suggestive visualization exercises I have ever seen out side of new age events and psychic fairs – the exact same thing is done with angels, spirit guides or whatever the subject is. My kids were exposed to some of this sort of stuff by a relative, and they had developed the critical faculties to recognize it as “crazy” (and I had been careful not to evaluate it for them) by about the time they got to be teenagers. I used to have some respect for the indies based on some of the real-old timers who I knew long ago, but most everything I see nowadays leaves me shaking my head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCopGGUasdw
M2C, that’s a reasonable question to ask given your experience, both as an auditor and as a PC, in seeing folks experience gains after having “recalled” supposed past life events.
The feeling of release and short-lived euphoria are real enough (and I’ve experienced them myself), but their causal basis can be accounted for without resorting to unproven past life theories. The research on false memory syndrome is fascinating in that regard.
Since we now know so very much about how memory is physically instantiated, and can manipulate the actual neurophysiological processes by which short term memory is converted into long term memory so well through experimental means, the burden of proof lies with those who wish to hypothesize that memory and recall of past life events can occur and are based on some other non-physical mechanisms. That’s especially true when no objective proof of accurate past life recall exists.
Believe me, I sincerely wish that whole track recall actually did exist, because I’d right on digging up whatever treasure I’d buried long ago and drafting plans for the beyond-light speed propulsion unit that got us here from Xenu Land. Or, much more prosaically, just regaining the ability to speak a few foreign languages would be just peachy!
Sadly, I can do none of that despite recalling all manner of supposed-at-the-time past lives. Can you?
“sky pie”.
I love that expression.
+1 !!
“But even if the universe is only 14 billion years old as scientists claim, that’s an awful lot of time track and incidents to clear away in the few short years of a human lifetime.”
Forget 14 billion years, the problem is nobody can accurately recall the lifetime they had 50 years ago.
“The wrong thing to do when miracles don’t happen quickly is throw out the the technology.”
If the “miracle” is wholetrack recall, or even _any_ accurate recall of any past life, then throwing out Hubbard’s “technology” is exactly the _right_ thing to do.
Dianetics and Scientology have been around for six decades and not one person, not even LRH himself, has demonstrated that he can recall anything of any past life accurately – much less “clear” it.
The “technology” of the alchemist never produced gold, so chemists should continue spitting into vats of molten lead? “Technology” that doesn’t work _should_ be thrown out. And that is _exactly_ what I did with Hubbard’s “technology.”
Were you no-case-gain even at lower levels?
Did you never audit anyone else to a win?
Ok folks, this is for the non-scientologist reading this blog post.
My 2 Cents, when confronted with a damning question or two by Gus Cox that he couldn’t answer responds by asking Gus if he was a horrible criminal by asking this scientology loaded question, “Were you no-case-gain even at lower levels?”
Per Hubbard a “no-case-gain” (someone who doesn’t respond to scamology tech) is a criminal.
Now, you can see the complete insanity of a Hubbard die hard follower.
No, Wynski, you got it wrong. Gus said he tried Scientology and found that the tech didn’t work. My response was to clarify that, and find out if he was refering to upper levels or lower levels. I wasn’t labeling him as a criminal.
No M2C, I got it right. (read the LRH references again)
You are just trying to lie now that you got called out on your nuttiness.
My experience with and subsequent tossing out of the “Tech” goes way beyond my own case gain or lack thereof.
_Nobody_ has ever achieved actual accurate whole track recall, or even last lifetime recall. That, along with being able to causatively select your next physical lifetime or be free of the whole cycle altogether, is what Scientology promises.
All the lower level Objectives and Grades, all the study, auditing, Clear and OT level stuff – that is the point of it all. That is a person’s eternity as Scientology presents it. Total Spiritual Freedom.
It’s too bad, really. Having full recall of even two or three lifetimes would be fantastic! Boy, talk about solving “If I knew then what I know now!” Having three lifetimes of wisdom! And being able to say, “gee, I think I’ll pick up a body from a rich couple in Switzerland next time around” or something, that’d be really cool.
That is what Scientology promises – that is the carrot on the stick that keeps people going for their next level. And it doesn’t work. The OT VIIIs found that out, and the ones who haven’t thrown out the “tech” (blown) are still hanging on for OT IX and X hoping those levels will finally deliver.
Unfortunately for them, OT IX and X don’t exist.
Your objection to M2C’s fallacious attempt to create some sort of moral equivalency between the corporate cherch and the $cn-critical community is a point that’s well taken and worth expanding on here.
The essence of what defines a cult in most folk’s minds are its high-demand and high-control characteristics. In a nutshell: $cn is a cult because it’s a membership group that requires you to act and believe in certain very specific ways or risk sanction and expulsion from it if you fail to conform to them.
In sharp contrast, the $cn-critical community has no membership requirements to begin (so you can’t get kicked out of something that you didn’t join) and it imposes no rules or regulations concerning anyone’s actions or beliefs.
To follow Marty’s lead in making that fallacious comparison is both sheep-like and intellectually untenable. Plus, by trying to blur the definitions of what a real cult is, you do everyone a huge disservice here by implying that $cn must not be so bad if it can’t be differentiated from the actions and beliefs of those in the very loose-knit group of folks who oppose it.
Edit to change the words “you do” in that last paragraph to read “M2C does”.
See my comment about this further up the thread.
My 2 Cents – Please!
If you disagree with what someone is saying, could you PLEASE at least make an attempt to give something at least resembling a detailed analysis of what is specifically wrong with what the person is saying, why you disagree with it, evidence to the contrary, a demonstration of the illogics that you see in what the person is saying, etc.
Whether Terra Cognita is right or wrong about whatever he or she is saying, at least he or she is laying out in full the reasoning and evidence as he or she sees it, so that we who are reading it can know where he or she is coming from.
All you give is a bunch of generalities that add nothing of value to the discussion. You want to talk about intellectually lazy?
HOW is TC’s article superficial? What is it about what he or she is writing that makes it intellectually lazy?
If you are going to criticize, then step up to the plate and back up what you have to say.
Dave, you’re right. I just didn’t have the time today.
OK, I found the time. See my comments further up the thread.
OK. I haven’t read them yet, but at least I can see that you have at least made the attempt to lay out in detail the reasons for your disagreements. Thank you.
My 2 Cents: Now I have read your comments and I have something else to say: The points you are making about progress having been made toward the goal of attaining god-like states (meaning it is wrong to throw out the tech), etc. To make points like these, you are going to have to do a lot of unbiased research and fully explain how you did your research and how you come to the conclusions you have come to. Start from zero and fully explain. All these retorts you are making are still not being backed up with thorough, sound research and reasoning. I am not saying whether your claims are right or wrong, I am just saying that you would need to do so much more to make your points, than to just retort what others are saying.
Dave, what perecentage of people who go to a psychologist, minister, or meditation master ask for proof that what that service provider does actually works? What percentage of those service providers could present such proof if asked? Could Freud, Jung, Rogers, Lao-tsu, or Buddha? They were all in the category of “try it, and then decide whether you want to do more.
My Two Cents, whenever the point has been made about the tech not being scientifically proven or similar qualifications, and I have asked the poster to name other practices that have such qualifications, I never hear back. Funniest thing. 🙂
Just google the benifits of meditation. There has been scientific research for years.
There has been research regarding:
Health benifits
Cognitive benifits
Reduces stress
You will not find the same research with auditing.
That is because truth is the enemy of Scientology
So your assumption that there had been no claims of quantifiable research in other practices is false.
Miraldi I am surprised. You always post researched and googled info to support your assumptions of the benevolence of Ron and Scientology.
I suggest you research ideas other than what confirms your bias.
Meditation has many many laboratory experiments.
Scientology has none.
Use this key phrase:
“Research on meditation”
You will see pages and pages. Your assumption of no research is a lie.
Brian, I do know about the research that demonstrates many positive effects of meditation. However, the exchanges with other posters I was referring to concerned the field of psychotherapy and training such as communication skills. Scientology tech fits into those fields but meditation doesn’t. That was what I meant when I said none of the posters who complain there’s no proof that Scientology works have been able to name any practices that are in the same field as Scientology and have been scientifically proven.
Btw, is it now a practice of Scn critics to call anybody a liar who has data or an opinion that conflicts with the group think/agreement? In civil society, it’s enough to say their data or views ar incorrect. With critics, I guess it’s okay to bash anybody who disagrees with them.
marilidi, I think that I’ve previously provided you some information on research into communication skills training.
I suggest you try googling something like “improving communication skills research”, which turns up some interesting results.
There’s at least one study validating the effects of the Dale Carnegie course, which predates Dianetics and Scientology, actually has trained 8 million people around the world, and which has long had a strong reputation among professionals and scholars:
http://digitalcommons.hsc.unt.edu/rad/RAD16/Education/4/
Dale Carnegie had the sort of career speaking to full halls that Hubbard only dreamed of, and his books still sell much better than those of Hubbard (who may actually have taken ideas from them). I have no past or present affiliation with Carnegie myself, he and his work are just a good example of what can actually be done in the world.
PM: “I think that I’ve previously provided you some information on research into communication skills training.”
No, you blew from that comm cycle. You were one of the posters I was referring to, who repeatedly complain about the tech not being scientifically proven – and in your case, you asserted that other methodologies have been so proven. Here’s a quote from one of your recent posts:
“I now use and even sometimes teach communication methodologies that are widely used in a number of fields and whose effectiveness is proven through proper research, whereas after more than half a century nothing about Scientology is anything more than the baseless claims of a tiny number of enthralled believers.”
https://www.mikerindersblog.org/scientology-where-youre-always-worse-off-than-everybody-else/#comment-166691
My reply was as follows:
“What specific methodologies are you referring to as having been ‘proven through proper research’? And please cite your sources as well.”
You strangely disappeared after that – and you still haven’t backed up what you claimed there. The article you linked regarding a study of the Carnegie course gives a single study with just six people in a specialized setting – which can hardly be called scientific, let alone showing that the method has been “proven.” Plus, you said methodologies (plural) have been proven. What about the others? Or is the Carnegie example the best you can do? 🙂
Btw, there are also many critics of Carnegie’s methods. Here’s the link to an article titled “How Dale Carnegie’s self-help movement is now more about entitlement than enlightenment ”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/how-dale-carnegies-self-help-movement-is-now-more-about-entitlement-than-enlightenment/article16187757/?page=all
marilidi, sorry about that previous “comm cycle,” I sometimes miss responses to old comments but I do try not to leave anything significant unaddressed if I’m aware of it.
Almost all modern communication models and training approaches employ some form active listening, an effective methodology that is one of the things missing in Hubbard’s and Scientology’s approach to communication. Much of the research is in the medical field, where communication effectiveness has significant implications. Rather than getting into any specific school, here’s an interesting healthcare-specific meta study which they author noted as focusing on active listening, though I haven’t through all the individual studies (I’m familiar with a couple of them):
“Specific communication skills and provider confidence were statistically improved in 19 of 21 studies.”
Communication in oncology care: the effectiveness of skills training workshops for healthcare providers.
Kennedy Sheldon L
Clin J Oncol Nurs. 2005 Jun;9(3):305-12.
The research I could readily find about Dale Carnegie is indeed minimal. But it’s still more proof than there is for Dianetics and Scientology, not to mention the “data” (in the scientology sense, anecdotally) of actual number of participants over about a century, the continuing true popularity of the work and the willingness of results-oriented organizations like corporations (400 of the Fortune 500, I see) to pay for it. Also, I checked and note that the organization has kept up with the state of the art and now embraces and teaches active listening principles.
The critique you linked to from the Globe and Mail is a conceptual one without any evidence, though it certainly could be valid. Actually, the description I’ve seen of what Manson did (which it references), was to take equal parts inspiration from Carnegie and Hubbard (the influence of the latter is well established, though the author may have left it out due to legal concerns). And indeed, the whole critique seems to apply just as well to Scientology, even down to when at the end it says:
“Just beware of the perils of investing in someone else’s certainty.”
You could pretty much just replace “Dale Carnegie” with “L. Ron Hubbard” throughout a lot of the piece, and it would fit just as well. Do things like that, not even give you pause for thought?
Anyway, I’ve now provided quite a lot of solid research and true scientific data on several topics, at your demand. What have you got to show in return?
PeaceMaker: “Anyway, I’ve now provided quite a lot of solid research and true scientific data on several topics, at your demand. What have you got to show in return?”
First of all. PM, I made no claims about scientific data on Scientology. You were the one who said that you “now use and even sometimes teach communication methodologies that are widely used in a number of fields and whose effectiveness is proven through proper research.”
You still haven’t come close to backing up that statement. On the research you cited you gave no link, but I found some data about it and discovered the studies concerned a course in communication skills in the narrow field of health care professionals who specialize in oncology. Thus, it’s a bit of a stretch for you to say you’ve “now provided quite a lot of solid research”; there were a limited number of studies in a very narrow field, and certainly not “on several topics,” as far as I could tell. Also, from what I read about that particular course, the practitioners are mainly taught how to answer to their patients’ satisfaction the questions they have about their cancer.
In any case, let me just say that it isn’t the communication course but rather auditing that is regularly criticized for not having scientific proof. My response has been to ask what other psychotherapies or methodologies comparable to auditing have been proven scientifically. You apparently have no data on that either. But if you do, by all means please share it.
marildi, I hope that you catch this, I was just looking back here and realized that a response I composed must not have posted, so let me try to finish answering you briefly.
Science is at issue because it’s implied in the name of the subject, Scientology. And research matters, because you use or mis-use terms like “data” that imply empirical means, and because you are asserting unproven and even disproven subjective claims (anecdotal, actually – which is a logical fallacy) that have to be examined objectively.
The study in communication is a meta-study, and fewer than half of the studies included are specific to oncology. Medicine is an area where communication is particularly important and where there are lots of fairly standard interactions that make for good research, but the communication techniques in use and being measured are widely applicable – I could get into demonstrating that more thoroughly, and citing the relevant research, perhaps on some future topic where it is applicable. If you scroll down through the google results and look for the one from ResearchGate, there you can see the full version of the study without paid access. It’s a pretty good example of modern science, and how it provides better answers and more proof, though with lots of questioning and some questions left unanswered, and without comfortable certainty, compared to Hubbard’s falsely sure but ineffective pseudoscience.
I’ve previously cited that Sarge Gerbode’s TIR has been proven scientifically, through several studies nonetheless. So has EMDR – though here is some good skeptical science showing that while it does work, like many things of auditing’s vintage, other modern therapies are even more effective:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/emdr-taking-a-closer-look/
You can see there the rigorous intellectual process through which real science reviews, questions, critiques, tests and improves itself. None of that in Scientology either in or out of the CofS, is there? (the way that indies criticize each other and squabble among themselves, doesn’t really count, particularly in the absence of empirical measures like tracking results)
PM: “Science is at issue because it’s implied in the name of the subject, Scientology. And research matters, because you use or mis-use terms like ‘data’ that imply empirical means…”
These are YOUR considerations – which are based on not understanding the tech.
“…and because you are asserting unproven and even disproven subjective claims (anecdotal, actually – which is a logical fallacy) that have to be examined objectively.”
To start with, it isn’t necessarily true that anecdotal evidence is a logical fallacy. It “may be considered within the scope of scientific method, as some anecdotal evidence can be both empirical and verifiable, e.g. in the use of case studies in medicine.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
In any case, the fact of the matter is that those who are using the tech successfully don’t consider it necessary to get scientific proof of its efficacy – that again is your consideration. It’s may be good idea, but it isn’t imperative, the way you try to make it sound.
On top of it, look at the paragraph you just wrote about the same study you already sent me on a wild goose chase about – and you still have nothing to say but a lot of assertions and generalities. You don’t give one single quote, which tells me there isn’t anything convincing enough to quote. And then you advise me to research it myself with Google!
As I’ve said, I’m really not interested in discussions with you that go all around the tech instead of on the topic of tech itself. You write well, but the logical fallacy I see on a continuing basis is “Style over Substance.”
People who post on blogs like this cannot be termed “a cult”. You are saying this because you do not like the fact that something you believe in is being shown as not-all-that-great.
Yes, there is a growing awareness of the harmful aspects of Scientology through books, media, blogs like this one, (Mike Rinder’s) and Tony Ortega’s, movies such as “Going Clear” and TV shows, especially Leah Remini’s Aftermath.
However, people who post here, and on other blogs, are in no way a cult. I, like many others post on several blogs or sites as I have time, mostly concerned with human rights and women’s issues and environmental issues. Other people post where they have interest. Unlike a cult, we have no set group of members, no leader, no doctrine, no rules, no shared set of beliefs, no mandates to do anything or not do anything, no governing body, no financial obligations, no group meetings, no planned dissemination to others, etc. etc. the list goes on.
Anyone who tries to term a group of posters with a shared interest in a subject as “a cult” is doing so to try to lessen whatever information we discuss or try to lessen the impact or importance of what is said here, and frankly, it’s annoying and insulting to be called a cult.
There is no cult of anti-scientologists, in fact on this board, we have posters that range from ex-members, to those who have not ever been members, to those (such as yourself) who openly oppose the views of those who dislike scientology… this type of behavior would never be allowed in a cult. So you looked pretty stupid and slightly desperate when you resort to name-calling to try to negate what is said here. We, the posters of this board and others, will continue to share our views, thoughts, experiences, with no set agenda or leader or rules or plans, and you need to stop name calling, thanks.
TJ, I have myself criticized LRH and the tech, not just DM and the Church. So I’m not the true believer you think I am. Nor am I a true disbeliever. See my comments further up the thread.
My Two Cents, I’d label you “True Believer Light”.
You don’t get pissed like Marildi or Foolproof. Your ad hominems are less angry than Foolproof or Marildi. You seem to be a nicer person.
That’s the light part.
But:
1) you still believe in BTs. And that beyond a doubt puts you in the true believer camp.
2) Another aspect of the true believer camp is the denial or the justifying of Ron wishing for suicide to free BTs.
It could be theorized that the BT/OT3 delusion is the demarcation line between true believers and true critics.
As long as you or Marildi or Foolproof defend, what we critics believe to be the dangerous mental delusions of Hubbard, we will be considering you guys true believers.
And to us, that conclusion is a reason based conclusion. Though you guys judge us with the weapons of Scientological judgements, we judge you with through the prism of our own memory of what it was like to be a true believer.
We fought Ron critics in the past like you do in the present. So we remember what it’s like. That’s why we see you they way we do.
We used to be like you.
Brian: “It could be theorized that the BT/OT3 delusion is the demarcation line between true believers and true critics. As long as you or Marildi or Foolproof defend, what we critics believe to be the dangerous mental delusions of Hubbard, we will be considering you guys true believers.”
According to David St. Lawrence, a former NOTs auditor in the church, there are (and have been throughout history) many spiritual teachers who have the “mental delusion” (as you call it) of entities attached to the body, and they also have techniques to remove them.
A researcher by the name of Dr. L. Wilson wrote an article titled “Soul Attachment and Release.” Here is the introduction to it and the link:
“Soul attachment and release is a topic that is not discussed much. Yet it is real. It is included on this website because it definitely affects some people’s health and well-being. Soul attachment occurs when the soul of one person who has usually passed on or died, finds its way inside the body of another living person.
I realize that this phenomenon scares many people. However, it can be helpful to learn about things that seem frightening or strange. This is the purpose of this short article.
“Many books and articles have been written about this subject. A Google search of entity attachment or, as it is sometimes falsely called soul possession, yielded over 2 million results. Scientific as well as popular books have been written about this phenomenon.”
http://drlwilson.com/Articles/P
Part of that link got cut off. Here it is again: http://drlwilson.com/Articles/POSSESSION.htm
I think you google the internet Marildi to confirm your bias.
I think you just type what you want to see to support Hubbard and Scientology.
You present the links which give the impression that you research. But I think you just research to confirm your bias.
It gives you an imaginary sense of confident knowing; in my opinion of course.
Using exorcism from other cultures to justify:
Psyches from Farsec
Clusters of unconscious space aliens
Clusters of druggie space aliens
Freeing space aliens from your body makes them a Clear………………….
to me sounds desperate.
It is your purpose, beyond all reason, to protect Ron and Scientology.
It is our purpose to challenge your unreasonable defense of the man who wished for suicide as his last OT level.
Please end this thread now
Thank you, TJ.
Through a miracle of hell and things I won’t get into, I was able to pull out and then find Mike and this bunch. In SCN everyone has license to tell you what is the matter with you, what service you need, what you should be doing on your dynamics. (find your word, get trained, do a condition, do a service, blahblahblah)
I’m finally free of that and really have no patience for assholes who want to label me for simply finding a little place and piece of succor.
My 2 Cents:
Look up the definition of a cult. Then, please explain to us how the community of $cientology critics is a “cult”.
Sorry, but that’s just absurd.
See my comment further up this thread.
My 2 Cents. How can you compare the people on this blog to a cult? I do not take direction from anyone in my life and do not follow some rigid doctrine or path for my survival and definitely do not robotically follow beliefs of this blog. There are no written beliefs here other than SCN’s actions are evil. Further, people constantly express their differences of opinion here. Something a cult does not allow or at least the SCN cult prohibits.
The only reason I read this blog in the first place was an attempt to get my son back from SCN. Prior to that cult’s disconnection enforcement, I hadn’t read one article about SCN in 35 years. I blocked it from my life. After reading about SCN for the past 2 or 3 years now I further want to help keep others from joining it or if they are in, to leave it.
As far as the tech goes, I don’t care what people believe in as long as they do not harm others. SCN’s evil actions against their critics DO harm others. Enforcing abortions, child labor, disconnection, fair game tactics, PI’s, Squirrel Busters – I could go on…
See my comment further up the thread.
Well, that’s it folks. My 2 Cents has finally lost all his wagon wheels and is sitting in a field madly gibbering away, a little gray matter oozing out his ear.
The end product of scientology.
Oh, I forgot. As an anti-cult-cult-cultist I am now supposed to go and split up some families and scam money, I guess. Hey, Mr. Rinder, is that in an anti-scamology Bulletin somewhere and I just missed it?
M2C, can you please tell us what specifically that you’re finding fault with here concerning TC’S essay?
The file clerk metaphor is central to the entire conceptual framework that Elron constructed in DMSMH, isn’t it? If it doesn’t work as Elron asserted it did, doesn’t that pretty much undermine the rest of his system as well?
It’s pretty apparent to me that no one that I know, or have heard of through credible sources, has ever achieved the kind of eidetic recall that Elron asserted EVERY clear was capable of!
Elron’s cosmology doesn’t just need some sort of minor tweaking at its margins; it needs to be abandoned completely as a model for understanding how memory and recall work!
The metaphor of the file clerk is not central or foundational to the tech. See my comment further up the thread
Well, actually HF, that’s not quite true. There is a condition, Hyperthymesia, which allows exactly that, eidetic recall. For example, see Marilu Henner and others. Not to say that sci had anything to do with it. But in defense of M2C, it is at least possible. Maybe attainable by some kind of practice, maybe not. In other fields, just because the average Joe can’t be a major league ball player doesn’t mean that those level of skills don’t exist. People have different abilities. Life is unfair. Also, there is an old Sufi saying, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Counterfeiting exists because real gold does.” So to sum up more things are possible than people can imagine.
Bottom line, maybe certain abilities are not attainable by all people, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they may or may not exist.
It’s an excellent point and thanks, btw, for providing the correct term there to describe the rare, but empirically documented ability that’s better colloquially as photographic memory recall. I believe that I did mention this in another post, but it bears repeating.
To my knowledge, hyperthymesia has never been gained as an ability through $cn auditing, despite Elron’s claim of being able to produce it in anyone through Dianetic auditing, Indeed, in the only publicly attempted demonstration of that astonishing claim, the result was so ludicrous that it was never attempted again!
Edit to add the word “known” between “better” and “colloquially”.
I’m no expert in these matters, but it appears to me that since your comment, which was critical of the moderator of this blog, was allowed by that very same moderator to be posted, is pretty indicative of the fact that Mike’s blog is not, in fact, part of any “cult”. Most commenters here seem to have a few things in common, but it’s certainly not a pure “group think” mentality.
Try posting a negative comment about Scientology (or especially David Miscavige) on their Facebook page and see how easily that comment is allowed to stand.
Exactly. And the fact you have these views M2C, doesn’t stop any of us from being connected to, and in communication with you.
My 2 Cents: “The Church of Scientology DID become an abusive cult worthy of most of the criticism it has received.”
There we go. Common ground.
Leaving the freighted meaning of the word “cult” aside, your argument that there are still good/positive results to be found in the tech has its appeal — that mystical middle ground where truth, certainty, and correctness reside. It’s existence, however, consists wholly of personal anecdotes which, while often compelling, are not scientifically provable. Most ex-members readily state that they did benefit from Scientology in one way or another (as did I Yawnalot in his/her comment). But it does strike me that the File Clerk is an odd hill for you to choose to die on.
See my comments further up the thread.
Cripes! I can’t even remember where I put my keys!
Another insightful and thoroughly enjoyable essay, TC.
When you read a Harry Potter book for instance, you mustn’t ask questions like, “How did nature select for wizardry in the evolution of the species?” It’s fiction. If you deconstruct fiction you will arrive at the proof that it’s fiction.
When you deconstruct the Hubbard ‘file clerk’ you prove it to be a fiction. Hubbard’s assertions about memory function don’t match any known person’s experience and therefore cannot be said to be true.
If you deconstruct Ara Monadjem’s book about African bats it will lead you to supporting knowledge about biology, Africa, sociology, etc. His knowledge is related to all other knowledge. Scientology however is only true in its own world as Harry Potter is only true in J.K. Rowling’s world. Not only is it unsupported by other disciplines and even contradicted by them, it isn’t confirmed by anybody’s actual experience. That’s to be expected because scientology is largely fiction.
True. And Harry Potter is a helluva lot more entertaining than the Fatman’s dreck.
Good day everyone!
In every esoteric tradition past life memory is part of the doctrine. But flawless demonstration of past life memory (remembering at will) is reserved for the spiritual master; one who has attained the state of liberation.
This is where Hubbard got this. But with most all things Hubbard, he made the doctrines of the liberated sages into his own personal “only way” Metaphysical Freudian money making system. Truth need not apply.
Krishna, Buddha and even my teacher Yogananda speak of these things.
The difference is that Ron uses them as a therapy but liberated teachers do not.
Liberated teachers do not ask their students to go looking for past lives to resolve issues. They do not ask them to get lost in the labyrinth of the mind. (That is what happened to Hubbard. He drove himself looney following blips on the meter into his subconscious delusions.
I’ve experienced both auditing and many years of meditating. In meditation a feeling or memory may come up from time to time. It does so naturally and presents itself for inspection. Sometimes great resolution can occur then. It is a natural occurrence.
But Ron’s date locate is part of a delusion. Can memories of past lives come up in auditing? Yes, I know so. Can I prove it? No!
For me, if an issue resolves, or I gain more understanding, or some issue becomes more clear by this past life memory; then I consider it real. More understanding, clarity and happiness is my standard.
But Ron’s date locate is part of the hypnosis.
Date locate can be tested for truth and accuracy. But bubble heads will not test it because truth and scrutiny is the enemy-the SP, of faith, belief and fairy tales.
Set up an experiment. If a pc can remember that he had a blue doll body on planet Zendar and he had with radioactive fingertips, his name was Gandapoop, was a two seater space ship salesman for 20 million years; then a pc can remember what they had for breakfast 10 years ago in this life. Makes sense, right?
This one experiment would make Scientology accepted and the world would want to know about it:
Have one family member take down every meal for every day and make a note of the time down to the second when the meal starts.
Do that for only a month.
Then put them on the cans and have the person being audited remember the exact time and what they ate.
If the meter and file clerk does what Hubbard said then the experiment would reveal that as truth.
But no Scientologist would ever do that experiment because the truth is too dangerous to their self indoctrinated belief system.
And so, the true believer will accept as truth, that 2 quadrillion eons, 8 trillion years, 11 months, 45 days, 27 hrs, 1 minute and .000000000006 seconds ago I blew up a galaxy of baby farms and that is why I can’t make my wife pregnant.
In esoteric systems of practice such as yoga meditation, the doctrine of reincarnation and past lives are non essential to that practice.
In Scientology, it is part of the delusional hypnosis.
The test is there to see what is true. But Scientology is not interested in truth. Scientology is only interested in bias confirmation.
The ego likes the pretend knowledge of doll bodies and blowing up galaxies. It’s more “evolved” and spiritually sexy.
But what did you have for breakfast 17 days ago?
What did you eat?
Exact time of starting and ending eating?
What did you wear?
Who was with you?
Asking for this simple experiment makes the Scientology mind react with the learned behavior of attacking SPs.
The truth about Scientology is the greatest danger to Scientology.
In Scientology, the truth is the greatest SP.
Because with one small pin prick of direct perception and scrutiny:
THE BUBBLE GOES POOOOOF!!
And I am convinced that Hubbard lifted concepts from Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda was all the rage in the 20s, 30s and 40s in America. But more so in LA.
The book came out in 46 and is still a best seller.
If you read the book, you can see the parts where Hubbard simply tried to copy Yogananda.
Past life recall, the manipulation of matter with thought, out of body experiences and all things transcendent were awakened in Hubbard as a possibility.
But also with all things Hubbard, he never announced his sources. If he announced his sources then he could never bestow on himself the self coronation of the title; source.
Brian, it’s also possible that both Yogananda and Hubbard were influenced by some of the same ideas and materials that came before them. Starting around the time of Theosophy and Christian Science in the second half of the 19th century, there was an incredibly fertile movement of interesting in supposedly “scientific” approaches to matters of mind and spirit, and in integrating mysticism and the occult, that produced all sorts of teachers and gurus and a huge volume of published work that today is largely obscure. It’s impossible to know just how much of that Yogananda or Hubbard might have been exposed through reading, and also through discussions and possibly lectures they attended. I wonder how much Hubbard in particular picked up at cocktail parties, about works he hadn’t even read himself.
One cult in the second half of the 20th century, got away with establishing its published teachings by just photo reprinting the voluminous uncopyrighted work of an early 20th century group that had fallen into obscurity, with the name of the newer group substituted for the original one on the credits pages at the beginning of each volume. They were able to attract thousands of followers who had no clue about the work that had been circulating in their parent’s and grandparents’ time.
Some of the old works providing striking possible precedents for not only some of the general principles of Dianetics and Scientology, but some of strange “space opera” concepts such as infestation by spiritual entities, and some equally curious cosmologies. For anyone who wants to know more about this background, I suggest starting with the New Thought Movement, and checking out Theosophy and the other related groups, movements, and authors linked to at the bottom of the Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Thought
Good point. I agree.
The Vedic culture, from which all of this springs and from which Buddhism gets its ideas, are very old. The age of this ideology is still a subject for debate between historians and archeologists.
Google the Indus Valley Civilization. Google Harappa Civilization and Mahenjo-Daro.
The Buddha was a break away movement like the Protestants for Christians. Past lives have been a doctrines in Vedic cultures for thousands of years.
The New Thought movements were inspired by writings like the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. There is a book out called “The American Veda” that chronicles this evolution in America if you are interested.
Below is a link that quotes from Einstein to Twain regarding India’s influence.
http://india-relished.blogspot.com/2011/01/30-famous-quotes-on-india-by-non.html
Brian, just so you know, I’m personally well aware of what you are commenting about. But I appreciate that it is a good follow-on to my comment, for others who want to know a bit more about the subject.
I have a lot of respect for Yogananda’s work, and by and large he was presenting teachings from India rather than synthesizing the way groups like the Theosophists did (or plagiarizing, like Hubbard did). But he was certainly influenced by the West as he came here and figured out how to teach to Westerners, and there is also controversy over whether he gave due credit to his Indian sources including some printed works.
Yogananda seems to have fallen into the guru trap to some extent, and his SRF has exacerbated that further by elevating him more to the role of a unique “source” than he even claimed to be. For anyone really interested, a couple of the main kriya yoga techniques that they try to treat as secret, are well covered in chapters 7 and 9 in Kundalini Yoga for the West (Radha, 1978).
As a former student of Yogi Bhajan in one of his kundalini yoga ashrams, I had occasion to do several kriya yoga techniques at a solstice gathering. One of the techniques is strikingly similar to scientology’s TR0. The effects of it were impressive to put it mildly.
As a current student of a qualified vedanta teacher, my views on Yogananda are that his teachings are not consistent with the classical, old school but are a synthesis of the bhakti and jnana sampradyas. Swami Vivekananda is credited (or blamed as some would say) for originating this more ‘western friendly’ vedanta.
I don’t, however, think Yogananda’s teachings are influenced by western thought beyond the adopting of certain words to make the subject more accessible to western students. The word, “ego” for instance in the place of “ahamkara”. I say this because western thought, from the viewpoint of vedic scholars, has brought little to nothing to the table of already ancient and established knowledge. In short, vedic knowledge regards itself as “complete” and has been so for thousands of years. It is not, as is empirical science, a work always in progress.
My mentioning Yogananda as affecting Hubbard is really honoring the fact that Yogananda was so high profile in America.
Whether anyone sees Yogananda as pure Vedic lineage, diluted lineage and teachings is no concern of mine. His being my teacher is really no reason I’m posting what I did as well.
My only point was that there was a representative of these doctrines that went main stream with him around the time Ron was hanging around looking at these things.
And because Autobiography was also so high profile and still is, it affected and gave ideas to Ron.
For instance, there are courses in Yogananda’s group that has this information:
The last sense to go at death is hearing. Sound familiar.
Also it is the only teaching I know of that say’s,” the soul enters through the medulla oblongata in the back of the head.”
Ron’s command: be three feet in back of your head.
Yogananda as a person, as a teacher, good or bad, is less of an issue for me than my original motivation:
Someone called Yogananda from India, a Yogi, influenced spiritual thought in America with the concepts of the Vedic culture and gave ideas to Hubbard.
We all know Hubbard was in hiding as a person and his inferiority complex fueled his lies and false claims of originality.
My premise is that Yogananda influenced him. Who Yogananda is or wasn’t does not matter to me nor does it have any bearing on my motive of connecting the dots between what Hubbard saw as a goal and what he learned from the yogis.
Yogananda, a Yogi, a spiritual master or huckster influenced Hubbard. That is my sole thesis.
I leave who Yogananda’s was or is to your experience and investigation.
Refreshing huh? Anything you or anyone else’s says about him I honor as your experience. I have no need to protect, defend or sell.
My fun is in deconstructing the mirage of Hubbard.
Brian, I agree with you about deconstructing Hubbard.
My point is that I don’t see any way to discern whether Scientology got things from a source like Yogandanda, or from the same sources that someone like Yogananda himself got them from – or a mixture of both. It also has to be kept in mind, that Hubbard had all the now-unacknowledged collaborators, co-authors and ghost writers, whose personal history and knowledge base we know little of.
On a similar note, I think that some of the people and works that came after Hubbard, and that might have had some intersection with Dianetics and Scientology – almost hard to avoid, particularly in boomer-era California – get unfairly painted as being based in Hubbard’s work, when they have their own authentic roots in the same earlier sources works. Any simplistic explanation likely ends up giving some guru too much credit, which of course plays into the hands of their followers’ hagiography.
I see your point Peace Maker. Yet if you read what I said, I called it an opinion. I still have that opinion.
If Vivekananda was as highly visible, made his home America, spoke to thousands in auditoriums and met with the president, I’d be mentioning him as the influence.
Nuff said:-)
I could not agree with you more Brian. Buddha, Pantajali and Christ all told their disciples that searching for occult powers were obstacles on the path to enlightenment. Believing hundreds can be trained to dig up the internal, ancient past is a job best left to an individual’s soul. What will that search contribute to our present life, for that is our current project ?
Before enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water.
After enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water. Zen Proverb
?
Brian, I never read Autobiography of a Yogi, yet I was also aware of the esotereic matters you say LRH must have gotten from Yogananda. You give your guru too much credit. There were many other sources available to LRH. And like any other sensible explorer or researcher, he made use of them, just as they made use of their predecessors.
Agreed. However in my mind the other spiritual explorers did not charge a fee for enlightenment or the disciplines associated with it. The truth can be found in many corners of the world and is freely shared with the sincere student.
Sccessful gurus have bills like everyone else, and usually get huge donations from wealhy followers, including governnments.
I concur but it all comes down to motive. Do they take donations and pay the rent for teaching classrooms or make payments on their 2017 Lexus ? I know wealthy people who are on a spiritual path and donate to many legitimate groups. One does not cancel out the other. My problem is groups like Scientology and others who are charging excessive amounts of money to teach information that can be gleaned in many enlightened texts or other spiritual sources. These groups become businesses & they need a constant flow of money to maintain their massive support system and, perhaps, pay the lease on their Porches. I will go out on a limb to say that frequently, their teachings are so complicated and convoluted the essence is buried. Developing your spiritual side is always a work in progress, work being the key. These groups keep dreaming up new classes & requirements in order to draw in money. Spiritual truth is not the domain of anyone. Anyone worth their salt will let you know that. I can go to a class given by Guru M tonight, give a donation and leave with a few bits of inspiration, or not. It is up to me to discern what works. Even Buddha, in the 5th Century reminded all that it was their responsibility to examine what they are told and not to accept ideas at face value.
I have studied them both. I have been a student of them both. What I tell you is from experience of that study.
Autobiography of a Yogi influenced Ron. That is my strong opinion.
Ron could not follow the teachings of the east all the way because one of the basic tenets to spiritual liberation, a very basic practice, are things like:
Honesty
Humility
Not baring false witness against your neighbor
Eating good food
Not being promiscuous
Not harming others (non violence)
Honoring and taking care of the body
Truth in thought word and deed.
Embracing a Benevolent Transcendent Reality
Overcoming ego
Ron bowed to no higher standard than ego. Ego, astral flying, commanding people and objects, cause over……. was Ron’s world view.
It is possible that Ron failed in his task because he missed an important step. He missed the hard work of revolutionizing his own character with these basic steps. It is like telling your music teacher that you won’t practice scales but want to write symphonies.
Ron skipped the part about changing yourself through self effort and self discipline.
Ron instead took the path of believing that the answers to our spiritual nature lies in the constant following chains of associated events in the mind to a basic basic realization.
That premise is a falsehood as it is the mind that is the problem. The tool of the mind, having only limited data stored from the five senses and speculations thereby, is impotent to reveal spiritual realities because the spiritual nature cannot be found in the speculative mind.
Ron was stuck in the mind. Auditing every day and following these endless chains of associated events drove him to believe in fantasy. And drive him looney.
The desire for creating a suicide emeter was his last research of the OT levels.
Lol! ha ha ha!
Actually, I can through away all my views about Ron and only continue on this one idea:
THE MAN WHO SOLD YOU
BODY THETANS
ALL CRITICS ARE CRIMINALS AS A TECHNICAL FACT
PSYCHES ARE FROM FARSEC
THE COFFEE GRINDER
THE NON EXISTENT PILTDOWN MAN
FAMILIES ARE BAD GROUPS FOR THETANS
SIMON BOLIVAR
ETC ETC ETC…………………….
SOUGHT SUICIDE TO FREE BTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the grand daddy of cognitive dissonance.
Those who still see Ron on the delusional pedestal of science need our compassion.
He was a raving loon who was a dillitente in spiritual matters. And he dazzled his disciples with sophistry and fallacious scientism.
The standard 100% tech that leads to total freedom led Ron to want to kill himself.
True believers and not so true believers like these Ron apologists on this blog still cannot come to grips with this fact that has been verified by at least 3 people.
It’s like saying,”Uncle Chester the child molester just opened up a day care center for kids.” What is wrong with this???????
So………. the man Ron says he will free you from suffering with his science and lead you to a free life. Yet he wishes to kill himself to free BTs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s possible that some minds still need Ron to believe in for some reason. They cannot intergrate the truth of Ron’s mental state into their system of Scientology belief.
They need our patience.
Interestingly, there are a few rare individuals who actually can demonstrate close to perfect eidetic recall, BUT these mnemonist’s perfect memory ONLY applies to the recall of events in this lifetime, not from any other real or imagined past life.
So, even those folks who can objectively demonstrate the kind of recall abilities that Elron promised that everyone who attained the state of clear would be capable of still can’t remember anything from any supposed past life.
Thus, the real EP for $cn is a cult in flames and spiralling into the ground, because it just doesn’t work as promised…not for anyone!
Brian, auditing addresses the preclear’s subjective reality, not the objective truth of the physical universe.
And big, important incidents are naturally easier to remember than the mundane details of daily life.
How can this be a science if it is based on subjective reality and not objective?
What you have just defined is art not science.
If truth is only based on subjectivity than you have no basis for reason and logic.
Scientology, at best, is a Metaphysical Freudian Therapy that can resolve some basic issues but installs delusional reasons for the human condition.
The subject of Scientology is dangerous for the mind. It causes normal people to believe in very weird dysfunctional doctrines that lead to suffering.
Hubbard was reading a lot of Occult literature. He was probably mostly in a trance when he wrote.
There was a price to pay for his lack of sincerity.
It’s a theoretical model on how memory works. Accepting it as absolute truth since LRH wrote it is the fault. Scientific speculation on what was there before the Big Bang continues as does philosophical speculation on where did “I” begin.
I used to believe that too. Also, my go-to rationalization was the good ole Axiom: “There are no Absolutes.” It served me very well and kept me in line and functioning as an ex-parishioner (or cult member).
LRH never said that the file clerk was a theoretical model. He stated it as truth from “thousands of cases” and “proven scientific research”, which ultimatey, was never tested or proven. Therefore, the resposibily lies not only with the believer that whatever LRH wrote is true but with the Source himself. It’s a two way street.
One way to look at $cn is as a very comprehensive test of critical thinking skills for any individual who runs across it. It’s particularly dangerous to teenagers and young adults whose brains have not yet fully developed and who are much more susceptible to the kind of mind fookery that $cn specializes in than they will be when they’re older.
Richard, an interesting book to read on this is Lifetides by Llyal Watson. If it’s not on the shelves, a bookstore should be able to order it for you.
Elron claimed most everything he wrote was researched and proven. Just because he said something doesn’t automatically make it false, only suspect, certainly as regards OT mumbo jumbo. As far as I know, all descriptions of memory are theoretical. Mental pictures on a linear timeline accessed by some means, call it what you will, provides an understandable and workable hypothesis for use in some therapies.
“As far as I know, all descriptions of memory are theoretical. r as I know, all descriptions of memory are theoretical.”
That’s incorrect; the empirical research describing how memory is physically instantiated in the brain is vast.
When you have a little time, google “neurobiology of memory” and dig in. Nobel prise-winning author and neuroscientist, Eric Kandel’s, In Search of Memory, is an excellent intro to the subject!
Harpoona – okay – I’ll look into it. This shows the value of back and forth interaction on a blog. 🙂
Question – Regardless of how memories are stored and accessed, would the “hypothesis” of chains of incidents tracing back to a “basic” on a chain be of any value?
I think many people would say they rid themselves of an unwanted attitude, emotion, sensation or pain using Dn.
P.S. A squirrel group (scio-speak is sometimes fun) called Avatar canned the whole idea of running individual incidents. They just “processed” the consideration. I guess there are plenty of squirrels running around – laughter
Richard, to add to what Harpoona quite accurately said, research has also shown that a seemingly “workable hypothesis” can actually be so flawed as to turn out to have significant dangers of doing damage to people, as in the case of false memories produced by regression and hypnotic therapies. It’s a much more serious matter than Hubbard treated it as, and Scientology has done a lot of damage to many people because of that attitude.
PeaceMaker – I don’t feel damaged. Running Dn was interesting and fun. I didn’t do the OT levels so I escaped that mess. 🙂 Someone well conversant on the OT levels suggested that a “graduation point” for scn would be after OTII. I wouldn’t recommend scn to anyone. Where would they even go to participate? Since I DID participate over 30 years ago, I’m willing to say I learned some things, call it a stepping stone or framework for comparison.
Richard, I’d agree with you, I don’t think I was damaged, either. I didn’t say everyone was damaged, only many people – and it seems like some of the most harm, comes to people who get into the OT material.
To begin with, not everyone was exposed to damaging situations or processes.
Then, individuals with psychological vulnerabilities or mental health issues, would have been more likely to be harmed.
Finally, the interesting new subject of psychological resilience, where there is some really interesting research coming out, shows that some individuals can emerge just fine from circumstances that will produce significant harms to others. Scientists (real ones!) are starting to be able to do some predictive testing to gauge resilience and determine who is more likely to experience PTSD from some stress or trauma like being in a combat environment; it appears, for instance, that individuals with lower levels of cortisol, react to stress more severely and are more prone to PTSD, and that this is genetic and can be traced to a specific gene marker.
PeaceMaker – A meeting of the minds! 🙂
It should be no surprise that the Scientology-created file clerk is unable to produce Whole Track Recall™.
Judging from the non-stop push from pretty much every ideal org to get volunteers to “come in and help us get central files into present time,” those Scientology file clerks can’t even keep up with filing letters from people asking to get off the mailing list.
Yet another “hole” in the “tek” you could drive a spiral galaxy through, with room to spare. But, the ronbots and here will grit their teeth, put on their thinking caps and come up with explanations making it ok that are so convoluted as to give a 14 yr old woman’s Olympic gymnast gold medal winner a back ache.
Ahhhh….the “File Clerk”.
What a clever little “implant” LRH injected into his tech of confusion.
My file clerk said I was ‘Jesus’ – that nasty Gorilla implant- because I was dramatizing a bible banging Christian before Scientology.
LOL
Thank you LRH for “disabusing” me of all religion. ( I am knowingly using Scientology lingo – and spraying sarcasm all over it).
Religion is Homo Sap’s method to covertly and overtly control people for money and power.
Fuck you LRH!
Idle, my File Clerk said I was you! If so, I’m very, very proud to be you! Maybe we should hang out together.
Not all religions, Idle Morgue. I missed where early Christians or Buddhists, or Sikhs became rich and powerful.
Anyway we all know that the reason the File Clerk is so horrible is that they pay him Sea Org wages!
If you ever wonder what went wrong with Scientology, it all rests on my shoulders. My file clerk accepted bribes. I rose through the ranks without proper or ethical clearance, the whole time with a wink and a smile by my auditors. You have a real human need? … Hey, here is some monetary help, now look the other way to help me advance.
…. nah I’m just bullshitting you. Sorry Mike, but sometimes I get so mad at learning all the troubles of real people in Scientology, while the golden elephants like Cruise and Travolta and Bart get such special treatment. Those so-called “celebrities” should be so ashamed. When the history is written about this travesty called Scientology, some names will be remembered well… Remini, Rinder, Ortega, etc, etc. (sorry I want to list a dozen names here, but these are my current heroes.) But other names will be spat upon. I wonder if John Travolta would like his legacy to peed on by angry former paritioners?
… but you now what, Scientology works. I found my old keys from a past life. But now my new problem is that the locks have changed by a new owner 100 years younger than my past life. Curse you, L.Ron Hubbard!!!
Dude, that sucks big time! Can’t you go back in time to correct it? I’ll go with you if you want.
TC: “LRH said we had the ability to recall every last particle on our time tracks. Every last, nano-particle of MEST. Every last wave length, idea, facsimile, and speck of theta. The whole kit and caboodle. Over quadrillions and quadrillions of years. All the way back to that ‘first cause.'”
That would be potential ability. On the State of Case Scale, there are 8 levels of case. The highest is Level 1 “no track – no charge.” Level 2 is “full visible time track.”
“That would be potential ability. On the State of Case Scale, there are 8 levels of case. The highest is Level 1 “no track – no charge.” Level 2 is “full visible time track.” ”
3 questions, marildi:
1.Where may we see this “State of Case Scale” that we may find out what Hubbard said about the “8 levels of case”?
2. How did Hubbard arrive at this knowledge?
3. By what means may we confirm it?
And for no extra charge, I will include a bonus fourth question: why do you believe it?
http://blacklies.xenu.ca/archives/1278 for the reference, known as HCO BULLETIN OF 8 JUNE AD13R THE TIME TRACK AND ENGRAM RUNNING BY CHAINS BULLETIN 2 HANDLING THE TIME TRACK The section entitled “Charge and the Time Track” is part of the indoctrination that all new preclears (recipients of Scientology counseling) receive at the very start of their journey.
In this little essay Hubbard conveniently explains why the time track seems fuzzy or inaccurate at first, why it clears up as you go through it repeatedly, why some people don’t seem to have a past life time track at all, why you should trust the File Clerk even when you seem to be in Roman times 500 million years ago.
It is all wrapped up in a little bow, with a cherry on top. It seems so simple and valid. You just spit out whatever wild speculations, impressions, vague inklings that come into your head and as you go through it the truth will out. The “charge” (invalid concept that electrical charges from the distant past can affect a person millennia later) was just suppressing the true data, and as it lifts the picture becomes clear. Mental masses were clouding the picture, as you confront and erase the masses the details get sorted out.
It is a lot like the charlatans that “discovered” all sorts of hidden memories in the late 80s using hypnosis or guided imagery. They found out all kinds of astonishing facts. That were completely false.
Or the cops who get someone to confess to a crime that he could not have committed. By the time they are through the guy really thinks he committed the crime and apologizes to the victim. A rare occurrence but it has happened.
Or the charlatans that “guide” people to “remember” being abducted by aliens. Strangely the stories “recovered” by these scammers are almost identical in the details. This proves them true, or proves the scammers to be liars who guided their victims to similar scary stories.
You decide.
In recent times it has been discovered that memory is malleable. That you can be coached to remember falsehoods. That the falsehoods can seem to be real memories, indistinguishable from the real thing. One example is The Memory Illusion” by Dr Julia Shaw https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Illusion-Remembering-Forgetting-Science-ebook/dp/B019CGXQA8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1489332299&sr=8-1-fkmr0
The preclear has a lot invested in the idea that he is going to explore distant memories of experiences that actually happened. He may be paying $150 per hour for the privilege. In any case, the auditor (Scientology counselor) is not going to let him out of the session until he comes up with something life-changing or eye-opening. That is how the counseling works. Every session, every item taken up, has to end in some kind of epiphany. Or you will go on grinding on it, going over it more deeply or going earlier or something.
So the preclear has every reason to grasp at straws, to come up with being Jesus or Caligula or that guy that blew up the planets or whatever. Something big and exciting so you can sit back and smile and call it a win.
There is no other way out.
So I allow not one shred of credibility to the claims that preclears are remembering real past lives. One evidence is what TC said in the essay, that no one has “remembered” any anti-gravity devices or buried treasure or even become able to count cards and win at poker. If there were any such successes the money-grubbing greedy Scientologists would have taken advantage of it. Grant Cardone would be bragging about it.
Not to say that this disproves past lives in general, just that Scientology does not present a valid method for exploring them.
If you want to say that false remembering can be a valid therapy, maybe, but I think all that magical thinking just sets you up to be scammed big time. Your will is surrendered to the will of Hubbard and you are a willing slave.
In my opinion, past life memories are largely benign. If you think you were Maimonides in a past life, and you get some utility out of “remembering” things that he did, good for you. If a remembered link to a historical philosopher inculcates new meaning into your life and is an influence for good acts that you do, then the world is a better place.
Where I worry is false memory syndrome, or recovered memories in this life which are then used to falsely accuse other people who can then suffer real world consequences.
Bruce, pardon me if I should already know this, but how much experience do you have auditing others? Receivin auditing?
I have received hundreds of hours of auditing, and have audited 100s of hours back in the 70s. I made two Clears that were acknowledged as Clear when I was the auditor, though in those days they called it “keyed out Clear” or “MEST Clear” or some such. Years later in the 80s three people sought me out where I was working in the Sea Org to thank me and tell me they had gone Clear when I was auditing them.
My official case level is “Scientology Drug Rundown Complete”, which is pretty piddly considering I was in for some 40 years. But 25 of those years were in the Sea Org, 20 at the Int Base. Most of my folders for that time are stuffed with overt-withhold write-ups and security checks. I have about 60 folders. Never did any of the upper levels or anything confidential so I don’t write about that.
I had mind-blowing earth shaking life changing wins in my early auditing. I don’t think you could honestly call me a no-case-gain.
I know it doesn’t seem possible but truly I have been there and done that. I never met Hubbard but worked with a lot of folks who worked with him intimately for years or decades. Kids like you who only played around at the edges don’t have any concept of what it is like at the very heart of darkness, at places where Hubbard is practically worshipped and his word is law. Even decades after his death. It is not pretty or helpful or useful. It is destructive.
I know you will say that is all because of Dave Miscavige, that he screwed it all up and it was all beautiful and pure before Dave. That is not true. It was founded as a destructive cult in the 50s, was developed into an even more pernicious destructive cult in the decades after, and was continued as a destructive cult by Dave. The “tech” is a lie and a cheat designed to fool people out of their money.
Sometime take a look at the film “Scientology: a Faith for Sale”. Just look at the joyous faces of the folks at the beginning, These are some of the “first real clears” with wide bright eyes and greeting each other with a holy kiss like something out of the Book of Acts of the Apostles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhsRe-szfSk Realize that almost none of these people are still in Scientology, that a large number were declared, many others simply left.
M2C, I know it hurts your heart to contemplate this idea, that you have a lot invested in it. You probably stopped reading a few paragraphs ago. But I speak from the heart. Hubbard fooled so many folks that he ended up fooling himself. But it is all based on guesses, conjectures, imaginings and ripoffs from other philosophers. No real research.
The e-meter does not “measure the soul”. You cannot verify truth with a meter. You can only see what the person connected to the meter is feeling or reacting to. Possibly you can see unconscious reactions, but they are still the reactions of a person. Colored by his experience and beliefs. If you go questing for dragons or windmills or space opera incidents with your e-meter you will find them if the person connected to the meter believes in them. Doesn’t make them true.
Bruce, thanks for the bio. You say you got huge wins from your initial auditing. But you also say “the tech is a lie and a cheat.” How do you reconcile those contrary facts?
Not contrary at all.
People get “big wins” from bungee jumping and drugs too. If all you need to call a technology workable is to prove it releases endorphin in the user, then there are a mountain of “workable technologies” out there.
Jogging is a lot cheaper and is proven to improve heart health.
When I say it is a cheat I am not saying it does not make you feel better. A good cry on someone’s shoulder or a few minutes holding a new baby can give you some life changing wins too. With the baby, diaper changing wins may also be involved but it comes with the territory.
All I mean to say is it does not do what Hubbard promised. And it cannot. While at the same time it encourages magical thinking, the idea you can change the world by changing your own world, that there is some secret knowledge that makes you special just inches inside your forehead. All the features that Hubbard deliberately installed to keep his followers feeding his narcissistic hungers. The features that make it a cult and not just a poorly designed therapy.
If you really want to help people with their emotional issues, try studying the traditional counseling techniques that have been developed more recently than Hubbard’s recycled ’30s ideas. And ditch the e-meter. Jung gave up on it century before last and he knew more about the mind than Hubbard ever dreamed of knowing.
For a primer on where Hubbard got his ideas, check out “Let There Be Light” by John Huston. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiD6bnqpJDE
Roger, you’re running into the Marildi Certainty Principle at work here. The principle, in its simplest form, holds that no matter how conclusively $cn is discredited as being factually inaccurate and its founder conclusively determined to be a pathological liar and con man, there will always be some hypothetical saving grace that redeems it, despite all that…you can be certain of it!
I want to add to that a corollary: An acknowledged intellectually sloppy, pathologically lying tyrant who lived out his early stated aim of having men be his slaves, is reasonably capable of creating the only scientific path to true freedom for mankind.
HF, what is the source of your assertion that Scn has been “conclusively discredited”? Are you referring to opinions and anecdotes? If so, they are no more “conclusive” than the posts that give Scn credit.
Well, just to keep it brief and on track with the $cn topic under discussion, the fact that Dianetic auditing has never conferred on anyone the kind of eidetic recall that Elron claimed could be standardly achieved by all. That seems like a pretty thorough invalidation of his specific theory of how memory and recall work, and can be enhanced dramatically through auditing, to me. There are so many other examples which abound that it makes $cn seem very much like an orchard of nothing but low-hanging fruit trees 😉
There’s a qualitative difference between the objectively verifiable demonstration of claimed abilities and your or mine subjective sense of benefit from auditing. So while you’re very welcome to your own opinion about the gains that you feel that you’ve made, the point at which you (or, more importantly, Elron) makes an objectively verifiable claim about this or that specific ability that can begained, then we’re no longer just in the subjective realm where only your own opinion matters
Stated more succinctly: You either gain eidetic recall through Dn auditing as claimed and can demonstrate that astonishing ability or you can not. Even though there are a few individuals who have eidetic recall naturally, no one that I’m aware of has ever gained that ability through auditing as it relates to their current lifetime, and certainly not in relationship to purported past life recall.
That seems pretty conclusive to me, how about you?
The bottom line is scientologists for all their ‘wins’ and ‘gains’ are not outstanding people. Clears and OT’s after 60 years, are not great innovators in the arts and sciences nor have they distinguished themselves in business enterprises. No great novelists no great filmmakers no great orators no great nothing. They are average people at best. Obviously “wins” and “stable gains” have no long-term value.
Harpoona, to my knowledge Dianetics and Scientology have never produced eidetic recall in anyone. But I couldn’t care less, because they have produced other valuable case gain for me, my preclears, and my friends. It’s far from a perfect system, but it’s workable in the hands of competent auditors outside the Church.
Roger, this scale is part of LRH’s model of the mind. And like any model, whether of the mind or physics or anything else, it’s as good as it works in application.
At Level 5, about the middle of the scale, a person “has to know before he goes…and he depends on logic to serve for all of his predictions because he can’t LOOK.” In other words, the only way you can actually confirm this model is by “going” there.
marildi, you may not have answered my questions but you at least had the courtesy to confirm the veracity of your Certainty Principle as described by Harpoona.
I did understand a bit of what you said but it’s so abstract it would take many words to refute your anti-logic. Indeed, you said logic was an inferior means to knowledge and the best means was to LOOK by “going” there. (???) That’s code for ‘subjective experience’.
Let me just say this…”looking” is only a PRELIMINARY step to seeing. By that I mean, ‘understanding’. ‘Looking’ is to understanding what sitting on the toilet is to shitting. It’s just step #1.
To understand, you must ”look”, then you must “identify” what you’re looking at then you must “compare” that to what is already known and then you “integrate” it all and every step of the way must be guided by logic. I appreciate Hubbard’s dismissive attitude toward logic. It’s very understandable. And revolting.
Hubbard wasn’t dismissive about logic – unless it was done as purely a mental activity without ever looking.
Hi Marildi!!
Marildi says, “Hubbard wasn’t dismissive about logic……”
Ladies and Gentlemen! I present to you the mind of L Ron Hubbard and his Herculean grasp of logic. I need sun glasses to protect my eyes from the shining light of Ron’s ability to reason:
Psyches from Farsec
Hawaiian islands 75 mllion years ago
All critics have criminal pasts
Suicide as the Ron’s last OT legacy
Asteroid belts are hot
Jesus was a pedophile
Ron was Matreiya
Scientology is a science
The thoughts in our heads are from space aliens
(That is not me being dismissive. BTs are from outer space and they are not native to earth. Therefore they ARE space aliens)
The need for family bonding and love comes from the GE
Arthritis can be cured by auditing
Leukemia can be cured by auditing
Smoking is dramatizing volcanoes
Vegetarians are dramatizing being eaten alive
Critics of Ron are enemies of mankind
Writes What is Greatness and Fair Game (a complete cognitive dissonance mind fuck)
Considers himself to be the………………
ONLY HUMAN BEING TO EVER UNRAVEL THE TRUTH OF LIFE ON THIS PLANET!!!!!
I believe that people can make a very wrong assumption, equating the talent of creative writing and articulations with wisdom, logic and reason.
Logic and reason were not Ron’s talents.
Marketing and PR were his talents. His limited and delusional research into the mind led him to some limited workable systems. But he got lost in his subconscious mind frought with his imaginary Sci Fi imagery.
And as a result has founded a system that actually installs more delusional states of being.
Ron was more of a true believer in make believe than a student of logic.
Logic was dangerous for Ron. That is why he outlawed any criticism as a High Crime that made you into an SP that could be lied to or destroyed.
Truth is the SP that Scientologists fear the most.
The most dangerous thing to Scientology’s existence is the truth about Scientology.
That is why Ron made destruction of critics a holy church sacrament to be practiced against fellow human beings.
Ron was a loon. And it is difficult to come to grips with if he has been installed in you mind as a wise sage.
The image of Ron the wise sage, is a reality that you guys are keeping alive with your own thoughts.
And you are more attached to this image, have been trained to keep this image alive, than the truth of the man.
Dismantle this image with logic and reason.
Suicide to free BTs…… remember that!
Brian: Lots of good replies, man.
Hey Terra, thanks. And thank you for your time and great thoughts. I am grateful you are posting. And so are others. ?
“… unless (logic) was done as purely a mental activity without ever looking.” ???
Logic is when you LOOK at something and compare what you see to what you know and arrive at a conclusion that is true to the thing being looked at (knowledge must be true to its object). This ‘mental activity’ is otherwise known as “rational thought”.
In an earlier thread a blogger astutely suggested scientology tech was a methodology that passed Ron Hubbard’s insanity on to his adherents. In my opinion the most conspicuous feature of his depravity was his seeming abhorrence of rational thought.
marildi spewed the lie, “Hubbard wasn’t dismissive about logic”
Hubbard said that merely studying the subject of logic could drive one insane and warned his followers against pursuing the subject.
Where did Hbbard say “merely studying the subject of logic could drive one insane”? And where did he “warn his followers against pursuing the subject.”
I doubt you will answer this, but that will speak for itself.
Hi Marildi!
Marildi says:
“And where did he “warn his followers against pursuing the subject.” (Logic)
Ron did not have to come out and say he is anti logic or that there is something wrong about it.
His whole movement is based on believing assumptions. And if you question those assumptions then there is a military black ops army to squash any external looking at Scientology.
The enforcement of church doctrine by threat of violence
The lies about scientific research
The unbalanced ramblings of writings like:
GE is a Family Man
All critics have criminal pasts
Space aliens stuck in our bodies are the reason for suffering on earth
Auditing cures arthritis
Auditing cures leukemia
Psyches are from an outer space planet
Logic to work must be free to inspect, research, ask any questions, critize falsehoods and communicate to anyone about anything at anytime.
These investigative practices that allow logic to function are outlawed by Ron.
Ron did not have to preach against logic or warn people about logic.
He created a group that agreed to his doctrine that if you criticize Ron or Scientology you become an enemy of mankind.
Illogic is built in and regimented by threat of punishment.
In Scientology you pay for the privilege of having the ability to be logical ripped from your mind like a tumor.
So, marildi you are stating that the highest level of case means no memory of your past, even 10 seconds ago. (because you are using that quote to REFUTE that an inability to remember is an ability GAINED from scientology)
LMAO at the insane lead by the insane Hubbard.
As predicted in my first post on this topic. This type of “retort” by a ronbot occurred.
“No track -no charge” is not the same thing as “no memory”. You are pu/tting words in her mouth that she didn’t say. I believe that is called “creating a straw man”.
Reread my first sentence. A question is not putting words into a persons mouth.
“no track no charge” is not an “inability to remember”, either. ANOTHER STRAW MAN. And I thought you were Mr. Logic himself.
Could be iamvalkov IF L, Fraud didn’t state that one remembers/recalls by using the MIND (its moment by moment recording of your existence).
BUT, he DID state that.
FAIL. But your slavish devotion to the psycho Hubbard will cause you much fail in life.
Wynski, when where did he state that? Perhaps he did, somewhere/somewhen but I believe I recall him also stating otherwise. It seems you are more interested in having your opinions accepted, than in presenting triuthful statements of what he said or thought about various matters. You post a lot but I’ve yet to see you back your opinions up with a reference. And of course, a BIG Thank You for wishing me failure and ill in my future. I hope you someday develop some equanimity about being disagreed with. No need to upset yourself so, bro. No need to name call, either, the way you do. It doesn’t make you seem superior; only makes it seem like you think so.
Wynski, we have never met and you really don’t know me at all. It appears to me that you on;y want to know enough of what another poster says or thinks to be able to neatly pigeon-hole him/her with a cartonish two-dimensional label you can then use to dismiss him or her. You don’t really want to discuss any of the issues brought up. So, enough said.
Wynski, adding to what Valkov wrote, you apparently don’t understand that, per LRH’s model of the mind, although facsimiles are what makes up the track and are generally used when remembering, memory is not necessarily dependent on facsimiles. That is to say, one can simply KNOW that something or other happened.
marildi, Prove that “knowing” apart from memory exists or admit you are clueless as what you are rambling endlessly on about with the human mind.
I didn’t say that. I said “memory is not necessarily dependent on facsimiles.” Seems you have misduplicated, like you do with the Scn materials.
And why not try to reply just once without throwing in an insult. It really makes you look bad when you are the one who turns out to be “clueless.”
Potential is such an important word in LRH’s tech. We have the potential to raise ashtrays off of tables using only our intention, we have the potential of being in this “state of clear”, the potential to recall and “as-is” all harmful incidents from zillions of years ago, perfect eyesight, total recall, total power….
LRH claims these unbelievable powers are potentially there for all of us. People spend their entire life savings struggling to obtain them. He made up these unattainable states to string everyone along, checkbooks in hand. Keep paying, you’ll eventually make it.
Evidently having a stroke and dying in a motorhome without any family near, hiding from the authorities, is the ultimate end phenomena.
“Potential” is another one of those carrots that gets dangled in front of all Scientologists.
“LRH said we had the ability to recall every last particle on our time tracks. Every last, nano-particle of MEST. Every last wave length, idea, facsimile, and speck of theta. The whole kit and caboodle. Over quadrillions and quadrillions of years. All the way back to that ‘first cause.’”
Hubbard might have said that, but he copied it almost word for word from the 19th Century Occult base.
He substituted “theta” for Asasa. Facsimile he copied from Blavatsky. He shortened MEST from a longer list of elements like Matter for Earth, Energy for Fire. What Hubbard said can be traced as early Hindu and as Pythatgoras but it is more clearly expressed in new-platonism. This idea of a recording of all “pictures” is clearly of occult origin. Take your pick who you want to base Scientology on. You could find at least 5 neo platonists who were tracking the same line. The quadrillions and quadrillions is early esoteric Hinduism probably as early as Kapila or even earlier.
I don’t care one shred that Hubbard copied it. I do care that he charged a ton of money
for something that could have been easily discovered by others IF he had the courtesy to release his true sources.
Like he could have said in 1972. “Here is where I really got the stuff. I would have been very happy and we could still be friends. No biggie. Don’t hide everything or say you are Source.Just tell the truth.
“Hubbard might have said that, but he copied it almost word for word from the 19th Century Occult base.”
George, assuming you are right about that, tell me this: Did the 19th Century Occult base work out actual applications of the idea? And if so, do you think their applications would have helped you as much as Scientology did?
I think SCN’s big problem was making everything dependent of personal performance. Everything is under the person’s control.
The previous occult base did not place so much emphasis on the individual, allowing outside factors to be blamed for a failure to pull off miracles. This massively reduces guilt.
I personally disagree strongly with ideas of said base
Interesting comment. Thanks for your input.
The actual applications were much better worked out by the neo-platonists from about 200 AD till about 800 AD. You had valid tech on exteriorization which worked better than Scientology. Earlier than that, I think I would have done really well as a student of Pythagoras. To answer your question, Hubbard charged tons of money for very little delivered. You know, of course, that there is a much better therapy of the mind found in Kabal. I think it all comes down to two things:
1. Hubbard was not Source. He was copying.
2. He got too far into himself and charged money. How could he charge so much when all he had to do was reveal his sources to us? The greed was his downfall.
Dollar for Dollar, Hubbard was not value.
The 19th century Occult base worked out the idea of the 5th Invader force is much greater detail with far more meaning. Theosophy is loaded with practical advice. Ironically, they are shy about money and thus have not expanded like Scientology. However, if you work with them, you get great rewards. Thomas Edison was a great follower of Blavatsky, for example. I would have gotten a lot more out of reading the 19th century occult base in terms of understanding evolution, space aliens, and implants. They had a better view of it all. Unfortunately Hubbard did not always correctly copy the Occult technology. This explains why the religion split into Miscavigism and Hubbard as the anti-Christ. In reality, Crowley did a far, far better job than Hubbard. Just read his books and you will see. Too bad the internet was not invented. Most of the early Occult books were burned. We have the outline of a technology were is far more more consistent that Scientology. We talked tonight about inventing a board game. “Build your own religion”. It would be like Monopoly.
But, as I said, I don’t care if he copied. I am not angry with him. People can have whatever religion they want. I wish I could get a refund from Hubbard. He now must return my money.
Thanks for the informed data about those other practices.
“To answer your question, Hubbard charged tons of money for very little delivered. You know, of course, that there is a much better therapy of the mind found in Kabal.”
As I recall, you said your initial auditing handled some things to your relief and great satisfaction. Would Kabal (did you mean Kabbalah?) have given you the results as fast as you got them from Scn? My understanding of Kabbalah (if that is what you mean) is that it takes a very long time to achieve results.
“But, as I said, I don’t care if he copied. I am not angry with him. People can have whatever religion they want. I wish I could get a refund from Hubbard. He now must return my money.”
So loss of money is the actual BPC? You’re a classed auditor and a solo auditor – why don’t you audit it?
Don’t need auditing. It is far too off target.
We use meditation. I get special guidance from a few
expert monks. It works a lot better.
George: “I get special guidance from a few expert monks. It works a lot better.”
Okay. But it does seem like you still have a lot of attention on that item. Or am I wrong?
Looking for truth and spiritual reality in chains of associated events in the mind will stick you in the mind looking for answers forever.
Using memory to free the mind from pain is like using a thimble to empty the ocean. You may say that in auditing you are getting somewhere, but at some point the solo session is really solo:
No meter
No thinking
Just focused practice on teacher taught techniques.
These techniques are senior to the mind. The mind is an effect. The truth is way beyond cause or effect.
Memory, the recall of mental impressions, looking at pictures of the material world in the mind will not free a person spiritually. It may release some stuck energy because any objective observation causes new knowledge.
You cannot learn weight loss from the fat man.
Find someone slim 🙂 He travelled to road and can now teach by example.
marilidi, to add to George’s answer, a number of groups did work out actual applications, far better than Hubbard’s or Scientology’s. You might look to a couple of the Rosicrucian orders, for instance – and Hubbard almost certainly plagiarized at least a bit and quite possibly a lot from at least one of them, along from everywhere else of course.
But that brings to mind, a more important though less obvious comparison is probably Freemasonry. While they don’t make the grand spiritual claims that Scientology does, they probably actually accomplish more in terms of actually bettering members spiritually than does Hubbard’s work, and they also almost certainly have done far more to really increase individuals’ ability. They have a system that is actually consistent and workable. And Freemasonry has an impressive record of producing just the sort of examples of stellar human achievement in many fields, that Scientology utterly lacks.
Excellent reply
Hi George,
You wrote: “Like he could have said in 1972. ‘Here is where I really got the stuff.’ I would have been very happy and we could still be friends. No biggie. Don’t hide everything or say you are Source. Just tell the truth.”
On this, your point is well taken.
Much metta,
marildi
Thanks Marildi,
From the moment I walked into that Mission in New York in 1972, I remember his picture on the wall. The very first question I asked was “Where did he get it all from”. The answer was wrong.
Now I know and I sleep and dream really well.
Much Metta,
George
PS Happy you said “Much Metta”. We practice now very much more and far, far better than ever but we do not display anymore. Part of the tech, you know. The symbol I use now with the space ships is a new meditation object. Works great.
“The symbol I use now with the space ships is a new meditation object. Works great.”
I was going to ask you about the new avatar. Why do you think the symbol of space ships works so well?
I take it “Much Metta” is still said? 🙂
MM,
M
No problem with Much Metta. It will always be said.
The new Avatar shows impermanence in a graphic way.
Much Metta,
G
Cheer up! At least you found your way out of that UFO chult.
WOOAAH!
Your handle always makes me smile.
It also helps me when I put on my Living Language CDs to study Shriwook. AAAAROOOONAARGHHHH!
Finding ones way out of the cult, can be one of the greatest experiences of their life. I know it was for me…
Or me as well, Dude. From a different cult but life changing….and ultimately for the better. High five.
High Five back at you! When you left, you got old life back! How great did you feel? When I left, I was elated! My feet didn’t touch the ground for weeks! Which cult did you leave?
A very small goup that was based on Esoteric Alice Bailey writings. We too did a form of ‘therapy’ with one another and a system of clearing negative energy from the environment. Money paid for every class and forced-option trips to ‘spiritually’ important locations around the world. Funny, those running the group never paid one red cent for those sojourns. Hummmm. If the higher ups ever got sick, that meant some poor slob in the group was harboring negative thoughts. On the hot set they would go only to be excoriated in front of all. Not pleasant. I almost had a nervous breakdown upon leaving, thought my soul would be pulverized after breaking promises made. After much time and work I realized that I gave my power away on so many levels and was determined to never let that happen again. Many of us involved in cults really do want to help but are conned by the selfish/devious. I now have a great sympathy for those who have been wounded in the same way. Timed passed and I too became elated Dude. I loved life and my new way of feeling/thinking. Spiritually I take what I want and leave the rest. On the forward path with you, OSD.
Good for you! I wish you peace and blessings!
Is the UFO CHULT similar to the regular UFO cult? Just wondering….
Chult comes from H.P. Lovecraft’s character “Cthulhu”, an icon of creepiness and weirdness not equaled until $cientology came along.
AAAROOUGH!
Thanks for the info!
Aaarrrrgggggg…..it’s still good to be a Celt!
Chewcacca, it turns out, was Chewbaca’s third cousin.
On Itchy’s side of the family or Maala’s?
Chewinbacca, his Deep South cousin, 2 times removed.
What is so difficult about realizing that there is no such thing as a spiritual being, and that this life is it? Why do people have to possess a crutch of a past or future beyond what they have here? Does life suck so much that you need to have something beyond it?
I grew up Catholic, so I was pretty deeply immersed in the whole sin/salvation culture (yes, even post-Vatican II, it was still around). Once I gave that up and realized that there was nothing spiritual about man, I achieved a certain peace of mind. There was no need to strive for heaven and fear hell. There were no worries about breaking the cycle of birth/death/rebirth to achieve Nirvana. There was no need to go Clear and rehabilitate my thetan. There was no such thing as sin, and therefore no retribution for it. You’re born, you live, you die, and that’s the end.
If nothing else, being atheist saves you money, something amplified by the cult.
And over here in this great marketplace of ideas is you plugging for the atheistic concept of reality. I am acquainted with that product and it doesn’t intrigue me therefore I politely say, “no thank you.”
Atheist theory necessarily ends in the assumption that awareness of awareness comes from evolution. Life forms in the cosmos eventually evolve to a brain to body mass ratio which gives rise to consciousness. A two chamber bicameral brain gives rise to human like consciousness.
Here’s a theory that could support an atheist point of view. From wiki:
Julian Jaynes (February 27, 1920 – November 21, 1997) was an American psychologist, best known for his book *The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind* (1976) in which he argued that ancient peoples were not conscious.
Jaynes definition of consciousness is synonymous with what philosophers call “meta-consciousness” or “meta-awareness”, ie., awareness of awareness, thoughts about thinking, desires about desires, beliefs about beliefs. This form of reflection is also distinct from the kinds of “deliberations” seen in other higher animals such as crows insofar as it is dependent on linguistic cognition.
End quote.
In brief, the theory suggests that metaphorical thinking was “invented or discovered” about 1000 BC to cope with sociological problems arising from increased population and people coming together in large groups such as cities.
If it weren’t for a couple of pesky non scn, non drug related peak experiences, I could happily adopt an atheist point of view.
I am no expert on ancient wisdom, but the example of Plato’s allegory of the cave should be enough to knock out that idea.
Espiando, that’s an interesting question. One might say that humans’ propensity for spirituality is something archetypal, though I would say it is probably better explained in terms of evolutionary psychology.
I think that our brains are wired with a sense of something greater, because there is – in our genes. We have lived before and we will live again, in a general genetic sense. If, for instance, because of a belief in something greater, we carry on when we might otherwise falter, that actually helps to ensure the propagation of our genes into the future.
We’re also wired to look for meaning and to search for solutions. One of the things about that that I find interesting and particularly relevant, is that our brain wiring that has helped humans survive and develop as a group, includes cognitive biases that cause us to incorrectly assess information and situations on an individual bases. Thus our inherent impetus to look for and understand cause and effect, also leaves us with cognitive biases such as those of attribution (false attribution of cause, confusing causation and correlation, etc.) that get people in trouble with beliefs, practices and groups, and that can be exploited.
I get it, you are an atheist. If you are right, it doesn’t matter. Trying to change people’s mind is a waste of your limited time. In fact, there is no reason for you to care! If everyone agreed with you or disagreed with you, it would not make a lick of difference.
If someone finds meaning in religion, and does not harm you, so be it. Most religions are not shakedown operations like SCN. No one pays a fee for communion or to pray in a mosque.
If you want a religion that doesn’t hurt anyone, check out the Bahai faith. They are have a better history than my own faith.
Ñot sure if anyone else is experiencing this … but I’ve been having a wee bit o’ trouble with the ole somatic strip lately … probably just getting older …
Is the Somatic Strip close to the Sunset Strip? Seventy seven comes to mind….
Now don’t get all Kookie about this OSD.
You mean to tell me that 77 Sunset Strip doesn’t ring a bell?
77 Sunset Strip. Snap, snap. Kookie, Kookie lend me your comb
OSD, every once in a while that TV show song gets stuck in my head. ‘specially the “snap, snap”
Oh wow! 77 Sunset Strip, Bourbon Street Beat, Hawaiian Eye, Surfside Six, and all the westerns … I’m feeling really old now 🙁
Joe P. Did ya try a little WD-40?
Terra always brings up interesting points. I missed the good old days of the “file clerk”. In those days, it was simple. Give him/her a request and they sooner or later give you the data that you wanted.
Later in your journey up the bridge, you find out oops… made a mistake, there is more to the pc than just one. You have all those other freeloader thetans (body thetans or BT’s), and I guess their file clerks that have to be audited. You would think that at least one of these guys would share some valuable piece of information to help pay the cost of all this auditing that you are giving them.
Oh, don’t forget, that once you are told that all these freeloaders are now gone, you are then told on your next upper/upper levels that …sorry there are even more freeloaders/file clerks that need attention.
Yes, I do miss the old days of having only one file clerk to worry about. It was easy to share your popcorn with just one.
Ha ha! Well said!