Another thought-provoking essay from our old friend Brian Lambert.
This essay was triggered by watching politicians lie on my iPad screen and then my mind went naturally to Scientology and Hubbard. It was REASONABLE to do so.
Lately I’ve been studying, meditating and thinking very deeply on the words: reason, intelligence and conscience. I’ve been inquiring in myself when I’ve lacked these positive virtues, at various times and various degrees; from teen to adulthood
Today I just now realized that there is one word; when it is not honored and lived that actually erodes and destroys reason, intelligence and conscience; and that word is……
TRUTH!
When the ability to reason is used for lying, when the ability to reason is used for treachery, subterfuge, the justification of harming others for personal gain; then that is the very process of destroying the ability to actually reason and see the mind and the world with clarity. Thinking then becomes distorted. When we use reason to camouflage the truth, when we use reason to hide from the truth; it is at that starting point that intelligence starts to also degrade.
If intelligence is the recognition of truth, and if a person has lived a life of lies then that person’s intelligence and ability to reason will become inaccurate and degraded. Stupidity is the next obvious step.
When using the powers of reason and intelligence to rape the truth for personal gain, that person surrenders their own power to see the truth as a result of creating the mental habit of denying the truth. Denying truth becomes a mental characteristic process for that person. Then the ability to see truth starts to fade away.
Truth then, in my view, is up there with the words: God, intimacy, trust, reason, intelligence, conscience and many more.
If truth is not held high as a behavior modification, as a standard of thinking, living, experiencing, communicating, as a moral imperative; if truth is not honored as the same importance as God himself/herself/itself; then that person starts to descend into the human and spiritual dark side of ignorance and idiocy.
Gone is the ability to differentiate between truth and lie, love and hate. The positive powers of the cognitive faculties become corrupted.
I’ve had so many thoughts to add or edit regarding this essay. But there is one that is the lynch pin which is the real pole star that aligns these cognitive processes in a harmonious interrelation:
There is a omnipresent intelligence that is everywhere present. The law works in the atom and sub atomic particles, in gravity, in the science of gardening, in mathematics, in communication; essentially in everything.
There is not one place in the grand universe where there is not an intelligent law operating to keep things in balance. The harmony of planets and stars as they spin in seeming endless gravitational dances to the bee extracting pollen to feed the earth.
This breath taking grand design is certainly not separated from the laws of the behavior of human beings.
So when we human beings align our thoughts and actions to this Universal Intelligence, which is truth, wisdom and goodness, we are supporting our evolution of intelligence and happiness.
Sages of all spiritual perspectives say the same thing. They say life can be full of joy, happiness, love, wisdom, intuition etc. when we align ourselves to these laws of life.
Thinking truthfully, living truthfully and including the happiness of others in our happiness are universal laws of life that, when aligned with, makes for a happy, useful life.
That’s is what truth is so important. When we are truthful, we align ourselves with the purpose of life itself.
Ron was a sick lost soul. He thought so little of himself, knew himself so little that he felt he had to lie and embellish the story of his life.
He did not know life, he could not teach us about life. He hated rules except the ones he created. He was disconnected from truth, he was disconnected from the laws of life itself.
Be safe and happy,
Brian
Brian,
Your essay and comment-addition to it are excellent! The intentionality you bring to everything , especially your thought-life, is inspiring.
Especially right now, when many of us have more idle time and uncertainty, your perspective serves as reminder that we can direct/redirect our focus such that even when it feels chaotic and/or overwhelming, we have a choice. One option is to grasp onto and marinate in the strife, which feeds fear, bitterness and distrust. The other being what you described, weighing everything we take in (news, emotions, opinions of others…) by what we value and seeking truth amidst it all.
It is that intentionality which helps keep the mind from spiraling or allowing emotions, especially those projected by another vs our own, from ruling the mind, creating negativity and even depression. Marinating in it all is easy to do while stuck at home!
I genuinely value your contributions here. You seem to be someone who approaches life with good humor, wisdom of past scars taken as lessons and a sense of wonder and fun. That’s a gift – especially coming away from an cult-like experience cult where one feels robbed of a sense of truth, reality and trust.
Well THAT was an essay in and of itself… but its because I appreciate how you make me think and consistently have something valuable to contribute.
Thank you Jenny, your words affect me the same. It’s good to meet a fellow lesson learner. With a positive attitude everything is an important lesson. The good, the bad; whatever! Something is trying to get through. And we always hold the key; to reject making a positive change in ourselves or blaming others for our condition and staying inert.
This lockdown has given me much time to think deeply about my life; to inspect it with undying curiosity; to look for flaws and correct and look for the good a increase.
I don’t know how people can get by without deep self reflection from time to time to understand things.
I heard this prayer from someone recently which I love: “Lord change no circumstance, change me.”
Thank you Jenny. I appreciate your comment.
Wonderful essay. I couldn’t help being struck by the parallels in how this applies to both scientology and the current U.S. administration equally.
The tuth is that Shelly Miscaviges I is the whole world.
Her I is the whole world
with billions of the same kind
and many more with the same worth.
Why put someone in quarantine otherwise?
Thanks for sharing these thoughts, Brian. Profound stuff, plenty to chew on.
With the ice cream metaphor, I don’t think it usually reduces to quite that kind of reason versus taste battle. While I was insulin resistant, I felt it was literally impossible to resist my sweet cravings. After I shifted that, biologically, it wasn’t the same battle. Conversely, after I learned how much cassein (animal protein) and IGF-1 played into inflammation (root of many diseases), my desire for dairy ice cream went away, and an occasional small amount of non-dairy dessert satisfied me (meaning that my reasoned analysis affected what I desired). Also, subconscious desires, thoughts, and meanings can come into play. I don’t mean Hubbard’s ridiculous stuff, but it’s often the case that someone is driven to overeat or overindulge in something they don’t really want to do by an underlying emotion they are trying to avoid or an unconscious belief they haven’t looked at. It doesn’t nullify all the points you made, of course. Just I think that one metaphor has many other facets than just that one battle of reason vs. pleasure-seeking.
Good points Cat
Excellent post Brian. I enjoy reading what you have to say. Scientology teaches Scientologists to master skills of manipulation and deceit. Lying in Scientology is SOP.
One of my goals from doing Scientology was to find the truth. I found it. The truth is Hubbard and Scientology are a scam.
I am grateful I now know that and am off that hamster wheel that leads to insanity, poverty and regret of a wasted life.
I am grateful for all of you who helped get me out of that trap by exposing the truth.
Glad you got out Idle
Integrity.
Our society has ceased to value it.
There was an 80 year old monk who was a friend. At a sermon he told us when he was in grammar school words that teachers always used were integrity, honesty, keeping your words etc.
I think the 60s, my generation, did away, to a degree, the following of any rules; the good ones and the bad ones.
Napster was the beginning of a universal acceptance of thievery being normalized.
The opposite of scientology is Truth.
And the truth of Scientology is….That it’s all bunk. It’s make believe. Scientology is worthless!
Yes but less than worthless. Harmful
I totally agree! Harmful it is!
Great post, thanks Brian.
The paradox, however, is that scientology’s therapeutic potency requires the rejection of reason. This is arguably true for all religious faith. It’s the age old argument is it not? Intuition vs Logic. Scientologists deny logic in favour of “knowingness”. What sets them apart from other religionists is Hubbard’s pseudoscientific misdirection: they think they are being “empirical” by “observing” and “testing” the tech and yet the subjective nature of each and every win is clearly lost on them.
And that’s the problem with intuition. The mind is fragile. It can be manipulated. It is susceptible to self delusion and deception. Our perceptions are formed and filtered through many layers of interpretation, vulnerable to all kinds of cognitive biases, prior agreements and conditioning.
Yes, the subjective can still influence the objective.
The potential therapeutic value of the placebo effect, despite being rooted in deception, is obviously well established.
As is the relationship between mental health and the immune system (see psychoneuroimmunology).
The question remains, however: is the belief (subjective) true? And if not absolutely true, is it reasonably sound? This is where Scientology (and every other religion, tbf) fails miserably.
Each EP is an unsupported proposition – from Life Repair, all the way up to OTVIII. One cannot advance without intuitive agreement. Any reasoned evaluation would expose serious logical fallacies in Hubbard’s output and arguably diminish the value of the program.
Scientologists are welcome to their beliefs. But the fact their religion has provided them some form of therapeutic value does not mean said beliefs are true. If there was only one thing I wish my younger scientologist self would have understood, it’s that.
So the question I’d ask of anyone about to engage in a new spiritual pursuit is this: to what degree are you willing to diverge from reason to obtain benefit? The answers you find may well provide value but how will you know (assuming you care) if they’re based in reality?
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” — Douglas Adams
very well written and true
“So the question I’d ask of anyone about to engage in a new spiritual pursuit is this: to what degree are you willing to diverge from reason to obtain benefit?”
I’d say any spiritual path that asks you to diverge from reason is not a true spiritual path. I’d say any path, whether it be religion, spirituality or politics where reason is the enemy of faith or belief; is old world religion and spirituality.
Faith and reason are not enemies. At least they should not be.
This is a good topic. I can go on and on. I love this stuff.
Truth is what you can experience. And to do it you must be present.
And to be present you must realize that you are the witness of what happened, not the one to whom it happens.
Only then, unconstrained by your ego (what you think to be based on you experiences) will you face the truth.
But even that will be passing. And you have to accept it.
But as far as Scientology is concerned, they are incomplete truths that block you in a given time. Brian is right.
The reason Scientology’s opened their minds to doctrines from a congenital liar. What a coincidence! Our president is a congenital liar too! Who would have thunk it.
Hey, I just got a check with money in it from him today!
We all are.
“What’s true for you is true for you” is solid thought stopping statement, often repeated by Scientologists.
When they realize “What’s delusional for you is not true for anyone else” they can become reacquainted with the truth.
Very good
Grisianfarce,
For the sake of factual truth about the quote, completely appropriate to this article by Brian Lambert, the actual lrh quote is “What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. And when you lose that, you have lost everything.”
The often repeated complete alteration by Scientologists was, and I guess, still is, the most annoying misquote that used to drive me crazy, when I had a stake in it, that is. The accent is on WHAT YOU HAVE OBSERVED!
Very sensible to me, and so is the last sentence, as that is the beginning of being a pawn. And of all things, guess how much we weakened on that very point through our years in Scn.
The actual statement is a far cry from the misquote. Even though there is some truth to the misquote, in some knuckle-headed way, if you see what I mean.
But I like your corollary, hahaha 🙂
No, we were not all demented when we joined. And stayed too long . . . but that’s another matter.
Thanks for that. If only there was an open digital indexed and cataloged copy of everything Hubbard said so these sorts of misquotes could be ferreted out.
Also so that his lies, slander, wild exaggerations, delusions, misogyny, racism, and perversions can be brought into the light. Once the dross has been burnt away maybe we can talk about if there is anything good left to study.
Yes. Even when I was in I started wondering why DM was not putting all the tech and admin vols on CDs. Icould see the danger to copyrights, especially after what happened to the music business. But then I also had an inkling he had invested too much in the hardcopy business and also having a captive audience. Also Too dangerous to make evry one able to cross check things and start asking embarrassing questions.
Mr. Lambert has done some good self reflection, recognizing what is truth is a journey that every soul must travel. Hint, if your peers have to practice lying (tr-l), wait until they lie to you. It won’t be for your benefit.
Conscience is the expression of the ego in the moral realm. To make a moral judgment and to act on it are basically selfish acts. It’s the self that sees through its own eyes and acts on its own knowledge of right and wrong. Or to put it another way, you can’t really be selfish if you can’t live with yourself. Rational Selfishness as Ayn Rand tried to define and advocate was limited to acts which benefited one’s self but caused no affirmative harm or inflicted a cost on another person.
I went crystal clear when Anderson Cooper from CNN announced the Prez told people to ingest disinfectant (with a straight face) to combat the CoronaVirus19. I am a Liberal voting Independent so I have no allegiance to any party. Come on….CNN … really? And people believed it. That is what freaked me out,.
ALL Politicians LIE just like ALL Religious Leaders LIE.
Why do they LIE?
To control others and make money and get others to make money for THEM. They justify it in their minds by saying “in the best interest of the people”.
Wake up and smell the LIES being told daily on mainstream media. It is JUST LIKE Scientology so at least you won’t suffer from cog diss if you can’t stand the truth. Just tune in to these media lying machines. Don’t these journalists have any integrity or are they “reporting their opinions” in the best interest of their favorite political party. Seems that way to me.
Honest news is dead. All you get is 24/7/365 days a year of OPINIONS and very little news. Bring back 1/2 news with 10 min. news, 10 min Sports (well, lengthen that part – LOL) and 10 min weather. Bring it back!! Boycott all media outlets
“A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. (To Bryan) And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?”
“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning, because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
Thank you, Glen. This is Trump thinking out loud. He has always done that. Between the thought and the mouth, there is no filter. He thinks it, he says it. Of course, here he was musing out loud. He was saying, “What IF…?” Emphasis mine. But then, not everyone HEARD the “If”; what they heard was a declarative statement to drink bleach or something. Of course, as the President, he shouldn’t be James Joycing about cures for Covid out loud to the American public. But he has always thought out loud. What’s funny , and possibly quite sad at the same time, is that a number of emergency hot lines around the country had hundreds of people phoning in asking if it was Ok to drink bleach or Lysol. What’s the real tragedy is that Lysol and Clorox felt it appropriate to make a public statement warning Americans not to ingest their products orally. Trump is who he is and he’ll never be any different but its kind of funny and sad at the same time that we as a country are, apparently, this stupid.
I spelled “incumbent” wrong in my post just now 🙂
OMG, sounds like reasoned supposition and a request for scientific research. Why did the Lame Stream Media explode over this? Only bad intentioned people would object to this line of reasoning and trying to help
There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been.” Trump, while touring the C.D.C. on March 6, said, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test.”
I handled it all in a very simple way. By tracking the people writing the news I found out that the difference today is that people are paid for opinions and so they actually compete for ego and money. The political parties have favorite people who are paid to be subtle. They are subtle in that they can write a slanted article but make it seem like real news. So the “fake news” is mostly politically motivated. It is very, very easy to tell if an article is slanted either way when this is kept in mind. My objection now with CNN is that they are trying to induce behavior. It is actually the most dangerous form of reporting. For example, they try to tell you what to eat, what shows to watch, and how to be “cool”. My relatives who are totally conservative send me articles from the extreme right wing press. I have never recently met anyone who is on the Liberal side. They just do not send the same stuff anymore talking about Marxism. On the contrary, the real force seems to be coming from the far right. Anyway, I really loved Walter Cronkite. It was news based on selection. My most critical recall is the Evangelical Pastors who led us into the Viet Nam War in the 1960’s . I remember these jokers talking about atheistic communists in Asia and inciting people to fight in a war. This was a far more dangerous slanted news that anything today. Today we just have child’s play. These Pastors were only partially stopped by laws. In the end, we got into Viet Nam partially because of them.
Bullshit George. Our entry into the Vietnam war is all on the party that held both houses of the legislature and the Executive. Religion played no meaningful part.
Ike properly nailed the force that would push us into an expensive but limited shooting war. Once he was gone and could no longer resist it, the new stupid PotUS and congress took all of their campaign money and did what they were ordered to do.
It came out later that the Pres was making a joke and that was a sarcastic joke about bleach and he never meant it to be taken seriously. It was said tongue in cheek in an attempt at levity in a serious situation.
Yes, that Donald, he is such a card!
Always funnin’ with us!
January 22, 2020. “We have it totally under control. Its just one coming in from China. And we have it under control. Its going to be just fine.” Trump at a Maga Rally.
May 4, 2020: 1,152,373 cases in America.
May 4, 2020: 67,456 dead in America.
But hey, all the guy wanted to do was inject “levity” into a “serious” situation and anyway, what’s wrong with Americans nowadays that we can’t take a freaking joke?
You know what, janedoe2?
I feel sorry for you.
I really, really do.
I never said the joke was funny. Too many people in these times take things literally so he shouldn’t have joked. When you posts numbers etc, consider this: the infection and death numbers would be far greater if Trump hadn’t acted quickly to stop plans from coming in from China and then closed off other things too as early as he did. Weeks after Trump closed off China air traffic here, Nancy Pelosi was in China Town dancing and mugging for cameras saying to come to China Town to eat and dance as there was no danger. She sure has egg or egg foo young on her face now for that one. And even Biden called Trump a racist and xenophobe for wanting to secure our borders against infection spreading. Later he wrote a letter apologizing for that and that Trump acted correctly to ban certain air traffic and etc. When you look at published predictions of how many would be infected etc, it is so much higher than it actually is now, higher by orders of magnitude, not just by a few. And that is because Trump acted quickly to protect the citizens here. That’s the last I will say on this. This forum is not supposed to be a political site, so we should keep comments to Scn and all things Scn.
This forum is not supposed to be a political site, so we should keep comments to Scn and all things Scn.
This. ^^^^^^^^
Would have been better if your comment consisted of just that sentence. Not all the stuff you put before it which is exactly NOT this.
So Aquamarine gets to write long political rants and I don’t get to respond to her insulting me about my view?
You DID get to respond. Everything you said was included. I highlighted your OWN note. You knew it was an inappropriate comment but felt compelled to make it anyway. I don’t always catch them or comment on them. I was just reiterating the point you made and agreeing. Political commentary these days almost always descends into absurdity very quickly, and while it can be entertaining there are a ton of other places where that discourse is welcome, but here it is a distraction. No need to take personal offense.
Mike, let Aquamarine know the same thing as she ranted politically and had to throw in an insult to me on top of all that. So it seems her political rant should also get your same comment that you gave me.
Jane Doe, Mike’s total comments here on the subject were for ALL who were politically commenting.
I think Brian likes to look and think things through. However, I’m not at all able to follow him through this without understanding what he means by “truth”. There’s just so many ideas about what the word means I think it’s necessary to define it before you can discuss it well. If he would not mind editing this essay so that it includes that, I’ like to then give it another try.
Hey Dan, I was ready for ya. I did not want to define truth in this essay. I did not want to discuss relative truth or absolute truth or even if absolute truth exists or not.
In this essay there are two ways of relating to the word truth:
Truth as applied to lying; as in Hubbard was a war hero and rode broncos while still attached to the umbilical chord. He wasn’t a war hero; that is the truth. He was a war hero; that is a lie.
Simple relative truth as it relates to liars and the effects that lies have on the ability of the mind to function.
Second example of truth in this essay is my personal truth of desiring and seeking health. It’s my truth that health is important to happiness. The health principle is a higher working truth than the pleasure principle. That is a truth for me.
If I were to make a decision that went against that truth, shoving three pints of ice cream down my throat; I would suffer health issues, suffer a denigration of will power, self esteem because of not staying true to a principle, the self judgement that I was being weak and a deterioration of what I mentioned in the essay: a weakening of my reasoning capacity because I’m making an unreasonable decision that harms myself.
To encapsulate:
1- Truth as regards lying
2- Truth as regards keeping my word to myself as regards the higher truth of the health principle vs the pleasure principle; staying true to my word.
I am avoiding anything esoteric. I’m keeping it simple and practical.
I hope I have made myself clear. Thanks for bringing it up Dan.
Dan Locke,
I completely agree.
Hi Bro! Nice scarf.
Brilliant essay, Brian.
In my dreams the last few nights, I am dealing with the strange issue of why Hubbard did not call me before he published the original OT VIII material. Well, he was a cult leader and he thought he had total truth. But I could have explained to him that Scientology and Original Buddhism are not compatible.
So Hubbard was caught in subjective truth with no objective link. He never had a teacher and his mind just got more and more warped and distorted as the years passed. In my earlier years after my Army tour in Korea during the Viet Nam war, I trusted him because I was an alcoholic with mild PTSD. My adjustment to civilian life was long and difficult. Hubbard offered hope. In my dreams I also see Hubbard as an illusion who somehow established authority over me. My two FSM’s died after OTVIII but it helped me to wake up. Poor Bob feared “spontaneous combustion” if he could not handle OTVIII material. In truth, he was destroyed by Hubbard.
Hey George! My scarf thanks you. I agree, Hubbard did not know what he was talking about re Buddhism; the original or otherwise.
I think his ego like the fact that there was no higher power; no God principle in Buddhism. That made Hubbard the only perfect power. That made his personality the god even though.
I understand the Buddha now. I understand that he did not teach a different truth from God/no God, Soul/no Soul, Atman no Atman.
I understand the differences is in doctrine, custom, practice and definition, in external approaches; but the truth is essentially the same.
Emptiness – sunya/sunyata for the Buddhist
Is the same as
Fullness – purna for the yogi
One defines what it isn’t and one defines what it is.
It’s the marvelous poetry of duality. Two views, one truth.
Great point about Hubbard filling in himself as the God. It fits in with his Thelemic
background of character development.
The same point you mention has been in my dreams in the last few days. There is a large black figure sitting on a sort of a throne. All of a sudden eight large boards cover the figure. Then the boards separate and there is space between the boards. The boards rotate and then settle into a perfect pattern. The truth as light hits the spaces between the boards and the boards themselves. So truth is empty and full just as you outline. I have learned a lot through dreams. In fact, I do most of my thinking now is in dreams.
Wow! That’s about all I can really say. I am blown away by both the simplicity and yet complexity of this essay. It should be required reading in every high school and university in this country. You could even take the direct references to Scientology out and it would still come out the same. Thank you, Brian Lambert!
Thank you Miss Dutch for getting it. I appreciate it!