Monthly Archives: December 2012

Thanks For Participating

The following are the uncooked, digitally preserved statistics for this blog.

+++                   Total Visits                        Per Day Average

2009                     558,162                               3,036

2010                    2,232,948                             6,118

2011                    2,492,948                             6,829

2012                    3,636,456                             9,950

There have been 8,914,639 total visits to this blog from its inception.

The total visits is not the total number of unique visitors per day.   Per wordpress we average about 2.75 return visits per visitor per day.  So, 9,950 translates into about 3,618 individuals visiting the blog each day during 2012.   That is up from roughly 2,483 during 2011.

You all have made 188,477 comments since the beginning of the blog.

The top ten most commented upon topics this year were:

1.  Judgment                                                                     642 (and counting)

2.  The Virus That Killed Scientology Inc.                       639

3. ‘Then There Is Me’ – Tom Cruise                                 604

4. Scientology And Saving the World                              567

5.  The Mecca of Thought Control                                   527

6.  Open Letter from Debbie Cook                                   524

7.  Battle of San Antonio – A Review                               520

8.  Debbie Cook – Gathering Steam on Day Four           507

9.  To Those Who Fly Under The Radar                         494

10.  Miscavige Surrenders                                                475

Overall this year the hottest topic for reader participation was Debbie Cook Baumgarten and Wayne Baumgarten and their epic battle to expose the abuses of David Miscavige (subject of six of the top ten reader participation posts).  Original post from one year ago tomorrow: Reformation – Division Within Corporate Scientology.

I have learned quite a bit from everybody’s input.  I hope you have too.

Thank you for participating.

I wish all who visit here a wonderful 2013.

 

It’s Alright

 

Judgment

 

Unfortunately, a judgmental attitude and bearing seems to have become one of the distinguishing characteristics of a Scientologist.  While adopting such a view in itself could be considered stereotyping, the proclivity for sitting in judgment of others – and stereotyping them – may be the one character flaw that makes such labeling stick with Scientologists.

Labeling is a convenient form of denialism.  It is something a person resorts to when that which he or she is confronting or dealing with is too complex or nuanced for easy explanation or understanding.  In the case of Scientologists such denialism is all too often applied  to people.   It is an assignation of blame intended to bring about shame and regret in the target.

It is easy to write someone off as an “SP” or ‘suppressive person’, a ‘pts’ or ‘potential trouble source’, an ‘out-ethics type’,  ‘reasonable’, ‘off Source’, or even ‘squirrel’.  Once you do that, the labeled person is now ‘over there’, a ‘particle’ to be routed to some ‘terminal’ (not even a person really) for special ‘handling.’  The only way out for the labeled is conformance.  In the case of Scientologists that conformance is usually demonstrated by performing labeling of others with a high degree of certainty and alacrity.

Have you ever noticed how those who can label others with a great deal of certainty and alacrity rise into the ranks of opinion leaders within Scientology culture?  And how those who are hesitant to dispense and accept labeling are considered ‘reasonable’ (in a negative sense), patty cake, theetie-wheetie, or worse?

Ironically, such facile labeling is well explained as a personality defect in Scientology Level 4 training materials.  It is called the computation, ‘that aberated evaluation and postulate that one must be in a certain state in order to succeed’.  In this case, by labeling another it puts the labeler in a superior ‘state’ separate than that of the labeled.   It makes the labeler right and the labeled wrong.

But in the long term it winds up destroying the labeler as the label, the fixed stable datum substituted for a being, makes the labeler cease to look, to inspect, to live.   L. Ron Hubbard explained it this way:

The stable datum was adopted in lieu of inspection.  The person ceased to inspect, he fell back from inspecting, he fell back from living.  He put the datum there to substitute for his own observation and his own coping with life, and at that moment he started an accumulation of confusion.  That which is not confronted and inspected tends to persist.  Thus, in the absence of his own confronting, mass collects.  The stable datum forbids inspection.  It’s an automatic solution.  It’s ‘safe.’  It solves everything.  He no longer has to inspect to solve, so he never as-ises the mass.  He gets caught in the middle of the mass.  And it collects more and more confusion and his ability to inspect becomes less and less.  The more he isn’t confronting, the less he can confront.  This becomes a dwindling spiral.  So the thing he has adopted to handle his environment for him is the thing which reduces his ability to handle his environment.

Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once succinctly noted what effect labeling has on the person so labeled, “Once you label me you negate me.”

To label is part of the depersonalization or dehumanization process.   It is a step in marginalizing classes of people.  Once you recategorize someone from some neutral category like ‘associate’, ‘neighbor’ or ‘fellow human being’ to some negative, judgmental category they become fodder for abuse.  They become powerless to create any effect on the labeler and thus the labeler believes he is more ‘at cause.’

In fact, as noted above it is an hallucinatory state of cause.  It is a synthetic state of ‘superiority’ that one attains by perfecting the practice of sitting in judgment.  In fact, those who engage in it obsessively have judged themselves, and sentenced themselves to a bleak future.

The late, baseball great Willie Stargell once wrote, ‘Judgment traps you within the limitations of your comparisons. It inhibits freedom.’   I find Willie worthy of the final word.

Christmas

 

Christmas marks the postulated birthday of Jesus Christ.  While some say the holiday can be traced back to a day of worship of the Sun at the outset of its return from its shortest day of the year, the Christ birth narrative is the story that has stood the test of time and garnered the most widespread acceptance.  You can choose whatever story you like best, and so it will be with God according to a wonderful movie now in theaters, Life of Pi.  Incidentally, I highly recommend you go out and see Pi if you haven’t already.  A perfect holiday entertainment.

Another movie I watched recently inspired this post.  That is The Quantum Activist featuring quantum theorist Amit Goswami.  In the film, Goswami explains how quantum theory relates to consciousness.  In doing so he touches on the advice of Christ to love one’s enemies.  While I have heard the advice so many times before, including in L. Ron Hubbard’s What Is Greatness?, I have generally found it difficult to apply.  I suppose it was a combination of other recent reading, particularly Ken Wilber’s work on integral spirituality and others on quantum mechanics and its relationship to consciousness, combined with life experiences that set the stage for Goswami to reach home to me.

Per the King James Bible, book of Matthew, Jesus Christ is reported as saying:

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Goswami put Christ’s love advice in the context of recognizing the non-duality of reality, something quantum theory is tending to corroborate as the truest description of existence.  He did so by also noting the tangible, unprecedented 20th Century accomplishments of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King in following Christ’s words.

I think in Scientology we are all educated in a way to justify and even accept the destructive emotions in the anger band, including ‘hate.’   I think to indulge in anger and hate might have an effect similar to that covered by Rene Brown in her interesting lecture earlier posted on this blog.  Brown noted that when one desensitizes oneself to any emotion one numbs oneself to emotion generally.   And so it might be with such things as anger and hate.  If you let them into your heart and nourish them you lose the capacity or ability to love or experience higher toned emotions.

Since recognizing and accepting the wisdom above imputed to Christ, I haven’t harbored any animosity toward anyone in a few days in spite of the fact certain folks are concurrently doing all they can to fracture and upset our family during the holidays.  While I cannot attest to it making one lick of difference in those who have declared me to be their enemy, I can say I am feeling a great degree of equanimity and peace.

 

 

Heads Up – Jim Lynch Let Loose

David Miscavige has come up with a ‘solution’ for no longer being able to spy on my wife and me electronically. see  Scientology Spies and Going Mobile.

Miscavige’s Office of Special Affairs (OSA, dirty tricks and propaganda wing of Scientology Inc.) has wound up failed journalist, turned Scientology Inc. gumshoe, Jim Lynch and granted him an unlimited expense account to harass my wife and me from a distance.   Lynch is zig zagging the U.S. by airplane dropping in on our friends and relatives spewing a litany of criminal-mind (the criminal – in this case David Miscavige – accuses others of that which he himself is doing) allegations against me.  The randomness and distances of his routes betray a financial mindedness of a sick Saudi prince.   Some church.

If you know Monique or me very well there is a good chance you’ll be seeing Lynch unannounced.  We would appreciate it if you would record any conversation you may have with Lynch should he show up to your home or office (for evidentiary purposes).   Feel free to share your views about the nature of his boss (Miscavige) and Lynch’s activities should he contact you.   Otherwise, you are also free to tell him to get a life and get off your property.

Jim Lynch - Scientology Inc. operative

Jim Lynch – Scientology Inc. operative

Obsessed Stalker – David Miscavige

Please view these two short videos shot and narrated by Mike Rinder outside his home today:

Here is another video Mike shot showing the garbage man delivering his garbage to an Office of Special Affairs (OSA, the dirty tricks and propaganda arm of David Miscavige’s Scientology Inc.) operative:

Joel Sappell – Los Angeles Magazine

Joel Sappell was co-author of one of the most extensive newspaper series on Scientology in the nineteen eighties.   He visited me a couple months ago to investigate the inside story of Scientology Inc.’s reaction to his 1980’s investigation.

While he obsesses with attempting to exact a confession for something that simply did not happen, the story does contribute an interesting perspective on the history of corporate Scientology.

The Tip of the Spear, Los Angeles Magazine.

Does Scientology Work?

 

Some dots are going to be connected here.

The following recent posts come into play and will have some light shed upon them:

Past Lives Survey

Between Lives Survey

Fear No Evil

Does It Get Any Darker Than This?

Perhaps the best way to put it all together is to recount a conversation.

In the early nineties I was virtually commuting between Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.  Between late 91 and late 93 I travelled to Washington on dozens of occasions as part of negotiations with the IRS for the church of Scientology’s tax exempt status.

I had not seen anyone from my mother’s side of the family since the early sixties shortly after my mother had committed suicide.   My mother’s sister, my aunt Carol, reached out to see me sometime during that 91-93 period.  As there was no such things as vacations or even days off in the church of Scientology at that time, I arranged to see her briefly during a flight layover at Chicago O’Hare airport.  We met in an airport lounge.

After exchanging pleasantries and expressions of love, I asked Carol, “my mom received electro shock treatment while I was in her womb, didn’t she?”    Carol’s jaw dropped, her face went pale and her eyes welled up.  After several seconds, she replied, “how did you find out?”

I told Carol that I had recalled the incident during Dianetics and Scientology auditing.  I told her that I was confirming this with her because my father had gone to such great lengths to forget the tragedy of my mother that it had been a tacit policy in the family to never discuss the matter.  She knew of the policy and told me that it was one of the reasons she had steered clear from our side of the family for all those years since coming to comfort me and my brothers after the suicide incident when I was five years old.  She encouraged me to continue.

After explaining Dianetics and Scientology procedure a bit, I asked her to confirm or deny my specific recollections.  I told her that I recalled that my father took my mother to a private mental hospital in the rolling, wooded hills north of our home in Mill Valley, California.  It was a beautiful, windy drive through redwood groves that lead toward a pleasant looking compound set upon a big meadowed hill.   I described my father’s car accurately in detail, even though the car had been sold shortly after my birth.

Carol was transfixed.   She said that every detail I described was completely accurate.   She asked me about the experience from my perspective.  I told her that I clearly recalled the jolts and the overwhelming pressures and pains.  At one point I felt like I was ejected from  the body and found myself viewing  the procedure from above the operating table.  I considered taking off and finding a new body.  However, I felt a tremendous amount of empathy for my mother and returned into the body with the intent to help her heal and to protect her.

I told her how we did heal and how despite my mother’s frequent psychotic behavior during the first five years of my life, she somehow managed to treat me with a great deal of love and care.  I described a number of incidents and landmarks from those years, all of which Carol confirmed the accuracy of.

Carol expressed sympathy and guilt about the effect all this might have had on me psychologically.  Although I hadn’t read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning by then, I described how I always considered the experience a positive in that I knew I had weathered something so violent and overwhelming and survived that there was really nothing I was in fear of confronting.   This was particularly true after I had run out the engrams (moments of pain and unconsciousness) associated with the matter.

A couple years later when my father was on his death bed, we had a similar discussion.  He, again, confirmed all the details of my recollection.  We both reached a meaningful closure of the experience.

All of the details reported in Scientology Inc.’s recently published materials on this subject are recorded in detail in one place and one place alone: my auditing (counseling) folders maintained at Scientology Inc. headquarters.   I have discussed the details with nobody beyond my father and aunt except my Scientology auditors (counselors) in minister-penitent privileged auditing sessions in the ‘church’ of Scientology.   Not once did any member of the church of Scientology ever write a report about these incidents.  Never were any of these details the subject of any ‘ethics’ action, nor were they ever mentioned outside of a minister-penitent privileged auditing session.   The matters were not even ever probed by anyone administering auditing. Instead,  every detail was freely offered by me, on my own originations during the process of auditing.

The tone and context of Scientology Inc.’s treatment of my early life experience seems to stand for the proposition that a being can be permanently damaged and Scientology is incapable or ineffective in remedying such trauma.

Apparently, David Miscavige wants the world to know that when you are down, you are gonna stay down, Dianetics and Scientology be damned.

I beg to differ.

Does It Get Any Darker Than This?

The following is the latest publication on the subject of Mark ‘Marty’ Rathbun currently being distributed far and wide by the ‘church’ of Scientology.  

Marty Charles Rathbun – Institutionalized in 1956, born in 1957

Marty Rathbun was born in San Rafael, California on January 9, 1957, and his first brush with electrifying violence came before his birth.

While his mother was pregnant with him, she and he were institutionalized and received drug and electric shock treatment.

“IN 2007, RESEARCHERS OF MAINE MEDICAL CENTER PERFORMED A STUDY AS TO WHETHER ELECTROSHOCK IS SAFE DURING PREGNANCY. THE RESULT? THE SCIENTISTS FOUND THAT, IN ONE PREGNANT WOMAN, ELECTROSHOCK CAUSED BRAIN DAMAGE TO THE BABY.” AMERICAN COLLEGE OF OBSTETRICIANS AND GYNECOLOGISTS

It was 1956, in a country club type of psychiatric mental hospital, where Mrs. Patrica Lois Rathbun was institutionalized and forced to undergo electric shock therapy (ECT). Of course, she was heavily sedated for she would receive a series of electric shock treatments. She was entered into the institution against her will because she was a rebellious, promiscuous and pregnant. The fetus would eventually to become Mark “Marty” Rathbun. The drug and electric shock therapy she received, Rathbun got the same with full voltage. To those who knew him, they perceived was a sort of Rosemary’s baby phenomena—his psychotic and violent side. The side that he hides from those he manipulates today.

 “ECT has been used on pregnant women (and still is today). So the developing brain of the baby has 220 volts of electricity run through it. The lady mentioned was expecting when she was treated with ECT. Her child was born premature, never grew to a normal size and suffers from speech impairment even now.” – hyphenbird.hubpages.com

Fear No Evil

One of the primary dangers of Scientology is the potential for, and its proclivity toward, the abuse of the confidences its members entrust the organization with.  It is a most insidious operation.

Scientology counselors are drilled for months – and sometimes years – on communication skills that are designed to make a seeker completely comfortable with sharing her innermost feelings and every detail about all of her frailties and shortcomings.   Scientology counselors are trained to overcome their own possible misgivings about invading the privacy of another in order to ensure they probe every dark corner of another’s mind.   The seeker is carefully indoctrinated that in order to achieve any gain in Scientology it is first and foremost necessary that she willingly discloses every secret, dark or light, she may possess.  Scientology counselors are trained to naturally and thoroughly note for posterity every detail of the confessions that their counselees so disclose.

Scientologists are indoctrinated to fully believe that the ends of the Scientology organization justify whatever betrayal of an individual’s rights might be considered necessary for the organization’s survival.

Knowledge derived from the confessions of a seeker are continually utilized to keep that person serving and contributing at ever increasing levels of commitment.  Sometimes it is done through encouragement, and sometimes it is done through inducing fear of the future.  In either event, when the seeker is left bereft of money and energy to continue fulfilling the constantly imposed increasing commitment,  knowledge of the seeker’s confessions are used in a darker fashion.  That knowledge is used to convince the disaffected seeker that her own confessed weaknesses are the cause of her dissatisfaction and that failure to continue to comply to the organization’s agenda will result in the person succumbing thoroughly to those weaknesses.

Ultimately, in order to break this vicious circle the disaffected seeker must pronounce she is no longer willing to comply with the dictates and policies of the organization.

But, with Scientology that is not the end of it.

Well-established Scientology policy assumes that one cannot partially disagree or reject part of Scientology, “If a group member rejects the group, he rejects everything about the group and no further question about that.”   Until and unless the disaffected individual ‘comes to her senses’ and capitulates to the authority of the group – accepting every policy and everything about the group – she is treated as an enemy of the group.

An enemy is considered fair game for group members to weaken and destroy by any means necessary.   Group members are indoctrinated to believe it is a solemn duty to cooperate with such efforts to nullify designated enemies.  Group members are required to cut all communication with the disaffected individual, even if the targeted person is a family member, long-time friend or business associate.

 

If a disaffected individual continues to vocalize or write about disagreements with such treatment or anything else about Scientology,  the group will publish mean-spirited propaganda about that individual.  That propaganda inevitably contains the fruits of the confessions of the targeted individual.  Seldom is it done with chapter-and-verse, literal detail which could make the organization legally accountable for violation of trust.  Instead, it is done through a sophisticated, even sociopathic, and complex propaganda methodology.  It requires the development of a dark, complicated and evil mindset to create this variety of propaganda.

It is no coincidence that the Scientology organization has become less powerful, influential  and popular with the advent of the age of information.   With the expansion of sharing of information of a personal nature during the proliferation of social media use – and the glut of ‘reality-based’ entertainment focusing on the eccentricities of common and famous folk – people seem to be less apt to judge and condemn others for their personal shortcomings.   People seem to have become more disgusted with the types of people who vindictively smear others than with targets of the condemnation attempts.  Without an avid, judgmental audience Scientology’s stockpiled secrets have lost their value.  To the degree its stock in trade has become unmarketable, the group has dwindled in numbers and its ability to silence disagreement and criticism has waned.

This is yet another reason to fear no evil.