The next Terra Cognita essay. See earlier Terra Cognita: The Is-Ness of Is-Ness, Cause Over Life — Really?, BT’s in the Belfry, Two New Conditions!, The Condition of Liabilitiness, Condition of Doubtfulness The Mind, The Way To Happiness: Really? A Story, Auditing: a PC’s Quest for the Holy Grail, The Knowledge Report, Integrity, The Almighty Stat, The Reg, The Horrors of Wordclearing, Why Scientologists Don’t FSM, Respect, The Survival Rundown – The Latest Scam, Communication in Scientology… Or Not, Am I Still A Thetan?, To Be Or Not To Be, An Evaluation of Scientology, Fear: That Which Drives Scientology and Justification and Rationalization.
The E-Meter
I’ve “cleared” the definitions of watt, volt, ohm, and current a million times—everything to do with electricity—and I still don’t get the full concept. Just so you know, electricity’s never been my thing.
Those within the Church of Scientology—and many outside—swear to the accuracy of the e-meter in helping to locate traumatic incidents within a person’s mind. Some see this meter as an elaborate hoax. Still others see the machine as a kind of faux lie detector.
What if an auditor, however, simply asked questions without relying on a machine to tell him if his PC’s answers were worthy of exploration? On one hand, he wouldn’t have his attention constantly distracted by his meter. On the other, his PC might take up issues of interest that otherwise, wouldn’t have been allowed.
Note: PC stands for “pre-clear” but I use the term loosely for anyone receiving auditing, regardless of their Grade Chart level.
A Box; A Needle; One Battery; Two Cans; and a Bunch of Copper Wire
In its simplest form, an e-meter is an electronic device that measures what happens to an electrical current running through a human body. The PC completes this circuit by holding a metal can in each hand connected to the meter by an electrical cord.
According to the reaction of a large needle on a wide dial, an auditor is supposed to be able to tell if there’s something inside the PC’s mind worth addressing.
Recalling past incidents steeped in charge—emotional upset—causes the needle to “fall” to the right of the dial. Harboring undisclosed overts and withholds are said to cause similar reactions. If the needle doesn’t react to an auditor’s question or command, it’s assumed there is no charge and the auditor moves on to the next item.
Hubbard wrote extensively on needle reactions and what they mean but for our purposes here, you only need to know that a needle reacts according to what’s going on in a PC’s mind. At least, that’s the theory. As with everything else in Scientology, LRH had provisions for when things didn’t go as predicted. The e-meter is no exception to the rule.
Mind vs. Sirloin
If it’s unclear whether the e-meter reacts to what’s going on inside a PC’s mind, it’s very clear that the machine reacts to his physical body. Squeezing the cans, even gently, causes a needle to fall (move to the right). Coughing, yawning, talking, taking deep breaths, stretching, and sudden jerks of the body all cause needle reactions. Hunger, tiredness, illness, malnutrition, moisture content of a PC’s hands, and room temperature affect a meter, as well.
If all these physical reactions result in different needle manifestations, it’s a good bet that others do too. Might a rumbling stomach, peristaltic motion, gas, random muscle contractions, a beating heart, and the flow of blood all effect the meter, too? Outside the Condition of Death, a body is never completely still.
So what’s to differentiate a reaction caused by the body to one caused by something in the mind? Or can we separate the two? Even if the meter does “react to the mind,” the manifestation is purely physical. The electrical current running through the PC has somehow been disturbed.
This quote has nothing to do with the e-meter—or maybe it does. “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”
I’m not an Electrical Engineer, a Rocket Scientist, or the Leader of a Modern Religion
According to LRH, the e-meter reacts to charged items in a PC’s mind—past incidents containing emotional trauma. Outside of anecdotal evidence, though, no scientific research exists to back up these claims.
Can one really declare that a particular e-meter read was the result of dying ninety-nine billion years ago on the other side of the galaxy? Did the memory directly cause the needle to react, or did the recollection (or mock up) cause the PC to involuntarily clench which in turn, caused the needle to fall? Or some combination of the two?
LRH taught that a “fall” meant a particular item should be addressed. Many times, there is something in need of handling. From my experience, though, charged incidents don’t always translate into needle reactions. And vice versa: needle reactions don’t always mean there’s a charged incident to run.
We can suppose a PC’s awareness level just wasn’t high enough to confront the “reading” incident. Or we can dismiss the e-meter as an unworkable tool.
For whatever reason, all too often falls don’t correspond to charged incidents and charged incidents don’t produce falls.
LRH, too, said size made a difference. With regards to the e-meter, though, we can’t say with certainty that the length of a meter fall means one thing or another. Again, there has been no scientific research. We can’t say a needle falling one inch means that an incident is any more “charged” than one in which the needle fell only half an inch.
Scientologists are taught to take LRH’s word for the meaning of needle reactions. He said a fall meant there was “charge” in a PC’s mind in need of address, and a “floating needle” meant everything was copacetic. And if you disagreed or weren’t sure, your awareness level was low, or you had a misunderstood word and needed to restudy your materials. But who was Hubbard to say what’s going on in my mind? What is charged? What isn’t? What exists? And what doesn’t?
Have I simplified the whole auditing process and left out other explanations for e-meter and needle phenomena? Yes. Often though, simpler answers are better. The more complicated we make a topic, the more we risk convoluting things with erroneous and flawed assumptions.
Taking Up an Item. Or not.
Frequently—very frequently—auditors spot needle reactions on their e-meters only to have their PC’s not be able to recollect the corresponding incident. In these cases, auditors coach their PC’s to “look,” and “look some more,” and “take another look,” until they finally come up with something. Sometimes they come up with a real incident: having their wisdom teeth removed when they were eighteen. Sometimes they mock one up: having their head removed on Zorcan eighty-three billion years ago. Other times they draw a blank.
On the flip side, PC’s often come up with answers to auditor’s questions that don’t cause needle reactions. LRH said this meant the item wasn’t charged and shouldn’t be taken up. Some auditors let their PC’s ramble on about the incident anyway. Some don’t.
Who’s to say that a reaction by a needle on a machine is a suitable gauge in determining what should be addressed in a therapy session?
“At the exact end of the question”
LRH said that only those questions that read—produce a needle reaction—at the “precise end of any major thought voiced by the auditor,” should be addressed. In my experience, this rule was interpreted to mean needle reactions at the exact end of the last word of the auditor’s question. Not a fraction of a second before; not a fraction of a second after; but at the precise end. This rule never made sense when I read it on the Hubbard Standard Dianetics Course and it doesn’t make sense now.
Thetans are lightning fast— per LRH, faster actually—and thought happens almost instantaneously. Which means thinking of an answer before the auditor finishes his question is more than reasonable.
As an example, an auditor asks the question, “Recall a time when you crushed a bug.” In order for an auditor take up the question, the e-meter needle must fall at the exact end of the letter “g” in the word bug. Not the “u” and not six nanoseconds later. But what if the meter reads on the word “crushed?” What if a PC has lots of charge on getting crushed by bugs on the planet Recalcitrant? Huge, monstrous ones. Or for some reason known only to God, he flashed on the answer a half second after the end of the question? According to LRH and the meter, the question isn’t charged. And the PC is wrong to think there’s something there that’s needs handling. Some construe this as invalidating to the PC. Others see this as efficient therapy.
Since many questions are word-cleared prior to the auditor formally asking it, it‘s not unreasonable to think PCs may anticipate what’s coming and react to the “major thought” before the end of the question.
E-meter Drills
LRH devised a course consisting of twenty-seven drills on how to use an e-meter and what reads mean. I could write pages on this course alone but here a few “highlights.”
The e-meter is supposed to read on emotional charge but on the course, students are drilled on getting reads by assessing their twins on lists of fruit, animals, trees, and other innocuous items. If students don’t get any reads, it’s not because their twin didn’t have any charge on peaches and plums, but because they—as auditors—didn’t deliver the questions with enough “intention.” Bullshit!
If I, as a PC, heard the question, so did me as a thetan. If I heard the question, it registered in my mind. I got the thought. Period. I don’t need an auditor to “impinge” on my mind with vocal gymnastics. Even LRH said, “Verbalization is not the intention.”
Little has contributed more to robotic auditors (and mixed up PC’s) than the mindset that questions have to be delivered with “intention.” Nothing in a Scientology student’s training is more subjective and arbitrary. Whether they deliver their lines with sufficient “intention” is solely at the discretion of clueless coaches, robotic supervisors, and Kool-Aid-inebriated senior C/S’s.
Date/locate/bloviate. Perhaps no e-meter drill is more reviled than Number 25, Track Dating (or Date/Locate). In this drill students are asked to locate hidden dates using only their e-meters and a series of “greater than,” “less than” questions. Dates can range from yesterday to hundreds of quadrillions of years ago. I witnessed students spending ungodly hours on this bogus exercise. Many broke down in tears, screamed, and blew the course over this drill.
Control
I was reminded by my spouse that the e-meter is another Scientology device for exerting control over its parishioners. Instead of allowing a PC to determine what’s charged or not, or decide what he feels he needs to handle, he’s indoctrinated into giving up self-control and responsibility in favor of an unproven machine—and all too often, a cold, unfeeling therapist. There’s little room in auditing to run what interests a PC without having it “read” first on an e-meter.
On the flip side, many PC’s have reported influencing the meter to their advantage. Often, this involves trying to produce a floating needle during sec-checking or while at the examiner. Thinking “good thoughts” or of a particular “good time” are favorite tricks. Like Han destroying the Death Star or a son getting a job with full benefits.
Once again, there is no scientific evidence proving that an e-meter does what LRH taught.
Squeeze and Breathe
I don’t understand why “squeezing the cans” or “taking a deep breath and letting it out” causes an e-meter needle to fall to the right. Probably something to do with galvanic stuff and fancy wiring. Amps, volts, wattages—those kinds of things, right? And don’t ask me why a physical machine registers on thoughts with no matter, energy, space, or time. This is way above my pay grade.
I just know that my empirical evidence doesn’t jive with LRH’s. I’ve seen far too many examples of e-meters not doing what he said they did. And for this reason, I can’t give him a pass and pretend the e-meter works as advertised. Sorry, Ron: flunk.
I believe in creativity, imagination, and inventiveness, and thus, if an auditor tells a PC to find an item, he’ll find one or damn well conjure one up—meter or no meter.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
I had a chance to fiddle with and work on what you are talking about — dating to «On the order of 6 Million Years Ago» which is ( or was or whatever ) an interaction with one whom I have know during my entire participation formally in Branded SCN ◘ Metering has to be juxtaposed against General Practices / PC Readiness ( interest item in the lingo ) and one can go digging for long-lost items in the exotic notions though I am Prescient and see that digging for such is of limited value; It is my opinion that LRH wrote at the ( exact or precise or whatever he said ) end of voicing to thwart the not-as-adept from just roaming around maybe restim non-relevant and to get a clean read I would re-call a command that I had determined or just fish with it for a moment and could do mentally-directed on some of it so; I am fully aware of what you are talking about
It’s just an impressive, though spurious, phenomenon of the mind – similar to dreams in the sort of imaginative creativity it draws upon:
“the ‘memories’ recovered by techniques like past-life regression are the result of cryptomnesia: narratives created by the subconscious mind using imagination, forgotten information and suggestions from the therapist. Memories created under hypnosis are indistinguishable from actual memories and can be more vivid than factual 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. ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_life_regression#Sources_of_memories
Didn’t Hubbard concede towards the end, such as in OT VIII, that supposed past lives mostly came from other phenomenon – like BTs? He may not have been willing to completely give up on his theories, but others who came before him, and whose dabblings influenced him, had run a cross the same problems with past live regression that he had to try to explain away, like multiple people supposedly recalling having been the same historic personage (Cleopatra, Napoleon, etc.), and past lives that turned out under scrutiny to overlap in time – which had lead some to recognize that it was just an illusion of the mind, before Hubbard even came along.
Hubbard has posted all manner of theorization and yes; I have found flaws in the work — I studied what you sound like you are describing intensively: CNS can and does present imagery which is spectacular if nothing else occasionally ~ this occurs due to an inter-wiring between primitive areas of the brain — which do not think in any cognate sense — that stimulates Visual Cortex ▬ BT-s are not relevant as they are simply bounce off of the ethereal which the meter claims to detect ( adherents claim; not any physical much of anything ) and yes such things as PLR did influence his writings though for me — your citation is demonstrative of a central principal which the critics need to take into account which is that of one persons Thought; Intention; Effort ( to use the formalism ) having an effect on the interlocutor
Forgotten memory which appears to be in the present is definitely relevant to counter claims as this can be done in the present via one whom is an *Actual* OT-8 rather than claims of being so by Stat Pushers and other pushers ( pun intended )
Down to earth reality is no illusion. Effects can be created in the responded with are an illusion where the comparative is simple plain-jane — referenced as Mundane in Other Practices we eschew Hypno as a term — which is an involved discussion to say the least ••• suggestions arising from the mentioned Cryptomnesia can be generated at-will by the accomplished Upper Indoc Completions whom can actually to that though my efforts ( studies if you will ) show improbable correlate well beyond 7-Sigma where simple counts and stats distract from what is going on in the ethereal
The E-meter is the subject of so much urban legend and mystique within the Scientology world, much of it fueled by Hubbard’s vague and nonsensical remarks about how it can “peer into your mind” when in fact all it’s doing is registering physical changes due to body movement and autonomic nervous system changes due to emotional/stress responses. It’s not reading your mind. I found TI’s comments to be insightful and certainly based on his/her own experiences. I know that many have had other experiences and because of their subjective “reality” they think the E-meter must work. Well, not anymore than fortune tellers can cold read someone and people remember the hits and forget all the misses. It’s amazing how we do that and Hubbard took advantage of that. I loved reading this article and hope it gets shared far and wide.
Nice Article TC.
Scientology must have changed from decades ago when I was “in” or maybe where I got trained was different, for I find that what Terra Incognita describes does not fit my experience very well on various points.
For example, T.I., writes, “I don’t need an auditor to ‘impinge’ on my mind with vocal gymnastics. Even LRH said, ‘Verbalization is not the intention.’ ” Well, yes. Intention is not verbal gymnastics though. It is the use of TRs (Training Routines). Using verbal gymnastics to convey intention would actually earn a “flunk” for using a via. Likewise, an auditor who would be rote, mechanical, or robotic would also get flunked — at least in the training I received.
Also, I was disappointed not to see an accurate description of the theory, which is that the E-meter can “read” just a little below the PCs awareness. That’s why an auditor might continue to ask if something is there — the auditor may be seeing something on the E-meter even though the PC is not indicating anything yet. I’ve experienced both as a PC and an auditor that exact situation where (as auditor) might ask a question, note an E-meter reaction, and then guide the PC only in the sense of asking “what was that?” when the read would recur. Experiencing this from the PC angle was very much like the sensation of having something on the tip of my tongue, something I could not quite put my finger on. With an auditor asking “What was that?” or just saying “That” when the auditor would see a read was not unlike what we often do for people who got interrupted and lost their train of thought. “What was I saying?” they might ask, and we might prompt, “You were talking about XYZ …” at which the person may recover the train of thought and continue.
This idea of dipping deeper into the mind by continually skimming just a bit under the surface and then pulling out chains of ideas is really not that far-fetched. Both Freud and Jung played with various ideas — I believe it was Freud who considered chains of experiences at one point, and I believe it was Jung who toyed with the idea of using a device that would have basically been an E-meter. In fact, Hubbard probably “borrowed” these ideas from Freud and Jung just as Hubbard “borrowed” so many of his ideas. (I believed that those two giants of psychology, Freud and Jung, abandoned the idea of memory chains and an E-meter-like device as not being worthwhile to pursue.)
In Scientology auditing, from the auditor perspective, I frequently saw the E-meter read at the end of a process before the PC seemed to know that an end point was achieved. The E-meter needle would start “floating” and I would note that and watch the PC who might be sitting across from me with eyes closed. I would not ask any new questions, because that might interrupt a process that the “floating needle” or “F/N” indicated was beginning. And what would happen was that usually in a few seconds, the PC would voice a “cognition” (realization of some sort) and would look visibly happy/relieved/etc. The “end phenomena,” in other words was not just an F/N, but a combination of F/N+cognition+very good indicators (VGIs — things like smiling, laughing, etc.). I don’t think the F/N always happened first but if memory serves me, it was usually shortly before or at the same time as the other end phenomena.
As I’ve read T.I.’s articles, which overall I enjoy, I do find myself thinking that T.I. is not describing well what I learned or experienced, or the theory behind various topics. Maybe T.I.’s experience was just different than mine though. I think it is important in any discussion to have the opportunity to add to or even disagree with a commentators article. I appreciate Mr. Rinder’s blog for that and I do recognize that my training and experience was apparently just different from what T.I. experienced — so much for “standard tech.”
To be clear, none of the above thoughts indicate that the E-meter works or that it works for the reasons Hubbard claimed it worked — but it might. If the E-meter did work for valid reasons, that should be able to be corroborated (at least not falsified) by scientific research. I believe that any group that put “science” in its name — like Scientology or for that matter Christian Science — should put their money where their mouth is and let their theories, claims, and evidence be investigated scientifically. However, a failure to produce a single documented Clear or OT for independent scientific verification in over 60 years of trying does not make it seem likely that Scientology works.
But let me play the Devil’s Advocate. Let’s say tomorrow we got the unveiling of 1,000 OTs who persuaded multiple experts of their abilities and who even persuaded skeptics like James Randi. Would I join the church then? No. Not until it reformed, gave up its rapacious ways, ended disconnection, ended “declares,” became open and transparent, ended its exploitation of people that verge on slavery and human trafficking, and gave willing refunds to anyone whose life they screwed up along the way. And apologized. And made and then left “ethics” as what a person decided on for him- or herself, as it was supposedly intended to be. And instituted sane leadership and governance. And so on. (Hey — and while I’m at it — Free Shelly!)
FOTF: Thanks for chiming in. You made lots of good points. And you’re right to suspect that my auditing was much different than yours.
“Verbal gymnastics” was an exaggeration–most of the time. I just meant to convey that most of the auditors I saw didn’t communicate in a normal voice (with intention included) but had mocked up some sort of “in-session voice” in order to impinge and make sure they got their reads. I experienced this very phenomena by an advanced org auditor who pulled me right out of session.
Ok, I don’t want to seem rude or hyper-critical, but this happens so often that I simply can’t stop from mentioning it any longer. I am not singling anyone out, several people have done this. People can talk about Terra’s articles and dissect the smallest details, rebut points with complex arguments, delve into the minutia of the what is said, but, for some reason, with all the in-depth discussion and refuting point-by-point, they cannot seem to notice that the handle the author goes by is “Terra Cognita”. I cannot understand the thought that goes into replies, whilst overlooking the name of the author. It isn’t T.I., Terra Incognita or Incognito. Maybe because his status is “Still Not Declared” so therefore, is “under the radar” or “going incognito” maybe? But the writer’s name is Terra Cognita.
Actually I stated this about me mis-naming Terra but for some reason Mike didn’t publish it. Perhaps it never arrived but there was no intention of me to pun on her (?) name.
Hi Foolproof: The comment wasn’t directed at you personally. I didn’t take note of which posters had mis-named Terra Cognita, I only noticed that it had happened quite a few times by assorted commenters. It’s really such an inconsequential thing, and there’s no real need to mention it, but I have a habit of going after tiny details to set them straight (it’s just in my nature, it can’t be helped, and is why I am a financial auditor, a job where such tiny details matter).
To me also, Terra’s writing sounds like it is coming from a female “voice” (I am also female) but although Terra hasn’t to my knowledge referred to himself as a he or she, preferring to remain totally anonymous, I did read a prior comment made by Mike Rinder where he referred to Terra as ‘he’, so that is the pronoun I use when speaking of Terra.
T.J and Foolproof: Like Will Rogers said, “You can call me anything, just don’t call me late for dinner.
M2c – seems my simple corrections of an iconic Terra Incognito article are now being compared to Hitler and Stalin. Mike is not allowing me any further rebuttal yet allows the usual suspects to vent their spleens, who are ignoring the subject and my remarks totally and lambasting me for daring to point out that the article has errors. I simply pointed out the errors in the metering aspects. This of course burst the party balloon of a Terra article. My replies were in no way offensive nor were my original remarks, but were pounced upon simply because I pointed out the flaws in some of Terra’s premises. They now accuse me (and you) of critic-bashing yet all I see here is critic bashing from them.
Over 2,000 years ago the Athenians recognized that one of the main characteristics of tyrannical people was the denial of parrhêsia (freedom of speech).
So, when you encounter someone raving against people being “allowed” to “sit at a table” with others in discussion realize that you are looking a tyrant in the eyes.
Tyrants seen enamored with El Con Tubbolard.
That behavior is in writing. The behavior is a learned response from studying Ron.
This HCOB, below, is the very spawning ground for intellectual tyranny, thought suppression and the reason true believers such as My Two Cents, Foolproof and Stat Push react to criticism as they do. They cannot help themselves. Study tech works.
Once Scientologists have word cleared, demoed and star rated this HCOB, and once it has been agreed upon through the mind control question,”have you ever had a critical thought about L Ron Hubbard?”, the trained Scientologist will attack critics like a pit pull.
This trait is the imprint of Ron’s paranoid persecution complex become church SP/PTS doctrine.
This quote below cannot be describe as anything but diabolical on the effect it will have on Scientologist’s deal with adult dialog.
This HCOB is either the writings of a delusional madman, or a conscious manipulating deception, because Ron knew he had Altitude Instruction over us, to have his students war against any who threatened cash flow and paying customers.
Scrutiny is the enemy of lies. Ron’s life was a lie. The lie kept cash flowing in. Those who threatened that cash flow with looking at the truth of Scientology and Ron, would be a danger to that cash flow.
So, how to crush critics? I present to you a quote that only someone hypnotized by Altitude Instruction could agree to or justify.
When ever you are perplexed by Scientologists behavior in dialog, just know that these are the ideas that they have studied and agreed to. These are the ideas making ad hominem words spew from their mouths. And the ideas are legion.
“Now, get this as a technical fact, not a hopeful idea. Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes for which that person or group could be imprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts.”
– L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin, 5 November 1967, “Critics of Scientology”
Thanks Brian. I remember this now. Sounds like a Stalin or Hitler would pronounce.
Hey Mike, stay strong. Keep the argument to ideas. All we have to do is quote Ron. He is his best argument against himself.
These are the ideas that created crazy people. This is the sentiment of paranoia. This is the sentiment of a madman.
And those who unwittingly choose to embarrass themselves publicly will find something wrong with me and somehow create pretzel logic to justify this sentiment of insanity.
“Show me any person who is critical of us and I’ll show you crimes and intended crimes that would stand a magistrate’s hair on end.”
– L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin, 4 April 1965
These are the doctrines that cause Scientologists to go crazy with dissenters. They have at one time agreed to this. Now this doctrine is part of their personality and they have forgotten that they are the ones that let this doctrinal garbage into their minds.
Now they think that it is their point of view. That’s part of the study tech voodoo.
Brian,
1) I’ve been a Scientologist for 50 years, and in that whole time I never agreed with the idea that all critics of Scientology are criminals. I don’t care what LRH said about this. I always observed for myself and thought for myself.
2) You’ve just posted 3 rather long comments, each one asserting the ad hominem that trained Scientologists can no longer use logic and are basically brainwashed robots. But it was all mere assertion. You presented zero evidence or logic to support your assertion.
3) You also failed to say anything about any real issue on which we disagree.
L. Ron Hubbard didn’t allow anyone to talk about their cases, to read anything in print or online critical about Scientology, and the auditing questions include “have you had any critical thoughts about LRH or Scientology”. Leah Remini talks about months-long sessions to try to get her to think she was at fault… You can be kicked out of Scientology for being critical or having doubts.
So if you can’t 1) discuss it with others 2) read about it 3) think about it, and you get in trouble for even thinking about it, and you stop yourself from having those thoughts, you are “brainwashed”.
How would a person who is brainwashed be able to recognize that he is?
A person, group, or organization can take away your freedoms: freedom to speak or hear, and can lock you up physically. But the last ultimate freedom you have is to think, once that is taken away, you really have lost all your freedom.
Yes, the Church of Scientology became a totalitarian cult. Why let that fact continue to affect us negatively by getting us to waste our time talking endlessly about the obvious abuses? Get over it, and take the next step, which is throwing out the bad while extracting the good from Scientology and using that to create a better life.
“This HCOB, below, is the very spawning ground for intellectual tyranny, thought suppression…” And if only went that far it would certainly be bad enough, but in reality the unquestioned belief that everyone who opposes $cn has committed crimes is the motivating basis and justifying rationale for Fair Gaming perceived enemies in any and every heinous way that you like.
In fact, it’s very similar to the kind of religious zealotry of the pre-modern era in which anyone who was not a Christian, for example, was considered to be a sub-human who could be enslaved, bought and sold, and treated in whatever manner his owner cared to.
And because the Word of Elron is believed to be every bit as infallible as the Pope’s once was, you’re not allowed to disagree with it or point out that it’s not true as an absolute generality; otherwise, it’s YOU that’s wrong and headed for trouble. Years of toeing the party line and putting aside your own logical and critical reasoning faculties makes one both rigid and ridiculous, if not downright stupid.
Almost everyone, without exception, who exits the cult realizes just how completely nuts it actually is to require folks to swallow every word of some holy text or out of the mouth of some supposedly enlightened master, especially if some of that master’s words include the proviso that it’s only true if you’ve observed it to be so yourself. Questioning the Word of Elron should be fully tolerated if that proviso were actually followed, but it’s not and you quickly learn either to STFU or GTFO.
That definitely sums up the reaction nicely, Brian. But it’s just one part of it. You also have to answer the question of why this torrent of critic-crushing dialogue comes out.
We’ve seen this here before. This same situation occurred last year when Mike wrote his article on why mega-doses of niacin aren’t healthy. The same amount of vitriol from the True Believers gushed out.. And it was for the same reason as for this article.
The closer you get to invalidating a core belief of Scientology (the Putrif, the e-meter, etc.), the more the critics need to be attacked. The closer the critics get to removing one of the core planks from the structure and knocking down the whole house of cards, the more they have to be stopped. Hence over 400 responses to the niacin article (and at least three True Believers leaving) and nearly 400 responses to this one.
Have a good look at the True Believer arguments in favor of their side. There’s a heavy reliance on quoting Ron, with the rest of it being anecdotal evidence, often from personal experience. There’s a certainty there that doesn’t allow for a thesis/antithesis discussion. This attitude comes from another famous Ron pronouncement: step one of KSW #1. They believe they have the correct technology, and, by hook or by crook, no one’s going to dissuade them from that.
How many times have they had to read, word-clear, and star rate KSW #1? It’s required at the beginning of every single checklist in Scientology. That’s the basic-basic of what’s been happening here the past few days. Trying to dislodge KSW #1 from the hind-brain of True Believers is near-impossible. It’s in there even deeper than “attack, attack, attack, never defend”. That’s why it gets frustrating sometimes to express a different point of view. It’s the main gap that can’t be transcended between the two sides here.
Quoting Ron isn’t the way to score points in an argument like this. The True Believers have to convince us Criminal Critics that Scientology does, indeed, have the correct technology (I think we all agree that what passes for Scientology nowadays is, by any definition, not the correct technology, so there’s common ground there). “We have the correct technology because Ron said so” is not a statement to convince people, especially Never-Ins. There needs to be a more substantive argument.
I am not faulting the True Believers. I’m certain they believe they’re right, and the world would be a much better place if everyone would just agree with them. They’re sincere about their beliefs. What I do find fault with is what you brought up, Brian. The first instinct is to attack critics and disregard what they say because they “have crimes”, and thus their arguments are unworthy of airing.
I do give the True Believers credit. They haven’t descended to asking people on the other side, “What are your crimes?” But are they thinking that? You’d have to say yes.
Espiando, I appreciate your explanation of criticism of the critics. When I first came out of the cherch, under the radar like, I was upset with the cherch hierarchy, but still thinking with the tech.
One of the great things about the dialog, discussion and flat out vituperative (I found that one on a word chain on course one night) and to me sometimes humorous comments I find here, is that they represent various places on the continuum of belief in the “tech.”
I started out mad as hell with DM and still in the thought control bubble.
Listening to Mike Wynsky flaming anyone who loves the tech, and apologists defending it were all very helpful in that they made me think.
Thinking about the tech, talking about the tech, reading people’s experiences and censures about the tech were all very helpful. Chris Shelton banging the drum to think critically was helpful.
But I personally find things to agree with in both camps. And that rattles and shakes loose the fixed ideas stuck in the belfry.
And just so I mention the subject of all this, I can’t wait till Chris Shelton’s video on the E-Meter comes out. I think it’ll come out before OT IX and X. Yup.
BRIAN, I AM NOT A TRUE BELIEVER! I DISAGREE WITH LRH ON MANY THINGS ON BOTH THE TECH SIDE AND THE ADMIN SIDE. I’VE ALWAYS DISAGREED WITH HIM ON “ALL CRITICS ARE CRIMINAL.” NOR DO I REACT TO ALL CRITICISM. I DO DEBATE IT WHEN I DISAGREE WITH IT, THOUGH
BUT YOU DON’T DISCUSS FAIRLY. YOU JUST ARGUE, AS THOUGH YOUR ONLY OPTIONS ARE WIN OR LOSE. YOUR COMMENTS ARE VERY LONG, EACH CONTAINNG MULTIPE ATTACKS ON LRH OR THE TECH WHICH YOU JUST KEEP FIRING IN VARIOUS COMBINATIONS NO MATTER WHAT I OR ANYONE ELSE SAYS. THIS IS NO WAY FOR TWO PEOPLE TO FIND THE TRUTH TOGETHER.
PLUS YOU CONTINUOSLY CHARACTERIZE ME AS SOMEONE I’M NOT, WHICH IS IRRITATING.
I STOPPED ANSWERING YOUR COMMENTS BECAUSE IT JUST WASN’T WORTH MY TIME.
Ok, disagree with my thoughts. You have told me what’s wrong with me.
Sorry If I irritated you. You don’t irritate me. I love this stuff. It can be fun. Just don’t take it personally. We are simply exchanging ideas freely. Something Ron hated and punished.
Now tell me what’s wrong with my criticisms.
Can I start? These are questions not attacks.
Are all psyches from the planet Farsec?
Do cigarettes cause cancer?
Does auditing cure leukemia?
Do you think that Ron was being a benevolent causal being when he wished to kill himself?
Has Ron created the only technology to save us from radiation?
If there was no Hawaii 75 million years ago, why is it still part of OT3?
BTW, if I am not worth your time, why are you giving me time?
That’s enough questions. I have gobs of them.
Remember…………. spirit of play!! 😉
The blog got a little more rational in the last few hours.
To answer your questions,
1) I don’t care where psychs came from. Some of them are good guys and some are evil. One of the earliest whole track incidents I ran was of the first psychs trying to actually help other beings by taking away their self determinism to make them “good.”
2) Cigarettes do cause cancer in many people, and harm the health of almost all smokers whether or not by way of cancer. LRH was wrong about this.
3) Auditing can’t cure anything, but correctly administered it does help the body heal itself in many cases. No guarantees, but “healthy mind, healthy body.”
4) I think LRH knew his body was going to die soon, so he was willing to risk killing it in an experiment to blow off some stubborn BTs. Karen DLC told me he cried over what he considered to be his failure to complete the tech. But I don’t think he was looney.
5) I never believed LRH’s anti-radiation protocol could have more than a minor affect.
6) I don’t care whether or not the OT 3 story is 100% historically accurate. I think it’s conceptually plausible. However, it didn’t happen to me.
Now, what do I get in exchange for these exciting answers?
M2C – joke between you and me – what do you get in exchange? How about a cramming order! Sorry, couldn’t resist it.
A kiss ;-))
Thank you for answering. I think this baby is done MTC. See ya down the line!
Brian, M2C’s comment is how I see it too. You don’t actually discuss – you just keep posting “in various combinations” the things you’ve been posting for years – no matter what anyone says in PT on any of those points. I trust you are interested in truth, but the fact is “THIS IS NO WAY FOR PEOPLE TO FIND THE TRUTH TOGETHER.”
As with M2C, you also characterize me in ways that aren’t true – apparently, in accordance with your years-long, set ideas about anyone who has anything good to say about the tech. If you sincerely want real discussions, then let’s do it. Otherwise, it really isn’t worth the time – for anybody.
At this point, the record is here for folks to come to there own conclusion. Each participant has shared their ideas as they see them.
I honor each for their contribution. Each was expressing knowledge as they see it. That is Ron’s definition of integrity. That is my definition of authenticity. My favorite triait in people.
No doubt there is emotions on both sides. You have expressed your ideas as you see them. Thank you!
You still believe in the scientism of Ron’s work. You guys are still in the “Ron says” catagory. A lot here are not. That is a chasm that may not be able to be spanned with words.
My view about a valuable discussion and dialog is not necessarily who won in discussing or even what is discussed.
To me, the true value in a discussion is how the participants treat each other during the passion of disagreement.
The record here is for all to see. Each has expressed themselves according to their own capacity.
This has been a bitchin thread. You guys rock.
Thank you Mike. You are a good man.
Let others now come to their own conclusion. Communication is good.
Brian, I am not brainwashed or depending on Ron to tell me what to think. In fact, I just answered a series of questions from you in which I disagreed with Ron on several points. Yet you still call me a “Ron says” adherent. I believe he was right on the fundamentals but made mistakes, too, which gave rise to Scientology being a mixture of good and bad, especially in the hands of the Church.
My father was the top research scientist in the world in his particular niche. I was the top math and science student in my high school and captain of its academic team. I went to an elite university, and spent several years studying and participating in multiple brands of Eastern religion and Western philosophy and psychology before I ever heard of Scientology.
Before I took any Scientology services I read every available book by L. Ron Hubbard, and discussed his key ideas with my famous Vedic meditation master as well as my psychotherapist who’d gotten her Ph.D directly under Carl Rogers.
I became a Scientologist because what Ron had to say made sense to me and rang true — not in every detail, but in the important major ideas — and because my first auditing worked far better than any other mental or spiritual practice I’d tried. No brainwashing ever occured.
I’m sure that many Scientologists and anti-Scientologists also have credible intellectual backgrounds, including some far more impressive than mine. My point is that you shouldn’t assume or assert that anyone who sees something good and useful in Scientology can’t observe and think for himself.
I also believe that a “discussion” is not just each person stating his viewpoint, but proceeds from there to focus on one disagreement at a time to try to find workable truth that both sides can agree on, without either side trying to dominate the other.
good point
My 2 Cents, I very much enjoy reading of your spiritual journey and how you came to the cherch. It is fascinating. I love that you discussed his ideas before you got in, with other thinkers.
That is so different from my experience. I love too that you had some good and truly helpful experiences in auditing that moved the needle for you.
I also believe that I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I want to look at items that I thought were helpful and re-think them. I am discarding a lot, but re-framing what I like by comparing it with what other thinkers do to explain what I like.
When I was in the cherch, I saw “the Secret” and LOVED it. I was telling someone at the cherch about it and got written up. Then the phone calls went out telling people not the see “the secret.” I remember being sad because it said in such a better way the concept of deciding causatively how to be, and the idea that we could cause good effects. It was so bright and more what I’d wanted to find in the cherch. I think I might like to see it again now that I’m out.
My point MTC is that hearing that you are a seeker and have had deep spiritual gains from many areas including the cherch is a welcome part of the thread to me.
Clearly, thanks for your kind words.
I loved The Secret when I first saw the video. Its basic principle is certainly true. However, it depends on a person being able to make a clean postulate unencumbered by any negative counter-thought.
Correctly done Scientology auditing can remove negative counter-thoughts so The Secret works in practice.
BUT WYNSKI YOU DON’T DISCUSS, YOU JUST INVALIDATE. IF YOU’LL ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE IN A POLITE, RATIONAL DISCUSSION, YOU’LL GET NO RESISTENCE FROM ME.
If one takes the time to study the posts from people like Foolproof, marildi and some other Hubbard adherents you will see a pattern of an inability to apply logic and VERY basic real world truths to anything to do with the cult Hubbard manufactured.
If one knew Miscavige BEFORE he took total power and juxtaposition the aforementioned Hubbard follower’s habit of proclaiming those who oppose Hubbard as being criminals (SP’s & PTS’s) in need of Hubbard’s “ethics” & “justice” procedures. It is clear that scientology itself is the genesis of raving dictators like DM. All they can see is that people who oppose them are SP’s just as LRH pronounced.
Another case in point in the debarred criminal who is currently trying to start a “new” church of scientology. He has already set up a “KSW” council (Geheime Staatspolizei aka Gestapo) that will pronounce from on high what is canonical and what is heresy (and thus suppressive and criminal) Ironically they have come up with a “grade chart” that is at great odds with the last one LRH approved. You can also see this bolt-hole mentality in a group called Milestone Two.
Scientology as a group activity BREEDS insane dictators. It has ALWAYS been under such a person. Starting with Hubbard hisself.
Agreed MIke, it breeds dictatorial attitudes and behaviors because Hubbard created an us vs them thought club. We are the cream of the cream, the only ones to save the universe. And society needs our help.
By equating our planet, our civilization, our culture, our spiritual legacies, our philosophies, our therapists, journalists and doctors etc as a failed civilization, the dramatization OT3 implants, Ron in effect made himself the only person to solve it because he is the one who created the problem.
L Ron Hubbard, per his doctor at the time in Las Palmas during OT3 hallucination research, said he was not eating and taking drugs and rum. Well ya know how Ron said that he almost killed himself going through his demented imagination called the Wall of Fire, well I think that is what he was meaning.
L Ron Hubbard came up with OT 3 during a drug and alcohol hallucination. That was the danger he was talking about. Maybe he was so drunk and blasted on uppers that he fell, thus giving himself the story of OT dangers.
Otto Roose, who audited Ron and was tarred and feathered for daring to say Ron had Rock Slams, said that in Ron’s medicine cabinet on the Apollo, was filled with all types of drugs.
What My Two Cents, Marildi, Statpush and Foolproof are protecting, is an image in their heads that has been agreed upon for decades, starting in their young formative years, that daddy Ron is a benevolent messiah come on earth to be the last chance for the universe to survive.
You cannot argue with mindset.
They have two options:
To form a new bubble, like MIlestone 2 and keep out the miscreants, and bathe in the incestuous waters of everyone agreeing with everyone else…..
or
Continue the dialog with people who challenge their absolutist fallacious scientism.
It is not the good parts of Scientology that is in discussion here. It’s the dangerous delusional stuff.
The doctrines that slam mind shut like a pinched sphincter. The doctrines that cause a mind to be so closed that it cause them to equate those who criticize as criminal SPs.
This sentiment IS the effect of internalizing the paranoid persecution complex of Ron himself; through his written words, on course, demoed, demonstrated and made int a personality characteristic; the well trained Scientologist.
Brian, please take me off your list of Ronbots. I disagree with LRH on many things. I want to throw out the bad, preserve the good, and build on it. Where I disagree with you, Wynski, et. al. is that you only write about the bad, and never the good.
M2C I write about what IS. If I find scientific evidence of something “good” in scientology I’ll write about it. So far that has never been discovered. If you care to bring such evidence we can discuss it.
But, I have MUCH experience with the tyrannical tactics of trying to shut down discourse. Next we’ll have some insane person calling people “haters” on this thread as word goes out That is simply a thought stopping exercise.
Did you never see auditing help anyone?
I’m kind of thinking that auditing is like talking to a therapist, it probably does make you feel better. At least at first. But a therapist with traditional accredited training is probably in a better position to recognize and deal with personal. behavioral, and even medical issues. Auditors don’t have the oversight and structure that medical professionals have. Into whose hands are you placing yourself? I have no faith in Scientology ‘certs’ than can and are “pulled back” arbitrarily by the Church.
Then there is the matter of what do they get from you? The traditional therapist has a goal: to help you get well, so you won’t need their services any longer. The Church has a goal: to get you to need more of their services and give them ever increasing amounts of money. Their goal is not really to clear the planet, but to make a lot of money. L Ron Hubbard said that. The Church shows that, by their actions. They don’t help people afford Scientology services, they don’t offer it for discounted rates or for free. The longer you are in, the more money they require from you.
Auditing may be helpful in the short term; or it may be a set-up to get you to think you need more services. Ever get a coupon for a “free” or discounted oil change for your car? But when you get there, they find several other things that they tell you must be done right away? Conveniently, they can do those things right there in their shop. It will cost more of course. Lucky for you they found these problems that you didn’t even know you had.
Or your grocery store has cereal on sale, great deal… but now their milk is three times more costly. They give to you on one hand, and take back more in the other.
Then there is the well-known drug dealer example: he calls you over, and says I have a free sample of the drug in one hand… left or right, if you choose correctly you win. You do choose correctly, and win. You use the free sample. But now, you are hooked on his product. He knows you will keep coming back for more and he will make his money from you. That’s why, both hands held a “free” sample. Either one you chose would have the free sample.
So, people say, just don’t choose either, don’t take the free product. It’s only going to hurt you and get you coming back for more. Right? Want a free Scientology personality test anyone? How about some auditing, to help you solve problems you didn’t even know you had? Or get rid of some body thetans you didn’t realize existed.
T.J., before I got into Scientology I received well over 100 hours of psychotherapy from several highly-regarded Ph.D psychologists and one psychiatrist, each with his or her own approach — Freudian, Jungian, Reichian, Rogerian, or Cognitive.
Then I got Scientology auditing from an OT 2, Class 6, and in less than 10 hours got 100 times the case gain I had experienced from all of those “experts” combined.
And I didn’t get hit up to buy more, although I did buy more later on my own origination, and was thrilled with those results, too. Of course, this was in the 60’s before evil took over the Church.
Ok, sorry if I have not understood something about you. I should not have categorized you with others. My bad.
Regarding the good. I have many times taken time off from my criticisms to write what I learned from Ron and auditing. But you probably don’t know that.
The reason I give more time to the negative criticism is because I feel it is essential to our public health.
The toxic condition of Scientology can be found in the writings of LRH.
Also somewhere in this blog I stated to Foolproof why I come here and write what I write.
You can scroll down through the conceptual quicksand and landmines on this thread and find it.
Hey My Two Cents……………… thank you for clarifying for me.
Being that I am in a successful marriage I can be corrected with out imploding.
I’ll not lump you in a category anymore. Sorry
heee… Brian, you sound like you are doing exercises from some of the books we had to read in Psychology classes… “When I say No I feel guilty”, and “Don’t say Yes when you want to say No”, and “I’m OK, you’re OK”… agree with the person, apologize, persuade, all the while keeping resolutely to your own point of view. Classic textbook. I’m not being critical, I’m complimenting you, I’m actually very impressed to see these techniques put in action so effectively… and probably even more so because I think you are very sincere in your belief and your approach just comes naturally to you. But then, again, what do I know? Well, I’m done here for the day… there’s only so much T.J. a person can be expected to tolerate at one time. Adios, all! Have a happy weekend, I’m planning to. 🙂
Thanks TJ. My response was natural. I was not emulating other knowledge.
I agreed with him. I was sticking him in a box with Foolproof. MY Two Cents allows criticism of Ron. I do not think Foolproof does yet. I could be wrong though.
Foolproof, is there any sentiment that we all have expressed about Ron and his therapy that you agree with?
Maybe Mike doesn’t write about the good because he feels, as do I, that there isn’t any good to talk about.
Think about it this way. I’m currently watching Game 7 of the World Series. I absolutely loathe the Indians, mostly due to their disgusting fans (third, in my view, in repulsiveness to Yankees and Red Sox fans). However, I have had a red-hot, soul-consuming, all-pervading hatred of the Cubs in me since birth (comes from being a South Sider). This game, sir, has no good result for me. Milestone Two and Merrill Vannier’s group are the Indians. CoS are the Cubs.
I hope that illuminates things.
Brian and Wynski, please make a simple list of what you consider to be Scientology’s bad parts, and a seperate list of what you consider to be its good parts. Then I’ll tell you where I agree and disagree. I think you’ll be surprised.
Wynski, the First Independent Church of Scientology hasn’t published its Grade Chart yet. How do you know what’s on it?
M2C, because I know a class VIII on the KSW council.
Some of your other “minor thoughts” (I’m not being sarcastic so please don’t interpret it as such – a trifle didactic admittedly but then I have no choice on this):
In Academies I have been in there was never any (real) trouble with EM25 Dating Drill.
As to student’s TR1 if I spotted on such or any meter drill that indeed the student’s TR1 was poor then he would get a pink sheet, improve his TR1, redo the drill – and lo and behold would then get the reads required. Quite empirical. I can even remember doing this from a long time ago now.
Your (or your spouse’s) point about letting the PC decide what to run or is “charged” is in complete contravention to the principle that if the PC knows what the problem is then it is not a problem. It is only the unknown aspects of the case denoted by the instant reads on the reactive mind that are really causing the PC’s problems. Ask for a hands up to PCs if they would like to be run on uncharged items! Sorry Terra but that is fundamentally nonsense. I have seen (and corrected) the upsets caused when PCs are run on uncharged items. Ask any HGC auditor you may know, again from the empirical evidence of the well-being of the PC.
The illogics you pass off as “fact” make no sense.
So, why now is it that a thetan is incapable of knowing what is causing upset? You explain it as the Reactive Mind? Then how do you audit someone who is Clear (this is a rhetorical question seeking to point out the illogic, not one I want answered with a reference to another circular “truth” taken from LRH writings).
I do not disagree that there is value in auditing. I imply disagree with the know-it-all didactic attitude about it.
It is no different than a psychiatrist helping a patient with talk therapy. Or someone who gains clarity with meditation. You cannot take away what the person gains by saying “that cannot work”. Converesely, you cannot claim this is the ONLY method for accomplishing such gain because some people have had gains from it.
The actual LRH statement in C/S Series 7 is, “This doesn’t mean the pc is always wrong. He is generally right when he says he’s overwhelmed or upset. He’s almost always wrong when he says what overwhelmed him or what bypassed charge was out, when simply saying it does not correct the case or produce a floating needle and very good indicators.”
Would that be a compromise we could agree on?
As for how a Clear can be audited when he has no Reactive Mind of his own, it should by now be obvious that whatever state a person is in that qualifies him to be labelled “Clear,” that state does not preclude him from still having some level of charge on some subjects.
Clear is not a “total absence of” state. It’s a “recovered ability” state. A Clear still has to take responsibility for his mental and spiritual condition, and can still suffer the consequences if he doesn’t. It’s just that he now CAN take responsibility to a FAR greater degree than he could before.
Clear is not a “total absence of” state. It’s a “recovered ability” state. A Clear still has to take responsibility for his mental and spiritual condition, and can still suffer the consequences if he doesn’t. It’s just that he now CAN take responsibility to a FAR greater degree than he could before.
These things go on and on. No matter what is pointed out or described as contradictory, there is always an answer. Now Clear is not absence of the reactive mind suddenly??? Says you?
Not going to back and forth with this any further.
I will say though this posting about the EMeter got more TA than any post in recent memory *wink*
It certainly has! And that to me is a good thing. I’m someone who both experienced real gains from early auditing experiences and who sincerely believed in the whole Hubbardian cosmology at one point in time. When I exited the cherch it took me years of study, self-reflection and additional life experience to come to the conclusions that I now have concerning $cn’s value and the true motivations of its founder.
As a result, I believe that physically removing yourself from $cn and company of True Believer $cilons is a a necessary step toward recovering your own self-determinism and critical reasoning abilities, but it is just the first step in what for many can be a very long process of de-indoctrination that proceeds at its own pace, based on many different individual differences.
It may seem arrogant to assume that everyone who exits the corporate cherch will also eventually discard the larger belief $cn belief system as well, but I think that’s where open dialogue, critical analysis and logical reasoning can serve to bridge whatever existing gaps that might divide us. As I just mentioned in another post to this thread, I remain open to objectively evaluating any verifiable claims that $cn adherents might wish to come forward with. But to me, at this late date, the fact that no one that I’m aware has demonstrated any of very clearly specified claims for abilities gained as a Clear or and OT completion suggest that no one is likely to in the future either. I sincerely wish it were otherwise.
Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to realize my true immortal nature and regain my long lost native state super powers. Unfortunately, I’ve seen no evidence whatsoever that’s possible and, since that’s my personal truth, I’m pretty much stuck with it until evidences appears to the contrary.
Mike, I was responding to “what happens to the billions of incidents that are never run?” What’s YOUR answer?
As for Clear being an ability, check the definitiion of Clear in use all through the 70’s. It mentions a specific ability, not absence of all case.
And you don’t like “back and forth”? Isn’t that what discussion is? Isn’t that what got all the TA you mentioned?
I think you are making a false dichotomy there. It is not an “either/or” proposition where Clear is just the absence of something versus just the gaining of something — it can be both. I have not bothered to look it up, but my recollection is that Clear was defined in part as someone who no longer had a reactive mind from DMSMH on — that’s an absence of something. Yes, you are correct that there are abilities gained, too. That makes it more of a “both/and” proposition.
I think later (post-DMSMH) Clear was conceived of as a first dynamic (“self”) state and that would supposedly explain why there could still be more charge a Clear would have to work through — the charge would be on other dynamics (and eventually of course on “body thetans” and clusters of those leaches).
Of course we may as well be discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, since in over 60 years of working hard at it, Scientology has not produced a single Clear or OT, has not engaged in any actual scientific research, has not proven the existence of engrams (the only test that I’m aware of did not show that auditing could recover memories during pain or unconsciousness), and so on.
But nonetheless, it is worthwhile to explore getting the “theory” portrayed accurately.
(PS I just did a quick check. Scientology dot org says “A Clear is a person who no longer has his own reactive mind …” That is certainly an absence of something.)
If you have a Tech Dictionary from the 70’s, definition #1 is “a thetan who can ___.” It’s stated as an ability.
FP, I appreciate the fact that you sincerely believe that $cn auditing is effective when a skilled and highly experienced auditor delivers it. I myself had some outstanding results from my very first experiences in auditing, during several intensives of life repair, so I have no intent whatsoever to invalidate or diminish the gains and insights that many folks continue to acknowledge. But if each of us should be granted the beingness to have our subjective sense of gains accepted as our own personal truth, even by those who did not experience the same gains, then logically, the converse should also be accepted. That is, there are many who do not feel as if their auditing experiences, especially on the upper bridge, were of value to them and that is their own personal truth which should be accepted at face value, just as you would like yours to be.
So, I think that the invitation that many of us who are no longer believers in much or any part of $cn theory or practice are extending to you, Marildi, M2C and others is to engage in a discussion “outside the $cn bubble,” which would mean that the validity of the points that you’re trying to make don’t presuppose the truth of $cn claims, but instead follow the much longer and larger tradition of logic. When you and the others here who also continue to believe in most or all of The Tech as being highly effective engage with us at the level of logic, we’re both enabled to further a constructive dialogue in which you’re not made wrong for your beliefs and having your subjective experiences of gains invalidated, and we’re not made wrong for having had different experiences or coming to different conclusions.
This ongoing discussion of e-meter theory is an excellent topic to explore in that way because it is exactly where some of the most fundamental metaphysical beliefs that underpin the entire $cn cosmology meet up with the physical world and are either reconcilable with the known and accepted laws of physics, as comprehensively derived throughout the entire history of science, or they are not. In that specific regard, I attempted to illustrate earlier how one of Elron’s earliest and most fundamental concepts, mental mass, is in direct conflict with some of the most well-accepted and experimentally validated theories of physics.
More specifically, one of Elron’s most foundational assumptions that the entire structure of $cn is built upon, holds that immaterial, immortal spiritual beings (i.e., thetans) are able to both create matter and energy on this physical plane of existence where it can be detected and measured, and also to as-is it completely. Thus, the logical implication of that conjecture is that, because mass and energy are fundamentally equivalent, any newly created mass.energy form would result, for example, in a decrease in the actual weight of a PC as they as-ised the mental mass that Elron hypothesized the reactive mind to be made up of. It’s a very simple and altogether logical prediction that one would expect to see, if indeed, this fundamental aspect of his theory was correct.
He’s reported to have actually run an informal experiment to confirm his hypothesis and supposedly noted that a PC had indeed lost 30 lbs. of mental mass after auditing, which is a truly astonishing claim and one that, if replicated and confirmed, would literally turn the known laws of physics concerning the conservation of matter and energ, on its head and result in world-wide attention and acclaim. The fact that this astonishing and potentially earth-shattering result was never seen or heard of again must give anyone who is also familiar with Elron’s disastrous early public demonstration of a Clear’s claimed power of total recall pause to reflect on the possibility that the rest of $cn theory might also be fundamentally flawed.
I’d like to be able to believe in my own immortality and the ultimate possibility of regaining my native state super powers, but the many failures of $cn to deliver the gains that it claims – beginning with the first Clears and continuing on to the much less than impressive behavior and achievements of OT 8’s – makes that prospect seem highly unlikely to me. But if it’s not to you and others, then I’m very willing to objectively investigate any claim of verifiable past life recall, telepathic/telekinetic powers or eidetic recall that anyone might care to make.
Harpoona Frittata: “. . . I’m very willing to objectively investigate any claim of verifiable past life recall, telepathic/telekinetic powers or eidetic recall that anyone might care to make.”
HF and others interested, below is a link that lists out dozens of peer-reviewed papers of consciousness researcher Dean Radin and others (along with links to those papers).The list is introduced with the following:
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“This is a selected list of peer-reviewed journal articles about psi (psychic) phenomena, most published in the 21st century. There are also some papers of historical interest and other resources. A comprehensive list of important articles and books would run into the thousands. Click on the title of an article to download it.
“The Parapsychological Association – an international professional organization for scientists and scholars interested in psi phenomena – is an elected affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the largest scientific organization in the world and the publisher of the journal *Science*, one of the most prominent scientific journals.
“I mention this because some individuals who call themselves ‘parapsychologists’ are not scientists. They are better described as paranormal enthusiasts, ghost hunters, exorcists, or other practitioners of occult or esoteric arts. While such activities are interesting to many in the general population, the people engaged in them are not practicing science as defined by the AAAS, and as such their use of the term parapsychologist is inappropriate.”
http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm
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Here are some of the subjects of these research papers:
– Telepathy & ESP
– Healing at a Distance
– Physiological correlations at a distance (such as the remote sense of being stared at, or physiological connections between twins)
– Survival of Consciousness (as in near-death experiences)
– Precognition & Presentiment
– Mind-Matter Interaction
From that list, you will see that there exists plenty of evidence – if you are serious about looking for it. Also note that in the last paragraph quoted above, criticism of much of the so-called evidence in this field is fully acknowledged. That “evidence” is not science – but there does exist scientific evidence.
As regards hard core scientific journals, I’m convinced they are heavily biased in favor of protecting their position and that they do not take risks. I’ve read that many individual scientists are not personally closed to the evidence of paranormal phenomena, but that the current consensus is such that voicing this would literally put their careers at risk.
In any case, all you doubters, I’m not sure whether you really want to find convincing evidence for spiritual abilities or you’d “rather err with Galen than proclaim the truth with Harvey.” 😉
Thanks for the references. I pursued an interest in parapsychology and psi phenomena some decades back and found the field fascinating! I’ve aalso had a number of personal experiences myself which were very meaningful to me, but seemed to defy the know laws of physics, so I’m completely open to evaluating all such claims without anticipatory bias.
But as Carl Sagan famously observed, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” which is at it should be, imo. My comments about super normal and paranormal abilities were made with specific regard to the claims Elron made for $cn processing at various points on the grade chart. I’ve run into quite a few OTs and Clears in my time and never met a single one who could demonstrate the abilities that supposedly gained at those levels, including myself.
So, if there’s anyone who feels that they actually have gained those abilities, then I’m very open to evaluating there claim. And for those who feel that they’ve made gains as a result of their auditing, regardless of their ability to objectively demonstrate it, I’m glad that it’s been of use to you.
I was wondering, did you follow my argument concerning Elron’s concept of mental mass in relation to the fundamental laws of physics regarding the conservation of mass and energy?
Elron had it exactly right: If an immaterial spiritual being can postulate mass and energy into existence and also as-is it completely through auditing, then the direct implication of that theoretical position is that a person whose undergone auditing should lose weight as more and more of the mental mass of the reactive mind is as-ised.
There’s an early record of him supposedly having conducted this informal experiment and found that the PC had indeed lost a lot of weight. Now, to be extremely clear here, if this result could be confirmed and replicated it would upend one of bedrock laws of physics and be of enormous interest to scientist the world over, like BAM, right now. To my knowledge, Elron never again attempted to demonstrate this incredible result, which to me suggests that he knew it wasn’t replicable and his demo had been staged.
Putting aside the question of whether or not he faked a result, the direct implication of this core construct of mental mass is one that he seemed to understand quite well, which is that if we as spiritual beings can wink into existence matter and energy, and also as-is them completely, rather than just converted them to another form, then both processes should be able to be measured as an increase or decrease in actual body weight. But on the other hand, if effective auditing takes place in which the PC is believed to be blowing charge and as-ising the mental mass that the reactive mind is hypothesized of being composed of, yet no loss of weight takes place, then there’s obviously something amiss with this foundational construct of mental mass. Which is exactly the situation that I believe Hubbardian theory is in here.
I could go on at length to describe how auditing and other forms of insight therapy may actually work in reconfiguring the architecture of neuroconnectivity which underly conscious thought and unconscious processing, but I’ve already gone on for long enough here. Suffice it to say that violating the fundamental laws of physics regarding the conservation of matter and energy isn’t required to explain insight and case gain.
Yes, you did have this as a “major thought” later on down the article:
“Since many questions are word-cleared prior to the auditor formally asking it, it‘s not unreasonable” to think PCs may anticipate what’s coming and react to the “major thought” before the end of the question.”
Which is what I say above. You are correct, but you think you are not – and worse you think that LRH has got it wrong, when he had it right in the first place, but you had misinterpreted it!
Corrected: which is what I say below, not above.
Your question about the validity of instant reads is answered by referring to HCOB “E-Meter Watching – Are you Waiting for the Meter to play Dixie?” and understanding that you as an auditor are only interested in the timeless reactions of the reactive mind which an instant read denotes, not the analytical thoughts of the PC after he has “thought about the question for a bit”. It is all in this and several other HCOBs which again were on your HSDC course. Hope your Interne Sup didn’t have the same MisUs!
Your argument is seriously flawed. And your only response is “you have MU’s.” Don’t you see how stupid you keep making yourself look?
What exactly is this serious flaw?
You said: you as an auditor are only interested in the timeless reactions of the reactive mind which an instant read denotes, not the analytical thoughts of the PC
I then asked you how this works on someone who is Clear.
You then said a Clear has not gotten rid of his reactive mind, he has simply gained abilities.
So then the meter DOES work on the analytical thoughts of the pc? Or it doesn’t?
That is a pretty serious flaw in your explanation I would say.
First of all, Mike, you have me confused with Foolproof. But I’ll answer for both of us.
Yes,, the meter can read on analytical thought. That’s what a latent read is.
Re Clear, I didn’t say a Clear hasn’t gotten rid of his Reactive Mind. Check out the definition of Clear used in the 70’s. It’s an ability, not a state of no aberration. Surely you’ve observed Clears being aberrated and getting auditing on it, just not Dianetics.
Had a peek at the article again and Terra, you need to look up or define what is meant by a “major thought” which appears in your text here and refer to HCOB E-Meter Instant Reads, which was on the HSDC that you did:
“LRH said that only those questions that read—produce a needle reaction—at the “precise end of any major thought voiced by the auditor,” should be addressed. In my experience, this rule was interpreted to mean needle reactions at the exact end of the last word of the auditor’s question. Not a fraction of a second before; not a fraction of a second after; but at the precise end. This rule never made sense when I read it on the Hubbard Standard Dianetics Course and it doesn’t make sense now.”
Your definition COULD be correct, but it also could not be. Seems you have an MU since the 1970s. Your question is answered in the above HCOB which I quote, with the data about minor thoughts. And although this bulletin uses an example where the major thought IS the whole sentence that may not necessarily be the case. The major thought could be received before the last syllable of the last word, probably not very often, but could be.
You have MU’s. You have unhandled Service Facs. You have a self importance button. You are PTS. You are know-best. You are stuck in an incident of your mother hitting you in the womb while she shouted “this cannot be right.” You are…. Do all these statements make you feel good or like you are being insulted? I didn’t call you a single name. Just pigeon-holed you with scientology labels. Do you understand?
Is the purpose of this blog to make people feel good? Or is it to find truth?
I the purpose of your comment to be right? Or to prove someone else wrong?
Neither. It’s to find the truth. Sometimes people are right, and sometimes they are wrong. Which they are or I am at any given moment doesn’t matter to me. Truth matters.
I have received auditing with and without a meter and I prefer being without it. I always felt that the meter knew things that I didn’t and depended on it to be sure I was OK. Without the meter I still looked and if nothing was there, then nothing was there. So refreshing. So empowering.
There were very many times that I went into session with great anxiety about something or a severe upset that I was experiencing and the meter NEVER picked it up. I justified it as being something that hadn’t had an earlier, similar incident on the track and therefore was not “bypass charge.”
The fact that I was extremely charged about my current problem though, was missed entirely.
Something I do whenever something is really getting me down or I’m feeling angry that won’t go away towards someone from the past, is sit at my computer and type up anything and everything that comes to mind about that person. Sometimes it’s something like, “Who the hell do you think you are!” I write until nothing more comes. It’s as good as any session.
I was told to do this by a Class 9 auditor, by the way. He advised that afterwards one should print it out and burn it. I’ve done that only once because I wanted to be sure I’d got rid of the negative feelings.
It works, I can tell you that. I’ve done it several times. And it doesn’t cost anything!
Having a good friend that you can vent to is a great boon, too. I have someone I can do this with occasionally. This works wonders, too. I always feel great afterwards and whatever was the problem ceases to take up space in my thought or mind.
I’ve not missed auditing on iota.
Why didn’t you just tell your auditor you were upset or had a problem?
Let’s assume for a moment that LRH was right and we’ve lived for quadrillions of years. And let’s say we somehow managed to accrue five charged incidents (the overts alone would be more) to every one of those years—we’re talking more incidents than there are grains of sand on Earth (my math may be sketchy, but go with it). And we’re not even including BT’s.
Jump to present time. With this many incidents , a PC’s needle should be going wild with action. Un-reading auditing questions shouldn’t exist. Thousands, if not billions of answers should be readily available from which to choose.
Except that doesn’t happen. Not to worry; LRH had a handy answer. The incidents contained too much charge and were below the awareness level of that which the PC could confront. And thus, these incidents don’t read on the meter. OK. Let’s accept this, too.
As a PC moves up the Bridge, he becomes stronger and more able to confront his past track. By the time he breeches the Wall of Fire and moves into the really rarified levels, you’d think he’d finally have the ability to confront these trillions and trillions of charged incidents strung along millions and millions of chains in his bank. In fact, one might be surprised that smoke didn’t pour from the E-meter and the plastic shell didn’t begin to melt from all the charge. But of course, this never happens, either.
If LRH’s theories are correct, every question on every auditing list should have millions of charged answers. Even if the PC had to only erase the basic on every chain, the number would still be staggering and take a million lifetimes to achieve.
Unless of course, the PC had finally reached a level in which he’d became cause over everything—or learned he’d “made it all up”–and it was no longer necessary to confront all his grains of sand.
On each Expanded Grade one runs one process after another until the pc gets the “ability gained” of the whole grade, after which it doesn’t matter that not all of the processes were run.
On NED one runs engram after engram until the pc becomes cause over engrams, after which it doesn’t matter that not every engram was run.
On New OT 3-7 one runs BT after BT until one becomes cause over BTs, after which it no longer matters if they weren’t all run.
If the pc or pre-OT is run past these points of regained ability, he’s forced to re-create being at effect, and he gets worse. The real target of auditing is not out-ruds incidents or engrams or BTs, but the person’s consideration about what he can safely experience and cause in his life.
My 2 Cents: Too often, I’ve observed that the “ability gained” was temporary. Others times, it was obvious that the “ability” was never achieved. Which isn’t to say, people haven’t had gains, just that auditing is hit or miss with no provable scientific evidence to back up the claims that the tech is infallible, as the church would have us believe. Harpoona spoke elegantly of this earlier.
That said, are you saying that if someone runs an infinitely small percentage of incidents, it doesn’t matter anymore that the other 99.999999999% were left untouched? I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying the odds are a little daunting, don’t you think?
The only incidents that need to be run are those that are in restimulation.
But the only reason even those incidents need to be run is that the person is actively resisting experiencing them. As he becomes more open to experiencing in general, most incidents in restimulation key out without being addressed.
So auditing addresses those incidents that will produce key out of the largest numbers of other incidents. Done correctly it’s like a “surgical strike” in warfare, taking out the enemy’s key assets rather than trying to kill every soldier.
And ultimately it’s not incidents that are the problem anyway. It’s the person’s creation of his own limitations. The incidents are just excuses to create limitation instead of expansive living. Creative Processing addresses expansive living directly, and ignores incidents altogether.
M2C – just one thing on what you say – on VII they are all gone.
But if all of these super sticky disembodied alien beings don’t actually exist to begin with, and are merely you trying to make yourself as dissociated as Elron was, then it’s not so much a case of overunning a win and mocking up imagined BTS, but of mocking them up from the start as if they were real.
The brain remains very plastic and subject to considerable change over time and through repetition throughout a lifetime, so it’s very possible to NOT be crazy and imagining yourself to be possessed by space alien spirits to begin with, but to alter your brain through hundreds of hours of focused effort so that you end up in the shape Elron was in when he died.
Sounds expensive, dangerous and silly to me, but there are even worse ways to spend your money and time, I guess. So, carry on with the telepathic exorcism of space alien spirits if you must 😉
What BTs actually are is relatively unimportant. They are SOMETHING, and that something reads on the meter and does co-operate with standard tech handling.
That said, it’s also true that many people have had trouble auditing them. The major reasons are:
1) Case not set up by fully completing all lower levels.
2) Lack of fundamental auditing skills on the part of the solo auditor.
3) Sec checking (interrogation-style confessionals) every 6 months in direct violation of LRH instructions in C/S Series 73RB.
4) Invalidation of pre-OTs blowing BTs by inspection (simple looking), and enforcement of “the full procedure” to handle something that’s not there anymore.
5) Enforcement of “3-swing floating needles,” with consequent invalidation and overrun of many legitimate F/Ns.
6) Robotic, meter-obsessed auditors at Advanced Orgs and Flag.
These factors have caused Solo NOTS to be a hellish, introvertive ordeal for many people in he Church. Meanwhile, by eliminating these factors several Independent field auditors are delivering OT levels including Solo NOTS with very good results.
Meter reads deserve a bit of research before we hypothesize the existence of disembodied spirit souls telepathically scrambling our intellectual and emotional circuits. That’s my opinion. I won’t say it’s impossible but it’s incongruous with what we currently know about reality.
I suggest the problems certain people attribute to the “BT’s” can easily be explained in more conventional ways. The biggest problem with BT theory is that people who have supposedly gotten rid on vast numbers of them continue to misbehave in the typical fashion and don’t appear any better off than their non-scientology counterparts.
In short, getting rid of them as evidenced by meter reads seems to yield no apparent benefits.
Roger, in the early 60’s LRH said that one’s own GPMs are 100 (or maybe 1000, I don’t remember) times more powerful than implanted GPMs or entities. But he couldn’t figure out how to audit them safely. Lots of SHSBC students got sick trying.
So he dropped GPM research, and developed the Bridge we’re familiar with. It’s my personal opinion that this left the true Mother Load in place.
A few Independent auditors, such as Rolf Dane, have done R&D work on “own GPM” auditing, and report getting good results. Rolf says that after thorough case completion with his technique he finds very little need to address BTs.
Whatever it is causing “reads” is research material for interested parties not beholden to any preconceived ideas. The point I’m making is whatever “BT’s” are, there doesn’t appear to be any benefits to getting rid of them. I knew plenty of OT3’s and 7’s in the pre-Miscavige days who, per Hubbard’s tone scale, did NOT demonstrate signs of happiness and peace of mind above their non-scientology counterparts.
On the contrary, I found most of them to be quick to anger and intolerant of others (downstats, db’s). That isn’t just my own experience. For all their so-called, “case gain” we don’t see radiant, highly creative, outstandingly intelligent people. Just average people, some of whom have drinking problems, sex problems and certainly MONEY problems. Perhaps BT-reduced people have a subjective sense of betterment but that isn’t evident through the application of Hubbard’s Emotional Tone Scale.
Roger, I agree with you about the tone level of many persons who have done the whole Bridge or most of it.
I believe the reason for their attitude is revealed in an early 50’s statement by Ron that if you run people on overts too much relative to ARC breaks, and do a lot of that, it makes them mean.
As the years have gone by, tech delivery in the Church has warped more and more to address overts. It has become an obsession and is out tech.
“What BTs actually are is relatively unimportant.”
is a COMPLETELY irrational comment. If, in the absence of ALL scientific data shows, COMPLETELY manufactured by the persons imagination after reading Hubbard’s drivel, then there is NO reason to spend one nano-second or penny on them.
Wynski, if BTs are mocked up by the pre-OT, they still read and run, and case gain occurs.
My 2 Cents, I agree with your spot on list of why OT VII can turn into an introverting ordeal. All your points are valid. I have lived some of them too.
“On each Expanded Grade one runs one process after another until the pc gets the “ability gained””
That means no one ever stops running the processes of Grade 1 as there has NEVER been a documented example of that ability gained anywhere at any time by any person.
Absolutes are unobtainable. The test is, does the person feel better and do better? Is he significantly more able, even if not yet a world champion?
Call out the guards!!! Call security! Calling all OSA dumpster divers!
Terra Cognita is applying SP reasoning again. This sector is at stake. For the sake of every women and child for the next 188,999,000,777,543,088,444,553 years, 11.456782 months, 26 days, 18.542 hrs and .0087900654323455 seconds, we must stop him.
All hands on deck. We must protect mankind’s only hope of not becoming an eternal rock. Or worse: addicted to Justin Beiber!
Oh! The horror!
Terra, please understand. This obsession with reason could be coming from the Egglant Sticky Reason Implant.
I know you think you are right because you intuitively and rationally have come to an adult conclusion.
But you also may be stuck in the “I know what I’m talking about” Implant, delivered by psyches on Farsec.
Please, for the sake of eternity, do your retread!
Brian: As much I agree with your earlier replies, this one hit the nail on the head!
Yes, well said. 🙂
“no scientific research exists to back up these claims.”
If there were, there would be no issue with calling it a “science of the mind”. Been waiting since 1950 for any proof or any published research.
Still waiting.
Suggest one day you make up your mind about something. Otherwise it will be a very long wait…
Waiting for the correct answer is gtsix making up their mind. You are assuming that because gtsix does not automatically see how accurate and scientific Scientology is, that his/her mind is incapable of something.
Waiting to see if something is what it claims is a sign of self determined intelligence. Sovereign original authentic intelligence.
Your single sentence was arrogance itself. Passive aggressive.
Foolproof, you have charge on critics. But so did Ron. And he is your teacher. So I really don’t blame you. Study tech works.
Waiting for the research fool.
Surely you didn’t hop on a fairy tale without checking the tesearch?
Or is research is not needed? Pinks and grass and fairy tales are all there is?
Meter Drill 25 coaching was very interesting for me. I had an OT5 as student and he could not make it within the first hour. After some time I had a close look into his universe and found his postulate about that action that prevented success. I pointed his attention to this postulate. He had a look onto it and almost fell off the chair. But after that he could do the drill with ease. By the way, I think, without a good portion OT ability on the part of the student and coach, this drill is not doable. That was in 1982.
Great article, fully parallel to what I estmated of the meter – even to the point that I was distrustful of what it ndid even when sull a “good” scientology exec. It is so often out during the various utilizations that it is the first or second main cause of customers – pcs being lost by the cult! Imagine how many people are confessed by HCOs much to confident in what they saw on the dial? Or of Exams who declare an F/N when the pc or student is in fact furious Inside despite VGIs outside? Or of any F/N on things the OT running BTs think of Hubbard stupidity regarding these supposed parasites?
I’m pro meters and pro auditors other wise the cherch sux donkey dick. I really enjoyed the posts by auditors and I can tell that the real ones know what they are talking about.
Remember it’s about spirit, mind and bodies and they all can read on a meter. You can throw in some BTs or “spirit guides/ helpers) as well. Some of then were great to have around. I have audited plants and gotten reads on list items( too hot, too cold, too dry,water, bad location, too much sun, etc. I blew out a Mk 6 on an Avocado tree.Trees are electricalIy charged. I have had some incredibly good auditors and big wins but some were not so good. The worst one was a class 8 alcoholic bitch.
I was a NOTs WC at flag for a short while but the management was too spooky for me And I left and it was as if I had never been there. Free at last.
One thing that really bothered me was taking a read at the end of the thought major at the end of the word or some such wording.that never went well for me. What did go well was when I was watching for reads on someone who was listening to a tape that I could not hear. I just took the read and it always ended well. Those falls could be on prefixes, suffixes, MUs, thought, cogs, disagreements, agreements etc. I asked what they read and we cleared it up . F/N, VGI no big deal. Perceptions, TR0, ARC and responsibility can handle BTs or case.
I love these debates.
Hubbard called his training side of the Bridge to Total Freedom “The Academy” most likely after the Greeks Plato. Hubbard needed scientology to sound philosophic, from one angle. since he said it’s a applied religious philosophy. Another angle would be “science” and the Emeter sure fills that bill.
But the greeks “the Academy” did offer public debate, As an aside, Ben Franklin formed the Junto Club.
Hubbard’s academy has no debate or discussion of ideas, it’s only one with Ron in his lectures and books, courses, etc. Interestingly, PTS tech keeps one from discussing scientology among members, that ain’t no academy but a weeding out of “open mind”.
PTS tech is to keep one in agreement with Ron/Scientology. IMHO
This article is very interesting and if one compares the Emeter to EDA. Even Carl Jung thought of a meter as useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-meter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodermal_activity
If you read up on EDA, science is actually starting to research how emotions effect a meter.
The Volney Emeter was a godsend to Ron to make his religion aline with his Dianetics the science of mental health..
What did Ron do but add in lots of stories of OT in the PDC’s. Same time frame as Volney.
Emotions can affect a meter, per the EDA article, and we have all see that, but does that mean they are from past lives trauma like electrical implants?
Or are they just imagination or recall from reading a book or hearing a story or listening to a persuasive speaker of authority? Are not those emotions as well, whether real or imagined?
Maybe one’s prior religious upbringing, such as Buddhism about breaking the cycle of birth, change and death and to come back as another helped to reinforce Ron’s religion?
After reading some of the comments on here about students being on course having doubts about the subject or aspects of it, if HCO and Tech had done their jobs well then such students should never have been allowed on the course as they were in the PTS A-J categories. Which now explains all their comments.So it seems that what we have going on here with the “serious” responses to this daft article is a “PTS A-J Festival”! TC himself (or herself) is of course also A-J.
THere are some commenters here that complain of name calling. I delete plenty of comments that I think go too far in that. But then there are the more covert ways of name calling that somehow seem to be acceptable. Pigeon holing people as PTS or failed cases or NCG.
Mike, I wasn’t trying to be supercilious or snotty or covert. I was just stating the facts, even if it comes over that way. However, with the amount of comments on here that state that Scientology and LRH are a fraud is there really much difference between me using PTS A-J in my vein and them implying that anyone who is or has used Scientology is a dope and a fraud, in their vein? I don’t think you can accuse me of being vitriolic in my comments and I do try to be fair, unlike many other commenters on here. Where the Orgs have damaged people then I also rightly attack that.
Anyone on this blog rejecting the unrelenting, unreasoning, hate-filled “it’s all bad” propaganda spewed by certain commenters gets called horrible names by them. In response to that, Foolproof calling a spade a spade is not covert at all. What may be covert is allowing hate speech under cover of the right of free speech.
So, M2C if you consider a communication to be “hate speech” (YES, it IS subjective) you believe that they should not be able to communicate it.
THAT is denying human rights. Which IS criminal.
Thank you once again for demonstrating to those who aren’t familiar with scamology what type of people adhere to it and what crimes they wish to perpetrate against others.
Wynski, it’s not the fact that you disagree that’s the problem. It’s how you disagree.
I see both good and bad in Scientology, and I’m open to a rational discussion of the bad.
But you don’t discuss. You only assert. And you only write about the bad. You never acknowledge the good. Nearly all of your comments are purely destructive. That’s what I mean by “hate speech.” Anyone with an IQ above 50 can see that this is what you are doing.
If this were my blog I’d have a rule that any and all criticism is fine, as long as it’s in the context of a rational discussion free of insult.
You think this is “hate speech”? Bitch, I’m a gay man in his 50s. I know what hate speech is all about. What Mike and I say about Scientology isn’t hate speech, it’s “we hate Scientology” speech. There is a very significant difference between that and hate speech, and you and your crew need to figure that out before making those kinds of assertions.
Don’t try to play the victim card here, because I’ll trump you every time. You’re one step away from a very Islam-like “defaming the Prophet Hubbard, Piss Be Upon Him, is blasphemy and worthy of death,” and, personally, I’m not going to let you get away with that, with your delusions of persecution, or with your Special Snowflake act. And I am not alone in this.
Espiando, I have nothing against gays, and I do agree that there’s a difference as you say. But even granting that difference, there is hate in Wynski’s comments, and it gets in the way of rational discussion. I welcome all his criticisms as long as he’s polite and rational about them, which unfortunately he isn’t.
I like Espiando’s clear communication, he says what’s on his mind. I’ve never been offended by his posts (and I’m pretty sensitive). Mike Wynski isn’t bad either. You know he’s going to say something about Hubbard, that’s what he does. Just expect it, and ignore it if you don’t like it. He even called me a Ron-bot when he was on a roll one time. I was thinking what-the-heck? lol. :p But I ignored it because it didn’t pertain to me, and it didn’t bother me.
I’ve been in online forums where they verbally rip people to shreds, all out warring with mud slinging and name-calling that makes you wince, or quickly depart… Mike Rinder’s blog is not like that. People are going to say what they feel about Scientology, Hubbard, or whatever, and you might not always like the way they say it. That’s just part of posting on a public blog. 🙂
F…king A, My Two Cents! Bingo! You hit the nail on the head.
“Anyone on this blog rejecting the unrelenting, unreasoning, hate-filled “it’s all bad” propaganda spewed by certain commenters gets called horrible names by them.” This is also what I’ve been saying and trying to get people to clean up the name calling. Maybe the haters should just go post on ESMB.
Oh stop it. Stop trying to dictate who can or cannot post on this blog. Stop with the “holier than thou” attitude. I haven’t seen anyone calling “horrible names” – the last person who did anything like that was the first person Mike Rinder banned from here. And it took a lot to get to that point, apparently.
News flash: this site is run by a man who left the Church of Scientology, and the commenters here are mostly ex-Scientologists. That means the discussions tend to have an overwhelming viewpoint that Scientology is not all that great. There is no rule here that anyone has to be balanced in their praise and criticism of the Church of Scientology or be accepting of others opinions; however, it seems to me that people are very tolerant of Two Cents, Marildi, Foolproof, et al., and their pro-Scientology propaganda. So please try to be tolerant of the opposite side’s opinions as well.
As far as “cleaning up the name-calling”, I’d use the F-bomb sparingly, if at all, if I were you, that word, implied or not, is offensive. As is telling people they should go to ESMB board, who are you to tell anyone where they should go? You don’t see anyone here being so rude as to tell Foolproof or Marildi to skittle back to the MovingOnUp board, where they can and do post anything they choose, without having to “suffer” from anyone’s rebuttal to their posts, as it’s heavily censored over there. Again, this blog is pointing out those less-than-great things about Scientology, so don’t be annoyed when people of like mind post comments here.
TJ: “Oh stop it. Stop trying to dictate who can or cannot post on this blog. Stop with the ‘holier than thou’ attitude. I haven’t seen anyone calling ‘horrible names’…
Okay, maybe Cindy should have said “degrading” names – and they are – but I think everybody understood what she meant. I also think you should look at your objection to her using strong words – at least she didn’t direct them at a person. Have you ever objected to such personally directed comments as “idiot” “imbecile” “brainwashed”? Things like that are hardly the same as “You have an MU,” for example.
You make some valid points, TJ, but isn’t it funny how we all perceive through our biases? And I do mean all of us, but some more so than others. Not that you are one of the worst offenders.
I get what you are saying. The tech works in your opinion. So why are you here trying put down as manny people as possible? Why are you here among all of us SPs and not somewhere working with the almighty E-meter?
And actually I am solo auditing every day. As well as running a course room for local auditors. But I can still find time to field questions, even idiot questions, and point out inanities.
“Put down as many people as possible”? I reply to one or two posts. And what am I putting them down to? Seems you feel that this blog was only for and full of SPs?
If you think this blog is “full of SPs” — what are you doing here? Trying to teach all the SP’s how to act? To change their mind. You, the zealot of LRH tech, know that is not possible. The commenters on this blog are fighting long gone battles against imaginary enemies and can make no case gain.
I said that Simbiala is saying that. I didn’t say it. And it is not true. Ok?
My Apologies to you. Teach me to try and do this on my phone!
Mike: “My Apologies to you. Teach me to try and do this on my phone!”
Good example of an honest exchange.
Foolproof, out here in Woglandia, the judgement of people by pigeon holeing them in little mind boxes of MUs or some missing Scientology step is not seen as a valid argument.
That is an argument that can only take place in a bubble. In the church or over at Milestone 2. Where critics a crushed for daring to have a difference of opinion. Where all of life and its inhabitants are fit nicely into Scientological categories. Where those categories are granted absolute finality in defining people.
Out here in the free thinking world of Woglndia, where the words “reasonable and open minded” have been restored to their former glory, thinking is original, intuitive and freely expressed.
Thought that does not need the approval of 100% standard tech that keeps changing its standardness.
This is how the real world works. Many here have lived so many years in the bubble of “the critic is evil.”
Tell me Foolproof, what do you think would be the effect in one’s capacity to be a fee thinker if they were constantly asked before starting a session:
“Have you had a critical thought about L Ron Hubbard?’
Knowing full well that you could lose family, friends, jobs and eternal salvation if you had any of these thoughts.
It would I still fear of criticism. And that fear would translate into attack critics.
My opinion is that it would create a mind that goes ballistic when criticism of Ron or his tech is being scrutinized.
I believe that that question being asked in session year after year, decade after decade would create a hypnotic response towards critics.
The question,”do you have any critical thoughts towards L Ron Hubbard?” Is a hypnotic command.
These things need to be thought over. Or, if they are inconvenient and criticism should be destroyed, then Milestone 2 is for you.
Nice and tidy. We are the good guys and they are the bad guys. Just like the old days. No muss no fuss.
No annoying dissent.
Brian you will probably be rambling on here for years to come with various pet theories of yours which no one takes seriously or are interested in. You write huge long screeds about some aspect of Scientology that you have misunderstood or willfully misinterpreted and presented in a bad light, to what purpose? Why are you so concerned? You can go and “think over” these things all you want in “Woglandia” as you say – feel free. No one is inviting you to partake of Scientology. Ok now?
I see you have not read me for years. That’s probably back email talk. Something you got from one of my well trained admirers❤️❤️
Since you haven’t read the many times I have written here I will afford you the reason.
I believe L Ron Hubbard did one thing I feel is a great thought crime. A crime of philosophy and a crime against transcendence
He, through Altitude Instruction, and false knowledge, said he studies all around the world. Studied from Lamas. Indians and shaman. ALL LIES!!
Yet he dares to implicate that yoga and yogis are a practice to entrap the thetan.
He defames the great Christ with his delusional cosmology.
He positions himself with the Buddha by writing Hymn of Asia and implying he, Ron, was that messiah. He sold us messiah!
So my interests by coming to these blogs a really two fold.
1) to make it ok to be critical of Ron and his tech. Thus re establish sovereign thinking.
2) to free others from the false teaching that he is the “only way.” And thereby resurrect in them the knowledge that spiritual expansion and learning takes place outside of the confines of Scientological scientism.
3) And when people are free to further research other teachers and paths, they realize that Scientology was an introduction more than a finalized procedural consistency that produces liberation.
But before any of this can start. There needs to be a comfort level regarding unpacking who Ron really was.
It starts with sovereign thought. It’s ok to criticize
Then the work starts.
That, plus my own personal lessons coming here, learning, are the reasons I am here.
Also, sometimes it’s fun!❤️
Ha ha, three fold!
Hi Foolproof,
So that I do not misunderstand you….is your argument the following….
People who don’t think the e-meter works must be PTS?
And they should not be allowed to use the E-meter until they believe it works?
If this is supposed to be a science, then there needs to be proof.
It is a matter of Church policy that people who are on course to “find out if Scientology works” should not be on a major course in the first place. No one in Scientology is interested in proving anything to people. Either you read some books and get some basic wins and like it or you don’t and if you don’t well, don’t bother!
You were asked for your argument/opinion and you quote a policy of a church you say you are no longer a part of.
Spooky. Happy Halloween.
I do not disagree with the policy and the principle it is based on. It is all very straightforward. If you want to read spooky into that then well, get on with it.
Ok, I have a spooky question Foolproof:
Are psyches from the planet Farsec?
Crickets
And that’s exactly the point at which the very fair and intuitively appealing “if it’s true for you, based on you own experience” Elron advisory concerning the matter slips from a retrospective evaluation of what you have just experienced in auditing or training to a required prospective orientation to all future training courses and auditing levels.
It’s like you get one chance to freely decide, based on very limited initial experiences with $cn, before you’re required either to believe that it is all true before you actually experience it or you’re out. That’s exactly the kind of head game that everyone encounters once they finish a few intro courses or receive a little auditing. You’re no longer allowed to decide retrospectively at each completed level whether or not it had value for you, but must buy into to it all beforehand.
Yep, life’s tough eh?
True.
Foolproof,
You said ‘No one in Scientology is interested in proving anything to people’.
Which is fine is this was a matter of faith. I’m not trying to prove to anyone that Jesus was the Son of God, so I get where you are coming from.
BUT (and it’s a big one) the e-meter is supposed to be science, right? Scientology is making claims such as ‘thoughts have mass’ and the e-meter measures things. A floating needle proves something. A ‘rock slam’ proves something.
Call me crazy, but when I hear claims such as these, I’d like to see the proof. The scientific proof.
Didn’t you ever ask how LRH ‘discovered’ these things? Did he measure the thoughts of thousands of people and record them and then analyze that data before making his grand announcements?
It seems fairly obvious that he was making the stuff up as he went along. As many of his closest followers (and even family members) learned.
Faith is one thing. Science demands proof.
Why does one need an e-meter to ‘remember’ past lives? I can have a memory of a past life but it’s only ‘proven’ if the needle on the e-meter floats a certain way?
Quite correct Fool. People who want to look and not listen in order to find out if the tech actually works were barred from the church by El Con Tubbolard.
So glad one of his brainwashed Fools finally admits this in public.
Hello Foolproof,
I think you may have innocently stumbled on the ‘real why’ that there are so few students worldwide in the sci/dn academies these days. EVERYONE in the world is PTS A-Z!
Further more, they all somewhat recognize the fact that they are PTS, as well as the fact that the existing cherch structure does little to nothing to better their condition(s). People who are needing help know the cherch cannot help them, and the cherch doesn’t draw them in because the cherch knows it can do little to help them. It is a good balance.
Just send money to COB.
Jim your sarcastic remark is all very well and funny haha, but has nothing to do with PTS A-J. The reason why the once-full Academies are now empty is indeed as you imply, a lot to do with COB.
COB is only a symptom. What brought down Scientology is the Internet..
What brought Scientology down was Anonymous, Clambake, Piece of the Blue Sky, Barefaced Messiah, Going Clear (book and movie).
What brought down Scientology is Hana Whitefield’s revelation about Ron’s character on YouTube.
What brought down Scientology is the universal access to OT3/BT theory and practice.
And what made a looney like DM is his study of how leaders keep power. His study of how to deal with dissent, with criticism and free thinking people.
Dave learned that to keep power you destroy the hordes of enemy critics.
What dis toyed Scientology is the revelation of how Ron dumps his wife because she is bad for PR for being caught in a black ops operation that he created.
What destroyed Scientology is the revelation that L Ron Hubbard sought to destroy the life and sanity of Paulette Cooper.
What destroyed Scientology was Jerry finding the treasure of truth that revealed the true nature of a lying fabulist.
What destroyed Scientology is Ron himself. His doctrines, his imagination, his greed for money, his telling us that the orgs owed him money while suit cases of cash were secreted to offshore accounts.
DM is later on the chain. The why is Ron himself.
Brian,
That was an amazing post!
My last post on this before I shut me computer off and go to breakfast out here in the Far East (Asia, not Brooklyn)
I no doubt got off to a bad start regarding my trust in the meter in the very first session I gave in March of 1972. I had been given a very experienced Dianetic pc and all was going well, she really was a “Cadillac pc” … she eventually ran a backtrack incident, went VGIs, had a nice cog … and I was prepared to give the next command when she said “shouldn’t my needle be floating?” and I remembered LRH’s rule to say to the pc as if agreeing with them … and I did so, I immediately said “Your needle is floating” and she was happy and we went to exams.
I got a “well done” session grade (needed three to graduate) and later on my pc Lynn asked me if I had noted on the worksheet that she mentioned her that her needle should be floating. I don’t remember my answer to her now, but I did NOT note it on the worksheet.
Oh, well. It was just my first session.
I had one HGC pc for quite a few intensives who was EIGHTY EIGHT years old! Very nice fellow, was even still running his own business at that age. Forget his TA for a moment, this guy’s needle was virtually STUCK even when he was very happy. Got to the point where if it even MOVED on an ep, I would convince myself that for a brief moment, a “fleeting” moment if you will, I saw an FN (yes, for a while an HCO B had the words “fleeting FN”, no three swings there I can tell you, said HCO B probably no longer extant)
I will never forget the time when our pc examiner Ellen wrote next to the needle line on the exam form … “very small FN … more like a floating tick.”
A FLOATING TICK??? Ha ha … yeah, one can convince oneself of almost anything when necessary.
My 2 Cents with his comment above has beat me to what I wanted to say about these ridiculous glib and gleeful articles written by Terra Incognita, with him parading his misunderstoods for all to inspect, for some to state “yes I have similar misunderstoods”, for some to add their 2 pence worth of “yes, It’s all bad” and what I find even more ludicrous, for some to seriously agree with his nonsense! This is almost kindergarten level of article-writing and seems to strike a chord with the lowest common denominator of readers of this blog, some of whom even reply with long screeds to this drivel.
I see Terra Cognita as a free thinker. Someone who is sorting out lies and truths. Very intelligent. Very aware.
Brian – fine. But please then read My 2 Cents’ response, which actually does sort out the lies and the truth.
Just because you see something as a lie or a truth does not mean that those things are objectively lies or truth. Your “truths” seem to correspond to anything that follows your conclusions that Scientology is correct and functions. This is called “prejudice”. It is not an objective measure by any means.
The truth is that there is no objective truth to Scientology.
So then what are your “truths”? Works both ways does it not? If you don’t like what Scientology has to say then go and study astrology or something.
I’m sure there’s an HCOPL somewhere that says “I know you are but what am I” is a proper response in an argument. The only way you’d use it is if L. Fraud said it was okay. I already know that you don’t have the ability to think for yourself. You’ve demonstrated that here any number of times.
I don’t like what Scientology has to say because what it says is that I have a choice between denying my sexuality and following the heteronormative or being eliminated, quietly and without sorrow. If it’s a choice between my life and your “spiritual fulfillment”, I’m going to fight for my life, and to hell with your “religious freedom”.
Espiando, while the Church of Scientology may have a problem with your sexuality, most Independent field auditors would be perfectly OK with it. Correct auditing is to help people with whatever they want help with, not to change them based on someone else’s opinion.
M2C, the Indies that have posted here have been, in most respects, very tolerant of homosexuality. Dani and Les, for example, have been very clear that they don’t regard orientations outside of the heteronormative as anything that needs to be eliminated (and the cult has ripped people off with their Audit The Gay Away promises). I admire that stand and have complimented them on it here. There are other Indies who aren’t so keen on Teh Ghey, though, but it definitely falls within the spectrum of opinion. I’m not expecting everyone to stand on the side waving rainbow flags as the Pride Parade passes by.
The problem is that the homophobic and potentially genocidal lines in “holy scripture” (specifically DMSMH and Science of Survival) are still there and have never been abrogated by the cult, who, regrettably, are the Keepers Of The Holy Writ. With the demands of KSW causing the cult (and many Exes) to take a fundamentalist attitude toward any writings of Hubbard, those lines take on a very disconcerting dimension for someone like me.
I hope you understand where I’m coming from on that. Those lines are the source (no pun intended) of a lot of my hostility toward Scientology, the philosophy.
You’re right foolproof, Terra come up with interrogation fully answered in the tech like PC anticipating and prior read being in fact correct.
Now most of people hate emeter due to steering false read mainly on sec check, breaking HCOB of 1968 “arbitrary” and basically the main subject of class VIII course. Also there is this HCOB on Emeter dependency of 1963.
Terra is just ignorant of the tech as Miscavige and his church.
All this good people in the church and in this blog are damned uneducated on the subject of scientology. And have received terrible out tech. Auditor code break and all
Miscavige has lost the subject, and ignorants nail it on this blog.
if Hubbard could see that he would cry.
First step to recover is on the aerea of the why : Miscavige total obliteration !
Thoroughly agree. Thank you for your comment.
Yes. True.
I believe the sorting out lies from truth is happening with this dialog. Allowing free thought. Allowing differences of opinion to express freely and allowing our own intelligence to come to conclusion.
I also believe that well trained people who give Ron altitude still have within there learned behavior a sense that somehow there is something inherently wrong with critics.
Instead of allowing dissent as how adults talk, my experience is that true believers use Scientology terms in which to label dissenters as needing more Scientology.
For Ron, criticism was evil. Criticism was a High Crime punishable by losing your friends, church, jobs and family.
The critic was an SP.
There is still some of that attitude still inherent within the attitude of Scientologists.
In the church you went to RPF or declared.
Out here in Woglandia the punishment is less severe. Out here it’s a declaration of some needing a Scientology action.
You have MUs
You don’t know real Scientology etc.
My theory is that the people who are over sensitive about Scientology, Ron and the e meter being criticized may be running Scientology auditing such as BTs everyday.
To be dedicating ones life to Ron and Scientology, by believing in BTs and psyches are from Farsec etc. it must be difficult to be in this environment of critics who equate some of these things as delusional.
This is the argument that Ron never allowed. Not just never allowed but met it with violent retribution.
This argument is the best thing that has ever happened to Scientology.
If those who still believe in Ron, even though the say they don’t to wear the cloak of sounding scientific, allow themselves to experience this dialog calmly by being there comfortably without case; expansion of awareness and new knowledge can be had for all.
But it is my opinion that the mind imprint of “critics are bad people” still haunts the minds of Scientologists such as My Two Cents, Marildi, Oracle and Foolproof.
The only way to escape this dialog and criticism is to form a new bubble like Milestone 2 and demonize critics by barring such communication and labeling critics SPS.
Some habits don’t leave without a fight. Labeling critics as having MUs or missing a bridge step, is not an argument that works out here in Woglandia.
That argument can only work in a protected bubble were critics are labeled SP.
Then the next step if you are serious about doing away with criticism is to create a black ops military Intel unit to cull critics from the greater society.
That is what your teacher thought of critics. Crush them. Destroy them. Be violent towards them.
Mike is doing yeoman’s service by starting this process.
To avoid this process, start a bubble like Milestone 2 where everyone agrees with everyone else.
Allow this criticism. It’s what free thinkers do. And free thinking is not an inherent trait that Ron taught his students. He said he would free you. But if you expressed this freedom you got crushed by ethics.
The great thing about applied science is that you can actually evaluate the validity of the hypotheses that together frame a coherent theory that makes specific predictions about real world cause and effect relationships. All of applied science works in exactly this way, which is why electrical grids, GPS positioning devices and your household light switch all work.
$cn is an applied theory of mental/emotional/spiritual transformation whose efficacy is based on the subjective experience of those who undergo its purportedly 100% effective auditing technology. But it is an applied theory that, while desiring to give itself the cachet of science, has never sought to earn it by submitting its claims to the kind of objective, empirical testing that everything else truly useful has seen fit to. In that way, it’s an attempt by its creator to establish an alt science, or perhaps a transcendant form of science.
However, despite the extraordinary claims that it has made over its 60+ years of pursuing that alt route to success and authoritative status, it is lagging so far behind mainstream science, with respect to the authoritative status given it by hundreds of millions, that we’re more than justified in judging it as an utter failure in its attempt to create its own alternative to mainstream science and its continued unwillingness to subject itself to the now-standard and accepted methods of testing its claims relegate it to folk science or pseudo science status.
Successful religions confine their truth claims to metaphysics, where there is no applied science theory claims that can be subjected to empirical evaluation and, therefor, must either be accepted on faith or rejected based on reason. By making claims, such as those concerning the immaterial nature of mind which CAN be subjected to methods and evaluative protocols of empirical science, $cn places itself in the realm of physics, where some of its claims can be objectively evaluated. And so far, the results are not at all promising, which is more than likely why $cn is unwilling to engage with the scientific fields that relate to it.
Sorry Harpoona, your reason is scaring me. Must send OSA dumpster divers. The universe depends on it!!!
I am sorry to anyone I offended. I know I offend many trained people. It’s not my intention.
I wish you all well.
Not good enough. Must send personalized cards with handwritten apologies, and fruit baskets, with some colorful ribbons at the top. and balloons. 2 or 3 at least. …maybe some assorted nuts too, or a small box of chocolates.
I share your viewpoint Brian. Could it be that Foolproof is a second gen troll? (2cents may be right in there as well)
It seems to me Foolproof has decided it is He who is able to discern fact from fiction and truth from lies. I think Terra Cognita does a factually better job.
So someone who rebuts the negative comments on here is a 2nd generation troll, whatever that means. Now I realize that many of you dudes would like free rein to inveigh and rail against Scientology as a subject, in like a shark feeding frenzy, but for the moment anyway, Mike is allowing me to rebut some of these more malicious and infantile attacks on the subject. Difference is with me is that if any of you critical folks were to actually say something that is true, I would agree with it, whereas, per evidence, the reverse would not be true of the “critical thinkers” – my comments are always disagreed with by the same folks, even if I had said “the sky is blue”.
I see your point Foolproof. I get your sincerity. Thank you.
Okey doke Brian.
Foolproof says Terra Cognita’s articles are: “ridiculous, glib, parading misunderstoods, ludicrous, nonsense, kindergarten level writing for the lowest readers, and drivel.” (direct quotes). So if you don’t like the writing, and don’t like the replies, why are you still here?
Personally, if I had taken the time to compose an article, or a reply, I don’t think I’d like to be insulted for doing either, just because someone disagrees with it.
But is is ok for TC to belittle, insult and ridicule aspects of Scientology. You dudes shoot yourself in your own foot every time.
Hi Foolproof. I don’t know who “you dudes” are supposed to be. I am female. I don’t belong to any particular group, (of dudes or otherwise). I only speak my own mind and give my own opinion or comment on something that I feel like I want to reply to. (please excuse poor grammar in that sentence, thanks). I hope you didn’t take my comments as a personal insult to you, it wasn’t intended to be. I just had a thought that came from reading your comment, and expressed it. No need to feel bad or angry. 🙂 Wishing you a happy day and remainder of the week. – T.J.
PS: I don’t think that Scientology gives enough benefit to society as a whole to endorse it, even in part. I feel the same way about certain other groups, religions or otherwise. I realize that people may become annoyed when someone puts down something they believe in, but, we still are allowed to express our feelings, freedom of speech and all that, ya know? Sorry we don’t all agree with you, hope you can accept this without it hurting you. 🙁
Yep, fine TJ, no problem with what you say. Nevertheless, Terra’s article is covertly insulting and belittling, so I also then am allowed to express my feelings.
Foolproof one question. Only one:
Ron said, and I paraphrase”
“Now get this as a technical fact, (by saying technical fact he is saying it’s as accurate as math) we have researched critics and have always found that they have criminal backgrounds.
So Ron says that he actually spent time with double blinded research experimentation. And concludes through the rigors of that scientific research, that all critics are criminals.
Is this a true and accurate statement? Do you belief Ron did this research? And do you believe his conclusion to be true?
In no uncertain terms, Ron considers this the outcome of scientific research.
Do you agree with him?
“Now get this as a technical fact, (by saying technical fact he is saying it’s as accurate as math)…”
No, Brian, the word “technical” in that context means having to do with the tech – in other words, it has to do with case.
And by the way, at the time that was written, by “critics” I believe Ron was talking about various government (such as the FBI and DOJ) as well as private agencies (such as the AMA and APA) who conspired to destroy scientology. According to Marty Rathbun, this was later (MUCH later, unfortunately) proven to be the case when Freedom of Information documents provided irrefutable evidence. (See his Memoirs book.)
Sorry my dear. I know your way of ineterpretiing Ron now. I thought is was me when I would send you to Ron’s write work and it was like I sent you to another HCOB.
But when I read the exchange you had with Mike about getting sick on OT3, I realized you were doing the same thing to him.
Please feel free to type any comment you like on my posts. Snarky, loving…… It’s all good.
But I am not dialoging with you anymore because of the above mentioned.
It’s ok for you to believe what you believe. I honor your sense of loyalty.
Aw, come on, Brian. I haven’t given up on you, even if I should have. 🙂
Besides, the exchange with Mike was different – it was more of a “questionable tech point” type of thing, where different references seem to be (or are) saying different things, in which case you have to consider all the references – and even tech terminals don’t always agree.
Anyway, here’s another clear-cut example of the way Ron uses the word “technical”:
“PTS means POTENTIAL TROUBLE SOURCE. It means someone connected to a person or group opposed to Scientology.
“It is a TECHNICAL thing.
“It results in illness and rollercoaster and IS the CAUSE of Illness and rollercoaster.
“When you do a PTS RD on a pc CORRECTLY he or she should no longer be ill or rollercoaster.
“BUT THIS INCLUDES THE PERSON HANDLING HIS PTS CONDITION IN THE REAL UNIVERSE NOT IN JUST HIS BANK.”
(C/S Series 76 C/SING A PTS RUNDOWN)
Actually LRH did have a research arm – actually a whole Org – known as New World Corps who piloted all of the new rundowns, Purif etc. He just evaluated the results obtained from these, I must say, very excellent people whom I knew. If ever there was an Ideal org in Scientology history (after St. Hill under Hubbard) then they were it. The NWCers in my opinion were the creme de la creme of Scientology.
Well, it was really to pilot KTL and LOC. The Purif predated it considerably. Eventually they were considered a failure and disbanded.
We can talk about other things. But not Scientology or Ron anymore.
That’s now my policy with you my dear. Anyway, you have popped through the bubble and do look into other teachers and paths. Very good.
We shall agree do disagree on the subject of Ron and some of his dangerous silliness.
I am completely ok with you coming to any conclusion you wish about me regarding this.
Hugs
B
No Mike, New World Corps actually piloted the Purif as well. They told me of whole table tops full of vitamins until they or rather LRH honed it down to the most effective amounts. They were the ones originally charged with piloting Superpower as well.
I believe when LRH was alive all new rundowns he made were piloted by them (after they came into existence around 1978 as I recall). I think they were disbanded after Hubbard’s death as of course there would be no new rundowns being dreamed up. There was then a ready-made pool of the best auditors and tech-trained staff on the planet (imo) and I can only assume they were coveted by other Orgs and networks, which would make disbanding them even easier of course.
I see this as bleeding off steam. The mind constrains on Scientologists can be very stressful in society.
It’s just charge blowing off. The wrong knowledge.
You’ve just shown your true colors. So why is Scientology beyond belittling, insulting, and ridiculing? You do realize that this website is hosted in the United States, and the United States has no such thing as blasphemy laws, right? Answer that. If you can give an acceptable answer to why Scientology is an exception to the Western tradition of ridiculing religion (just look at some of Hogarth’s more anti-Catholic stuff), then maybe we’ll stop. But otherwise, we have the right, nay, the duty, to carry on.
Mike is censoring some of my replies.
Yes, and those of the “other side” of the endless back and forth name calling that some seem to enjoy here. Like if they do not get the last word they think they have been defeated or something. I wish you and some others would learn to just drop something after various back and forths have accomplished absolutely nothing.
I have to say, the Wynski’s, Espiando’s and others never whine about me “censoring” them. They seem to understand that I just don’t want stuff to go on endlessly and aren’t offended when I just trash their comments. They move on. You seem to feel the need to call out the “injustice” – I really suggest you grow up.
Foolproof IS grown up. That’s why he’s trying to have a rational discussion and doesn’t like it when something gets in the way of that.
Wynski and Espiando usually act like children, just firing off empty put-downs, so if one gets moderated out, they just fire off another one.
It’s surprising that you allow the children to sit at the big table when the adults there have real issues to discuss.
I think the childish name calling is equally balanced and equally inane. Though you appear to consider others views that do not align with your own should be banished to the “children’s table” – I choose not to make such distinctions. Believe me, I have deleted as many put downs by Foolproof and others. Their name calling and put downs are a little more covert “you are no case gain” “you have MU’s” etc – though little different than saying “you are an evil asshole” or an “ignorant fool.”
Just take all this for what it is. A healthy exchange of views.
If you don’t like you are certainly welcome to spend your time reading somewhere else. Or doing your own blog.
But even this exchange has value in my mind. I try to learn a little from everything.
Mike, feel free to moderate this comment out after you’ve read it. It’s really just to you, and is probably too frank for public consumption.
I have said several times that I welcome discussion of the bad in Scientology, as long as it’s rational and reasonably polite. I wouldn’t put Wynski or anyone else at the kids’ table just because they disagreed with me. It’s their refusal to have a rational discussion that’s the problem.
Wynski, for example, throws out flippant put-downs, and then utterly ignores or opposes any rational response from anyone. He’s on a permanent oppterm circuit that has to be right ALL the time and make his imagined enemies wrong ALL the time. He is factually psychotic, or a PR operative, or both, and you know it.
Now, that said, I wish him well. But he’s an unruly child who delights in enturbulating others. At the grown-ups’ table (your blog) he’s just disruptive without adding anything worthwhile to the discussion. He therefore belongs at the kids’ table (ESMB).
It’s not enough that a blog gives a broad range of people an opportunity to express their opinions. It should also have rules to facilitate the rational discussion of differing opinions, in the context of a collegial search for truth. And dirty-politics style black PR a la Wynski (and sometimes others) shouldn’t be part of that.
That said, it’s your blog, and I respect that. I also acknowledge that of all the Scientology-related blogs I know, yours comes closest to the ideal scene. For that reason, it’s the only one whose comments section I bother with anymore.
Thanks for your kind words. I think this is worth posting.
Well said. 🙂
Wheeee! I counted, and that makes 17! times someone has posted *Well said* in the past 4 days. It’s starting to make my hair stand on end at the sides of my neck whenever I come across yet another “Well said.” Especially when it was a comment that wasn’t really said well. Can the few of you who keep posting this, pleeeease think of a new term? Here are some suggestions: Good point! I agree! That’s intuitive, (or thoughtful, interesting, etc.), that sounds right! I like the sound of that! I’m of like mind. I hear you! Or any other variant, just not, not, not, yet another well said.
– T.J.
ummm… unless someone posts the “well said” under a comment I made. then it’s ok. :p – T.J.
sadly, I don’t think that will ever happen.
Well said.
Kidding! I like some of your comments.
lol. :-p left myself open for that one I guess. at least I got a well said. 🙂
EM#25? Oh, Jesus!!!!!!!! In 1972, I never thought I would ever get through Level III. And get this, back then, we were even allowed to take “slows” and “stops” as reads on this drill, AND even get a number of the reads wrong as long as we eventually got the final date. And I STILL didn’t think I’d ever get through it. Somehow Ms. Sue Peckingham coached me through it (thank you Susan) and I became a Cl IV.
Flash forward to 2003 at ASHO (with the pre Ultra meter). I hit the dreaded drill again (and you had to pass it TWICE!!!!!) Again, never thought I would get through it and now you could only take FALLS and even ONE wrong “read” and you couldn’t pass. I think you had to get 27 or so correct reads in a row to pass (all on a false date really).
So for my first time through I was finally provided with THE guy (SO member in estates) who “reads well on the dating drill” and he got me through it (yelling at me a lot as the coach).
Second time through? Again, in complete despair and apathy. One coach (Mary) kept questioning me “do you REALLY want to KNOW?” (that was her “effective coaching” when I was wrong) I wanted to say “lady. I’ve never wanted to know anything more in my fucking life.”)
Finally, got an elderly SO member (70 yo at least) named Stan, whose needle was constantly dirty, ticky and get this, with the constant ticks, SOMEHOW (maybe there IS a God?) I called 27 right reads in a row. When I passed it, I was higher than a kite,( maybe THIS should be OT9, on top of the world ma ….) VERY keyed out, lasted quite a while too …
No doubt for me, one very large benefit in being out of Scientology is never having to do EM 25 ever again. Though I will say this, the workout made every other meter drill relatively easy in comparison. And I had a much easier job on this course than almost all the other students, some who were on it for a year or more and on the final pass drill for months)
Now, the meter is just a memory, an unpleasant one but ….
Joe, Miscavige or one of his accomplices has messed up the E-Meter Course. Especially the Dating Drill which DM has altered and made somewhat impassable. He obviously had a few dates he didn’t want to be disclosed is all one can finally say. In Academies I was in there was never any trouble with metering. Nor with PCs.
Are you kidding that nobody had trouble with metering? Have you ever been to Flag?
Not in my time. Some drills were hard (well, again not really – all passed with minimal fuss) but never were any trouble, before the 90s. As I say DM or one of his cronies has messed up the metering course.
I agree. In the 60’s and 70’s it took some work to get good at metering, like any othe new skill, but it was far from impossible or even onerous. I don’t remember anyone complaining about it.
I call Daveshit on this. FP is on a boat with a line in the water but his bait is here on this blog.
I suggest you read my old posts and apply the Data Series before you come to any more wrong conclusions. True there are some wriggling worms on this site but reeling them in on behalf of COB is, er, not “my line” so to speak.
What does your data series analysis say about Ron’s conclusion that all critics have criminal backgrounds?
And that it is a technical fact that they are.
I asked this question above. But since you mentioned or implied that you know about data series analysis. I thought to ask you what your analysis is when Ron asserts that it is a technical fact that “ALL CRITICS HAVE A CRIMINAL BACKGROUND.”
He implies that this doctrine is as accurate as math because he applied the rigors of science to.
Please analyze this data for me. I would appreciate it.
No kidding Mike. EM 25 was the Ad Course student killer at Flag. Even with the likes of Norton running the internship, HGC trainees had a VERY tough time.
I don’t know what is wrong with you people. I flew through EM25. Yep, I cheated – at Flag. I found a twin and we regularly got each other through (we had to do it five times) by giving each other exactly the same date every time. The only difficulty was if the course sup was standing behind the student at the time and noticed the read wasn’t instant. There’s no damn way it would be instant. Sadly of course I got caught out in a sec check.
In 2003 when I did the pro metering course at ASHO, the book on the E-meter at that time (no doubt revised by now) said that the American Mark V did not FN. What a shock!!!! (kidding) In all the auditing I did, I rarely saw an FN as defined at that time, even on great cognitions, VGIs. I still called them at the EPs, which I knew were real.
I didn’t actually “blow charge” at this revelation though. Really, it made me feel worse in a way. Because it showed me how we would agree to everything and question nothing in the CoS.. So auditing with a defective meter, I was expected not only to get FNs on every read, but also on occasion to get an FNing LIST and I was not allowed to say to cramming (and certainly never even thought of such a thing) that possibly it was the METER that was fucked and not me as an auditor. And one thing I never thought of was to just get someone on the cans and have the cramming officer and myself both look at the meter for FNs and straighten out any confusions (would we have even SEEN any? who knows)
And don’t even start me on the false TA stuff (I had one pc, Hawaiian lady in her 50s who had skin like leather, must have spent decades in the sun). Her TA would hover near FIVE a lot (HGC pc too) and one day she asked “isn’t my needle floating?” … I wanted to say “lady, where your TA is now, it don’t matter what the needle is doing” … her TA almost drove me crazy as an auditor …. I think we kept the Vaseline Intensive Care people in business just the two of us … and Sheldon Goldberg had to deal with me in cramming! Oh, how I wished I could audit without a meter (of course then we wouldn’t have been able to asses correction lists, I have no solution to how that would have been done without a meter)
Joe, sorry I don’t mean to come across as didactic, but see HCOB 10 Dec 76 “Scientology F/N and TA Position” and HCOB 2 Dec 80 “Floating Needle and TA Position Modified”. PC also had obviously false TA with her hands. Explains all. Surprised your supervisors didn’t show you these references (but then not (surprised)).
Foolproof, I became a CL IV in 1972, so I was auditing BEFORE the above HCO B came out. Yes, as I recall, the HCO B said to call the FN regardless of TA position and then at the earliest time when it would not be a distraction to the pc, do the false TA checklist and handle the false TA. Well, do let me say that while LRH always explained handling the false TA as a fairly simple procedure, it was definitely NOT SO in the real world of auditing (especially with older pc’s … and yes, I know about footplates, etc … again, with “leather like skin” or a pc in his 80s this was MUCH easier said than done) *by the way, I can no longer see any HCO B, have no access to Scientology materials except as on the internet, though I saw a copy of DMSMH yesterday in a used book store here on the other side of the world … almost bought it … you know, memory lane and all that)
Yep ok Joe. I was just saying, not so much for you, but for others who might have wondered. The Hawaiian lady must have been difficult as you say. Hats off to you sir for being a Class IV and doing your bit!
As in the title of an old Rodgers and Hart tune … “I could write a book” … though instead of a long post, I may just post a few short ones here on my experience with the E-Meter.
Two things about meter theory still confuse me (and I did the pro metering course at ASHO in 2003 – had very little trouble getting through the RTC video pass, only took me a couple of days).
FNs? What in the mind (or in the release of charge) would cause the needle to make the floating movement? Never really explained to any conceptual understanding (for myself at least)
What ACTUALLY causes a read? That is to say the needle moving to the right, or falling. The needle moving to the right or a TA blowdown shows a release of charge, or mental mass, right? So a read must mean that some charge is release when the auditor or pc says the item or line. But this is never really addressed.
Yes a read must mean that some (relatively small amount of) charge has been released by asking the question although only a blowdown would make it definite and lasting. But then that is what is stated in the materials of the meter and HCOBs on the subject.
As to the F/N aspect you mention, true I also have never thought of exactly why this occurs, it seems to signify a non-contact (of any charge) is currently present. Why the Wheatsone Bridge does this physically and electronically I cannot answer, I’m sure others can though. The only (admittedly somewhat daft) analogy I can make is like a hunter in the woods with his rifle searching back and forth for a target behind the trees, but finds none. In this analogy the rifle would be the electrical current flowing through the cans/body, the mental mass would be the searched-for deer – or the bear or tiger depending on how dramatic the “find” is. I think however that the later materials such as the re-published E-Meter Essentials book or one of the other books published by the Church do somewhat explain why this occurs, which is, if true, at least something that the Church has improved upon. I think somewhere in the materials (now) this (electronic) reason behind an F/N is explained. Maybe the Quantum manual? Joe – make an assessment on the meter for the book? (Ha! Joking.)
I experienced improvements in my life with Scientology auditing so I’m reluctant to disavow it wholesale. However I always wondered; would the e-meter work if it was attached to the body other than holding the electrodes? It seems holding the electrodes would create so much arbitrary movement. Would attaching the electrodes otherwise result in the same needle reactions to auditor questions? If so I would be very intrigued. And possibly remiss.
Good People, I’m almost afraid to ask what body parts you might suggest attaching the electrodes to.
While I truly did loathe the E-Meter and never considered itna help in auditing (maybe in correction lists, ok), I had some great life changing wins in Scientology, both in auditing and in training. And as I was an experienced auditor and CS, I also saw many others have tremendous wins too.
I think Scientology COULD have been designed in a way so as to keep in the good parts and not have the bad parts. I do not think it was in any way a “scam” or that LRH didn’t have a touch of genius, but that unfortunately those aspects of Ron’s psyche that were negative took over more and more as he got older (though you could certainly see some of the megalomania even in DMSMH). Having said that, I still apply Scientology basics every day of my life to good advantage in many different cultural environments.
At FROM I had to make wrist straps for PCS who could not properly hold the cans and I have even heard of footplate but I was told that cans work the best
This is why auditors are trained to observe and handle this aspect in session so that such isn’t actually a problem for the well-trained auditor (and PC). Footplates (for the soles of the foot) were used decades ago which meant that there would be minimal movement relatively, but their use was withdrawn for some reason – and not because of stinky feet either as Scientologists are of course all uptone like me and don’t have smelly feet like Mike Wnyski and Espiando (joking lads! No need to rise to my bait.)
I think LRH tried out all sorts of things but settled finally on the cans as being the best, hence the reason for training auditors to remove this as a factor from the session environment.
The use of footplates is forbidden. A recent dispatch to myself from LRH quotes him, I tested footplates and they don’t read! Not on the bank.
HCOB 26 Jan 77R Footplates Use Forbidden (May 1980 revision)
Yes, in my chess player example I attached it to the top of the thighs with the person wearing shorts.
Holding cans in your hands is a REALLY stupid way as it adds lots of BM as well as resistance changes due to sweat. Even if the person cannot feel it, the sweat is there after a certain amount of time.
Sweat can be wiped off, usually with a towel, as all solo auditors at Clearwater can vouch for. It’s not a problem. Unless you want to make it one…
Many people had false ta problems. Some of us would discuss them feeling it wasn’t case so we could talk about it. Quietly and covertly of course.
One woman had years of high TA (tone arm above the normal range) problems.
One visit to FLAG the solution was wrist straps which they tried in various places settling above her elbows.
She told of the burning sensations and that they’d have to be moved because the burn marks and scabs. She was a mess by the time she left. I saw her scabs and burn marks.
Why did we put up with this crap?
I don’t know. Never had or heard of anything like this. Burn marks? Unless she was tortured by Harvey in the Reg Office I have never heard of anyone getting burned by the cans/meter.
What I saw on her arms were red like welts and a couple of scabs. She wondered if any of us in the discussion knew people who used wrist straps. She mentioned that sometimes she’d feel a burning sensation and it’d pull her attention off session. She’d tell the auditor and he’d move them.
Talk about a present time problem!
Apparently a lack of actual research on the subject of the emeter/Wheatstone bridge machine leaves a lot that isn’t fully understood. This gray area of incomplete knowledge is where scientologists insert their specious “mental mass” theory. They TENACIOUSLY defend with it with arguments only a person with a high level of science misunderstanding could comprehend.
There are variable factors affecting the readings such as the grip of the cans and intestinal gas.
Clearly the machine SEEMS to react to mental states but it is really reacting to physiological states. The body and mind are a single unit. Any change in the mind elicits a corresponding metabolic reaction.
Inconvenient to emeter theory are the findings from the Max Plank Institute I mentioned on an earlier thread. They found the body reacts to intellectual stimuli before the person experiences the reaction. In short, the body knows what you think before you do. Therefore reads on the emeter will indicate a reaction before the client experiences the reaction. This invites the question, “Exactly what stimuli did the client react to?”, an important point TC briefly addresses. It looks like the client might be in a better position to assess his reactions than the operator of the emeter.
It will stand as distressing news to people who’ve spent thousands of dollars for a state-of-the-art device to learn that “precision” is an inappropriate concept in auditing methodology. It is probably more of an art where the sensitivity required must be that of the therapist than that of the emeter.
Aha! “Ze Max Planck Institute! Vee haf vays of making you Pavlov dogs react!” I seem to remember something when doing a bit of work for the old GO about the Max Planck Institute being one of the biggest enemies of Scientology, i.e. it is a psychiatric front group. Just saying…
I had to suppress my whistle of disbelief at the idea of “the body knows what you think before you do”. Only Max Planck and their ilk could come up with such gibberish.
Foolproof, thank you for offering your snarky two cents worth on my commentary but judging by your admitted failure to apprehend it’s meaning, that’s an extravagance you can ill afford.
For you to accuse me of being snarky, from a person who seems to spend all of his spare time being exactly that towards Scientology as a subject, takes first prize for effrontery somewhat does it not? Of course people would be worried about the “accuracy” of the meter and cast nonsensical aspersions on this aspect depending on the level of fear as to what, by its accurate use, could be found out about the person’s making the aspersions. You are making a simple subject out to be complex for some strange reason or agenda of your own.
As best I can make out of your words, I’ve said something you didn’t like and you think I ought not to have.
Very perceptive of you.
I suspect that FP never left Roger………….
” I seem to remember something when doing a bit of work for the old GO….”
Just ‘a bit of work’ FP? Follow the read on that one and you will hit paydirt!
Yes it was just a bit of work. Nope, null read on the meter to that. Interesting is that the leaning of my remarks would tend to prise those still in the Church out into the field but your and other outlandish remarks about the technology would tend to make them stick in Miscavige’s Church as they read such and think you are all nuts, and carry on suffering being shellacked by the IAS and Idle Org regges!
Foolproof,
Are you comparing that the Max Planck Institute to a Nazi organization simply because it made a claim with which you disagree?
And are you offering as ‘proof’ of the ‘ineptitude’ of the Max Planck Institute the fact that you worked for the GO and that the GO claims the MPI is a ‘front’ for psychiatry?
AND are you still of the belief that ALL of psychiatry is bad?
I’m doing my own whistle of disbelief plus some smacks on the forehead.
Er, “yep” to all your questions! Smack yourself silly!
And ironically I think you will find that Max Planck was involved in German psychiatry and with the Nazis but then so were other European and American and Canadian psychiatric groups involved with Eugenics and other (criminal) human behavior stuff. But I never stated that, well, until just now.
Max Planck and Max Planck Institute is apples and oranges. Some bizarre things they’re involved in would have the old physicist spinning in his grave. Planck was instrumental assisting his Jewish scientist friends such as Einstein getting out of Germany to escape the Nazis. He was on good ‘ol Heinrich’s scope and barely evaded arrest.
For folks who’d like to sully the impeccable scientific reputation of the hundreds of advanced degree physicists working at or in close collaboration with the Max Planck Institute, I have a really short, but totally devastating rebuttal: The Large Hadron Collider and the discovery of the Higgs Boson, aka “God Particle”.
When it comes to science, $cilons are like fundamentalist Christian evolution deniers, in that they feel compelled to make fun of and put down that which they have virtually no understanding of.
You need to read what I wrote and not bend my words to suit your angle of attack. I was pointing out Max Planck’s connection to psychiatry and the Nazis and Eugenics. Why would anyone criticize normal scientific effort or the people involved in such? And Scientology discovered the “God Particle” decades ago – it’s called a “thetan”.
And to use your words in rebuttal of your further nonsense: “When it comes to Scientology, some people are like fundamentalist Christian evolution deniers, in that they feel compelled to make fun of and put down that which they have virtually no understanding of!”
You show your ignorance yet again. The reason the Higgs Boson is called the “God Particle” is actually a bowdlerization. It was actually called the “Goddamn Particle” due to its elusiveness and omnipresence in the Standard Model. It was really a pain in the ass to us physicists. Now that it’s been discovered, it validates the Standard Model and allows us to progress to the next level.
And the Higgs is real, unlike your woo-woo thetans.
FP, I did read it closely. Your comment was in response to Roger Hornaday’s mention of research that the Max Planck Institute was doing that was relevant to our discussion of the e-meter. Instead of responding to the specific comments that he made there, you took the thread off-topic by seizing upon some half-recalled, free association memory about the GO’s take on the Max Planck Institute as front group for the evil psychs.
That had nothing whatsoever to do with the topic to hand. So, why not just stick to the topic at hand and try your best to respond to what’s being said, rather than to (perhaps unwittingly) take the thread off topic?
Seems to be a bit of a bad habit of Foolproof. Unfortunately, might correctly ascribe the tendency to indoctrination into LRH tech. This is EXACTLY what the church does in response to people explaining what happened to them — they start talking about how the source of the information is flawed/criminal/liars as if this is an effective rebuttal of the POINT.
It’s really obvious to anyone that reads it.
Since you pimped my branch of science, HP, I’ll pimp another: some of the biggest breakthroughs of the last two decades in paleoanthropology have come out of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, like the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome and the creation of the science of paleogenetics. Of course, Proof of Fool will disregard them totally, or claim that they’ve got it wrong because L. Fraud said Piltdown Man existed and the Planck haven’t found him.
HF, not HP. Silly me. I do have an excuse: guess who made the laptop I’m typing this on?
One of the very best things about the scientific method and the very well-established traditions that govern the evaluation of truth claims is that includes some very effective methods of correcting its own errors, regardless of how tightly those who made them might wish to continue to see them as being correct.
Indeed, a healthy skepticism towards all scientific findings is part and parcel of that grand tradition. Every new discovery, no matter how rigorously obtained, must be replicated by other researchers and submitted to the critical review of knowledgeable colleagues in the field before anyone even begins to think of it as an established fact.
In order to understand how much of a scam $cn is you really have to know something about how mainstream science works and the crucial importance of submitting the kind of claims that Elron made for his system to objective, empirical evaluation. Without it, folks have made all many of completely false and purposefully deceitful claims of cures that have harmed, rather than helped, millions over the long course of history. $cn and its quack baby food formula and niacin-overdose purification rundown are but some of the latest in a very long line of harmful practices that cynical and sociopathic individuals have foisted upon the gullible and uninformed.
Well, Foolproof, more recent scientific evidence tends to prove that the heart and gut BOTH react faster than the brain. The science on this stuff is moving incredibly fast. I refer you to Lynne McTaggart’s “The Bond” for much further and specific scientific findings. The quantum world is upon us and its findings tend to boggle even the minds of those physicists doing the actual studying.
As for the emeter, I did not go high on the training side, though I did on the other side. Whatever the meters were doing, I personally felt/feel I made gigantic strides in my own “case” and profited greatly in my understanding of myself and others. I don’t much care what others think. It worked for me and I never lost sight of the fact that the “wins” were MINE, not belonging to LRH or anyone else. It was I who did the real work, not the emeter nor Hubbard.
Did I do things differently? Beats me. Whatever I did, it worked and I was very glad for many of the challenging questions and the well trained auditors who guided me along to places I’d never dreamt if before.
I also did staff work and felt that I helped many. So did they. I early on met many SO missionaires and that convinced me to dodge the SO joining bullet. Beyond that, I felt the 15 or so years were well worth my time and money.
Though I left long ago, I’m still very much on the growth path, moving on to other techniques, some newer, some quite ancient. And so it goes. 🙂
Yes my time in the Church I felt was also well spent. I had real hopes that all the efforts we made would be worthwhile but unfortunately the biggest disaster in world history occurred and the place got taken over by a lunatic. It can still be recovered and will be one day.
The cat is out of the bag Foolproof. The dream of a universally accepted Scientology, imo, is a pipe dream.
That is because you think the why is DM.
That is the wrong why. Way wrong.
And as the years go by, and you find more and more unrelenting unbelievers that you fancy need some Scientology or are the effect of some ridem cowboy intergalactic mind fuck, you may conclude as I have.
The why is Ron.
His doctrines and his “easy to see if you are a wog” delusions.
The problem with blogs like these is that it gives idiots like you time and space to post abject nonsense.
Thank you, I got that. Your needle is floating 🙂
Yes, sometimes I am an idiot no doubt. It’s not the majority of the time though. Don’t you think every now and again I say something ok?
But I’m working my utmost to embrace, cognite and neutralize (as is) my idiotness.
Once I stopped running from the inner idiot it was easier to be wrong and still feel right.
There’s so much work ahead. Life is good eh, Foolproof!
Brian: I agree. DM is not the Why. Ron and his tech and policy are the why.
Thank you Terra. For getting it.
I feel for these wonderful people who have been trained to be so elitist with their knowledge.
I’m still blowing shit off, most gone, about some of these learned behaviors that became our personhood/character
And I left in 82.
Let me talk to the elitists for a second.. Yes, poor ole Brian is still stuck from so long ago.
If my meditations were really working I should have cognited along time ago. Looks like my meditations aren’t working. Is it Mr. Cross Yer Legs Idiot!
Yes I’m sorry to say. I am still learning. It never stops.
I think some of these good folks just need to relax into normal society for some more years.
Roger: “Inconvenient to emeter theory are the findings from the Max Plank Institute I mentioned on an earlier thread. They found the body reacts to intellectual stimuli before the person experiences the reaction. In short, the body knows what you think before you do.”
Hubbard said as much in 1961, over half a century ago, in the book “E-meter Essentials.” So it’s not “inconvenient to e-meter theory” at all – it validates it. He stated:
“The meter registers *before* the preclear becomes *conscious* of the datum. It is therefore a pre-conscious meter.” (EME)
Thank you for understanding my statement, “the body knows what you think before you do”.
That means the unconscious mind is a neurological phenomenon. The meter reads the neurological markers not the thoughts.
I was never an auditor so I can’t know certain things about the process beyond what I’ve surmised from the (sometimes conflicting) reports of seasoned auditors. The subject interests me far more now than it ever did when I was a scientologist.
“Pre-conscious” cognizance would have to be inferred on the basis of observations in an ordinary auditing session. Its theory would be grounded in common experience rather than Hubbard’s ‘divination’. Presumably the evidence for it is seen by every experienced auditor. The needle indicates a reaction to an intellectual stimulus before the client experiences the reaction. But we are talking about seconds and half seconds, per scientific research.
Emeter theory says not only is there a time lag between conscious and unconscious cognizance but there is information the unconscious is not GIVING UP so easily! Therefore with the help of the needle which has hooked the item like a fish, the job is to reel it in, coax it out, of the unconscious and into the conscious mind where it can be examined.
This, I believe, is the controversy. Emeter theory suggests the unconscious mind sometimes HOLDS ON to stuff and doesn’t expeditiously send it on through to the conscious mind as it normally does. Critics say, in effect, the unconscious mind isn’t “holding on” to anything. The needle just can’t discriminate between the valuable and irrelevant things that influence it. Critics argue other things too.
In my own auditing experience, what got reeled in from my unconscious mind always seemed like a soggy shoe instead of a big fish. Yet the experience of reeling it in was mildly euphoric anyway. My hypothesis is that Hubbard’s theories interfere with understanding what is really happening for the reason that they leave too many questions unanswered in the minds of experienced auditors. I continue, however, to lean on the side of thinking it can be a valuable method of relieving psychological misery.
Roger: “My hypothesis is that Hubbard’s theories interfere with understanding what is really happening for the reason that they leave too many questions unanswered in the minds of experienced auditors.”
I haven’t seen that to be the case with the majority of well experienced auditors.
Your last sentence: “I continue, however, to lean on the side of thinking it can be a valuable method of relieving psychological misery.”
I give you credit for that statement, Roger. But then, what is your own construct as to why auditing would be valuable? Hubbard had a theory of the mind that I believe was consistent within itself and explained metering phenomena as well as the subjective experiences of pcs.
You give me credit for believing auditing can be of value. Why would you give me credit for what I believe? I interpret that to mean you wish to honor me with your approval. No worries, I find that a friendly gesture.
Hubbard’s emeter theories as well as all his theories have been beautifully deconstructed and found wanting on this thread as well as historically. That you are unaware of there being experienced auditors who find his theories wrong, inadequate and or contradictory only means you haven’t bothered to acquaint yourself with the rational and, in my opinion, BRILLIANT arguments advanced on this thread. Or it means you refuse to consider them for reasons not mysterious.
I’d love to continue this with you but honestly I do think whatever I would say has been said here much better than I could say it.
Roger: “You give me credit for believing auditing can be of value. Why would you give me credit for what I believe? I interpret that to mean you wish to honor me with your approval. No worries, I find that a friendly gesture.”
I give you credit because you are a pretty harsh critic of the tech but apparently not in a black and white way. Glad you found my ack to be friendly.
“That you are unaware of there being experienced auditors who find his theories wrong, inadequate and or contradictory only means you haven’t bothered to acquaint yourself with the rational and, in my opinion, BRILLIANT arguments advanced on this thread.”
I wasn’t referring to ALL experienced auditors – just most of them. As for the “brilliant” arguments on this thread, I noticed the excellent rebuttals to them. 🙂
Marildi, you claim to have read excellent rebuttals to the critical arguments advanced with unassailable logic by TC and others. I, however, saw no rebuttals whether excellent or middling. I did read a lot of snark, complaining, ad hominems, and a lot of embarrassing straw men. Logic, isn’t a matter of opinion nor is it a matter of dogged persistence, it is mathematical. Once an assertion is disproved IT’S OVER. When a person won’t see their point has been disproved, well, that’s the horse who just won’t drink the water.
Perhaps you can point out one of those excellent rebuttals. I may have missed it.
Roger: “I did read a lot of snark, complaining, ad hominems, and a lot of embarrassing straw men. Logic, isn’t a matter of opinion nor is it a matter of dogged persistence, it is mathematical. Once an assertion is disproved IT’S OVER. When a person won’t see their point has been disproved, well, that’s the horse who just won’t drink the water.
Amazing. Your description actually fits – far better – the “critical arguments advanced.”
“Perhaps you can point out one of those excellent rebuttals. I may have missed it.”
See virtually all of My 2 Cents’ replies.
Roger, a gain is basically an increase in self-determinism and being able to play a better “game of life” with others.
This ended up in the wrong place. It was in reply to your other post: “Curious to know what is meant by ‘making gains’ and what is a “gain”?
One says a scientology “gain” is an increase in self-determinism” while the other one says it is a FEELING of increased self-determinism. The difference between the two is the difference between how two minds discriminate.
As for “being able to play a better game of life with others” …I feel confident I can respond appropriately to any situation. I have no ambitions higher than that. Since I haven’t always felt that way I’d say I’ve made gains and need no other gains. I’m done. After all, what’s the value of making gains if you have to keep on making them?
Don’t know what you are referring to by “one” and “the other one” (in your first sentence).
Regarding your second paragraph, I have no disagreement. I say good for you.
What I meant was…You said a scientology “gain” in an increase in self-determinism. In truth it is a FEELING of increased self-determinism. That makes it a subjective experience rather than an objectifiable fact which of course it isn’t. One person may think that is splitting hairs while another will see it as a vital distinction. That is what I should have said originally.
Roger, do you know of any self-help or spiritual practice that produces anything other than “a subjective experience rather than an objectifiable fact”?
I know of no religion or self-improvement methodology which produces objectifiable results beyond a happy demeanor. I do know of a religion that CLAIMS to produce objectifiable results:
scientology.
It claims to increase IQ, remove engrams which are touted to have an objective existence, it claims to enable a person to recollect auditory perceptions during moments of unconsciousness and to recollect past lives, to eliminate STORED radiation from the body, to cure a cold…what else? it’s past my bedtime.
Anyway, I don’t diminish the subjective experience. Self-confidence is a subjective experience and there isn’t anything better in my opinion. But scientology wouldn’t have been the great flash in the pan had it stated from the start it was all subjective.
Roger: “I do know of a religion that CLAIMS to produce objectifiable results: scientology.”
Actually, everything you listed is objectifiable – which means “capable of being made objective.” Every one of them is potentially falsifiable or testable. There just hasn’t been any standard testing done.
(Btw, Roger, it’s too far off topic, but regarding the point about “eliminating” radiation that is “stored,” LRH doesn’t say that. He said that niacin “runs out” not only radiation but sunburn – and, obviously, sunburn isn’t “stored” and neither is radiation. The term “run out” has the usual tech meaning and in this context refers to running out the cellular “incidents” or experiences of being exposed to radiation or sunburn, which LRH claimed is mechanically set in action by niacin. It’s notable that people on the purif commonly show old bathing suit markings from sunburns they had even years before. So the criticism that radiation isn’t “stored” and isn’t “eliminated” seems to me to be a Straw Man argument.)
In any case, good to know you don’t diminish subjective experiences.
The items I listed as objectifiable claims made by scientology (recollection of past lives etc) are testable claims. Until they are tested and proved the claims have no merit.
I don’t want to drag this conversation on but I can’t resist pointing out scientology sells ABILITIES which imply objective, not subjective markers. It also makes a big deal about PRECISION in auditing TECHNOLOGY. Those words suggest empiricism which suggests quantifiable outcomes. Terminologies employed by scientology carry the promise of quantifiable outcomes but don’t deliver such. For instance, self-determinism is a condition, not a feeling therefore any claims to INCREASE it continue along the same path of misrepresentation.
My objection has more to do with the way scientology is sold than what it does at its core. I know that is an ambiguous statement but I’m content to leave it at that for now. I will let you have the last word on this if you like.
Roger. “My objection has more to do with the way scientology is sold than what it does at its core. I know that is an ambiguous statement but I’m content to leave it at that for now.”
No, I don’t think it’s ambiguous. But I’ll leave it at that too. Thanks for the exchange.
Yes, and elaborated upon in HCOB 8 Jun 61R E-METER WATCHING ARE YOU WAITING FOR THE METER TO PLAY DIXIE?
Yes this is why you get instant reads – there is no time (differentiation) in the reactive mind – it is all “now” and thus rides along with one, stuff from millions of years ago.
Here we go again. TC writes an article about what he doesn’t understand, and that somehow qualifies to be a featured article. OK, then, here’s today’s remedial Scientology lesson, hitting the high points in roughly the order they occurred in the article.
1) Yes, the meter can distract the auditor from the pc. Keeping session notes can also distract the auditor from the pc. And the pc can distract the auditor from the meter and the session notes. That’s why on auditor training courses there’s extensive drilling of all these moving parts, and why after course completions there are internships. It takes drilling and live session experience for new auditors to develop sufficient session presence to span the pc, the meter, and the admin, and also decide on a moment-to-moment basis what to do next, all while maintaining a proper friendly, confident attitude. In this regard there’s a big difference between new auditors and experienced ones. One Class 8 friend of mine told me he thought about 2000 hours of live session time was needed. Fortunately there are correction actions to clean up any auditor errors in the meantime.
2) A fall of the meter needle to the right indicates that some mental and physical electrical resistence has just decreased. That means not only that the reading item is charged (contains resistence), but that the pc can reduce that charge by looking at it some more. We don’t want the pc wasting time on uncharged items, or diving into ones too heavily charged for him to be able to confront. An item may fail to read due to either there being no charge on it, or there being too much charge for the pc to confront yet. A reading item is charged and can be confronted. The bigger the read, the more confrontable charge is available at that time.
3) Yes, body motion of various sorts can cause meter reads. Auditors in training and on internships are drilled to recognize when the pc has caused a false read in this way. It’s not a problem for interned auditors.
4) When an auditor is assessing a list, calling out one item after another, the assessment is between the auditor and the pc’s bank, not the auditor and the pc. No thinking by the pc is needed or wanted. Because the pc is being bypassed in this way, the auditor’s intention is important, and is focused on the last instant of the stating of the item so it hits the pc’s bank at just that instant. That’s what causes an instant read, providing that the item is charged and confrontable. It takes drilling to develop the ability to do this. As for drilling on lists of favorite animals, etc., most of the items won’t read, but the one the pc is thinking of will.
5) The whole track dating drill is done only after considerable metering proficiency has been developed by earlier drills, and in my recall wasn’t on low-level auditor training courses until the 80’s. So the only students doing it originally were already somewhat experienced as auditors.
6) Re letting the pc pursue what interests him rather than what reads on the meter, proper case programming would always start with repair of previous auditing and life, even if the pc had extensive auditing previously. The pc would be asked what he’s interested in, and would be encouraged to talk about it. If the meter showed charge being released as the pc spoke, then that subject or item would be addressed further. One subject after another would be addressed until the pc no longer felt any urgency regarding any of them. Unfortunately, this kind of lengthy life repair was seldom done in the Church. It’s much more common today in the independent field.
7) Some pc’s are able to make the meter read or needle float by deliberate thought. But this is dishonest on their part. It may have some legitimate use during metered interrogation by the Nazi Youth, but not in regular auditing where one is trying to get actual case gain. If the pc doesn’t trust his auditor enough to be honest, he should get a different auditor or organization altogether.
8) Squeezing the cans causes the needle to fall to the right by increasing the surface area of skin contacting the metal cans, which lowers electrical resistence. Taking a deep breath causes a slightly delayed fall by increasing oxygen in the body, which increases energy production and thereby lowers resistence.
9) The reason thought can effect a physical machine attached to the body is that thought mobilizes the brain in session, in the same way it does when anyone makes his body move.
Well done My 2 Cents for taking the time and trouble to reply to this daft nonsense. One thing I would add is the misunderstanding on major thoughts which he has above, as well. The only thing is your and my comments will be ignored anyway by the Glee Club of those with similar misunderstoods or those who have never even studied the subject.
Maybe it’s simply that Terra sees it differently. Is it possible to disagree with you and My Two Cents and Ron without it being a gleeful silly MU?
What Terra has illustrated with his reasoning skills is the non scientific, non double blinded, aspect of needle reactions.
I am sure, or can easily surmise that Ron probably had a blip on the meter to ask Sarge to go searching for escaped ranch BTs.
Why is it pray tell, can an individual be certain that his father a trillion years ago was named Zarco the Illustious and had a cleft foot, but the PC cannot recollect what he had for breakfast 2 years ago.
These questions fly in the face of face in e meter determinism.
One of these days I am going do dance the jig when I hear a true blue Scientologist just say to someone, without the Scientological put down and snarkiness, that they appreciate a different point of view.
Yeeayyy!!!! A rainbow coalition of diverse views.
But no.
Its gotta be
an MU
an overt
out list
PTS
etc
etc
etc
Needle reactions and the e-meter are the delivery for inaccurate thinking also. Beyond a doubt.
Just read the old Advanced Magazine testimonies.
Thing is Brian, if an auditor who can do proper assessments would assess the list above you give, there would be a read.
What amazes me about the whole history of Scientology is the simple fact that one man has made an attempt, and one which has worked as well for hundreds of thousands of people, to sort out the whole mess of the human mind and devize ways that people can be helped to be free of their aberrations, yet this blog is full of people who rant and rail against this for some strange reason(s). Name one other body of knowledge that does or can do what Scientology does. And yet here we are, almost with people foaming at the mouth to decry the attempt and the fulfillment of this goal.
Ok, so how do you square that Ron’s processes did not work for him?
To you consider the fact of his wishing to kill his body by electro shock, to have Sarge go searching for BTs that escaped his body on ranch property, an act of a causal messianic type being who sacrrificed his health at the altar of OT research; or someone who’s mind was unsettled and hallucinating from solo BT auditing?
How do you define this now known information?
I think this story from Sarge was either grossly made up or misinterpreted. It has been quoted often on here. I have it from other sources that LRH was actually in quite good shape when he kicked off. It is more likely that LRH was playing a practical joke on Sarge. As I say Brian, if you don’t want to do Scientology then – don’t. No one actually knows the true story on this either way.
Love to know what those sources were. The only people that were with LRH at that time were Annie Broeker, Gene Denk, Ray Mithoff and Sarge. The first two are deceased and never spoke a word about it. Ray Mithoff is not talking. The only person who did is Sarge. And he was devoted to LRH til his dying days. Why would you choose not to believe him in favor of some unnamed people who were NOT present?
As I recall it was one of those people you mention who told someone else who then told someone else and who then told me. Same story as Sarge except in reverse. You can believe what you want, I will believe what I want.
This reply says much about your ability to discern truth from rumor, fact from fiction. It seems only if it suits your idea is it reliable data.
Do you think the information that LRH had three strokes, suffered from pancreatitis, broke his arm and various other ailments is also unreliable? Just curious.
It’s what happens when facts abuse beliefs. It’s is also called denial.
This one fact, Ron’s end if life condition and his desire for suicide to free BTsis the singular damaging revelation that directly refutes Ron’s legacy of being a benevolent knowing being.
If the creator of OT3/BT theory was hallucinating BTs on his ranch and wishing for suicide by electroshock then this one fact refutes the claim that freedom ocurrs by running BTs.
This is where the Ron apologists simply stop responding.
To truly see, to truly understand, that a guy who we gave so much altitude to, was really a raving loon at the end of life, puts Scientologists completely at odds with their whole life.
Actually, it is quite painful for Scientologists to hear this, now historical fact.
So the messengers of this knowledge now must be refuted as Ron hating and inaccurate.
There must be fear of this being true for some.
And for others; complete denial.
Crikets, that’s all I’m hearing here and all you ever hear when those who still believe in Elron’s demi-god status as THE Ascended Master of all ascended masters. There’s an even more pertinent and crucial point related to Elron’s passing that needs to be emphasized here in regards to the validation of $cn’s most extraordinary claims.
That is: If Elron had made the MEST universe transcending gains and acquired the fabulous super powers that were attributed to him by his successors, then he would be at cause over his next incarnation and have retained continuity of consciousness and full recall for that ultimate transition. In effect, cause over the endless cycle of birth, death and reincarnation that the Buddhist cosmology also describes.
Despite efforts to clear planet faltering badly, Elron has not come back to finish the job. And there could be no more compelling proof of $cn’s efficacy than for him to return wielding those fabulous super powers and demonstrating continuity of consciousness over lifetimes. From the scientological world perspective, if that failure to reappear on the scene proves permanent, then sadly, there are only two plausible conclusions one could draw there: Either Elron decided to betray us all in the most fundamental and egregious manner conceivable by choosing to abandon us here to fail in this once in a trillion year chance, despite having the ability to prevent that failure; or his claims of OaTy super powers were not what he or his successors claimed to begin with.
I’m going to be charitable and put my money on the latter possibility here 😉
But hey, definitive proof of spiritual transcendence doesn’t just rest with Elron; every other OT8 who’s died has had the very same opportunity to prove $cn’s ultimate claims by reincarnating and demonstrating their own continuity of consciousness over lifetimes and full recall of their former life. Indeed, for every one of those folks who didn’t give it all away to $cn before they died, they could have very easily put their wealth in trust for them in their next lifetime and set up some sort of foolproof identity verification process to their own specific and secret specifications. I know I sure would…that is, if I thought $cn actually worked!
Here here!
This whole subject of (actual) OT levels has been discussed ad nauseum on this blog to wit the actual OT levels have not yet been released and the New OTVIII is a watered down version of the original. When I recover my OT abilities Harpoona I’ll seek you out and send laser beams issuing forth from my eyeballs and fry you to a crisp, if that will make you happy? I am sure you will deserve it eh?
There are actually many stories of people demonstrating OT abilities nevertheless and I don’t mean the Advance Mag. Even a more or less now anti-Scientologist with a pen name of Dart Smohen (I know who he is) who worked with Hubbard on the Apollo states he observed such things, amongst many others who have observed such. I did old OTVII and did indeed do some similar things.
Many here so not put down spiritual phenomenon. I have experienced many. I have caused many and been the effect of the spiritual power from others.
Spirituality is not the argument. The argument is lies vs. truth. Imagination vs reality. True science vs make believe.
The argument is the infallibility of the e meter.
The argument is freedom of thought vs crush criminal critics.
The argument is about L Ron Hubbard and his fallacious scientism.
And now the argument is between those who see Ron as he is and those who still believe in his marketed messianic image.
And the ESMB and UB ASC Gestapo would mug you in broad daylight for what you just said … lol.
This quote is the very thing that is wrong with true believers.
This quote is from someone who agrees that Scientology is man’s best hope. The only way.
How can the effectiveness and the workableness be even remotely true if Ron wanted suicide by electro shock BT auditing?
This is the herd of elephants in the room which refutes everything about how Scientology is the “only workable knowledge of the mind.”
The man who said that was a madman in his end of life experience.
This singular fact of Ron’s end of life issues must be refuted at all costs.
To consider this fact as possibly true would destroy, upend and painfully challenge the basis for your whole this lifetime purpose.
Who knows, if I were in your shoes I might interpret this now known historical fact as fancy also. There is too much to lose. Too much at stake.
Interpreting facts as fancy, yes, that takes me back to how the emeter can cause this conflating.
Foremost: are all psyches from the planet Farsec?
Crickets
Glee Club? Yeah, that indicates!
You call it Glee Club. We wogs call it free thinking discussion.
I believe the question,”have you ever had a critical thought of L Ron Hubbard?” acts like a hypnotic bomb within the mind of believers.
That is what causes thoughts like Glee Club to be fancied as a somehow valid concept in an argument.
I can make the argument that Scientologists demonize critics and criticism. That because attacking critics is a learned behavior. A behavior study teched into the mind.
This is not an ad hominem attack. An attack of the person.
This is a logical idea because the source of this behavior is in writing. In Ron’s writing.
So my judgement that My Two Cents, Foolproof, Marildi and Statpush are suffering from their Scientology training as far as hating critics is founded on facts.
Do you believe that Ron researched all critics and found them all criminals?
Do you believe that it is suppressive to be critical of an OT, the tech, L Ron Hubbard or the state of clear?
The handicap of inability to dialog with critics is so obvious to us wogs.
There is a held down 7 in the cognitive faculties of Scientologist.
That held down seven is study teched into the brain.
That held down seven is Ron’s delusional relation with criticism. Seeing critics as criminal.
That sentiment is in the Scientologist. How could it not be? You agreed to this drivel for decades. It take time to undo some of this mind numbing false knowledge.
Good job, Cents.
This is a reply to My 2 cents: Your comment appears to be the most knowledgeable of any I’very seen today. You should change your name to My 2 bits because you are certainly worth more than 2 cents
Or – carrying on the EM 25 Dating Drill theme mentioned here: 10 of millions of dollars? Hundreds of million of dollars?
By the way, to reduce the apparent mystery for anyone who couldn’t get through EM 25, the key to it, as mentioned in the drill, was your TR1. It would help if your twin had had enough sleep as well (in ITO) and also hadn’t just seen an IAS Reg waiting outside the course room looking at him or her menacingly. I never actually saw any COB revisions to the drill but just heard that it had been “revised” so there would be that factor (of alter-is of the original drill) to take into account as well (if so altered).
What it reads on is simply the twin’s little bit of “charge” or resistance on withholding the information from you, one supposes. Either way it is not really important, is it? Certainly not enough to down tools and use it as a reason to exit Scientology or create a hullabaloo.
My 2 Cents, your point number two is absolutely false. The current from the meter does not and cannot “pass through mental masses”.
Consider the case of the solo cans. The current in this case passes through only one hand. The layer of skin that actually touches the cans is where most of the needle phenomena take place. Once the current is in the body it passes pretty directly over to the other can, because the inside of the body is mostly soaked with salt water and is very conductive. At no point does it “pass through the brain” or interact with any imaginary sheets of theta energy or mental masses or electrical charges from events that happened before there were humans.
The phenomena that cause the needle to move are quite well known to science and do not involve mysticism at all. You can even buy scales these days that have “foot plates” that can tell you your fat percentage and so on. It is true that some of these phenomena are affected by mental state. This was studied by Jung and others around the turn of the last century, but the concept of using these phenomena in therapy was rejected. For good reason. Look it up.
Before you get on about how I don’t know anything, please be advised that I was the Director of E-Meter Research and Design for three years, submitted meter change proposals that were approved by Hubbard, and have repaired thousands of e-meters. My name is on several e-meter patents though the only one you can find easily is the Drills Simulator.
I also audited hundreds of hours on a Delta MK V in the 70s. It is true as Hubbard said that this “American meter” does not F/N unless the PC is halfway over the moon. Another “American Meter” from that era was made by Pat Flanagan and was so loose that it seemed to be F/Ning all the time. The Flanagan Azimuth Alignment meter.
At any rate, I have been there, done that, came home with the T-shirt. Hubbard was making stuff up as per standard usual.
“Seek to live with the truth”, as Hubbard advises in “The Way to Happiness”. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” – Jesus Christ, John 8:32.
Bruce, a thetan is a spiritual being that creates and uncreates matter, energy, space, and time, and counter-creates to avoid experiencing some of what he’s created, resulting in energy ridges where his create and counter-create collide. These ridges are mass, and permeate the thetan’s entire body and even the space outside the body. This mass does interfere with the flow of electricity no matter where or how the meter’s electrodes are attached to the body. The flow does not have to go through the brain.
If your denial of the mental mass theory were correct, metering would almost never work, and that would result in nearly all auditng sessions ending in a confused mess. But they don’t, unless other gross errors are made. So your viewpoint is at odds with observable reality.
If you believe mental mass doesn’t exist, then you also must believe that thetans don’t exist. If that’s the case, why did you ever get involved in Scientology in the first place, and why do you participate in this blog today?
” These ridges are mass, and permeate the thetan’s entire body and even the space outside the body. ”
M2C, There is a simple way to test what you have posited. Simply take the two cans and hook a wire (a few inches long) with a resistor (with appropriate Ohm’s for male or female) in the middle and set the cans & wire an inch from your hand and arm.
Proceed to audit. IF you get the reads you are correct. Otherwise, you are DEAD wrong. And so was Tubbolard.
It must suck having NEVER understood the physical sciences.
Air is an insulator not a conducter.
Irrelevant MTC. The CANS are conductive. The “thetan” field would permeate the conductive cans the same as the CONDUCTIVE body. And it would read.
UNLESS there was no such field as Tubbolard says.
FAIL!
The e-meter measures very slight changes in resistence to an electrical flow. There would be no flow between cans seperated by air. The “thetan field” would not remedy that, as it would increase resistence not conductivity between the cans.
Air is an insulator? I give you the Tesla Coil.
If air is an absolute insulator then a step down transformer could never exist.
Space is not empty.
M2C, to call Elron’s speculative comments and unsupported assertions concerning the meaning and significance of e-meter needle phenomena a “theory” is to confuse and conflate what he created with an actual scientific theory, containing empirically testable hypotheses, specific predictions and support from related earlier scientific research that has validated by others.
Elron never did any of that, but instead framed assertions as facts and interpreted results within a conceptual framework of understanding that requires those believe in it as valid to accept certain fundamental constructs, such as “mental mass,” which squarely puts them in the realm of physics, and identifies them as actual real world entities, yet makes no attempt to actually demonstrate that they exist.
Or I should say, only made a very transparently bogus attempt to fool folks into believing in their validity. An earlier poster provided a link on the e-meter in which Elron goes “all in” on his mental mass conjecture and purports to demonstrate how, as PC’s blow mass or as-is it during auditing they actually get lighter…some thirty pounds lighter in the case he cites.
Like the first Clear public demonstration in L.A., which went so horribly wrong, Elron never appears to have repeated the “weight loss through auditing” experiment either…and gee golly, it’s just so surprising that no one else has either! I don’t mean to be overly sarcastic or mocking here, but folks like Elron who attempt to stage bogus demonstrations like this to fool a gullible and scientifically uninformed public deserve not only to be scornfully mocked, but to be summarily dismissed as charlatans.
It’s not that folks don’t derive benifit from auditing in certain settings and with the right kind of relationship with their auditor, it’s that there’s absolutely no way to sort out what those gains can be causally attributed to. Is the placebo effect at work there; or the therapeutic relationship of unconditional regard and compassion that does it; or is it something else entirely? This is exactly where the time-tested methods and procedures of empirical science become absolutely indispensable if we wish to really sort out what, if anything, that is unique to auditing as a counseling method that is the basis for its efficacy.
Harp: With you 100%.
Of course you are Terra!
Harpoona, we all learn many things in life without the use of full-blown scientific method, which didn’t evolve into its present form until about 1200 years ago. Did the human race learn nothing earlier than that?
Even in modern times, none of the great psychologists and spiritual masters used full, formal scientific method. That wasn’t because they were intellectully dishonest. They did use the basics of trying things out to see how they worked, and advancing their knowledge and effectiveness step by step, the same as we all do in daily life. But they didn’t use double-blind, placebo controlled, peer reviewed, formal scientific method, because it’s too slow and expensive.
If they aren’t criticized for this, why should LRH be? And if I got good results using his tech, both for myself and my pc’s, why should I say “I don’t know if it works” until a true “scientific” experiment tells me it does?
I agree, early proto-science efforts often led directly to the development of techniques, instrumentation and formal mathematical theories that define modern science. One of the very best examples of that is the ancient systematic observation of the repetition of the patterns of presumed movement of the stars and planets which many different cultures independently evolved.
The difference is that as more advanced instrumentation, theory, experimental designs and mathematics were developed, the modern science fields of astronomy and astrophysics emerged and were integrated with more fundamental science fields, such as physics, while its animistic and astrological divination aspects were discarded.
Elron’s alt science development of $cn not only departed from the mainstream science of his time, but never circled back to reunite with it as the “black box” of the brain became more and more accessible to all the many techniques and methods of imaging its real time patterns of activations in subserving perception, memory, emotion, imagery and ideation.
So, the knock on Elron there is not for plunging ahead – just as Freud also had done in his time – but for never attempting to reconcile what he believed he’d discovered with the vast amount of knowledge concerning how the brain enables mind in the neurosciences. To take but one crucial example there, our neurobiological understanding of exactly how the residual effect of traumatic experiences is encoded, stored and re-activated in the brain is so much more detailed and insightful than Elron’s vague, general conceptual framing of the “reactive mind” that it’s truly breathtaking. Holding onto those very antiquated, non brain-based concepts is like insisting that astrology is at the same level of scientific accuracy and theoretical soundness as astrophysics…it’s just not!
You’re welcome to continue to use $cn techniques if you find them helpful and of value. I’m not saying that they have no value whatsoever; I’m just saying that the vast and elaborate Hubbardian cosmology that they’re bound up in, including his e-meter theory, has either already been fundamentally discredited at many, many different levels or has yet to be objectively evaluated.
Except when it comes to the very likely to cause mental disorder practice of spending hundreds of hours dissociating self into imagined personality fragment pieces (BT’s), then telepathically exorcising them, I’d say that as long as auditing is practiced outside of the criminal and authoritarian cherch, that if its helpful to those who use it, then who am I to judge what others find to be of value
Brain research has never shown that thought originates in the brain, only that different parts of the brain are activated by different types of thought.
Scientology is a religion. We consider that we are immortal spiritual beings using bodies without being bodies. We are the thinkers The brain just conducts some of the energy we create when we think.
Brain research is irrelevant to the basic principles of auditing.
Perhaps I’m missing some obvious point but according to you, M2C, it is the thetan who originates the thoughts. Interestingly, the thetan doesn’t experience its own thoughts as quickly as the emeter detects them! Whether it’s an emeter or an MRI machine, we have discovered the body registers impulses seconds before the experiencing agent (thetan) is cognizant of the thought. Could it be the thetan thinks thoughts known to it only seconds later?
Roger, the reason the meter reads before the pc becomes aware of thoughts is that auditing addresses what the pc has previously decided not to be aware of.
You are saying I can make a decision that in the future, I will not be aware of thinking a particular thought WHILE I’M THINKING IT! I’m not on board with that hypothesis. Occam’s Razor suggests we go with simple explanations, ones that make sense. It doesn’t matter anyway because…
MRI research informs us that ALL, not just some, of our thoughts originate in the “pre-conscious” domain we call the “unconscious mind” before they appear in the conscious mind for our viewing pleasure. Since the ‘thetan’ is the experiencing agent, and all thoughts originate prior to experiencing them, it can be concluded with perfect confidence a ‘thetan’ is NOT the originator of thought.
Nice concise write-up. 🙂
The scrutiny of the e-meter is a favorite topic for me. It is my assumption that the e-meter is the delivery system for the cognitive disassociation that can happen to those who have surrendered their self reasoned determinism to e-meter determinism.
This is my observation when I look back on my auditing:
First and foremost the pinch test was the gateway drug. The pinch test establishes a link between awareness and needle reactions. Whatever the electronics involved is. Doesn’t matter. There is some connection.
Then the mind goes,”a ha! there is something to this. Let’s see what other goodies Ron has.”
The next indoctrination to surrendering my self determined reasoning skill to e-meter determinism was when the needle was reacting to a question and I could not see what my mind was reacting to. The auditor would say,”there” when the needle went blip. I still could not see and the auditor kept indicating the needle reaction.
Then the most amazing thing happened. Almost like coming through a cloud. An experience and memory from early life popped through and I knew that this experience has a causal connection to the problem I was running and,BOOM!!……….. FN-FLOATING TA and I was floating. Had a cog, felt grateful to my auditor and to Ron.
My mind was sold. The e-meter can see things below my awareness level. And it can help me to accurately see things below my awareness level to help resolve personal and spiritual issues.
But…………………………… that is the cheese because this also happens.
Once again I’m in session and can’t see something I am supposed to be experiencing because the needle is going blip and the auditor is saying ,”that……… yes that……..right there.” This went on for the longest time.
Then I reasoned,”It must be something. My experience is that when the needle goes blip and I have a cog like last time, there must be something there.
What my mind did then was manufacture something, and I split myself in two and gave power to Ron, the session, my auditor and belief in the session. Then it read on meter and I said,”yes that’s it.”
It was at that point, I believe, that I lost a little differentiation between my conscious knowing memory and my imagination. From that point onwards memory and imagination became clouded as the same. Then I was fully e-meter determined.
The confluence between imagination and factual reality is a trait that those who run this hypnotic OT3/BT theory acquire by Sci Fi auditing.
By surrendering our power to needle reactions as an accurate representation of reality of our mind itself, you get people who can accept the wildest things.
You get folks who “know” beyond a doubt that Ron was not wishing suicide. That Ron was simply spent on all of his heroic battles with OT research. That brave Ron knew his time was up and was not concerned for the body because he was so evolved.
My take is that suicide is what he wished for because of running BTs all day long. That is the reality.
But true believers, being so use to combining mystical imagination and fact find it easy to accept imagination as fact.
It all stars with surrendering your reasoning power to the e-meter. Ron surrendered his reasoning kills to the e-meter. And look at where that got him.
Wishing death by electroshock to free BTs. My Two Cents thinks Ron was just being a wiseman above the MEST universe.
Therein lies the danger of surrendering your sovereign thinking capacity to a needle reaction that could be a very accurate reflexion of thought, or can be one of those possible needle reactions that Terra mentioned.
Or it can be, as in the case of OT3/BT auditing; imagination masquerading as reality causing damage to the discriminating intelligence.
The meter is the gateway drug to creating a Scientologist in a thought bubble of mystical delusions conflating them with fact. Making falsehoods into truth and visa versa.
Pity the well trained Scientologist. Psyches are not from the planet Farsec. Needle reactions are not an accurate physical representation of your inner mind and spirit. On the contrary, they can conflate imagination and fact. Very dangerous practice.
Written evidence that Scientology’s auditing processes can cause damage to common sense, conflating reality and mystical imagination…………………….
OT SUCCESS STORIES IN ADVANCE MAGAZINE. HOLY DELUSION BATMAN!!!!
Scientology and the e-meter blurs the boundies between fact and fancy. And to those well trained believers, psyches are from Farsec and I am in the army of Xenu for daring to criticize “man’s only hope.”
I hate to be a buzz kill, but this e-meter sounds like another one of Hubbard’s props for his sci fi show.
Have you ever given or received metered auditing?
I think the emeter has some use. The problem is when the power of reason is surrendered to this machine.
The problem is surrendering our sovereignty to anything or anyone.
Ron demanded obedience. Ron destroyed critics.
That is why true believers still have a hard time with criticism.
Socrates loved critics. It gave him an opportunity to share knowledge and persuade.
No such talent exists in Scientology. Critics=criminal.
That is the learned handicap that Hubbard imprinted into his disciples.
They don’t do to well in dialog that challenges their heart felt beliefs.
Mike’s blog is good for them. This is called real life with real people with real and valid differences of thought.
Topics worthy of argument
1) Ron’s sanity
2) the effectiveness of the meter
3) do BTs exist or are they they imaginings of a unstable Sci Fi author.
4) is the whole world trying to stop L Ron Hubbard’s Scientology or did Ron suffer from paranoid persecution delusions.
5) are the OT levels causing cancer in some people
6) what is actually happening in the OT3/BT session
There are no bad questions. There are only people who fear answers. And fearing and thought stopping critics with “you have MUs or your grades are out” is not a valid argument outside of the Scientology thought bubble.
In addition to coming up with an almost infinite number of thought-stopping techniques, Elron’s insistence that his was the very last word on most things under the sun (and therefore could never be questioned, disagreed with or even elaborated upon) had a chilling effect on research into the e-meter’s function and potential usefulness as understood within the much broader scientific fields of biometric monitoring and neural imaging that all of the various other electrodermal activity monitoring devices are a part of.
The field has moved on far beyond what Elron And Volny knew about it when the e-meter was first developed. But instead of being pioneers in a new, very fascinating and continuously developing field, Elron effectively froze things in time, so that whatever else modern science has learned since the mid 50’s is either ignored or discounted.
Come to PT, $CN…it’s only going to hurt a little and once you get unfrozen it’s going to be a whole lot of fun 😉
It makes it all so scientific………………therefore it must be true. All hail El Con. Now, lets save the planet!
I am not sure what a buzzkill is Kidkat but your fatuous comment may mean you are one. Good luck with that then!
I remember hearing a story about Christopher Reeves (Superman) putting the he e-meter to the test. He went into seasion, made up a whole bunch of bs about a past life and, what do you know! A FN!
That was when he knew it was a bunch of nonsense, walked out and never looked back.
I’m sure some will have an explanation for this…. Reeves was a SP! The meter doesn’t work if you lie to it! Reeves didn’t have enough bee pollen before he went into session!
I think LRH probably got the same read from people that he got from those tomatoes in the (in)famous picture.
(A picture the Co$ should not show anyone because contrary to what they think, it makes LRH look like an idiot, NOT a brilliant scientist)
Chee, auditing is just looking at what one has previously created. Therefore the meter reads, and auditing works, on imagination in addition to the pc’s actual history. Some of what pc’s experience in session is their own imagination, and some is their actual history. If a person gets enough auditing, enough of what comes up will be real for him to get case gain.
If Christopher Reeve had been brave and sincere enough to follow instructions in his auditing session, he may have come away from it with a different opinion. What he did was a classic violation of the “A to J” policy, which lists the various types of people who probably won’t be successful as pc’s, including “sitting in judgment,” “open minded,” etc.
A to J… isn’t that an Ethics check? And not a confessional?
A-1. Have any of your family or friends ever expressed any disagreement with Scientology?
A-2. Is there someone who doesn’t want you to be here?
A-3. Are you here to prove to someone that Scientology works, or to show them.
B-1. Do you have a criminal record?
B-2. Have you committed any crimes for which you have not been caught?
C-1. Have you ever threatened to sue or embarrass or attack Scientology or Scientologists?
C-2. Do you know of anyone who has?
D-3. Is anyone or anything the cause of the way you are now, or some condition you are in?
E-1. Are you here on your own determinism?
E-2. Do you feel obliged in any way or to any one to be here?
F-1. Are you here to see if Scientology works?
F-2. Does Scientology always work for you?
H-1. Do you want to get better?
H-2. Do you know of any other mental technology that works?
I-1. What gains are you expecting in Scientology?
J-1. Do you represent an attempt to investigate Scientology?
J-2. Do you know of anyone who is investigating Scientology?
J-5. Have you ever had thoughts of suing or requesting refund if the tech “didn’t work”?
Can you imagine Chee, if any of these questions were asked about Biology?
Are you here to prove Biology works?
Have you ever threatened to embarrass or attack Biology?
Do you know anyone who doesn’t believe Biology works?
Do you know of any other physical science that works?
Have you ever thought of getting a refund of your Biology course didn’t teach you anything about Biology?
Being open minded is a flaw that needs to be handled by an Ethics interview, a metered interview no less!
Oh bless.
A-J checks were used by the Church in a suppressive manner. It’s very different in most of the Independent field. The idea is just that students and pc’s should be there for personal improvement, sincerely on their own determinism, and not strongly connected to anyone who’s trying to keep them in a weakened state. This is just common sense for any type of therapeutic counselling.
M2C – the problem became the fact that the Church was taken over by someone antipathetic to the normal (previous) social contract between Scientology parishioners and the Church. So in these instances you talk about, A-J was being applied or rather squirreled to weed out opponents of Miscavige, as was sec checking. The original idea of A-J is quite correct as you state. How it was used by COB’s minions is another matter.
I completely agree that lil davey the savage has taken corporate $cn to unimaginable new lows of sadism and criminality, but making him the scapegoat for all that is wrong and perverse about $cn is delusional.
There are just so many direct witness testimonies to how cruel, capricious, intoxicated, petty, vindictive, plagiaristic, dishonest, venal, money-grubbing and fraudulent that Elron was that it’s completely impossible to not credit him as much or more with the blame for what $cn has become.
Just the way he treated his family alone puts the lie to his claim of being a moral and caring individual. The denial that some folks are in concerning Elron is breathtaking and I’m not sure what it would take to open their eyes to what seems, at this late date, to be a mountain of evidence that he was lying fraud from his pre-Dianetics days on throughout the decades, right up until his death. Whatever good there is in the Tech, there was very little good in the man.
My 2 Cents, thanks for injecting a lot of common sense and truth into these comment threads, on so many different points.
Common sense yes, it abounds. Let’s check out some common sense.
Tell me……… I cannot let these question slip by:
IS IT A TECHNICAL FACT (technical fact would be the same as mathematics) THAT ALL CRITICS OF RON AND SCIENTOLOGY HAVE CRIMINAL PASTS?
Please could you bring some common sense and truth in this technical doctrinal fact?
See my answer here: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/the-e-meter/#comment-149406
Practicing medicine without a license again.
Are you a religion, a philosophy, a technology or a counselling center?
A dessert AND a floorwax?
Yes it is an Ethics check. Which question(s) applied to you?
None of them.
Which ones don’t apply to you?
For if you truly believed in the subject, you’d never have abandoned the church Ron built for you. What’s one lifetime mean, when you abandoned your post?
Dilettante squirrels everywhere!
Oops, I guess I lost open-mindedness for a minute.
Ah! The old A-J thing which is my opening line way up at the top of the page! So Christopher Reeves was another one.
Unwitting and unbeknownst to himself mocking up what may have taken place is not out of the ordinary.
Yes indeed. That dubbing, mocking up thing is popular.
You mean like BTs
You mean like all psyches are from Farsec
You mean like no volcanos is Hawaii
You mean like all critics are criminal
You mean like Jesus was a pedophile
You mean like make me a death wish emeter
You mean like smoking doesn’t cause cancer
You mean like sympathy is below hate on the tone scale
You mean like Ron was Cecil Rhodes a gay man
You mean like all of the Scientologists who claimed to be Mozart, Beethoven.
You mean like auditing cures leukemia
You mean like the purif is the only tech to save you from radiation
You mean like Ron was a doctor
You mean like Ron was breaking Broncos while still tied to the ambilical chord
You mean like Ron studied from Lamas but actually called them “smelly chinks.”
You mean when Ron said that he went to heaven
You mean when Ron took the temperature of the Van Allen belt
Holy Common sense Batman, I am so glad there are trained Scientologists to help me out with common sense. Otherwise I do not know what I’d do.
Hey, thank you guys for putting up with me. I am sure you are all nice people. I have no problem with you Ron apologists as people. You are probably helping people in some very basic ways of discovering our incorporeal natures.
My issue is with doctrines. And the dangers of false knowledge.
Chee Chalker, you bring up Christopher Reeves (RIP). Michael Lewis, an OT VIII, Class VIII still in Scn, knew him personally in those days. He said that Christopher Reeves originated he was Clear or had attained the state of Clear and then was told he was NOT Clear and he felt very hugely invalidated. It was shortly after that that he had that accident that broke his neck and made him a quadraplegic. Michael told me he thought it was the Wrong Indication and Wrong Item resulting in Out Lists on his case that brought on the PTS condition. I didn’t know Christopher Reeves personally but am just passing on what Michael Lewis said about it.
I had improvements in my life from auditing. So I’m not ready yet to dismiss all things Scientology. My question about the e-meter is; would the meter get reads if the electrodes were attached to the person in another way? After the fact it seemed suspect to me that the PC would ‘hold’ the electrodes, if we were trying to avoid inadvertent movement. Has anyone done any experiments with attaching the electrodes another way, eg. wrist bands, suckers attached to the temples, roach clips, etc.? If you could eliminate squeezing and moving(insert joke here) I would be intrigued if the meter was still predictive.
Not tested extensively, but enough to get a decent indicator. The further away from the hand extremity the electrode is placed, the more bizarre the reads get. These are not reads having anything to do with auditing.
So, if you believe in the powers of scientific investigation, lets shine some light on time dating.
If a person can time date, because the records of the mind are permanent and the thetan “knows”, then a very easy experiment can be made.
Are you willing to do this experiment? If you do not reply I will conclude that you are not willing.
Most important line in this post IMO:
“Outside of anecdotal evidence, though, no scientific research exists to back up these claims.”
Just like the rest of the subjects of dianetics and scientology, there is no research. NONE. If there is, I am completely open to having a look at it.
The way I see it, there are certainly lots of body motions that make the meter ‘read’ as stated in this post. That is undisputed. Whether or not mental reactions show up is a matter of debate. But for now, lets just assume that mental mass can be detected by an e-meter. If that is the case, auditing is akin to someone in a carnival shooting gallery trying to hit a moving target with all sorts of motion and distraction around them. Body influences on the meter would be happening all the time and it would be up to the auditor to decipher which motion of the needle was physical and which is mental. Good luck with that one.
The whole idea of ‘instant read’ is total bullshit. The ‘pc’ KNOWS what the command is going to be before it is even given to them by the auditor, because every command has to be ‘word cleared’ before it is given. I don’t care how good an auditor’s ‘TR-1’ is, you can’t sneak the command in and have it impinge instantly.
My favorite e-meter story:
When I was on staff at a mission, I was selected to go on a Sea Org mission. Sort of like being deputized. I was the mission second and we were sent to the Reno mission. While we were there, one of their public members brought in a very early version of an e-meter that they bought at a flea market that day for a few bucks. This would have been an early 50s model with Volney Mathison’s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volney_Mathison) name on it, before he was disappeared from the scientology history books. Little did I know, this was also the time period that Hubbard would have been in hiding in the Carson City/Sparks area just down the road a few miles. This was probably about as close as I ever got to the old grifter and I didn’t even know it at the time.
OFF TOPIC bonus, courtesy of Today’s Featured Article on Wikipedia:
When Hubbard should have been conducting the extensive research necessary for the basis of dianetics, here is what he was really up to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons_(rocket_engineer)
For me, it isn’t so much that the use of a galvanic skin response instrument (see here for an overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodermal_activity ) as an aid in detecting pre-conscious and subconscious emotional arousal is completely outlandish and without any kind of scientific support; it’s that the research that could have and should have been done to empirically evaluate claims that Hubbard made for its use were never done, despite the fact that an entire field of biometric monitoring (EKG, EEG, fMRI, eye movement tracking, etc.) has sprung up since Elron first seized on this one lone biometric channel to monitor, as if it had some sort of unique significance and as if there were no others that held equal potential. Even the old time polygraph monitored several other physiological indices, such as heart rate, respiration and blood pressure, in addition to skin conductance.
So, the real crime against humanity then and now with $cn is to remain stuck in a past era of scientific knowledge and to obstinately and defiantly act as if nothing of importance has come along to advance the field since then. After all, you can’t expect to cash in on the authoritative aura of empirical science without actually keeping up with advances in the field. And there’s not a single believer in the efficacy of Elron’s Tech that can argue that any effort whatsoever has been made to reconcile $cn’s claims with empirical science. The e-meter is to the science of biometric monitoring and brain scan imaging what the dowsing rod was to modern science methods of detecting underground rock strata formations and oil/water resources…that is, completely outdated, much less effective and a throwback to the pre-scientific era.
TC’s otherwise excellent critical analysis of Hubbardian e-meter theory fails to identify what is perhaps Elron’s most fundamental error and the exact point at which his entire elaborate cosmology goes irretrievably off the rails. In describing how the e-meter works and the many things that can cause it to register differences, TC states, “If it’s unclear whether the e-meter reacts to what’s going on inside a PC’s mind, it’s very clear that the machine reacts to his physical body.” What the last 60+ years of very intense brain research, carried out by tens of thousands of neuroscientists, has made completely clear is that mind is what brain does. Whatever changes that you and I experience at the conscious and unconscious levels of perception, emotion, memory, visualization and much more are directly enabled by and completely dependent upon changes occurring at the neurophysiological level of the brain…no active brain processes, no active mind.
So, Hubbard’s dualist philosophical orientation to how mind works was completely wrong from the get go and adopting it has led many to discount or avoid the incredible advances that have been made in the neurosciences which have taken us a very long way towards establishing a true science of mind. Unfortunately for True Believer $cilons, it’s not one that looks anything like what Elron dreamed up.
Interestingly here, both oil companies and gold companies regularly employ dowsers and dowsing specifically because it has shown results. I’d suggest not being so quick to dispose of unique and unusual things when it comes to human beings. Water dowsing for wells, btw, is still in vogue in many areas of the US.
Because science can’t yet understand or explain something hardly means it can’t be so. They still don’t comprehend the placebo effect, though there are some forward thinking scientists who have found that it is a real “thing” and can have measurable results.
Science, fortunately, marches forward, though the same can’t be said too much of medical science which does tend to lag by about 20-25 years.
That’s true, but oil companies don’t use dowsers as the last word of authority in confirming what their complex ground-penetrating sonar and other high-tech imaging instruments reveal; it’s the other way around.
There is a whole realm of new scientific discoveries that will continue to be made in almost every field that you can imagine. Most of these just serve to confirm, refine or extend the known laws of physics, but some are so completely revolutionary and fundamentally undermining of what has come before that they foster an entire paradigm shift in the field, such as Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity.
I’m certain that more such paradigm shifts in science will occur, but the important thing to note here with respect to $cn is that any extraordinary claim that’s made, such as telepathy and telekinesis, is going to require extraordinary level of proof. $cn’s attempt to do an end run around this high bar requirement of science must now, some 60+ years later, be judged to have failed as no alt or parallel $cn science has taken hold and flourished. So, is $cn is sincere in maintaining its miraculous claims and spreading the “Good News,” then it’s going to have to swallow hard and submit its claims to empirical science for objective evaluation.
And since the “mental mass” construct is so central to $cn theory, that seems to me to be a very good place to start. I’m just curious why others who True Believers in Elron’s cosmology have been so slow to grasp the significance of pursuing this approach to validating what they’re so convinced of? 60+ years is a very long time to go it alone, as if $cn would eventually be validated by enough folks who found it worked as promised to give the kind of authoritative reputation that it needs to accomplish its ultimate goal. That has very obviously not worked out, so why not retrench and try the more mainstream approach?
My sense of why folks have been reluctant to seek objective validation of $cn’s claims is twofold: They have a very dim appreciation for how effective and useful the scientific method has been historically; and they have an intuitive sense that $cn is mostly hoakum which will be clearly exposed if they go that route. Don’t get me wrong here, I’d love to see someone actually demonstrate real OT super powers or even just complete recall as a clear. Trouble is, since no one has at this late date in the game, it seems probable that no one ever will. That’s gotta be a bitter pill to swallow for long-time $cilon True Believers, but I don’t think anyone need apologize for asking folks to demonstrate their claimed OT super powers, do you?
This is a very great point. I was just talking to my wife about this the other day. We are taught that in session the only thing that causes an instant read is charge on a question, or charge related to the question (false read), but then on our drills we are taught that if you don’t get instant reads on banal lists like “what is your favorite color” it’s only because you are somehow deficient is how you are asking the questions.
Never mind the matter that every time you assess the “favorite color” list you get reads on different items, none of which are the person’s actual favorite color. When drilling how to assess lists, the fact of getting the correct item to read has nothing to do with whether a list was assessed property. Only that you got ANYTHING to read.
This directly contradicts the premise of what the value of an e-meter is in a session.
Also, the meter drill 25, whole track hidden date.
We are taught that in session the meter is reading on the charge associated with the date. And yet on drill 25 your partner just writes down a completely random date (25 billion, 148 million, 309 thousand, 432 years, 9 months, 5 days”….and you’re supposed to find this date using instant reads on the meter. And if you get a read on the WRONG DATE it’s because you are either asking the questions wrong, or using your meter wrong.
It never really occurred to me until recently how this drill COMPLETELY contradicts how we are taught the meter is supposed to help in a session.
If the meter only reads instantly in a session on real charge, then why the heck is it supposed to read on conscious thought on drill #25. Reversely, if on drill #25, the meter can read instantly simply on conscious thought, then why are we supposed to believe that it doesn’t also just read instantly on conscious thought in a session?
And yet NEVER in my time in a course room and in auditor training have I heard someone express this concern, that our meter drills, and how we were trained to use the meter on these drills, 100% contradicted how we were being told a meter works in a session.
Total thought stopping!
I have done these drills for many hours and I agree completely with what you said.
“It never really occurred to me until recently how this drill COMPLETELY contradicts how we are taught the meter is supposed to help in a session.”
Your excellent logical analysis of the completely contradictory aspects of e-meter theory raises such simple and intuitively obvious questions that you’re left to wonder why in the world it DIDN’T occur to you before now. Once you’re out of the cult, all manner of critical reasoning abilities return and the imprint of Elron’s thumb on your forehead slowly begins to fade, but that recovery from other-determinism can take awhile and seems to proceed at its own pace, depending on how deeply you were entranced and how much Kool-Aid that you imbibed.
I did. I asked a Flag Sup why the meter is supposed to read on random dates that the coach just arbitrarily chooses and writes down, with no relevance to any “case”. A few other students asked the same thing. But we just had to review and word clear the materials until we “figured it out”, in other words, came up with some explanation of our own to reconcile the contradiction. Because we knew we were not going to be able to move on until we did that.
Hey Dave, haven’t seen you in a while. Just re-reading your blog earlier today.
Jan, I do not have any Scientology materials any more and haven’t looked at an HCO B in ten years, but I do recall somewhere that LRH said that the meter also reads on INTEREST as well (you’ll see reads sometimes when the pc mentions something he’s very happy about too, like a sports team win or someone he loves). Ortega had a recording last year on his blog that LRH made in the early 1950s where he was on the meter exploring the whole track, looking for the “truth” and would ask Mary Sue regularly if something “dropped” to determine what was real or not on his track (which is now called a fall) so he was verifying what was true by what the needle reacted on (on may I add the earliest type of meter, guess he didn’t need an ultra to figure out History of Man)
Well, the real truth is that the meter reads on pretty much anything. We all know this and we all cheat the E-meter. But as far as interest goes, I would say that the use of the meter in NED actually contradicts the meter reading on interest alone.
On NED you either need an item to read and / OR you check interest. If the meter reads and the PC is not interested you don’t run it on NED. If the meter does not read on a NED item or flow, you still ask the PC if they are interested in it, and if the answer is “yes” you still run the item or flow.
So even here we have a scenario where meter reads are irrelevant, and where the meter is NOT reading on interest.
There’s always a reason to explain away why the meter would or would not read in any given situation.
The meter is the perfect thought-control device.
“For whatever reason, all too often falls don’t correspond to charged incidents and charged incidents don’t produce falls.”
The words “all too often” obfuscate the fact that (1) the vast majority of reads do correspond to charged incidents and (2) a charged incident won’t read if it is below the reality level of the pc and often will read at a later point in auditing after related charge has been released.
Apparently, you are not that familiar with the theory or haven’t done enough auditing of pcs to have observed the above.
Jan Fiala makes some very simple points of logic concerning the completely contradictory nature of basic e-meter theory. Is there any way that you can see that they can be reconciled? For example, if “the vast majority of reads do correspond to charged incidents,” then why would the meter read at all on drill lists that are designed to be neutral, and why would the auditor-in-training’s voice quality have any effect one way or the other on getting these non-charged items to read to begin with? E-meter theory is logically flawed at a fundamental level, but within the group think, “Elron is never wrong, so I must be” culture in which this nonsense is indoctrinated, no questioning of that authority or infallibility is allowed, which is exactly the implicit purpose there!
You take issue with TC concerning his anecdotal account of his experience in using an e-meter and in having one used on him, and attribute his purportedly erroneous conclusion to his probable lack of experience as an auditor or unfamiliarity with Hubbardian e-meter theory. But your own opposing views and differing conclusions are also just based on your own anecdotal personal experience, so they’re no more valid or reliable than his. For that matter, no one has done any kind of objective empirical research whatsoever on any part of Elron’s very elaborate Tech, so it’s ALL just completely anecdotal.
Folks who still cling to the infallible Word of Elron have a very difficult time seeing the very obvious logical discrepancies in his theory and seemingly feel the need to reflexively make those who question or differ with it wrong, just as you have here. However, outside of that enforced group think mindset circle of darkness, the use of logic, questioning, statements of opposing views are not only accepted, but encouraged. No one here is going to accept a “because Elron said so” argument as valid, which to me is an encouraging sign of the return of self-determinism and critical reasoning capacity.
Harpoona Frittata: “For example, if ‘the vast majority of reads do correspond to charged incidents,’ then why would the meter read at all on drill lists that are designed to be neutral, and why would the auditor-in-training’s voice quality have any effect one way or the other on getting these non-charged items to read to begin with?”
First, HF, I wouldn’t assume every one of those items on the prepared assessment lists is uncharged. I read on a color (rust) one time and it totally indicated because I don’t like that color. Secondly, there could also be protest reads and false reads – which would be fine for the purpose of the drill, which is simply to assess a list by instant read. After the list has been assessed, the student is then supposed to null the list until either only one item is left reading or NONE of them are.
As for what you call “voice quality,” I assume you mean good TR-1, and yes that is important in getting reads. Students whose TR-1 is lacking get more reads after being further drilled corrected on this TR.
You also noted: “. . . your own opposing views and differing conclusions [from TC’s] are also just based on your own anecdotal personal experience, so they’re no more valid or reliable than his.”
My point wasn’t just a matter of a different experience – it had to do with repeated experience with many pcs. I think that does make it more valid. And TC hasn’t claimed to have had a lot of experience.
Finally, you wrote: “No one here is going to accept a ‘because Elron said so’ argument as valid, which to me is an encouraging sign of the return of self-determinism and critical reasoning capacity.”
Agreed. However, neither are we required to DISagree with anything Ron said just to supposedly “prove” we can reason critically and are self-determined. Both criticism and agreement should rest on reason and experience. Right?
I agree, the theory would be logically consistent if, for example, certain fruits and colors have emotional “charge” associated with them. But as Jan mentioned, they don’t read consistently, but instead, what reads and doesn’t read will vary seemingly randomly. In addition, when I was doing these drills, there were also made-up nonsense words and phrases, like “fizzle wizzle bum crum,” obviously had no associated meaning or emotional significance, yet would also read on occasion.
I open to the possibility that more skilled users are able to get much more reliable and consistent results than those less skilled. But the important point to fully take on board there, is that there are some incredibly sophisticated empirical research methods, statistical analysis measures and research protocols that have been created to objectively evaluate the kind of claims that Elron made, but he chose not to pursue them and, as a result, you’re left with a whole bunch of widely varying, anecdotal accounts with no objective means of sorting them out within the Hubbardian system.
Because Elron has made some very outlandish and easily disproved claims for his “mental mass” theory, such as the one about the PC losing 30 lbs after auditing (see the wikipedia link on the e-meter cited in a response above) it does tend to discredit him in a more general way.
There are a number of folks here on this thread who obviously have devoted much time, effort and practice in using Hubbard’s methods who value them and and have found the e-meter to be a useful tool in their work. I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s gains, but instead trying to analyze one of the very few areas within Hubbard’s cosmology that can be evaluated objectively and understood based on its utilization of some same principles of physics that science rests upon.
Carl Sagan famously said, “extraordinary claims require extraodinary evidence” and $cn is nothing if not a series of very extraordinary claims. But it is also a field unto itself which its creator never saw fit to try and reconcile with mainstream science, but instead sought to create his own parallel “science”. Some 60+ years later it’s very clear which approach has found favor with intelligent folks around the world. So, if $cn is truly serious about the extraordinary claims it makes, then submitting them to the objective methods of empirical research and testing is clearly the route to take because scientific validation of its claims concerning, for example, the memory recall abilities of Clears would boom the organization like never before.
Interesting take on things. Per my delving into the earlier stuff of Hubbard, circa 1951/52. He had what appeared to be quite some contempt for “scientists” and their way of creating a circular explanation of existence. I’m not saying whether he’s right or wrong but it was different what he proposed. His theory gave some sort of explanation to breaking what he believed were the shackles of modern science, ie the rejection of the spiritual side in the explanation of existence. Ie where consideration is more significant than secular perception. It opened up the gates of auditing per se and led to a whole different perspective.
Wanting proof in a secular experiment to prove it, well… that is kind of like the genesis of the trap in which we dwell, according the Hubbard. Relying on the body for its perceptions and reactions of course were now highly suspect once Dianetics laid down its foundation. In essence he suggested the body (GE) was literally an emotional battlefield born out of a very violent interaction with the quest for survival. He attempted to design procedures to extract the being out of it. He ran into more and more layers of “experience” recorded both by the GE & the being. The complexity became greater and greater but he attempted to simplify it all. The Qs, Logics & Axioms resulted which are the basis of all that followed with the technology. It took me quite some time but it actually “sort of is” understandable how he developed processes and there is a logical flow to it. But the contradictions within were many, similar to and rivaling the quest to be individual, which is what Thetans sort of insist upon but also react badly if they feel they are left out of things too. Pairs of opposites were concluded to be the fabric and basis of the inner workings of the mind. That makes and creates an endless game to pursue so to speak – the R6 bank.
I personally think whatever happened in the 70s was significant to Scientology and by the 80s it truly went off on a tangent which defied it’s own fundamentals and no longer (to me anyway) followed or was related to anything that had the same effect as the processes that preceded it. In other words it imploded as a subject and is the bloody mess we have today. It could be suggest it was intended, but not necessarily by Hubbard. The subject and concept of Scientology, workable or not, scares the crap out of many a status quo lover.
‘Prove it to me,’ is a doubled edged sword whenever freedom is investigated.
Well said, I Yawnalot. Eloquent.
” I’m not saying whether he’s right or wrong but it was different what he proposed. His theory gave some sort of explanation to breaking what he believed were the shackles of modern science, ie the rejection of the spiritual side in the explanation of existence.”
His cosmology is a mash up of a whole lot of elements taken from all manner of different traditions, from Buddhism to Jung, but unlike other religious movements, he grounded his cosmology in both metaphysics (endless past and future reincarnated lives) and physics (e.g., claims that “mental mass” is real and its creation or destruction actually measured).
If we set apart those metaphysical aspects of his very elaborate cosmology and leave that for those to either believe or disbelief, merely on their own faith, then we can focus in on the claims that lie within the realm of physics, and therefore, of modern empirical science. When we begin to analyze the central construct of “mental mass” as he defined it, then that’s where the whole set of conjectures begins to fall apart badly.
He even went so far as to try and prove what the logical extension of his “mental mass” conjecture would require if this mental mass actually could be created or destroyed merely by non-material postulates, or pure intention, which that a human body will become lighter as more and more of this residual mental mass is as-ised.
So far so good; we’ve got the makings of an actual empirical means of validating or invalidating a prediction of measurable results that should be able to be demonstrated, if the concept of mental mass is valid and $cn auditing procedures are effective in aiding an individual to as-is mental mass. Hilariously, Elron made the huge mistake of bogusly staging a fake before and after “weight loss by auditing” demo, which claimed a 30 lb. weight loss of mental mass. And just like the early publicly staged demon of a Clear’s claimed powers of recall, this little faux science experiment was never staged again, to my knowledge.
Put aside the fact that such chicanery tends to ruin an individual’s reputation for integrity, that same experiment could be run by experimental scientists to determine if mental mass actually exists as Elron defined it, or if it’s just another bogus construct. Would invalidation of just that one central conjecture sink the entire system of belief? No it wouldn’t, but given Elron’s repeatedly demonstrated willingness to fake results, make unsupported claims and stage fake demos, there’s very little reason to believe that he’d be honest and truthful about the rest of his cosmology either.
Just caught up with this.
Fake results do muddy up things. Tomatoes on the meter and all.
Just as an interesting point on reads, Marildi … when I first started auditing in 1972, yes, ITEMS had to read before running, but one didn’t need to check each flow for a read back then. Just ran ’em. I can say truthfully, that I never ran into any problem in running all flows of an item without checking for a read, both as an auditor, pc, and later as the Dianetic CS. Thousands of flows, no reads, no problems. Maybe they all had charge. Tons easier as an auditor not to have to get reads or waste time checking flows on every item for reads.
Also I don’t recall having to check grades processes for reads either. Just ran ’em. Good TRs, good comm cycle, good ARC, auditing worked great.
(Yes, I admit I pretty much hated the E Meter, Mark V. I was a fine auditor, but the damn meter ….)
Joe Pendleton: “I can say truthfully, that I never ran into any problem in running all flows of an item without checking for a read, both as an auditor, pc, and later as the Dianetic CS. . . Also I don’t recall having to check grades processes for reads either. Just ran ’em. Good TRs, good comm cycle, good ARC, auditing worked great.”
Yes, that is interesting. But here’s a reference from HCOB “Unreading Flows” 3 Dec 78, which I think applies:
“Running READING items, flows and questions is the only way to make a pc better. This is our purpose in auditing. To run unreading flows, etc. requires the pc to run ‘analytical answers or to ‘run’ things that aren’t there or to put something there to ‘run’ . . . .
“This is probably one of the reasons that it has been observed that I can audit a pc for 2-1/2 hours and get the same result that another auditor might get in 25 hours. There’s nothing mysterious about it. I never run a pc on things that aren’t charged. And I don’t miss reads.”
So in other words, Joe, even though you were a good auditor and C/S, you probably could have done at least as much good, maybe more, for the pcs (including yourself as a pc) – in less time – if only reading items had been run.
But Marildi … we don’t really KNOW that now, do we? (I could ask why Ron suddenly came up with this in 1978 and not before … if he was REALLY getting results in one tenth of the time … which I highly doubt by the way)
Joe, based on your experience, would you agree that case gain occurs as a result of the release of charge?
If not, what is your theory as to why pcs make gains? Do you think auditing is just another “talk therapy,” no better than any other (at least in Hubbard’s day)?
A more pertinent question – do you think auditing would work just as well or better without a meter?
Curious to know what is meant by “making gains” and what is a “gain”?
Hi Marildi. Yes, my experience is that case gain occurs to a large degree as a release of charge as LRH puts it in CS Series 6. Of course there are some processes which re not handling the past per se.
I happen to think that LRH made very original contributions in this area. While (in the words of John Lennon) everyone builds on everyone before them, I have challenged people who claim that Ron plagiarized his ideas to show me another example of specific processes designed to increase awareness, all run by a certain code and procedures, AND to a necessary end phenomena of the person very happy with a new realization about life. That’s an LRH creation.
I do think most of auditing would work better without a meter. Last year someone asked me for a demonstration of auditing, and I ran three commands of an SA list question to an improved tone level. On level A of the BC, I had to audit four people who had never had auditing before, on Dianetics and SOS recall processes and I had no difficulty getting good results without a meter. Dianetics can be run on interest alone and grades processes to cog, VGIs. The meter can be reserved for correction lists. Upper levels would be another matter and I don’t see how they could be audited without a meter. But on the lower levels, I think auditing would be MUCH more effective without ANY auditor attention on meter (especially nowadays where one has to also be concerned with the camera and the critiques of one’s metering, more attention OFF of the pc)
Hi Joe,
I actually agree with you. Most of my tech experience has been in word clearing, and I too found the non-metered methods easier and more efficient most of the time. But I think it might depend on the auditor or word clearer as to how workable it would be – with respect to both using a meter and not using one. To be fair to LRH, he tried to devise methods of application that would be doable for everybody – and that seems to have been unrealistic. But I can understand why he would have had it as a goal, since he tried to find a route on both sides of the bridge that could be followed by everyone, or at least by the many.
You certainly were fair where you wrote “…I have challenged people who claim that Ron plagiarized his ideas to show me another example of specific processes designed to increase awareness, all run by a certain code and procedures, AND to a necessary end phenomena of the person very happy with a new realization about life. That’s an LRH creation.”
Nicely put. Cheers. 🙂
Yes, also HCOB 23 June 80RA Checking Questions On Grade Processes.
How does thinking good thoughts or thinking of a good time work to beat the meter if it is all a scam and doesn’resister thought?
It is ALL a scam. Most people would realize in beginning to read dianetics, that an engram is pseudoscience at best. And when getting to the e-meter, it’s total foundation is all built on made up theories and the say-so of ONE and a half men
Why do you think no one has duplicated the e-meter. Are scions that arrogant to think a proven liar had all the answers to life? And if he did why would they not put him in the same Sphere as Buddha, Confucius, or the Dahli Llama? It’s like they know he was a grifter by heart, but somehow believe he was a modern day Muhammad on the side. Weird.
Well, after reading that refreshing piece, I have decided to throw in the towel on Scientology and LRH and become a dev-OT-ee of “Johnsonism”. Well, he seems to know what he is talking about does he not? I am sure he has all the answers to the human mind and spirit and life. It seems to be quite a simple religion – just say it’s all nonsense and believe him! Wonderfully erudite pearls of wisdom! Surely he can’t be a grifter? No…
I’ll join too – if he has really cool uniforms with gold buttons and extra pockets (100% cotton). Also if he has a giant bronze bust of himself on display that we can salute as we enter or leave, that would be good too… and if he has a really catchy theme song, better than “We stand tall” that clinches the deal. Count me in!
Most people I encounter have very little understanding of physics and the field of electrical conduction. Early on I got into the field so when I encountered the Emeter it made sense that it could measure mental mass which changes the conductivity of a body.
anyone who has done solo auditing can attest to the fact that the Emeter read precisely on pictures or thoughts they had. The meter can be a tool as Dead Men said.
However it only really works if the PC fully believes in auditing and wants it to work. Even then it’s not always accurate but it can work.
Hubbard was constantly changing processes. Some are brilliant.(lower level stuff).
His OT levels are a farce. That being said I made the most of the upper levels and feel I got benefit from them, which has remained though I’m out and I think Hubbard was a total scam artist. I did however tackle spirituality and that knowledge has stuck with me into studying valid spiritual writings.
Back to the subject. I think the Emeter in the right hands and the right therapy could have value only if it is understood that it’s is one tool out of many. The final judge of any therapy is if it allows a person to truly make a change that was destructive to them.
BKmole sez:
“However it only really works if the PC fully believes in auditing and wants it to work.”
I think that’s called a placebo…
PS After having been thru a wallet emptying reg cycle to buy a few intensives, we all wanted auditing to work. Trust me on that one.
BKmole: “However it only really works if the PC fully believes in auditing and wants it to work.”
I believe that is another way of saying the pc is “in session” – defined as “interested in case and willing to talk to the auditor.”
Like you, I’ve tackled other spiritual teachings, as well as a bit of quantum physics, and it seems to me that being “in session” would create an actual energetic connection between the auditor and the pc – which is both the ancient (“oneness”) and scientific (superposition) equivalents of Hubbard’s ARC.
By “Hubbard’s ARC,” I meant his theory about the ARC triangle.
That is true Marildi. I agree with that.
I use to be taken off course to handle difficult PCs. The Geltman mission was investing in me as one of their auditors and going to send me to ASHO to be trained as a mission auditor. My PCs always were taken to Fn and VGIs/VVGIs.
I accomplish this by number one: being there.
But more importantly I found that I could actually bring a PC to EP by seeing them as a reflection of the Supreme Being.
It was not an additive to being there. It was an actual seeing of the spiritual nature of what the PC was in essence.
By experiencing that oneness with the PC, I could actually cause their cognitions by an intense sense of granting beingness,
Or more exactly, seeing the beingness in what was before me: a beautiful soul. A magnificent incorporeal being; eternal and filled with knowledge and joy.
And when we see that in ourselves through the soul science of meditation, techniques, e meters, auditors, BTs and Ron theories become a superfluous distraction to actual spiritual insight and cognition.
Auditing can work because of our innate capacity for discriminating intelligence.
Brian: “My PCs always were taken to Fn and VGIs/VVGIs. I accomplish this by number one: being there.”
The emphasis on ability to “be there,” a fundamental in the tech – including the drills to learn how to do it – is all by itself a huge contribution by Ron, which I think you would agree.
“By experiencing that oneness with the PC, I could actually cause their cognitions by an intense sense of granting beingness,”
That’s another huge contribution – the concept of granting beingness.
“Or more exactly, seeing the beingness in what was before me: a beautiful soul. A magnificent incorporeal being; eternal and filled with knowledge and joy.”
Wow. Goes to show you could be doing far more good – in one way or another – than dedicating so much of yourself to reiterating Ron’s flaws. (Just sayin’. 😉 )
“And when we see that in ourselves through the soul science of meditation, techniques, e meters, auditors, BTs and Ron theories become a superfluous distraction to actual spiritual insight and cognition.”
Well, that’s a big “when” for many people. Some have a better chance at achieving that insight through TR-0 and auditing – at least as a start (which you have also acknowledged).
“Auditing can work because of our innate capacity for discriminating intelligence.”
I believe that’s true, Brian. Well said.
Thank you you sweetie ;-)))
I have always said I have learned from Ron. Every now and again I write that up on these blogs. What I am grateful to Ron.
But now’s not the time. I have too much SPness to express,
MMMMMMMMMWWWWWAAAAAAAHAHAHAH!!!!!! LOL!!
Good day madam ;-))))
I am your friendly neighborhood willing pinyata.
Many find something wrong with an e-meter in context with what Hubbardism uses it for. Look at it for what it is; a Wheatstone Bridge. That is an electronic instrument that can detect and measure the presence and quantity of resistance to an electron flow.
Out of context of Hubbardism, the Wheatstone Bridge is unquestionable, it works, it’s been proven to work, it’s workability cannot be refuted and there’s no reason to do so. There’s no question about how a Wheatstone Bridge works and/or that it does.
An E-Meter, if it’s a Wheatstone Bridge, and it is, works too.
Something that must be answered I think, is specifically what resists the flow of electrons sent through a body. Something to consider is, electrons are physical and so is resistance.
If “mental image pictures”, a.k.a. thought, the mind, is in fact the resistance an electronic flow runs into, then those mental images, those thoughts, those ideas, that imagination, would have to be solid to a extent.
It seems true that the resistance to the flow of electrons changes during the course of an auditing session and this is measured. That resistance changes, and is a variable, as thought changes, and also is a variable.
Room temperature, sweat and other stuff said to cause a meter to read, even though can change, hence a variable, realistically, doesn’t change fast enough concurrent with registering changes on a meter. In other words, let’s say the meter moves 20 times during the course of a 2 hr. session, and temperature and sweat may move it slightly. Temp and sweat are actually considered constants. Adjustments can be made in the sensitivity, to keep it constant.
I’ve spent thousands of hours watching an e-meter work. I’ve also spent thousands of hours studying and practicing electricity. I’m not longer a Hubbardite, but must admit some things he came up with are true, Like the E-Meter. It works.
What should be questioned is the questions an auditor would ask you. Those question provoke the PC to think, changing the resistance and making the needle and TA move. The Bridge should be questioned.
Absolutely concur, well said! “The Bridge should be questioned,” is the most accurate point made so far and far outweighs the significance on questioning the validity of the emeter. It’s just a tool.What the tool is used in conjunction with is the correct approach.
The ridiculousness associated by many that the Bridge to Total Freedom will make you cause over the body, make it live forever, float objects with thought etc is just as silly as what the Cof$ presents as a Bridge. I always assumed the subject addressed the freeing of the spirit and addressing its travails. The fact this so called Bridge has changed so many times and can easily be proven it has been altered to fine tune it for money making considerations, let alone considering the evil aspect of it being intentionally destroyed so there’s no chance of it ever helping anyone. It could be suggested we have been led up the garden path for quite some time. If there is any truth to be assessed with Scientology and its goals I believe the lairs, criminals and their input must first be weeded out of its fabric. Perhaps all that is left is nothing. I personally don’t believe so with my experience with it, but as it stands, is it better not to hope? Once upon a time I use to believe adults were responsible people and knew what they were doing.
This really is the closest approach that Hubbardian theory ever makes to science, so it’s well worth looking into in depth. Folks like you who have a background in science, and especially in physics, have a very good foundation of knowledge from which to get into the matter at the physical level of change and their causal bases.
However, Hubbardian e-meter theory spends very little time on the physics of how electricity, resistance, galvanic skin response, etc. actually work, but instead makes unproven assertions that are quickly converted to articles of belief (e.g., that the meter reads at a pre-conscious level on a pc’s charged incidents). Yet, if it could be used reliably and effectively to help an auditor steer the PC to charged areas or past experiences, then it shouldn’t be reading on all sorts of uncharged material in exactly the same way, but that’s exactly what you’re taught in e-meter drills.
The logical contradictions that exist within the theory itself can’t be resolved by resorting to the laws of physics or at any other level of analysis other than the theoretical level at which Elron presented it. And to throw an even more weighty monkey wrench into the works, when you take an already illogical set of assertions that have never been subjected to any kind of objective, empirical study and let the lil davey interject his own crazy thoughts about what specific e-meter phenomena means what, then you’ve got a mad witch’s brew that’s just been made worse instead of better. But please note there: lil davey did nothing different than Elron did; they both made assertions, then gave them the weight of proven facts, but without ever taking the trouble to subject them to the kind of empirical scrutiny that would prove them to be accurate.
Humans are incredibly good at deriving meaning, sussing out causal relationships and all manner of other things, then attributing their success to instruments, procedures, Tarot cards, celestial body positions, and even chicken entrails. The scientific method was designed, and has worked rather miraculously, to sort fact from fancy and to attribute cause in a much more objective manner than mere anecdote could ever provide. And at this late point in time, after all the many incredible successes that it’s enabled, any supposed cure or use of an instrument such as the e-meter to resolve mental/emotional trauma, boost recall, recover past life memories, exorcise invisible space alien spirits, etc. that isn’t willing to put those claims to the empirical test methods of scientific research and study is either missing out on benefit of having their validity proven or, much more likely, almost certain that it will be shown to be no more effective than at placebo level rates.
That’s logical and good. But why is mankind is such an asshole to itself with all that problem solving capacity to understand physics? Science whether good or bad had a big part in poisoning our soils, our water, our air and gave us incredible methods of destroying things. Yet put a man on the moon, for whatever benefit that did.
Rob Williamson, your LACK of understanding of syllogistic logic has lead you to make incorrect assumptions.
I suppose I should consider myself quite fortunate to have a genius like you to tell me who or what I am. 🙂 Sorry, Mike. Don’t know what you are talking about.
Wow, that’s quite the post.
I’m certainly steering clear of making any claims that the emeter does what it’s supposed to do. Like all things subjective, it’s all in the mind & each to their own.
However, it sometimes amazes me to look back and see a kind of predictable pattern in the use of the emeter. It’s behavior in dealing with correcting out-lists and in particularly out-int certainly presents some evidence that makes it a little difficult to say it’s all bunk. It was very easy to make a mistake with it initially but once you used it enough, your experience improved and PCs regularly FNing at the examiner’s was a great relief and it kept you out of trouble with the CS & cramming officer.
I spent a lot of time trying to understand the damn thing, like a lot of us did but eventually got sort of use to it and dropped the introverting aspect of, “did I handle that right or did I miss that, make that up” etc. In my days as a sup I saw it screw a lot of people up with frustration in their attempt to master it. I think it’s one of the major reasons why not many people progressed with their training. It is major hurdle for any student to overcome. For that reason alone the emeter can be considered counter productive for Scientology’s claims for its “wonders” and can easily be considered a silly piece of electronic balderdash.
The significance attached to it is phenomenal and everyone has an opinion on it. In my experience I found it a “hot & cold” piece of kit and with all things associated with the Cof$, it’s very expensive and they always find a way of pissing you off with it.
I agree with Terra Cognita’s conclusions about the e-meter, and I’m glad the phenomenon of influencing it was mentioned. Anybody under the sway of Scientology who has had to endure a Sec Check knows that churning feeling they get in the pit of their stomach in dreaded anticipation of those obnoxious and penetrating questions.
I’ve read a few reports of people claiming they successfully manipulated the e-meter, and I don’t doubt them, but I’ve never heard of any experience quite like mine. For I maintain that it is Scientology itself that offers the precise training to control the motions of the dial.
At least that’s how it was for me.
I first wondered about the efficacy of the instrument during those very e-meter training drills Terra Cognita mentions—and it’s quite right to say some of them are irritating in the extreme (although I found most of them to be pretty enjoyable). I was twinning with somebody I didn’t particularly like, and who took the idea of “intention” with regard to the delivery of questions a step too far. I couldn’t help but feel this guy was meant to be a Sec Checker, what with his steely glare while he spat out the questions about fruits and elephants. He was so ridiculous that I kept cracking up, and I received a Pink Sheet to redo the TRs. (Yes, all of them. I could be a smart mouth, especially with robotic or weak-willed supervisors. At least I didn’t get sent to Ethics.)
I went straight from the e-meter drills requiring “intention” in the delivery of auditing questions to the training routines requiring one to “just be there” while being bullbaited. Because of my dopey twin, whose bullbaiting technique was indistinguishable from the way he spat out his auditing questions, it occurred to me that auditing, at least by bad auditors, was pretty much the same thing as being bullbaited.
By the time of my Sec Check a few years later, I had gained the ability to “just be there” whenever I was holding the cans. And I had become convinced that the Sec Check questions (“Have you ever had a negative thought about LRH?” “Have you ever masturbated?”) were just a form of bullbaiting. When the Ethics Officer asked me the masturbating question—and got no needle reaction—he glared at me so suspiciously that I burst out laughing.
“Thank you,” he said between gritted teeth. “Your needle is floating.”
I am glad you didn’the get busted for master baking (no idea nor do I care if you did so or not. I was never asked in the 23 years I was in the SO if I master bated or not but one of my junior was going to the REF for masterbating. I told the Captain Freewinds I would go with him because there was no way I could keep the Engine Room going without him. The Captain got the REF assignment cancelled.
Wow, that must have been a different time if there was no such question on a Sec Check. I’m given to understand the Church’s current obsession with getting the dirt on sex stuff is largely Miscavige’s doing.
Yes I imagine so, though it was headed in that direction while I was still in the SO. As I have said befote; I was lucky that I got booted out when they found out that I got AIDS from a bad blood transfusion in the Freewinds home port. Although actual medical treatment was withheld until I was all but dead my wife got me to a real doctor after she was finally released from the ship.
Well, Bill, I’m sorry that happened to you, but I’m sure glad you got that treatment because now we get to hear your tales!
No IMT the CoS has been like that for a LONG time (El Con Tubbolard wrote the policies) . I had a junior who was RPF’ed for passionately kissing another staff member LONG before Miss Cabbage was running things.
Yes Miscavige has a seeming predilection for such stuff. But generally the questions are in sec checks as that is where many if not all people have some sort of charge, usually brought about by judgmental societies and religions. The idea was, (is not anymore under COB), to just get the charge off the case.
By the authority once vested in me as the former Director of Processing of a bonafide $cn Class IV org, and by virtue of the certified auditor training/examiner training that I’ve attested to, I now pronounce you Clear! There it is in a nutshell, the Clear cog: “Wow, I’ve been mocking this shit up the whole time!”
Now, anyone who’d like to go to become full OaTy, all you need to do is recognize that there are no pre-crime thoughts that make you guilty of anything; it’s only actions that count here on earth. Therefore, never let some sec check inquisitor demand that you answer shit. Once you can sit there comfortably and confront that shit, then you’re definitely OaTy ;(
Yay! Once I knew I cognited, it was like “pfffffssssshhhht”!
Like Dead men (commenter), I agree that the meter can work. The problem in Scn is not an electronic device and whether it works or not. Their problems go waaaaay beyond that. In doing the emeter drill “consider the events of the day” and saying “that” at a particular read has shown me personally and observing it in others that the needle will have the exact same character of movement when the same thought pops up. But that alone does not mean that an awful lot of the subject isn’t pure,
unadulterated B.S. This kind of drill along with the pinch test creates an illusion of science. The problem is that it is followed largely by a placebo effect in the best case, and otherwise, fantasy combined with a lot of peer pressure.
Also, when pulling withholds, you ARE supposed to take up needle reads that occur before the end of the question.
I suppose it was inevitable that TC would broach the subject of the E-Meter, given its role in Scn. However, this article and others I have read, fall short of an adequate explanation of what is actually occurring between PC, auditor and meter. This is not personal criticism, just an observation on the subject.
First, I am of the opinion that ALL of LRH’s “research” is suspect. So, I don’t consider his “mental mass” explanation to be the last word on the E-Meter.
Typically, critics will refer to it as a “lie detector” (and a poor one at that), or that it is simply registering galvanic skin response (GSR). This is intellectually lazy. Given the somewhat crude method of data acquisition (two tin cans held in the palm of the hands), and once properly calibrated, the E-Meter appears to function as intended.
Or forget about actual auditing for a second, and take a look at the Pinch Test. This is an “experiment” that is fairly reproducible. And you will get a duplicate read, though diminishing with repetition. This duplicate read appears to happen consistently regardless of the other factors (body motion, sweat, environmental, etc).
Are we to just accept the GSR explanation? That sweat glands operate on cue, to produce the exact amount of sweat (and therefore resistance), to produce the meter read? (Ignoring that GSRs have a 1-3 second delay) Sorry, but that’s about as credible as Hubbard’s mental mass explanation.
Has anyone tried the Pinch Test on a GSR device other than an E-Meter?
I’ll be the first to admit I do not have a scientific explanation why the meter does what it does; or what each of the reads actually mean; or the effect the practitioner has on the subject.
Back in the day, we attached an E-Meter to a house plant using paperclips. We were able to get reproducible reads when a leaf was cut. We even “assessed” a list and got reads. Wild stuff. Doesn’t prove anything. But, interesting nonetheless.
Don’t forget the “Pro Meter Course”. This will blow your mind for sure with its 3 sha-wing fn’s.
Yes, the 3 swing “F/Ns”. No I won’t start on that subject!
As far as “Cold, unfeeling therapists” , those are not therapists, those are gestapo officers. A auditors”s TRs are supposed to be “natural, relaxed and friendly”. If they are not he is not an auditor, he is an inquisitor. The E-Meter may not be perfect but.don’t blame.LRH, LRH didn’t invent the meter.
Yes this auditor snarling attitude started coming in the early to mid 80s. Total bullshit. Same for snarling supervisors as well. I tried to eradicate it and was somewhat successful but it was like being the little Dutch boy with my finger in the dyke. I believe as regards auditors that it was an exaggerated misunderstanding of a 1984 HCOB called something like Sec Checking Auditor Attitude, which even then was misunderstood and which (misapplied) attitude then slid over into normal auditing. The snarling supervisor thing was born at Flag in the early 80s and they went round like lemmings copying the Flag supervisor buffoons who treated their students as enemies. Ironically this is what Miscavige meant by “the blind leading the blind”, except he didn’t look closer to home at the rats already aboard the sinking ships of Academies and HGCs. (Add IAS and Idle Org regging etc, and there went the whole ball game of auditor training.)
Absolutely right. In 1982 at FSO I had the International Finance Dictator Jono Epstein screaming at me across the meter to get off my crimes. That just made the needle dirty and he never got anywhere. Ethics is supposed to be reason but just turned into madness.
Dear Terra Cognita
Wow, what a subject. In my humble opinion sir I will guess that you have not received much good auditing because really, the only way to know the meter works is to see it work Now a meter is only a tool and a tool can be used for good or evil. A hammer can be used to build houses or kill people.
In my experience, the meter works when used correctly and no BS like this 3 swing F/N which DM only came out with because, like all SPs, he wants people dead. You can use the meter to give people wrong items to cave them in. Sometimes I have wished that it didnt work. You could ask someone “Did you murder someone”? And go THAT, THAT as if steering them to a read when there was no read whatsoever. In around 1980 I went to the FSO examiner and told him that I wanted to kill myself to which he replied “Thank you, your needle is floating. That was not the fault of the meter. That is what is known as an ARC needle. I was caved in and my TR0 was out and the examiner didn’t duplicate what I said. PC Indicators tell the difference between an F/N and an ARCX needle. He probably had his snout jammed into the meter and did not even look at me. I have a lot more to say about it but I will wait for more people to comment because there is zero chance that you will believe me, it’s almost too incredible for me to believe it either.
My phone has some spell check BS and altered a few words in my last comment What I actually wrote is that my TR1 was out when I saw the Examiner and it was not an ARC needle, it was a ARC break needle.
Bill, quite simply the FSO Examiner wasn’t doing his or her job. There is no great mystery here.
Exactly. It was no mystery to me.
Great picture Mike. You NEED to tell us about this. All about it!!!! Looking forward to the series.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BMKjYo3g6rY/
Seriously Mike. grow the beard. 🙂
It’s REALLY simple. When a brain performs actions related to thinking it causes electrical impulses between neurons and along nerves that also connect to the skin. This causes shifts in the electrical resistance of the body. Which is what a Wheatstone bridge measures.
I have put a person playing chess on a Wheatstone bridge before. You can get all the same needle movements happening as one gets while using scamology “auditing”. “TA” movement and the like.
Any person who understand the physics behind this knows it is a scam.
How exactly does “shifts in the electrical resistance of the body” occur? By what mechanism?
I don’t know about everyone else, but, as a Jedi Knight, I’ve been able cause shifts in the electrical resistance of my body since I was a little Cub Knight.
My whole perception of the world and my abilities in it changed when I shoved a fork into a toaster as a kid. Is that the same thing?
Statpush, I described how in the post. What EXACTLY didn’t you understand? (do you understand basic bio-chem?)
How does this prove the meter is a scam?
All this proves is that the meter does register thought and that people think thoughts while playing chess. Now, whether those thoughts come from a brain or a being is another matter. If you choose to believe that we are all meat, then you are entitled to do so.
As LRH said in the tech film Classification and Gradation when talking about this: I hope I’ve cheered you up.”
I do believe that we’re all only meat. There’s nothing spiritual in there. And I’ve got a piece of paper which says that I’ve successfully learned about electromagnetism (it’s called a degree in Physics), so I know how a mere Wheatstone Bridge is supposed to work. There’s nothing spiritual about that too.
Educate yourself and abandon the thought that L. Fraud knew everything, or for that matter, anything.
I CERTAINLY do not think LRH knew everything or was correct in everything he said (which is one reason I could NEVER go back to being a Scientologist because I disagree with him on many of his stated points). At the same time, I will respectfully state that my opinion on whether the spirit exists as a creative force inside the body differs from yours, Espiando. (I could make the case for that, but at another time maybe)
LRH tech saved my life several times using this very meter. I would rather be alive and considered uneducated by a person who believes he is a pork chop than to be dead.
Bill, get this through your skull. A Wheatstone Bridge (e-meter) registers changes in electrical RESISTANCE. Repeat that 100,000 times or, until you understand what the device actually measures.
When you move you body that registers on the meter. (is THAT a thought?, NO!) When your brain is operating (playing chess) electro-chemical actions occur which, CHANGES THE BODY’S ELECTRICAL RESISTANCE
Thanks TC,beautiful piece.Keep writing.
After leaving Scientology about thirty years ago, I figured out what was really going on in my
particular situation with the e-meter. It was really all very simple. I was instructed about the
e-meter with the simple pinch test. Then I was told that the meter had something to do
with the pictures in the mind. Guess what? From that time on, I started “reading” like a
swarm of bees. It did not matter what electronics had to do with it. I pumped out all kinds
of pictures and created my own associations. In the end, it was all subjective, just like the
entire subject of Scientology. We then had a mish-mash of worthless data. “Cognitions
of very limited, almost insignificant value relative to the real workings of the mind.
GMW
George, while I completely respect your viewpoint and experience, I simply have different ones. I had some cognitions (and I remember them very clearly decades later) which were life changing in a very positive way. I could relate them here in detail (one win which is really my blueprint for making it through old age in an adventurous and fun way), but I don’t think this is the venue for such stories. But let me briefly mention a very early win.
I grew up with a very “tough guy” father, he fought in three wars, was a POW, had two bullet holes in one shin, violent, stressed out, hair trigger temper. We very rarely talked. He was combative verbally as well as physically. I pretty much handled all that on Life Repair, I was 21 when I attested to it. My father lived for four more years. Never fought with him again. I was finally able to tell him I loved him, would always kiss him when I left my daily visits to his hospital bed when he was ill, etc. I’m 65 now, and I have no baggage about my parents, the kind that many people carry around throughout their whole lives. That was a nice win. (*and this is coming from a declared “SP” … I was kicked out of the CoS after I quit, ha ha, like many people)
Joe, that is beautiful. That you could kiss your dad goodbye after a lifetime of his horrid parenting is moving.
Reading that reminded me of a win I had in the cherch with a member of my family and finding a way to connect using the R in ARC over and over again and not arguing. It got us over the hump and was a real help.
Learning to let others be right and not having to win all the time, but finding rightness in others in challenging conditions was my win. I got it studying.
It’s nice to be reminded of the good I got, as it helps me not be bitter, which I can at times fixate on, because so much pain and bad has been done by the church.
You did such a good thing for your dad. Well done you.
Very well done, both of you – Joe and Clearly Not Clear.