L. Ron Hubbard devised methods using Aristotelian and Newtonian two-value logic constructs that can and do sometimes create peak experiences of a non-dual, infinity-logic consciousness nature. However, Hubbard also constructed a philosophy that is simultaneously inculcated into adherents that anchors them into two-valued logic thinking and living. The philosophy includes as a senior element, an utilitarian ethics system. The ethics system is made senior and precedent to the peak experience therapy techniques that otherwise could give glimpses of intuitive non-duality. The utilitarianism of the ethics system is only apparent. Its representation that it is based upon infinity-logic is false in practice. It is corrupted by creating a central ‘utilitarian’ equation that always has what is good for the group (the Scientologists) weighing senior to all other considerations and thus is always considered what is best for all. That fact makes the system, in fact and in practice, a two-value logic system. What redounds to the benefit of the group is good; what does not benefit the group is evil.
The net result of Hubbard’s system was that he could create adherents who were given a taste of infinity-logic, non-dual reality, but were prohibited by his group ‘philosophy’ and ‘ethics’ from exercising or sustaining such reality. The former serves as the glue that holds adherents to the latter. The adherents could appreciate the possibility of intuition. However, in practice only Ron Hubbard could exercise it consistently. Against those constrictions of the Scientologists’ adopted philosophy and ethics, an inescapable result manifested. To adherents Ron Hubbard was considered a special being from a higher universe as only he could naturally and consistently demonstrate intuitive powers. Scientologist were reduced to aspiring to be like Ron. Ultimately that was an unattainable goal, when adherents were anchored to an ethics and philosophical system of thought predicated upon two-valued logic.
In effect, Scientologists who rise to the highest levels or otherwise adopt Scientology’s dictate that it is the only path to salvation, not only for the adherent but for all others, are trapped in a rather debilitating cognitive dissonance (the persistent attempt to hold two conflicting ideas in harmony). On the one hand, they are thoroughly convinced that they are following a scientifically proven, utilitarian path that leads to transcendent consciousness. On the other hand, in practice, they are prohibited from exercising transcendent, intuitive consciousness by their philosophy and ethics which are firmly grounded in two-valued logic.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Marty maybe I am to simple but I simplify Hubbards methods into one coined word “Cultify”. He was the “Master” at it.
… and thus the mind-f..k. Though you put it much more eloquently. Thank you for the right indication. Once again I celebrate my freedom to be myself and to think and act for myself with only my own evaluation of what is the greatest good and how to balance that across my dynamics.
Marty, you concluded your post with: “On the other hand, in practice, they are prohibited from exercising transcendent, intuitive consciousness by their philosophy and ethics which are firmly grounded in two-valued logic.”
What you write seems to be a message intended for CoS Scientologists who have the consideration that they are “prohibited” by what is in fact an alteration of the original concept of “greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics” – which is infinity valued.
There’s no reason Scientologists not in the CoS need to abide by the corrupted version adopted at a later point. The original “optimum solution” does not place any one dynamic, let alone a portion of one (“Scientology”), any higher than the other dynamics.
The greatest flaw in the whole ‘construct’, methink…
Well said. I’m in love with a Scientologist. In order to bridge the baseline gap in reality that she and I share what would you recommend for a good book(s) to review to elevate our dialog. I would say today I am mostly a spiritual being studying Buddhist philosophy along side Hinduism and Christianity with plans to grow in multiple directions therein. I have however, taken a few online Scientologist courses including marriage, surpression, ethic and a few others that I am working on now. I have considered taking time to read the handbook but value your insight here as I venture down this path.
Namaste
Sent from my iPad
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/What-Wrong-With-Scientology-Understanding/dp/1477453466“>
Hubbard would so have overboareded you and had you clean the bilges
You are of Source, report to Ethics
Those lists that you run constantly on the OT levels, they are of direct opposites right ? Black-White, God-Devil
Thank you Marildi, we (the Scientologists outside the church) are not like that. This is why we got out in the first place. I got out in 2000, see my write up if you Google my name.
That’s the point, CD. We are no longer obligated to follow what doesn’t align with the original truths and workable tech. We’re free beings!
You, dear man, just need to grasp the holistic nature of core Scientology. Report to Cramming. 😉
“’Psychiatry’ and ‘psychiatrist’ are easily redefined to mean ‘an anti-social enemy of the people‘. This takes the kill crazy psychiatrist off the preferred list of professions…The redefinition of words is done by associating different emotions and symbols with the word than were intended…Scientologists are redefining ‘doctor‘, ‘Psychiatry’ and ‘psychology’ to mean ‘undesirable antisocial elements‘…The way to redefine a word is to get the new definition repeated as often as possible. Thus it is necessary to redefine medicine, psychiatry and psychology downward and define Dianetics and Scientology upwards. This, so far as words are concerned, is the public opinion battle for belief in your definitions, and not those of the opposition. A consistent, repeated effort is the key to any success with this technique of propaganda.”
– L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 5 October 1971, PR Series 12, “Propaganda by Redefinition of Words”
http://www.scientologyhandbook.org/
As former IG Ethics, if that is your view of ethics, I am now convinced why I got booted out of the Sea Org. If such people were around Miscavige, that is who didn’t have a clue of what Ethics really is, then I am not surprised how and why I (amongst many others) got booted out.
The (mis/ab)use of Ethics in the Sea Org and in the church in general is.. unbelievable. First of, Ethics is not to be used as a justice system. However it has always been used as such and enforced on others. So, it was not used as Ethics. Maybe Hubbard did the same mistake and probably he did but that is not what’s in his book.
Anyway, his followers under the so called Management couldn’t have done a worse job than that. It’s being used to blackmail people. As Justice and not as Ethics. I could be a better Ethics Officer than most given the time and freedom to do so.
In a nutshell, under Miscavige you have gotten a totally perverted view of the whole thing. You should have come to the basement of ASHO to see the application of Ethics and Conditions in the CF project. That was some application!!
I would agree with you to some degree. I myself never bought into the idea that any situation had to use Scientology as the most predominant factor. For example I never joined the Sea Org and many times pondered re-joining staff but knew I wasn’t into it. If I would have used the Scientology heavy calculation then I would have joined. In fact anyone not having joined the Sea Org were demonstrating that they weren’t using this type of “logic”.
I no longer consider myself a Scientologist and don’t have any reach for auditing now. If I did have something serious enough that I felt I needed counseling about I do think I would lean toward a good auditor.
Does this statement above of yours mean that you no longer practice or deliver Scientology? What are your thoughts about the e-meter?
per Hubbard you have just lost your Eternity
Another very correct indication.
Marty, I am thrilled to find what I have been considering summarized so powerfully. Wow.
I’d like to offer my own insight, an insight that led me to the understanding that you have summed so clearly.
As we know, in the policy on what is policy, LRH took the position that all policy is based on the idea of infinite expansion. That idea is based on the the two-valued logic of expansion versus contraction. Expansion being good, and life, and right and contraction being bad, and death and wrong. Then this was inculcated into the utilitarian ethics system. This was then staticized. And the monster took life. This is a monster that knows and recognizes quantity and expansion, punishing all else. i.e. we shall overcome by… numbers.
OPEN YOUR EYES
“McMaster fell from grace in 1968 when he challenged Hubbard for chain-lockering a little deaf-mute girl for a week. He was subject to hard labor, sleep deprivation and other hardships. “Hubbard wanted to break me,” he states. In 1969 McMaster resigned from $cientology, and was declared “suppressive” by Hubbard.
McMaster stated in an interview: “I was so excited about the function of auditing ($cientology counseling) that I was willing to overlook Hubbard’s faults – . That was up to a point of course, the final point being my realization that his intentions were entirely self-serving. I saw that he was in it for the money and personal power, and his actual intentions were not as stated. The basic function of auditing is a wonderful thing, but Hubbard perverted it.”
When you say L. Ron Hubbard’s ethics system was based on a “central ‘utilitarian’ equation,” what is your support for that? KSW #1?
Pick up an old, out-of-print copy of The Phoenix Lectures off ebay. Or download the full lectures off the web for free.
You are still my cuddley ol’Scientologist buddy forever
Agreed and why I left. Despite all the talk of the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and no one dynamic being greater than another, in practice it meant what was greatest for that group and sacrifice of the individual, the family, other groups, other life, and the physical world.
Once again you speak of the “Scientology” you and Dave created Marty
My experience, as memorialized in my books, is my reference:
Mike who is Source ?
I’ve thought a lot about what the basic problem is with Scientology. As we know goals are a primary factor (probably THE primary factor) in all livingness. So what is the advertised goal of Scientology? They call it OT but it really translates as “Superman”. How would Scientology look today if the goal was “Bodhisattva” (an enlightened being whose only goal was to free others)?
Writing here are those who don’t understand Scientology and at the same time those who understand (or at least we think so). So here we are. But it’s not black or even white… Life goes on. We’ll see from the outcome!
Sorry that is a very simplified overview.
Infinite expansion is a flawed theory. Infinite expansion means infinite consumption. How can you have that in a finite world? In Scientology terms, it is out exchange, taking more than is given back. What’s needed is balance. That’s another problem I have with Scientology scales. They always go from one extreme to another with the bad/wrong being on one end and good/right being on the other. So good is always an extreme. What about the reality found in nature of two things in balance with each other? Predator on one side, prey on the other, in balance, not with one side winning and the other side losing.
The precursors for that ‘Scientology’ were visible all the way back into the 50’s. When the Ethics Codes were introduced in the early 60’s, that’s when that ‘Scientology’ came into bloom. And with the creation of the Sea Project shortly after, there was no going back.
Long before any of the current players.
G,
The key thing is for both of you to avoid the official organization — and, if you’re ok with it, just adhere to the “Personal Integrity” essay, i.e. “what is true, is what is true for you”, etc.
If she’s not willing to stay clear of the organization … woe be unto both of you. The organization will do everything in its power to financially rape her — and that’s if she’s not on staff. If she joins staff, that’s just a recipe for disaster, I hate to say. I do know of one couple — CoS Scientologist and non-Scientologist — that were married for 50+ years, had two children. But the Scientologist was pretty exceptional (didn’t force her views) and was not on staff, and so that made all the difference.
In recent years, however, the CoS has become increasingly destructive in its pressure to extract money from members … and the more involved the member gets, the stronger the pressure becomes.
Scientology is pretty benign, imho, if approached without the organizational structure and pressures looming over the person. If she’s just doing indie Scientology, and is financially responsible, you guys should be fine.
You know I am jesting. Scientology had nothing over you. Your eternity has always been yours. Rather live in present Time, forget about your eternity and you will be eternal.
Yes, they are. And they are implants. Which is why they are to be audited out. Now that you mention it, this is one of the ways (a major one) that Scientology takes a person out of the trap of two-valued “thinking.”
Thanks, CD. You just scored a point for LRH! 😀
Thanks, Theo. Will do.
Simplified? Yes. Deliberately so. And so was the very life and effort of a staff member, a Scientologist, a “wog,” an “SP”, their intentions simplified to a simple you are for us or against us. No one is in on any other terms.
Mr. Miscavige dramatizes this simplistic view over and over again at events, screaming to the rafters “straight up vertical expansion!!!!!!!!”
Am I really being simplistic? Or am I observing what is present and currently being dramatized from one end of orthodox Scientology to the other?
Per Hubbard? Where did he ever say that?
By repeating those list like mantra’s you are actually implanting them in your unconscious (reactive) mind. L ron Hubbard was briljant like that.
Onley by following KSW you can be saved
Gluing together the technology with ethics, I imagine, was done in an attempt to solve a problem which, in turn, its solution became the problem and rolled on as time went on until its corruption achieved only slavishness of its members to the point where they don’t “think” on their own unless approved by those who lead them and under the threat of ethics if you don’t do as you’re told.
An ambition to “be” like LRH denotes lack of own beingness, a desire to be in another’s valence and denial of self.
“Infinite expansion is a flawed theory.”
Maybe not, if the universe itself is infinite.
“The utilitarianism of the ethics system is only apparent. Its representation that it is based upon infinity-logic is false in practice. It is corrupted by creating a central ‘utilitarian’ equation that always has what is good for the group (the Scientologists) weighing senior to all other considerations and thus is always considered what is best for all. That fact makes the system, in fact and in practice, a two-value logic system. What redounds to the benefit of the group is good; what does not benefit the group is evil.”
I believe this is a mis-statement.
According to what I have read of LRH, “Ethics” is for the individual to apply to himself for his own survival and personal enhancement.
“Justice” on the other hand is for the group to apply for its survival. They are two different things.
How these two are applied or mis-applied are another thing entirely. But so far as I know what the written material of the subject states is summarized above.
Marty
I always thought as teached by Lrh that 2 valued Logic was the reason of the downfall of Mankind and that he developped the concept of “infinity-logic”
as an evolution.
But when I look up logic in Wikipedia, or classical logic in Wikipedia, there is no mention of 2 valued logic but dozens and dozens of different logics and also the aritoteles logic seems to be quite more complex than true or not true.
I Loved this concept of infinite logic, but honestly never studied a word about logic. Seems I missed a lot !
Above 2.0 is prosurvival, under 2.0 its against survival.. Is that 2 way Logic or something else ?
You’re here onto something that looks like a crashing MU by nearly any Scientologist.
2 valued logic are mostly used by simple minds, black and white stuff…
Here a quote from wikipedia that I like and comes to the conclusion that this utilitarian concept leads to totalitaranism and talks also about a pleasure-pain scale !
I missed quite a lot, while studying Scientology …..
Here the quote:
“In The Open Society and its Enemies (1945), Karl Popper argued that the principle ‘maximize pleasure’ should be replaced by ‘minimize pain’. He thought “it is not only impossible but very dangerous to attempt to maximize the pleasure or the happiness of the people, since such an attempt must lead to totalitarianism.”[63] He claimed that:[64]
there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure… In my opinion human suffering makes a direct moral appeal, namely, the appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. A further criticism of the Utilitarian formula ‘Maximize pleasure’ is that it assumes a continuous pleasure-pain scale which allows us to treat degrees of pain as negative degrees of pleasure. But, from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure, and especially not one man’s pain by another man’s pleasure. Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all…”
What do you think ?
Wow, more I read the quote above more I’m schocked about the concepts I’d in the last 30-40 years.
Those concepts are very nazi-like. Brrr….get rid of the downstats etc…I better go to bed and stop looking at this.
Marty really I’ll no more read your blog. The mirror in my bathroom is enough and I don’t need anymore mirrors. 🙂
Thanks a lot for your thinking, sometimes it’s quite hard to look at it, but at the end there is better understanding.
Hello, Mark, I have never posted before, however I have been working out some ideas along similar lines to what you propose here. Basically the thing that has been bothering me about scientology’s application by many people is that they seem to get not only the wrong idea of the philosophy, but they adopt the OPPOSITE idea.
1. “If it’s not written it it’s not true”. This is to prevent verbal data or out-policy applications by staff introducing arbitraries. What seems to happen is some people develop a reverence for LRH’s writing to the point of believing that if LRH wrote it, it’s true. This is NOT what that reference says!
2. If someone departs, or criticizes superiors, they are automatically assumed to be PTS, SPs, or they have overts against scientology or the target of the complaints. This disregards whether the person is criticizing out-tech or is leaving for just reasons. Presupposing scientology and its executives to be perfect, and above reproach, is not only inappropriate, it’s false! The philosophy of confronting one’s overts is meant to help that person, not protect misdeeds of scient execs.
3. “what’s true for you is true for you”. I fail to see how this statement is saying anything meaningful! One could say the sky is blue as the sky is blue. I see this statement being thrown around, without really looking at what the meaning is. I know I may be nit-picky, but my take on what LRH was getting at is: the other fellow’s reality is what is true FOR HIM.
This concept is meant to allow people to accept that others have different realities, based on their knowledge and experiences. People ought to appreciate those realities and be able to to grant beingness to others AND their reality. I have noticed the principle of what is true be distorted into a justification of one’s one reality, and it can lead to make-wrong of the point of view of others. We need to accept and appreciate that others have different viewpoints. Also, of course are we as thetans not mainly a viewpoint, having no mass, no location, etc?
My best theory to explain this is that scientology has eliminated logic, critical thinking, and problem solving! This aligns with your current post, i think. I have been involved in Scient for about 10 years, completed grade 4 and student hat, and recently I have been very disappointed in that what I thought scientology was is NOT what some others are doing. The lack of intellectual and logical thought is indicative, seems to me, of an addiction to negative gain, which is a very effective way of sorting out a person who is suffering from self-imposed roadblocks, but does not directly enable him to live life differently and/or more successfully. My observation of OTs (if you will excuse my limited viewpoint) is that some of them do not seem to be any ‘better’ than anyone else.
The reason for which I was so interested in scientology in the first place is that it is an APPLIED religious philosophy. The main problem I see today is that people aren’t applying very many, if any, of the philosophical principles. I think that the proof is in the pudding, if scientology is worthwhile, we should be seeing evidence everywhere, ie helping people, working out some of the worlds problems, creating “islands of sanity” etc, etc. I’m not seeing it! Where are the positive effects that clears, releases or OTs are producing for the betterment of humanity?
I just would walk past a beggar, feel nothing for him ot other people that had problems, as I was working for the greatest good and so was in ethics, but honestly this equation never really worked .
You have confirmed the validity of this post exactly. Thanks.
Hi Raylene,
While being in I’d the same problems as you. I understood the philosophy quite differently than most of my comrades, by applying some reasoning to it and wanting to use it in a decent way, but this wasn’t a quality that I was teached in Scientology, I already had it before I started and was teached by I don’t know whom.
Propably you would have above reasoning also without having to study Scientology, it’s native to you, you’re basic goodness. More I can’t say, but I hope you understand.
Why didn’t LRH write more about his concepts and give more context to :
” If it’s not written it’s not true ” ?
I don’t Know.
Thank you Marildi, for some reminders. I do hope that the world in the next 20 – 30 years is going to have many more Indie Auditors who would know (not just critique like our friend CD, here, but KNOW… and they would just get people to understand all of this. Because now it’s just a significance into the ears of people. Auditors have to get busy and admin people have to help them do that and just that, that is deliver that tech and those understandings.
It’s analogous to what the recently ousted Norwegian fellow talked about – after on-stop promises of “total freedom”, one achieves the highest available level of said freedom, only to find more dictates of what you should be, do, and have in every aspect of life coming down your lines than ever before.
Actually the pleasure/pain concept comes from buddhism.
That’s where I first came across it.
So I don’t know.
I don’t think that concentrating or striving for happiness leads to totalitarianism.
infinite expansion of what ? American economics. Goes boom in the end. destroys peoples lives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes utility, usually defined as maximizing happiness and reducing suffering. Classic utilitarianism’s two most influential contributors are Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. John Stuart Mill in his book Utilitarianism, stated, “In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.” According to Bentham and Mill, Utilitarianism is hedonistic only when the result of an action has no decidedly negative impact on others.[1] It is now generally taken to be a form of consequentialism, although when Anscombe first introduced that term it was to distinguish between “old-fashioned Utilitarianism” and consequentialism.[2]
I am actually rooting for your lot, not by being handling you lot with velvet gloves, but wI want you to get real, get into the real world fusion.
Really , go and suprise me
Maria… if we are talking about Miscavige… yes, ok, you are right. If we are talking about Scientology, no, you are not right nor is Marty. Maybe even Hubbard was wrong in his practice of his theories.
But the worst Hubbard did was that he didn’t get 12 fishermen for his disciples and executives. Instead he got Miscavige (but actually he didn’t as we read in Marty’s written testimony recently. Miscavige just took over power from RTC). Anyway… maybe Hubbard should have gotten at least one loyal, humble “fisherman” for a successor. We would be much better.
So, with that as his major mistake I would say that the Ethics system has been disabused by all of us imitating Management. It’s not that the Ethics system is at flaw by itself. Never again such a system has been given to Man.
Even the Doubt formula is not to be taken that superficially. Here it is:
CONDITION OF DOUBT
When one cannot make up one’s mind as to an individual, a group, organization or project a Condition of Doubt exists.
The formula is:
1. Inform oneself honestly of the actual intentions and activities of that group, project or organization, brushing aside all bias and rumor.
2. Examine the statistics of the individual, group, project or organization.
3. Decide on the basis of „the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics“ whether or not it should be attacked, harmed or suppressed or helped.
4. Evaluate oneself or one’s own group, project or organization as to intentions and objectives.
5. Evaluate one’s own or one’s group, project or organization’s statistics.
6. Join or remain in or befriend the one which progresses toward the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and announce the fact publicly to both sides.
7. Do everything possible to improve the actions and statistics of the person, group, project or organization one has remained in or joined.
8. Suffer on up through the conditions in the new group if one has changed sides, or the conditions of the group one has remained in if wavering from it has lowered one’s status.
If those who “applied” it were so glib to just bypass all steps and come to step # 3 and interpret it “you are either with us or against us” then OK, I admit, you are right. But the formula DOES NOT say this. It says what it says. And I, as far as I am concerned, left the church based on the greatest good for the greatest number of the dynamics. I should have survived and should survive like Marty does to say to people, hey there is infinite logic, don’t get trapped to what Miscavige says.
CD, don’t overlook the fact that there have been reforms made in Psychiatry in the United States, and at least some of these reforms have been because of the whistleblowing done by Scientologists or encouraged by Scientologists. CCHR actually did some good work back in it’s early years, and psychiatry was pretty ugly back in the 1940s and 1950s.
And before Carl Rogers, psychology was generally geared towards making people adjust and conform to society. It was generally not “client-centered”.
I would recommend the book “Self-Analysis”.
I think that since Scientology can effectively free one from two-valued logic and fixed considerations both through study and auditing, it is more the individual to blame than “Ethics” if this occurs. I’ve had it both ways and everything in between.
You were a made Psychopath, that means you were in the Psychopat Valence. Your personality was supressed buy the cult personality.
But I am myself picky who I would give money too
This post Marty to a great degree is the formula for making a crazy person. One whose rationality and conscience is twisted to fit into the confines of the two valued logic system.
The inability to look critically at a piece of Scientology doctrine without going to word clearing or ethics goes directly against the stated goals of “freeing the thetan.”
What is true for you is true for you, the very life blood of Scientology integrity, is also booby trapped with ethics brainwashing when that integrity is being demonstrated.
“All I am doing is teaching you to look” a paraphrased quote from Ron is also not honored as a virtue. Looking and disagreeing is considered being “reasonable”. Another word redifined to supress looking.
Junk yard dogs are created by forming a trusting bond with human, then beat the dog. Re establish trust with dog and then give it a wack. Continue doing this and the dog will go crazy and bite.
When students trust that they are learning to be free, reasonable, independent, full of integrity, able to resolve problems etc, then are punished for doing so: those good qualities can become become infected and distorted. And the mind of the person can take on a junk yard dog characteristic.
This junk yard dog characteristic is what the faces of the churches representatives look like on TV.
My god! Mike Rinder before leaving and after leaving is a great study in the facial features of what I am talking about.
I have this image of Mike standing to the side of Tommy Davis when Tommy was causing that journalist to go ballistic on that BBC doc. Mike looked like Dracula putting the evil mojo on that journalist. And every interview when he was ‘in’ his face looked so strained and inauthentic.
But now, after he’s been gone, he looks so happy and alive. He looks like a nice person.
That is what I mean by those positive qualities become infected.
DM’s face is a perfect study in what a twisted and dichotomous doctrine can do to ones demeanor.
To preach freedom and then punish for demonstrating it will make a junk yard human, yapping and foaming at the mouth: a Scientology PR person attacking a journalist for LOOKING into Scientology crimes and Scientology brainwashing.
On a positive note: I’ve been thinking lately that Ex Sea Org members who leave the church but still pursue spiritual knowledge in and out of the Scientology system will be some amazing people. Because they have truly learned, in the trenches of organizational warfare, to act in a dynamic fashion, that overcomes the body and it’s weaknesses to achieve a stated goal.
I support you on your journey.
Marildi –please explain how the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics is infinity valued.
I’m not tracking this datum — greatest good for greatest number AS infinity valued.
It is — to me — two valued logic … (just because you might be taking into account 3 dynamics over 2 dynamics it doesn’t make it “infinity valued) …
It’s 3 “against” 2 as a choice and therefore 2 valued.
As far as I can see.
But I’m definitely interested in hearing your take on this. Seriously.
Christine
Mr. Eldredge, I would suggest that if you were a long-time Scientologist, you also helped create the Scientology that exists today, actively or passively.
Why belabor Marty about it? Apparently even LRH felt he had “failed”, at the
end of his life. Sea org Scientologists in particular were following LRH’s lead. Those who were exclusively following their own understanding were purged all along the line by LRH.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramming_%28education%29
In education, cramming (also known as mugging or swotting, from swot, akin to “sweat”, meaning “to study with determination”) is the practice of working intensively to absorb large volumes of informational material in short amounts of time. It is often done by students in preparation for upcoming exams, especially at the last minute. Cramming is often discouraged by educators because the hurried coverage of material tends to result in poor long-term retention of material, a phenomenon often referred to as spacing effect.
Marty, this post touches very close to my heart.
It is very interesting that the one thing that I continuously recriminated LRH for, was this duplicity of selling you the Mystical Experience but stuffing you with his Big Brother church instead.
For all those that have spent unending hours studying Ethics, the subject is very well summarized by LRH, in one of the tapes of ”Milestone One”, which became the foundation for his Essay “Ethics, justice and the Dynamics”.
In a nutshell, Beings cannot help but to survive, and that is the most basic delusion we have bought from the Physical Universe: that we are somehow subject to the duality of death and birth, and therefore must strive to survive like all the forms that make up this reality.
Furthermore, the universe is made out of the intention to persist, and all things in it are deeply entangled and forever interdependent to one another for their survival.
So when we buy into this illusion of Survival we are also now confronted with the other side of Survival: that of DEPENDENCY.
We become dependent of all those things that assist us to survive.
That is the eternal paradox of spiritual freedom versus desire to have.
That all those higher considerations, plus his ample apologies for the false data that LRH had imparted through DMSMH, were somehow left out from the hundreds of pages of his administrative policies, was a never ending source of upset for me.
Ultimately a more simple and realistic description of “Ethics” was formulated many thousands of years before in the East:
By the recognition that Life is a web of unending, interwoven, interdependent and mutually arising phenomena, one can realize the futility and self-destruction of unethical behavior.
To be in the field of Time is to be inextricable enmeshed in this Web of Life.
The above realization also provides context and perspective to the mystical experience.
No onerous biblical codes and ominous ethics books are needed. No paramilitary priesthood and no legions of religious converts can secure the above realization. No, each person must arrive at it, in his own time and his own way.
This fact alone in my view, makes Scientology a caricature of itself, and ultimately a Theta Trap, as LRH well knew, the continuous insistence and assertion of attaining non-dualistic higher sates of consciousness, while at the same time subjecting everyone to the full force of compliance to a thoroughly dualistic reality, produces a slavery.
Well, I think we all know by now which way that train went.
Peace.
Marty, the Link won’t show up unless you put a phrase (or a word or symbol) between the opening and closing anchor tag.
That’s why no link showed up before.
See here for more information on anchor tags.
I hope you enjoyed the link I set before.
▲ Good idea. Off the web for free is a bit vague though. Which site? Would you have specific addresses for the lectures please? I would love to download and listen. Best regards.
Point taken over and over, American horrorstory, Psychiatry eugenics style. Valkov we never had that here
http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/dutch-citizens-resist-nazi-occupation-1940-1945
My point was in this: Changing the definition of the words is a cult thing
I must agree with Marty here. It was LRH himself who in practice conflated Ethics and Justice from the very beginning. Example of using the term “SP” in a clinical psychological sense, and also using it to define and alienate anyone he didn’t like or didn’t agree with, or who questioned him, or who he felt was a pest in some way, was a flagrant abuse of Ethics by LRH.
Another example is his insistence that any Scientologist and by extension himself were automatically righteous and good and beyond reproach. This was a totally knee-jerk automaticity he worked hard to build into the system.
In the beginning I could see where he was coming from, but he went way too far with that flattery in institutionalizing it the way he did. It’s not something that can be made a “doctrine”.
After all, Stalin was “beyond reproach”, as were all “Good Communists”, no matter what they did.
LRH acted as though he felt the ends he envisioned justified any means he chose to use. You be the judge – Is that really true?
All that said, I agree with you that there is a good core to Scientology. As Grasshopper posted on pne of the previous threads, “The reality of Scientology never lived up to the ideal scene of Scientology”. And some of that is LRH’s responsibility, because he chose to structure the reality that way, for whatever reasons.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/glib
“Anyway… maybe Hubbard should have gotten at least one loyal, humble “fisherman” for a successor. We would be much better.”
David Mayo
I’m inclined to conclude that Hubbard was an Obsessive-Compulsive personality at best.
Thanks, though, Marty for one of the most concise and accurate summations of the whole mind-funk ever. Standing ovation.
There is a very good lecture that was republished as one of “The Classics” titled “Man the Animal and Man the God”. LRH goes into the Dynamics and gives a very clear explanation of what he meant by the term. It is really not what most Scientologists seem to think. And it is not the dichotomy LRH himself seemed to have built into the thinking of Church Scientologists. His insistence that in Scientology, “it’s all good, bro” flies in the face of his own description of the Dynamics. The sneaky guy!
Hmmmmm. Can’t exactly agree with the title. Never been able to put Scn. in a nutshell. But here we go. It has been my observation and experience that Scn. Tech, when skillfully and honestly done, is very good at handling the MECHANICAL aspects of physical universes. MEST bank, energy flows, ridges, Dynamics, and basically understanding the ‘rules’ of how things work and how to follow them. AND THIS IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO BE CAUSE OVER AND ESCAPE FROM IT. (Poor wording, but you get the point.) But this works only up to a certain point and this point is not a solid line. The mechanics of life are all secondary, not truly basic to a being. As with Dianetics, too much auditing engrams will eventually begin validating and solidifying the bank. All broad agreements can be aberative and any agreement, opinion, consideration that you cannot change is a problem. The problem is that Scn. demands some agreement to get one up to the point where he can think for himself in present time with what one has. And there’s the rub. Ron put in a lot of processes that deal with both sides of a thought with the intent of freeing you from being bound by either. Just look at the Clearing Course or OT-2.
But what would you have done, put in 27% more ‘must have, can’t have Scn.’, 62% more? A requisite to run dichotomies on all Scn. data just after Clear at a cost of 500-600 hours work? It’s a judgement call he had to make. He may have missed it a bit. Let’s fix it.
The organizational tech.
It is true that in order to make a significant positive impact on the world in a reasonable time, a strong, on purpose group was needed. A million people marching in step can get a lot more done than any one genius. Obviously there is a danger of suppressing individuality. But telling everyone to ‘do what you think is best’ and you end up trying to heard cats. Nothing gets accomplished. Did he miss the mark? Yes, as history has proven. Don’t forget, “Hind sight is best at the strip club”. I mean “Hind sight is 20/20. What would you have done. More importantly, WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW, SINCE YOU AND I HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE OF THE LAST 60 YEARS. DO SOMETHING WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE. If you don’t, it is an overt of magnitude which you will be the bad effect of, whether you ‘believe’ it or not.
Am I wrong? Drop me a note…. MarkNR@hushmail.com
to vast a subject. pinpointing it now
http://jewishcurrents.org/march-25-doctors-strike-against-nazism-9565
Hi SKM,
neither me thinks that and this isn’t expressed in above Quote !
🙂
This was defined way back in ’51 – Dianometry (Red Vol 1), infinity valued logic. Decisions based on whether the solution or activity is pro- or contra- survival, from Definitely Wrong (going down to infinity, which is an absolute and therefore unobtainable and therefore there are no perfectly wrong answers) to Definitely Right (again, going up to infinity, and again showing that there is no perfectly right answer). Plot this against the dynamics and you have infinity-value logic based in what is right across the dynamics.
I mean, using volume of people for rightness determination is insane. It is probably “right” using this erroneous definition to just kill yourself when you become unable to function for whatever reason. Just head on out on the ice floe and remove yourself from the equation. Some radical environmentalists would be glad to see you “out of the picture” since if you are in the 1st world, you are consuming more resources than you are “putting back.”
So, split “survival” into dynamics, which is what the dynamics are, after all, and you can see a spectrum of rightness or wrongness categories by dynamic, by category of survival. You have a job that is consuming all your time, leaving little time for your family. You are paid well, but in order to get the bucks, you need to be on the road 13 out of 14 days. Your company loves you, but your wife or husband is beginning to hate you, and your child has no idea who you are. Also, spending all that time on the road means less time for fishing and golf and exercise. But: lots of bucks, though. Hmm. Which is the greatest good across the dynamics? Find another job for less $$$, or double-down on the current job and make your boss even happier so you get more $$$$? This is a dilemma hitting lots of people in business, these days, especially my field, which is consulting.
In the above example, the answer is clearly not to screw yourself, spouse, and child and give your all to the company because the company has hundreds of people and you only have three or four. So, saying that sacrificing yourself for your job is the right decision is nuts. And that is not what “greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics” means. It is not choosing the answer that makes your boss (or MAA or Reg) happy, it is choosing the right answer, period, in the context of you and your relationships.
Since I might as well point this out as well, “Never fear hurting another in a just cause” comes into play here, when you slide your resignation letter across to your boss, who will no doubt be hurt by your decision to “abandon” the team. But, helping yourself and your family get out of a toxic working environment is a just cause, so the boss and your ex-company will need to feel a bit of pain. Note that no guns or swords are used in this process, but a resignation letter, and a difficult conversation.
This is correct application of “Greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.”
And I am only writing this up because this is a tool I use daily and have found it to be a incredibly useful guide. It pains me when SO members and other clueless or self-absorbed Scientologists use it wrongly, which thus allows it to be incorrectly defined to detractors of Scientology, who then use it as “proof” that Scientology is a cult.
” I’ve been thinking lately that Ex Sea Org members who leave the church but still pursue spiritual knowledge in and out of the Scientology system will be some amazing people. Because they have truly learned, in the trenches of organizational warfare, to act in a dynamic fashion, that overcomes the body and it’s weaknesses to achieve a stated goal.”
EXACTLY. I look forward to finding some to work with.
Sending good thoughts to you Marty and to Mosey.
Christine, to me it comes down to the phrase “greatest good” that makes it an infinity-valued system. Any and every potential solution, as it relates to each of the dynamics involved, could be plotted on a gradient scale of wrong/right or good/bad. And it’s on that gradient-scale basis – which is theoretically infinite – that the optimum solution of “greatest good for the greatest number” is determined.
In Scientology a peak experience is offered. It would take an experienced meditator alot of right efforts have such. It would take a very skillfull therapist to guide one to such. But due to the use of technology, bio feed back- the emeter, in scientology such can be had more quickly and with less effort. This is the baby in the scientologic bathwater. A gift that should not be thrown out. Unfortunately, in practice it was used not as a gift, but as bait, just as many many gurus use their capacities to provoke shakti to gain followers. When a person has such an experience that they have not consciously prepared for they feel dependant on what they perceive to be the source of it in order to go forward. Due to endorphin release, there is ripe situation for addictive craving manipulative behaviors to occur.
Darkest Hour would be a great name for a heavy metal band but my identification is with a bibical line (I think) but most certainly the mammas and the papas song – the darkest hour is just before dawn. Another way to say is that at the maximim place of yin is birthed yang and vice versa. When I first lurked and then wrote to Marty’s blog – we seemed to be in an endless dark dark hour but now light is come and here/ hear such beautiful voices.
All dynamics are important. But the first dynamic is the foundation, the ground. The depth of the root into the ground is what supports the reach. Think of a tree. The breadth of its reach is mirrored by the depths of its roots in the ground. What if your roots reach deep into infinity. Then your reach can do the same. You are supported. A circle has formed. Or the figure 8, intersecting spirals,, is another way to conceive it. These are principles of tai chi, martial art of tao.
That’s what is called an “inappropriate definition” in Scientologese 😉 because it isn’t the one that fits the context. There are various sections in an org, including the Ethics Section and the Cramming Section. You sent me to Ethics and I “ordered” you to Cramming. Here’s the definition from the Tech Dict:
CRAMMING, 1 . a section in the Qualifications Division where a student is given high pressure instruction at his own cost after being found slow in study or when failing his exams. (HCOB 19 Jun 71 III) 2. the cramming section teaches students what they have missed. This includes trained auditors who wish to be brought up-to-date on current technical developments. (HCO PL 13 May 69)
🙂
Cat I think you are ready for the comm course now. You may like it.
(…and I make this remark as a short-term outside observer.)
Thanks Cat, I hadn’t seen that before. It helps!
“However, Hubbard also constructed a philosophy that is simultaneously inculcated into adherents that anchors them into two-valued logic thinking and living. The philosophy includes as a senior element, an utilitarian ethics system. The ethics system is made senior and precedent to the peak experience therapy techniques that otherwise could give glimpses of intuitive non-duality.”
In auditing there is no judgement ? , but ethics judges acording to good and bad duality defined by LRH ?
I agree with this Silvia.
No matter what LRH said we all have the right to our own thoughts and decisions. I do feel that LRH contradicted himself many times so I used what made sense to me and didn’t use what didn’t make sense.
Some people went all in and paid the price for that. I paid the price trying to gain the OT abilities that never arrived in full. I did have many wins using the tech and this kept me going for the brass ring all too long. Auditing does a lot of good in the right hands. A person doesn’t have to subscribe to the “whole enchilada” in order to partake.
Well put Conan
Uploaded to YT today (the 7th): Scientology Secrets, Slaves and Mind Control with Insider Tory Christman:
No. The Scientology we see today was created by the teachings of L Ron Hubbard. While I believe much of the OP is fundamentally flawed, its central thesis – the precedence and overwhelming influence of Ethics within the “philosophy” has corrupted its (ostensible) raison d’etre – appears to have a granite validity. The crimes of Marty, David Miscavige, and all those who enabled Scientology stem directly from the L Ron Hubbard maxim that Ethics must go in before the tech can work. Rather than a simultaneous inculcation, the imposition of Ethics upon the person, the “Special Zone” and, even, to some extent, wider society itself, precedes the application of that aspect of Scientology which is claimed to be of benefit. Thus, it is the the “true/false” aspect which underpins the edifice and allows for the “infinite logic” idea to take root. Whether or not that “infinite logic” aspect is responsible for what the OP suggests is another question, beyond the point I am attempting to make here.
Part of the Ethics teachings which support and protect the group is the idea that when Scientology does not work it is someone else’s fault; someone who does not have their Ethics in or someone who has gone past an M/U, or someone who cannot bear to see humans go free, yadda yadda yadda. No consideration is ever given to the possibility that it may well be that the tech is at fault. In fact, even someone completing a “Doubt Formular”, as per its “standard, on policy” parameters, is specifically forbidden from considering whether the tech or “Source” provide avenues for critical examination. It must always be someone else’s fault.
Your comment provides a stark example of the inhibited thinking the “Ethics first” approach produces.
Hell yeah, Marty. 🙂
Marty, that is about the most succinct, laser-accurate summation of the Scientology reality (for the public) I think I have ever encountered. Of course on the staff side, it has often degraded to the level of out-and-out slavery, no peak intuitive experiences allowed at all.
“By repeating those list like mantra’s…”
Don’t know what you are referring to. What is the source of this data?
Can you digitize it and upload it into a file on youtube and post it here ?
What you write is true Marty. And so it goes, to walk that path with any success, one must walk the middle path. Take the middle road.
I know I should be a harder critic, now I get smiley faces, As i see it Hubbard was a knowledgable psychologist with a bit of a sprirituatal conotation. But he was really bad on kids and adult s for that matter on the ship
I have a confession to make. I am not that good at taking a compliment. But that is in real life(outside the internet) but i gladly cash in yours right now
Cool. Well summarized. I had to do some word clearing and demo-kit demonstrations with this post, but it was worth it. I got 2 major cognitions out of it so, thank you!
Plus, I remembered a thought-stopping episode:
• While in the Sea Org, I was reading the HCO PL – Full Product Clearing Long Form. There is a step done with the e-meter that asks: Find out if the person wants his PRODUCT? → I DID NOT want my product! I burst out laughing, huge cognition, Very Good Indicators, F/N, etc. Then it dawned on me that if I VOICED that to someone, especially in a metered session, I would get in Ethics/Justice trouble. So I kept it to myself. I hoped I would never have to reveal this. Thought stopping!
Similar realization with the last step about product per dynamics. I realized that I was forced to conform to the group mentality, or else! For one thing, the Sea Org & Scientology in general was staffed mainly with White Humans, and servicing mainly White Humans. → Out 4th Dynamic. The MEST (6D) we interacted with was deplorable, including bad energy, small space and little time. No animals/pets or plants allowed (except for cockroaches) → out 5th D. No family allowed, sex considered BAD, spouses separated one way or another → No 2nd Dynamic. etc.
• The Scientology Organizing Board (Org Board) IS established as Two-Valued. One day while working at Flag Bureaux I was listening to an LRH lecture about the org board in which he described this two-valued, yes-no function. I stopped cold, ran over to the FB org board down the hall and examined the flows horizontally and vertically. Then BANG! BINGO! I got a HUGE win out of that, ran down 5 flights of stairs to the examiner, originated my win, and had a floating Tone Arm!
It is so true. On one hand someone obtains an infinity of increased consciousness on a 360° basis. We have wins and major realizations about something in our life via auditing and/or training. Then the following days, more realizations occur, more understanding – it continues infinitely.
On the other hand, with Ethics, the 3rd Dynamic group enforcement is tremendous, and forces someone to remain in a cyclic loop. It is similar to the aberrative “held down 7 of a calculator” analogy in Dianetics. Someone MUST comply to the 3rd D’s “greatest good”, or we end up in trouble. We are forced to discard the “equal weight” concept of the doctrine, to conform to the group(s). [you covered that in Chapter 8 of your 1st book] ↔ Yet, in KSW # 1, LRH warns us that, “It’s the bank that says the group is all and the individual nothing.” Another contradiction.
The fast time frame in which the compliance must occur is also enforced – contrary to the methods of auditing & training . It is fascinating how this whole phenomena is intertwined within the fabric of Scientology. Two-valued logic disguised/camouflaged within the presentation of infinity logic. Good job.
Gosh, it seems to me that every scientologist co created with David.
Okay, maybe not the children and the born intos – but shouldn ‘t their mommy and daddy be the first in line to receive the end of somebodies pointed finger?
But many of the mommies and daddies were very young and coming from situations where abnormal behaviors seemed normal to them. This is how otherwise competent good people wander into and then tolerate abuse, for a time.
Perhaps no one in particular is absolutely guilty of anything. But many do truly feel SHAME for a part they may have played. The first thing to do when you want to point a finger is to find a mirror. Facing oneself is the only remedy for what ails.
I confess, I always think of Scientologists cramming hours and hours over these lists mumbling the words written
That’s a redefinition of the word
Ron was an expert in that 😉
LOL at the still, we Anons call that Coss play
Scientology in a nutshell? Might that be a squirrel nutshell?
Haha! Just kidding! I think you pretty much nailed it, Marty. If this is an excerpt from your new book, looking forward to it!
I agree, Tony
One used to be able to get some decent “gains” as long as one never took KSW1 too seriously. Once ya took KSW 1 too seriously, you were toast.
I don’t regret the training that I had, up to a point. But there came a time all too soon where I was overrun on others evaluating for me on Ethics issues. To remain sane in any group you have to know how to say NO.
Like someone said, If you can’t say No then your Yes becomes meaningless.
I think Marty has summed up Scientology quite nicely.
Brilliant cog.s, Jean. That put Marty’s post in a perspective I hadn’t realized when I first read it. Thanks.
Thanks Brian,
, Warf, Warf, Warf!
Ever thought about why Hubbard choose the word squirrle ?
My, Marty, you do know how to get a hot conversation going.
This analysis really hits the heart of why scn is so hard to just move on from, once you’ve heavily vested yourself in it.
Thanks.
DOX: Hubbard in a lecture
Got chaff, where’s the wheat?
The problem is
Never fear to hurt another in a just cause
has been interpreted by the Guardian’s office and Office of Special Affairs to mean
Destroy the target utterly.
Shamelessly set them up for bogus ” bombings” or “Bomb threats”
Plaster their private tel no in Manhatten toilets offering hooker services
(Paulette Cooper)
Mayor Cazares set up by *pretty women*, fed drinks and a fake homeless man steps in front of his car, apparently *HITS* him and flees in the car so that the Mayor of Clearwater believes he engaged in hit and run…
These are just samples of the past.
OSA INT is just as criminal, only a little more covert but specializes in using data from pc folders for Internet exposure…
Today Laura deCresenzo won her 4 year battle to get her pc folders back.
Supreme Court refused to hear the “Church”s pleas.
I hope this open the floodgates of people wanting their folders back after leaving the “CHURCH”
I still don’t know that Hubbard “missed the mark” as you say, and as many think who have seen the good that can result from the application of Scientology.
Yes, he “created”, or at least laid the foundation for the “catholic” CoS as it exists. Although its character could be a lot different if it had not been Miscavige who managed to grab the reins. But it would still, although perhaps a less malignant one, would still be a “cult” to some extent, to some people. Isn’t any church?
I feel many people are looking at “Scientology” and at whether LRH “failed” or tricked everyone, with blinders on. They are equating Scientology with CoS. It is a whole lot more than that. A WHOLE LOT MORE. It is the Freezone. It is Ron’s Orgs. It is many independent practitioners who left in the 1970s and 1980s wholong since stopped calling themselves “Scientologist” but have integrated Scientology into their lives in various ways. Some work as life , some are social workers, some train social workers in therapeutic techniques, etc.
LRH was concerned that Scientology not be monopolized by an authoritarian group. Well, it hasn’t been. Scientology is all over Ebay and Amazon. It is available for free download from many Internet sites. The scandalous horrors of the Sea Org, RTC, and the CoS are making headlines in the media. Scientology is arousing the curiosity of many people all over the world, and has at the same time become available to anyone with computer access. LRH’s books and lectures are increasingly available at less cost than the CoS sells them for. People curious about Scientology will want to see and hear for themselves what that “monster” LRH had to say in his own words. I think they are in for a surprise.
I think LRH may have had some inkling that the Scientology toothpaste would be coming out of the tube and maybe he helped it along, to preclude that monopoly he saw as so dangerous to mankind. Maybe the decisions he made and the course he chose to take in setting up the Sea Org and a “Catholic Church of Scientology” had something to do with it.
“Foundation and Empire”. It would be like LRH to have some awareness of both sides of a dichotomy like that and take it into account in his planning.
I’ve never tried, CD, but maybe I can digitize it and give you a link to download and hear it.
p.s. That should be “Greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.”
“A consistent, repeated effort is the key to any success with this technique of propaganda.” LRH
I would have to say Cat Daddy, that this writing of Ron’s is bone chilling to me. It really speaks to the fact that he did know what he was doing.
Words and concepts that Ron distorted with redefinition or new and original definitions:
Spiritual Light = Implants
Open Minded = a flaw in thinking
Christ = Implant
Buddha = Ron
Every other religion except Buddhism = Dramatizing implants
Sympathy = Below Hate on the Tone Scale
Leaving Scientology = overts
Having a cold = connected to an SP
Having a negative opinion of Scientology = you are evil
Having a negative opinion of Ron = you are evil
Psychiatrists = murderers and sex criminals (all of them)
The Goal of Buddhism = Exteriorization (this is not the goal)
Heaven or Astral worlds = implants or degraded non physical world with unkept statues.
Science = Scientology
Lung Cancer = ‘not smoking enough will cause cancer………” SHSBC 35 july 1961
Leukemia = an engram with phrase “it turned my blood to water”
Disagreement = MUs
(By creating a separate language one can control the thinking of others by making it mandatory to word clear, clay demo concepts. And if you don’t understand or disagree with the definitions that are sold you, it becomes a flaw in you. And if you want to go free on the “only” road out you better put that open mindedness to rest. That is when critical thinking is seen as a problem to be handled. That is when the lights go out)
Near Death Experience = Implant
The Kaba = Implant
Chariot ( Hindhu Imagery) = Implant
Cherub (Christian Imagery) = Implant
God = Implant (R6)
Angels = Implant (R6)
Feeling dizzy = implant (R6)
Priests = Implants
Christianity = Implant (R6)
(By isolating every other spiritual path and associating them with torturous evil implants, that will almost certainly keep the flock loyal to you, the only way. And will almost certainly bring you into the rarified airs of arrogant elitism.)
Virtually every aspect of civilization is associated with the by product of evil torturers destroying your mind and body. And there is “only one way” to handle it.
And money will be the least of what will be taken.
0-48.ru or stss.nl. Ooooh I feel so naughty.
This explains something I was puzzled about. Whenever I or somebody would express an original thought, Scientologists would look confused and ask: “where did you hear that?” When telling them it is your idea or thought they would shake there heads in disbelief. Of course, in a two valued logic, original thought is not possible. If LRH did not say it (good) than somebody else said it (bad), but clearly you could not have come out with it yourself.
This post explains what was puzzling me for years. Thanks.
Gotama Buddha teaches that practice of sila ( morality / ethics ) is a precondition for enlightenment or at least for sustaining that path. Not for the sake of others but for the sake of oneself because to lie, steal, kill, harm others etc. Creates a violence in oneself – first. Such acts create a disturbance, a tension within even though it may be very well hidden. One is then unfit to serve others. Look at L Ron Hubbards first dynamic. There is disturbance, evidence shows this. Brilliant mind but not happy, not content. He was unable to carry forth pure intentions into the other dynamics. All was about his need to compensate for first dynamic lack. Lies, stealing,violence originated there and then proofed through all his reach. This is logical and organic as in the fruit is in the seed. Ethics were not applied to himself but were applied to others, to manipulate others.
He is not the only ” great man” of that generation whose public and private life were diametrically opposed. They were loved and are…still…the best we can do (for their karma and ours) is to let go of the damage done “to us” but to keep our understandings, proof them out and share the, as in your, knowledge.
Theo, there was a time I argued almost exactly the same as you have done. It is not hard to do, given that LRH was truly prolific. But there came a time when I began to distinguish between his PR / marketing statements, his actual operating basis and the very real joy of release from the auditing I had. I loved the auditing, I bought the PR and marketing and I justified the unlovely aspects of much of the actual operating policies – policies that LRH wrote and implemented.
In reality there should not be a need to justify, if all the wonderful PR, marketing and grand promises were just as much the actual operating policy. But they weren’t and they aren’t and that is on LRH.
I think that Scientology has a duality to it. On one hand you can glean from it some very nice things. On the other hand you can glean from it a very militaristic and cultish reality. I mostly took from it the good things and tried to deal with those who brought out the most cultish, greedy and hateful side of his writings. It got to the point where I couldn’t exist around that group and what it had became.
There is the old analogy of Scientology having a New and Old Testament. The earlier writings were Scientology’s “New testament” the more ARCfull and philosophical stuff. The later writings were more the “Old Testament” of fire and brimstone and gnashing of teeth, of heavy ethics and SP’s and things that go bump in the night.
Also GB “said” that the most senior devoted elderly nun had an inferior status to the most young novice (male) monk. And I think he went on to say that if told to do so she must clean that monk’s room and wash his clothes. Not sure it exactly said that second part as due to a sick feeling I could read no more. “said”- because whatever Buddha said it was orally developed and recorded by the monks after his death. Easy to squirrel. Anyway, “great men” should be appreciated and thanked but not worshipped for every word.
Theo, there are people here expressing their own insights and their journeys on the path that Marty is currently following. Please stop criticising them and sending them negative feedback just because it doesn’t jibe with your own views. Yours is not the only valid point of view. And you do not have the right to derail someone else’s journey.
I think it was easy for me to do because when I got involved with Scientology, I was really still a kid. And there was no Church or religion, no ethics officer or MAA, and no Sea Org.
These things began to spill in shortly after but , I just didn’t pay attention to them. I did pay attention to the Sea Org later, but when I joined I thought they would throw me out in three weeks. I didn’t expect that to go on for six years and I didn’t have any feeling that I had to be there. It was just an experience that was interesting for six years.
The ethics conditions were very real to me but the kangaroo courts and golden rod and all of that I didn’t take seriously and I didn’t contribute to it and so I didn’t go effect of it. The truth is, the Scientology I bought into, disappeared a long time ago.
Whenever I was in an Org, I was paying in some way to be there. For the experience. Either as a public or a staff or a volunteer. I was spending my time and money for an experience. The same way I do when I do to Disney World. Nothing was ever gifted to me except kindness. Experience.
So, I did not feel obligated to permit myself to be compromised. I paid for it all in one way or another. I wasn’t given training and auditing or bridge cycles even when I was on staff. My Freeloader Debt was so low when I left I was able to cut a check and pay it off before I left when I left. I guess it was the cost of product zero and whatever sec checks I had. Amounted to a few thousand dollars. I always gave more than I received, so I maintained my rights.
But the truth is, Scientology created a lot of dependents. And anything you depend upon you become the effect of. The people who are the real fundamentalists and are locked in with all that they are, those were the biggest dependents. They depended on the Church for everything. Friends, experience, knowledge, enlightenment, status, money, the whole shebang. And anyone who shakes that up a little becomes an enormous threat.
I needed it, for sure. The auditing. I became the effect of it for sure. Good effect. Just the tech. When the price got too high (fucking over other Scientologists) I said good by. All the rest I was able to shift to the side and maintain a balance on a middle road.
It makes no sense for people that are totally dependent upon Scientology to the point of getting hysterical socially, to be in the Independent movement. They have never been Independent in the Scientology arena.
I am still dependent upon an auditor for a final few steps I need, and I have people on the bridge I am depending on that person to get through. But it is all for the experience. There is no scarcity of experience, in this section of the universe.
I feel bad for the people in the Church, and the ones out here, that are made to feel bad for their experiences. Demanding an apology from someone for living is as low as you can go. “You aren’t living like you are supposed to.” is some kind of sick whole track ser fac. Police monitoring.
You have been the perfect example of someone who is not afraid to live out loud. You own your life and encourage others to do the same. You assist things that assist survival. Not by your personal standards or personal interests. Because you have enough faith in yourself and the world and your fellow beings to not have to suppress them to feel like you will survive.
It is sad the bullets you have had to take. But the red carpet always rolls out for you. You may not be in favor with all of the mortals, but you are in favor with the Gods. And that is a separate dimension.
Well, if you’re going to be a good critic, you’ll need to have correct data. Do some study. Start! 😀
Okay, I’ll let you have the last word. But what a s-t-r-e-t-c-h. 😛
Marty, What would you say to an OT8 who arrived at the irrefutable conclusion (as a direct result of doing NewOT8) that scientology (as a corporate entity) didn’t have a clue about what they were actually doing or attempting to achieve? Just curious.
lol, CD! Is this really what you had in mind? Maybe this happens with GAT drills (I don’t know if they still site whole things to the wall, I left so I don’t know) but that’s not what Cramming is/was in Scientology.
One thing that Marty has helped me a lot is with his usage of words and his style of writing. It is more difficult to grasp but still he has a knack in writing and can express notions that truly make one think of things in a rather vivid way. So, I am always and I have been struggling to find out meanings of difficult and peculiar words he uses so I can understand.
This is what study technology is all about. To really get the definitions of the words and then the concepts expressed through those words.
So, it looks like you had an inappropriate definition here as Marildi said, which makes you completely misunderstand the thing and get a totally different concept about it.
Grasshopper, this is a good and very vivid example of the “greatest good”. When you get beyond the social surface and you are through with the interpretations of others but you want your own understandings, you can start seeing the dynamics in a true and honest way. As long as one stays “loyal” to a group or some boss without really being Him/Herself (which is the key word here, who is really our true Self, if not all of the dynamics in balance?) then all chaos starts.
This is what became SOP in the S.O. and the Church. Interpretations and evaluations and invalidations on what is the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics.
I got out and put my “resignation letter” through the Doubt formula (but that took years of examination of things) when I finally said to myself “everybody is keeping Miscavology working. Few keep Scientology working so I can quit and do that. It’s a hat worn by a few”. I did my doubt and left. Had I stayed for “the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics” I would not be able to contribute to the motion that has been building up out here and I would not have joined my voice in protest of what has been happening inside the church and by Miscavige.
I’m not sure exactly what you are saying I am confirming, but what I AM confirming is that there is a distinction to be made between the subjects of Scientology and Dianetics which are described in written and spoken words, and the practice of these teachings.
I used to hear you making this distinction quite often on this blog a while ago.
Anyone can misapply these teachings, including LRH. But when one is talking about “Scientology”, one is not talking about LRH’s or anyone else’s applications of the subject, good of bad. One is talking about the SUBJECT. When one is talking about “Scientology”, one is also not referring to the organization which was supposed to forward the subject. Again, the SUBJECT of Scientology is a SUBJECT. Like any subject, it is recorded in words which have meanings which in turn point towards the thoughts which comprise the subject and hopefully result in understanding it. This is true of all subjects, including religions.
The superiority of multi-valued logic as opposed to single-value, two value, and three value logic is described in many places in the SUBJECT, including the early Dianetics books.
Just as one can suffer from cognitive dissonance (the persistent attempt to hold two conflicting ideas in harmony), one can could also suffer from disassociative dissonance (the inability to perceive the agreement or harmony between two or more ideas).
Neither one is productive of understanding or happiness, in my opinion.
Reposted from Mike Rinder’s blog:
“Steve,
Thank you for validating everyone’s postulates. Even I feel validated. And I am no stellar player in this game even though I have been postulating what is now happening along with everyone else and doing what I can to stop the bleeding. Thanks especially for validating those creating large effects in this arena. I understand how you feel about leaving ANYBODY out. For example Karen has been and is a FORCE!
And actually, as a result of reading your post I’m feeling a bit contrite right now. I have just been giving Marty a little bit crap over on his blog for talking a bit negatively about Scientology and my friend, LRH. I’ll probably give him more crap once in a while in the future too.
But, right now I am going to go and re-post this comment on Movin’ Up a Little Higher if Marty will let me. And I know he will let me because of who he is. THE TRUTH IS THAT NO-ONE HAS DONE MORE TO DEFEND THE SUBJECT AND COMBAT THE INSANITY THAN HE HAS.
That’s the truth.
And Mosey is a guardian angel.
And here’s another postulate …….everything’s going to be alright. :-)”
I just wanted to put my previous comment in perspective, Marty, as well as thank you for all that you have done and continue to do.
~Espiritu
Brian, you wrote, and I wish to comment on the following;
“On a positive note: I’ve been thinking lately that Ex Sea Org members who leave the church but still pursue spiritual knowledge in and out of the Scientology system will be some amazing people. Because they have truly learned, in the trenches of organizational warfare, to act in a dynamic fashion, that overcomes the body and it’s weaknesses to achieve a stated goal.”
Being an ex-sea org member does include being a bit of a bodhisattva, in my opinion. One does not pledge themselves for a billion years without a deep felt sense of being responsible for humanity. But as we have seen and heard on this blog, it can take years to decompress, and new spiritual pursuits are often measured against what was leaned in scientology. Deconstructing the scientology system that we accepted and internalized in our thinking, as Marty is doing here on logic and ethics, is very important. The passing of time may allow one to decompress, but the way we “think” and what has been accepted needs to be examined and unraveled. Fortunately Marty is doing a lot of the “heavy lifting” on that. Its hard to think outside the box when your still in the box. And when you get outside the box it can still be hard if you have not reexamined what you have accepted. Scientology indoctrination is its own version of the held down “7”. I know many ex-Sea Org are enjoying their spiritual pursuits and are amazing people. But for many there may be more deconstructing of their indoctrination to do. I think it has been Not-Ised for many. Understandably. And that may keep those amazing people somewhat held back on that spiritual journey. Topics like this on that Marty has posted deserve our full attention.
“Kindness is the basis of the dharma. The basis of practicing the dharma should be a caring positive mind. So kindness is understanding. Kindness is a thing that you don’t take advantage of.” Kyabgon Phakchok Rinpoche
(you can switch out dharma for any spiritual teaching or religion)
Moreover, I thought of this line of the “Lord’s Prayer” this morning. Which in my mind points to the inevitable downfall of scientology as it currently is practiced IN and out of the church :
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.”
Fundamental scientology does not forgive. And I’m not talking about “forgiveness” in an auditing session per se but the VERY nature of the subject. (this was the subject of a blog article by Marty before and it went south as far as I’m concerned as others piled on regarding forgiveness in an auditing session).
Forgiveness is NOT part of the subject. Scientology is an aggressive fundamental religion as it stands. And aggressive fundamental religions are INCAPABLE of looking AT themselves and changing.
The lack of INHERENT forgiveness in a religion/subject/philosophy PRECLUDES KINDNESS — the opening quote in the comment.
How can you possibly be kind IF you can’t/won’t forgive?
Not possible.
DOES THIS MEAN that one should not EXPOSE the horrible acts of another? NO. Exposure IS itself an act of kindness because the person transgressing will be forced by … law, embarrassment, peer pressure, governing body etc. to STOP doing more harmful acts.
Christine
Yes you are closer to source. I had it wrong
I capitulate on that and thank you for your reply Miraldi. I have learned from it.
Ethics presence pressures one to impose discipline on himself, thereby helping that individual. The trick is doing it with love and forgiveness. It can be done, I know.
Mark
Squirrel. An old term for messing around with something you don’t know much about or is working fine and doesn’t need fixing or adjustment. Not from the dictionary, but from my experience.
Mark
What is this about Laura and her folders. Tell me more, tell me more. This could be a big boon for Independent auditing. Maybe some of my enthusiasm rants will start to take hold.
Hello Cat,
maybe he liked it when he read the “I Ching”:
From: “I Ching – The Book of Change.”
Valkov; Thanks, I needed that. ‘Missed the mark’ was a poor choice of words since it implies that there is a perfect mark. There are always those which will recognize something that is worthwhile, and those that will oppose anything useful. There is not a perfect balance. The stronger the organization, the more some will use that to their advantage and the more some will ‘go along’. A loose organization can easily crumble. I read so much about the problems with Scn. lately that I have found myself covertly apologizing for possible imperfections. I will attempt to be more wise in the future.
Mark
People can justify evil in all sorts of ways. The proof is in the result. Obviously OSA’s and the GO’s actions were not really the greatest good for the greatest number, because these decisions (besides being flat-out wrong) led directly to the demise of Scientology – that which they claimed to be protecting. It is not the concept of greatest good that is at fault here, it is the interpteter’s evil. And Ron’s own moral blindness.
thanks
Intresting. For most Europeans , squirrles are viewed upon as positive. I tought as L Ron Hubbard grew up in the American country side. I tought he might have picked up a negative look on squirlles. It is my understanding they get shot often for being vermon in the American country side.
LOL I forgot about that NL site operating out of my country. thanks
Darwinian Theory = Implant
Oracle; Thanks for some more details of your life, it explains a lot. I will read your posts with more attention in the future. I am not the same as you but I see a couple of similar traits. I never was in the Sea Org (My wife got pregnant before I left for the Freewinds first voyage) so I never got worried about heavy ethics actions or ‘get the stats up or you’re in trouble’. I always figured ethics was a case action with the only intention of helping me get my life running better. I read all the basic books and lots of HCOBs and PLs when I was 12-13 and got the flavor of the science long before doing any serious work in it or dealings with the Church. It was always just common sense to me. Even the more ethereal aspects.
You know me from my posts. Not my identity but my personality.
Your posts are always sensible and I consider you my friend.
Mark
“It is sad the bullets you have had to take. But the red carpet always rolls out for you. You may not be in favor with all of the mortals, but you are in favor with the Gods. And that is a separate dimension.”
Well stated. beautiful !
Right again Karen, Grasshopper. “Never fear to harm……… is a completely valid principal to me. An obsession to harm others will make your life miserable and will get you jailed or institutionalized. A fear of harming others can get you killed. The ability to act when needed is vital. It’s not that complicated.
Mark
CD you got that Smiley because your critic was spot on !
and here again a smîley for you 🙂
Mark: I’m sorry — not certain what exactly you are saying. Are you commenting on my comment or on someone else’s.
If my comment – could you expand your comment and also comment more about “ethics presence”
Thank you
Interesting discussions, but what I can’t understand is: why should a scale that always is 2 dimensional (upwards or downwards) be connected to infinite logic if applied to life ?
This brings out the nonsense that each week your stat has to go up into eternity.
I f you write 200 letters per week you can expand by recruiting more letter regges , organize better etc.. No Problems at all as the COS of Scientology demonstrates very well. To have their bulk mail stats and letter out stats up they just sent the same bulkmail several times to the same Person or let students write letters with one sentence….
This concept of endless Expansion into eternity and along the Dynamics brought about the most craziest ideas I have ever seen.
Once I tried to explain those logics to my son that has a master in Mathematics and Computer Sciences. He very kindly listened to me and tried to understand it, but then he talked about those logics he knew about and instantly I’d the Feeling I must seem to him like an 2 dimensional idiot..
I realized then:
There is much more to know about logic , reasoning and thinking that I ever learned in Scientology.
So I’m happy to find out that I don’t know and now can learn new things !
Thank you to all posting here.
Thanks Cat Daddy. That one belongs in the top ten.
I have been thinking of making an in depth list of common concepts redefined and distorted by Ron. I think it would be revealing.
Cat Daddy,
As I understand it, Hubbard likened those auditors who altered his techniques and thus rendered them ineffective to that of a squirrel running on an endless wheel in his cage–lots of activity but not really getting anywhere.
In other words, Buddha said a person’s Ethics must be in before Buddhist “tech” can work.
Windhorse; You said that “exposure is itself an act of kindness”. Ethics presence is acting in an ethical manner, promoting an atmosphere of ethical behavior and expecting it of others. It assists others in keeping themselves straight and at it’s highest point, laws, forces them to stay straight. Sorry for such an abbreviated comment earlier.
Mark
Mark NR, start here for information about Laura’s court case and the issue of her pc folders:
http://tonyortega.org/2013/10/07/supreme-court-denies-scientology-in-forced-abortion-lawsuit/
A very insightful and concise explanation to a question I (a total outsider to CoS) have had since I’ve been reading these blogs. Thanks, Marty.
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
I agree Loki, it takes courage and belief in one’s own sense of knowing, sense of right and wrong, to correct within one’s nature, ideologies that once were essential traits but now seen as outmoded or dangerous.
I have been a sharp critic of some of Ron’s doctrines and behavior. That being said, I believe we all choose the roles we play in life to learn certain lessons.
When I left the Sea Org, around 1974, I found my ability to work and focus was very powerful. I attribute that to the focused activity of Sea Org life. I probably would have acquired that also in the military.
But nothing is ever wasted as far as learning is concerned. Look at Viktor Frankl. Auschwitz survivor who flourished and became a leader in original thinking.
And in the Scientology experience: All of this pain and suffering. All of the family trauma. All of the spiritual betrayal and wrong knowledge, with the right attitude and willingness to re evaluate becomes it’s opposite.
It transmutes into valuing family, finding ones true path and having personal realizations that free us to experience the happiness we sought in belonging to groups.
I pray and wish nothing but great success for all Scientologists in and out of the Truman Show.
This Scientology diaspora, seems to me, like the beginning of something great. So many souls dedicating their lives to the good of the world and their own spiritual growth.
The seeds have been planted. Maybe that was Ron’s true mission. Whether he knew it or not.
Marty, you did a great job in fact in putting this whole mess in a nutshell. As you can see from some of the comments above, getting out is so easy and yet so hard. Keep doing the great work Marty.
Rob
Hello Roger,
I even think that the “dissemination tech” was the greatest mistake Ron could have done to dissemination. Insisting on expansion hinders organic, natural growth.
It’s my personal view and may be a limited perspective, but I have seen it over and over again.
It’s a natural thing to diseminate something you found worthwhile for yourself. But being asked to do it can be demaging to the motion.
Thanks Mark.
Yes — of course ethical behavior can and does often encourage others to behave in a similar fashion.
I was making the comment — so as to thwart those who might say — are you saying to NOT expose the abuses of others? —
That EXPOSING and THOSE EVENTUALLY stopping the crimes of others is itself an act of kindness as it enables to abuser to stop harming others …
Hope that clarifies what I was trying to say as well.
Good for you, G.
VERY important thing for you is to differentiate two things:
1. Church of Scientology
2. Scientology practices, beliefs, systems whether people consider themselves to loosely or strictly adhere to all or any of it.
If you have been taking courses, you have (likely) been hooked into the Church of Scientology, and you have probably been taking your courses from an “official” “org” (organization, like Church of Scientology New York, for example), even if its been only online at this point. Bet you’ve had some nice wins and realizations, too, that make you want to go further. Gulp.
The person you are in love with may also be hooked up with the Church of Scientology, and be doing their own courses or auditing etc at an “org”.
You will soon need to recognize that the Church of Scientology does effectively control its members, ipso facto, though they will not tell you that.
This current post on Marty’s blog is telling you about the problems related to the fact of trying to set the members personally free plus at the same time control their behavior within rigid sets of elements. The dynamic thus created should eventually make you either 1. accept everything the Church dictates and tow the line about your behavior (who you see, what you read, on and on) without questions (for example, Leah Remini, actor, DWTS etc, recently actually [dared to] ask a QUESTION she was NOT SUPPOSED TO ASK, which other Church members dare not do, in fact they are afraid to even THINK such thoughts; or 2. go bonkers, because you actually can’t justify being a totally free being whose behavior must be controlled by your Church; or 3. quit the church or quit some or all of Scientology beliefs or practices for various reasons, including, but not limited to – all the various things people have said on this and other blogs – corrupt people trying to control your life in the name of helping the whole planet, give up the family you love because they won’t tow the line of the Church, etc.
You did not say how long the person you love has considered himself/herself to be a Scientologist, and that could make a great deal of difference to your relationship, BECAUSE the longer they have been in, the more they have been subjected to Church’s gradual taking over control of their behavior and life.
Put it another way:
If you are trying to learn about Islam, you can read the Koran, and maybe attend a mosque in parts of the world where non-fanatical Jihadist Islam is practiced. If the person you love is in the same boat, then you could probably smoothly get together and even respect each other spiritually.
But if the person you love attends a mosque where the Imam has been telling her/him that they will go to heaven if they strap on a bomb and kill themself trying to create maximum damage to non-Islamic people including women, children, etc…. then you and the person you love are not likely to bridge the gap that is between you.
I will say, my opinion, that the Church of Scientology demands the kind of dedication that makes a good terrorist, under the radical Islamic system. The Scientologist may not strap on a bomb and kill themself to try to kill a bunch of non-believers, but what they WILL DO, and what they DO in the name of saving the planet is as stark-staring mad as any terrorist you every heard of. Sorry to put it like that.
You sound like a nice person, so my only other advice, besides the above, is:
1. Keep reading all these blogs giving multiple stories about Scientology, so you are INFORMED.
2. DECIDE for yourself that you SHOULD CONTINUE TO STAY INFORMED, no matter what the source, and YOU be the decider about the information, don’t turn that right over to anyone.
3. Keep your own integrity if you start feeling swayed to “help your group” by hurting others, giving all your money, violating laws or common held principles of what constitutes “being a good person”.
If the person you love has been “under the influence of the Church” for long, then you will need to get yourself informed about all this even faster than you already are.
Good luck.
This was not an alteration in my experience. Long before Miscavige, in the 1970s, at both a mission and an org, it would have been unacceptable to conclude that any decision could possibly be the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics unless it was for the good of Scientology.
Why? Because by definition (read unexamined, unchallenged presumption) Scientology _was_ and _would forever be_ the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics. The (ethics) conditions thus became how to pound your thinking into shape so that you reached the only politically correct decision on what the greatest good was.
This was not an alteration by COB or anyone else. It was the early interpretation and implementation of what Ron meant. The supposed “most ethical group” on the planet is not very ethical at all. I myself personally witnessed (and objected to, to no avail) petty crimes and wrongdoing justified by supposed aim of the greatest good — when in fact, these were just things to protect Scientology. (An example: the theft of newspapers all around a city because that issue of the paper had an article negative about Scientology. Any sane person would know that would make Scientology look worse than ever, so the action wasn’t even logical, much less ethical.)
I’ll give LRH this. He was an absolute genius at creating systems and processes that would protect him and Scientology at every turn.
Thanks, Windhorse.
That’s a great list, Brian. It fits my experience. I didn’t see it, so I would add:
Yoga = A way to bind you to your body more than ever.
Astral body = Just another body you have to exteriorize from.
Earth = Prison planet; Teegeeack.
As to yoga, Ron may have had an M/U. He wasn’t always that good with words. Yoga traces to a root that is cognate with the English word “yoke.” From this, Ron may have assumed that the “yoking” would be that the spirit (person himself, thetan) would be “yoked” or bound to the body. In actual Hindu theory, it means “yoking” with god — or to put it another way, union with the sacred, holy, or divine. Ron goes into this a little bit in one lecture, but I forget which one.
To Buddha I would expand to Buddha = Ron = Mettaya, as he described himself in the very shabbily written “Hymn of Asia” (I actually like Ron’s sci-fi and other writing). And there was no prophecy of Mettaya (Maitraya, the returning Buddha) having red or golden hair. Ron made that up as far as I can tell.
Ron also was deficient in his understanding of Buddhism. For example, in referring to the “self” in his Buddhist-related insinuations, he clearly had not transcended the apparent but illusory duality of self / non-self. Here’s the conflict. Scientology is based on each of us being a thetan — an immortal spirit. Ron was strongly opposed to experiences of “one-ness” or “union” (just more implants, again, in a lecture; or perhaps he was fighting supposed clusters of body thetans who believed they were “all one”). I would just say that for anyone who has experienced the dissolution / disappearance of ego self, or of any self, and felt the connection of all things, well, that’s sure not a feeling I ever feared, and the truth of that deep ground of connection did and does feel true for me.
So for anyone who has not been “in” I would just assure you that ethically, in Scientology, I could _never, ever, ever_ have voiced the thoughts and opinions and experiences I just voiced. I would have had knowledge reports written up, I would have been sent to ethics, I would have been accused of “mixing practices,” I would have been sec-checked for critiquing Ron or his writing, and so on. I would have either been harassed until I conformed and shut up and made amends, or I would have finally had enough and “blown” (left without permission — yes, you have to have permission to leave the organization, even if you are not on staff). Anything that did not fully support Ron and Scientology would not have been the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics. And therefore it was contra-survival, and unethical in the Scientology matrix.
I sure agree that the “basic functioning of auditing is a wonderful thing” — I hope that eventually _that_ part of Scientology gets validation and recognition (and there are some other good tools too).
Marty: the only validity of this post is that it is “your viewpoint” and I acknowledge your right to express it. These are valid. Your arrogance is quite another matter.
As as an OT who personally received far more gains and rewards as a being than LRH ever did, or ever needed to promise me or anyone else, I am constantly fascinated by how you continue to instill complexity into the simplest of ideas. The you actually believe your are now ready to “Monday Morning Quarterback” LRH, his failings and frailties, after serving so aggressively to preserve DM’s power and influences, give me cause to wonder.
Simple#1: LRH did what he could for you, me and anyone else interested in seeing what they can get from his findings.
Simple#2: Many people have found and received value, physically, mentally and spiritually with some part of his findings.
Simple#3: Some of those people received that value and moved on with bettering their lives – not mocking up power games that included “creating” an insane Sea Org and Executives determined to ruin every last hope LRH ever had to help as best he could, with what he had to work with.
Simple#4: Some beings had the integrity to call help “Help” and destruction ‘Destruction” even to LRH personally – never mind a puny piece of shit like DM.
Simple #4: Ethics is about the easiest subject to duplicate in anything LRH ever offered you or me. It is not Justice and it is not punishment. It just tells “Joe” – “Look you had better have a look – you are never going anywhere more enlightened so long as you keep screwing your wife’s sister. Now it’s your call. But my advice is: clean it up and fast Dude.”
In closing, I admire your spirit of resolve and peaceful revolution. But, from my $9.99 viewpoint I consider your ‘opinions” on LRH trapping us all in a “two-valued logic” where nobody wins abut as accurate as a Doberman Pincer commenting on the state of Canine Affairs on planet Earth.
My other $19.95 viewpoint is: MY SINCEREST BEST WISHES TO YOU AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL WIFE WITH THE CURRENT LEGAL MATTERS IN THE COURTS. Kick this little bastards ass back to childhood. You have my unwavering support and ADMIRATION.
I had been told or read something that LRH had said about politicians –that they represented the average of people’s irresponsibility. I don’t remember the exact phraze, but it makes sense to me that way. It seems to me that many have social issues that they’re unwilling to deal with, so they throw the ball to the politicians. If for example people are afraid much of criminality and war, they will seek to have a more authoritarian -and police-friendly- political system. Although I live in Greece and have never visited the USA, I think that’s about what’s been happening there, judging by what I read or I’m told by people who live there. I think it was quite different during the time that even Europeans imigrated massively to the USA.
And I think this representation of the average irresponsibility goes further than politics. Take normality for example –it’s full of apathy. Be one with the environment. Only that way we can keep it society going. Forget, feel good no matter what happens, woship the buck etc.
And I no longer blame psychologists for it. It seems psychologists represent an average too, and so do psychiatrists. It’s nice and comfortable to blame psychiatry for treating psychotics violently and dumbing them down and such –specially in the past. But who’s willing to deal (in a good way) with a psychotic –specially one who’d love to slit their throat? People that are afraid of their shadow because they know (mostly by the media) that ‘the world’ is full of evil people are certainly not going to help any psychotic. They’d probably shot him or run away or something. So they throw the ball to the psychiatrists. The psychiatrists will deal with them. We want nothing to do with them. The police will deal with criminals. The psychologists will people that don’t like to adopt etc. So we can run society in ‘normal mode’. We can’t tolerate much disorder. So we force order. I have read a definition for service fac (but I don’t have the background theory) that it is a solution to a confusion. It seems to fit here well.
I think all that are not done because a few evil people make them happen. I think it’s done in a democratic manner. People think this and that, and then they act accordingly –as a society too. And I think that’s what happened with Scientology too. It started as something, and it sort of became it’s opposite –but the parishioners agreed with it. I understand that, when I’m told by some Scientologists that OT data are bullshit. Or that it’s good to force ethics onto preclears, because preclears are crazy. They don’t use such exact phrazes, but they imply it. They imply Scientology is bullshit more or less –that it is about making the insane, sane. Still stuck in DMSMH. Scientology seems to have started with full throttle as spirituality. It was about the thetan. Some Dianetics foundations didn’t like that. I take it that other’s didn’t like that either. So there you have it: The Church of Scientology stuck at somewhere around Scientology 0 or 1 or 2 or something. Run pictures, find earlier reasons, gradient gradient….because creative processing was too unreal for people, I guess. I blame the Church for putting ethics. But what are all those people doing seeking advices and guidance all the time in there?
Scientology got outvoted. Long live psycholoentology.
FOTF2012, I don’t doubt that what you describe as your experience did occur, and it makes me shudder to think of it. But it wasn’t that way everywhere, in those decades, and I’m sure you have seen various comments about the positive experiences people had when conditions formulas were applied as the materials stated they were to be.
Your post reminded me of how much of the materials got altered by MU’s, group think, and contagion of aberration – and makes me realize once again that LRH can’t take all the blame for how things evolved. I know you see it differently and I can understand how that could be.
Marty – thank you for this spot on post.
Miraldi
Thank you for saying this. I agree with your statements here.
In my study and application of core ethics, inside the Church as an ethics officer, and outside as a personal tool and a tool to assist others achieve better lives for themselves.
I never bought into the false notion that “the group is all and the individual nothing” and this phrase was specifically stated as an aberration by LRH.
I personally consider that the tool of ethics – stripped of all group oriented think that was later added, and the often abusive policies that were appended to the subject – is at least as valuable as any auditing technology. The two are not really separable, in my view.
To me, ethics is not just something that one uses to “get tech in”. Ethics, or the lack thereof, are the very reason that tech has any value at all. There is no reason for Scientology tech, or any improvement quest at all, unless one is obtaining toward higher levels of survival, the very purpose of ethics, by definition.
That “survival” any kind does not actually place limits on the transcendence of beings to states beyond “survival in this universe” is a possibility, but I find that so far my understanding of the scope of ethics reaches as far as I have been able to conceive, within this universe.
Making the point that the use of “ethics: within the church is totally corrupted to the point where it and actually “black ethics” is certainly valid, but by my view the philosophical concept of ethics is just one step below the “decision to BE”.
Eric
Having followed Marty’s blog for nearly 4 years now, and having read his books, this post seems almost entirely “straw man” to me. It grossly misrepresents where Marty is coming from.
One “small” example is that Marty is reputed to have repaired several pre-OTs messed up by the current Church and has been given excellent reviews by people he has audited.
It would be blindly stupid not to acknowledge those instances where LRH “screwed the pooch” as the saying goes. In fact LRH himself claimed to be Source. If so, then he is the Source of all of it, good and bad.
There is no doubt in my mind that LRH conflated Ethics and Justice in his own actions, for reasons best known to himself. It would be perpetuating a delusion to claim he did not.
I may well have an MU of my own, about “yoga”. I know that many schools of yoga propose “union with God” (or god) as the goal.
Do I dare ask, Is that a desirable goal? What are the ramifications of having that experience of “union”?
My point here is, that was never the goal of Scientology that I know of, although the experience of “Native State” seems to resemble what the yogis describe.
I would also reference the Dalai Lama’s interviews in a little book titled
“The Buddha Nature: Death and Eternal Soul in Buddhism”, for his take on these issues.
As to whether LRH was a “Buddha”, an “awakened one”, I think time and history will tell, whether there will ever be such an agreement about him.
What are the actual parameters of a “Buddha”?
Well said, Yvonne.
Thank you for your input FOTF. It is so true that the lack of real education of Ron regarding other paths, and his self serving invalidation of other practices and proceedures, makes it hard, in my opinion, for new ex Scientologists to conceptualize and feel hopeful that the road is broad with arms wide open.
It is a spiritual crime to booby trap spiritual possibilities and options with sophistry (plausable but fallacious argumentation).
I applaud Marty for doing a yeomans job in bridging that gap. This blog is truly a place for the philosophically minded exes whose belief in self allows for others to know, other paths to be valid.
If any remnants of anything good in Scientology is to be preserved. It will be with these folks. But, boy howdy, there is a lot of baggage.
I believe there is room on this buffet table of spiritual options for a theraputic approach. Ron’s approach was theraputic. For all his hate of psychiatry, he was very much the same.
When ever I read someone bleating about the superiority of Scientology I just have to be patient. I was there once. A long time ago.
“In auditing there is no judgement ? , but ethics judges according to good and bad duality defined by LRH?”
In auditing, and in the normal (non CoS) practice of Scientology, a person is expected to consult their own sense of ethics, not anyone elses. That’s the approach sitting at the core of Scientology – the subject.
This does change, however, if/when one connects up to the organization (i.e. the CoS). Then suddenly the “Justice Codes” (i.e. the “Crimes”, “High Crimes”, “SP Acts”, etc.) are used to keep people in line and control them.
Solution: If you’re going to practice Scientology, stay clear of the organization, and use/form your own sense of ethics.
Mr. Rathbun, I am a Salvation Army officer living in Australia and I’m 33 years old. I recently saw a documentary called “Scientologists at War” and I was particularly interested in your obvious inner wrestling. I am hoping that you personally read these comments because I want to tell you about Jesus. Please don’t just assume I’m a Christian nut-job trying to get you to convert to my religion. I am not. I simply want you to know that there is real peace and joy and pardon offered through Jesus Christ. I’m not talking about religion or church or philosophy… those things and Jesus Christ are often as different as night and day. I’m talking about a personal relationship with the living God. I assume your deepest desire is to fill the void. God has the same the desire for you. If you are interested in conversing further, please contact me at any time. I also have a video blog (mattsgospelshorts.blogspot.com). I promise that I will keep praying for you. May God richly bless you with a yearning heart for the truth.
Matt
Thank you Mark, The feeling is mutual. Thank you for all of your support here to Marty and to the purpose of knowing how to know! XXOO
I think this point is one of the best points to make when talking to Sea Org members or staff that you’re trying to get out. Hubbard wrote that optimum survival means optimum survival on all dynamics, which is not what is happening in the organisation, where you are expected to suppress all desire for your own wellbeing or for a mate. When I was still more active protesting and having the chance to talk to Scientologists, bringing up this point with many people I could literally see those wheels turning by their expression on their faces, before they would regain control over their thoughts.
All true Karen. I think the issue with this is “just cause”. Recent history is littered with fanatics and what they perceive to be a “just cause”. The massacre in Africa being the most recent . From the reports that have unfolded on the Internet “just cause” in David Miscavige’s universe is HIS cause. Still not sure what his cause is considering the results of his internship here on Earth. But I doubt anyone anywhere else is printing up a certificate for him to give him license over anyone’s welfare again. Anywhere.
Human beings stuffed in a trailer living on the desert floor? This was HIS solution to some problem! Human beings licking the bathroom floor as punishment? Ordering his assistant to bend someone’s finger back until it broke? These were all to facilitate his “just causes”.
I predicted it years ago, that one day he will become the most famous anti Hubbard. As most of the hard core fanatics usually do. When he is busted, he will say he was “brainwashed” to explain away all of his choices and actions. I saw the crack appear at the last Texas event, when his lawyers begged the judge to steer Monique to sue the Church of Scientology and take him out of the picture.
As you so aptly put it to me once, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.” David Miscavige and his OSA staff seem to think this is “injustice”. That all of the people all of the time can not be defrauded and mislead. And “just cause” is to destroy them. They have used religion as an excuse and a license to harm attack and suppress.
We are fortunate to live in a society and world, where there are people who will intervene with this madness and steer it off community lines.
I myself got swept up in the “greatest good is really for the church” insanity some years ago. The amount of mental acrobatics one has to do to work that out as a logical path was insane. When it finally settled in me how wrong I was to trust staff and SO personnel to help keep my family stable while I trained to be an auditor at FSO, despite all promises to the contrary, I was a very wrong being indeed. No, the prescribed philosophical balance of “greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics” forwarded by Hubbard, alone the concept of “pan-determinism” (a concept that I really liked) got short shrift when it came to actual application by all ecclesiastical personnel, for their own compliance to whoever was driving them. I experienced an enormous amount of betrayal and the loss of my children.
Marty, you not only hit the nail on the proverbial head on this, you made it possible for those who would care to look, to understand some of the inculcated problems that were always present in experiences we have all had in present day Scientology.
If you have a moment, I would be very interested in seeing your take on the subject of “pan-determinism”.
LOL! “Nutshell”.
I see what you did there…;)
infinite expansion is a stuck flow. Breathing in is important; but no more so than exhaling.
Yes if you understand the use of morality/ethics as something applied to oneself for the benefit of oneself.
When scientologists say “tech” , which procedures or applications fall under that? Or if it is easier to answer what doesn’ t fall under that?
I ask because I want to say that ethics (or sila, anyway) is tech or at least part of the tech. It is one formula that produces a result – not the final goal, but step toward it.
Joy. Peace. Pardon.
Eric; Brilliant post. It validates and expands my view of ethics. My view of ethics, at the bottom, is self discipline, keeping yourself straight. But at the top, it is simply look, know, and do. No additional thoughts, decisions, wrangling with yourself or additional considerations. Perfectly clean and easy.
Thanks, Mark
Thank you for answering my questions Margaret. Although I had to read up on Dualism in Philosphy. But a very toughful response.
I am often quick to respond but not always knowledgable.
Great post Marty now I have stepped of my Spinoza cloud and actually did some reading again LOOKING for myself
I still like the 8 Dynamics, Auditing as a powerfool tool and Gradiënts and Classifications up to a point though. Some of the PABs for Auditors. I am sure there are other helpfull tools developped(Not onley by L Ron Hubbard himself) I like to see how that works out outside of the church.
I do Yogha and I get very flexible from it and it gives peace of mind often afterwards
Great question Valkov. Actually Buddha was a yogi. Buddha was born into the Vedic culture in India. The techniques of meditation were being practiced for at least 1000 years before him.
His incarnation occured during a time when the priestly class, rituals and ceremonies were obscuring the purity of practice.
He basically said,”look you guys, you are missing the point with all of your talk of metaphysics and external rituals. Shut up and meditate. He did not preach about God at all. But he never said that dynamic did not exist.
Regarding his attainment: it was no different than any other liberated sage. He did not discover a “new truth.” But he did upgrade it as Shankara did when Buddhism fell into decline around the 7 century. The misunderstanding of nirvana was connected to that decline. It was interpreted as “non being”, “no existence”. Nirvana is the extinguishing of the ego and it’s false attachment to the body and it’s false identities, not conscious existence. If conscious existence is extinguished, why attain bliss? Who is expereiencing that bliss?
Regarding union: that is also a wonderful question. And here is where Ron is the only one that I know of that did not honor that enevitable state of the spiritual aspirant. His goal was a glorified ego with super powers able to leave bodies at will.
Nivana, God realization, Satori etc. are all terms that mean the same thing: liberation from false identification with bodies and minds. It is the mind that feeds the information that we are bodies. It is the mind that feeds us information that we are the roles we play.
Union is the realization that the basis for being is rooted in the universal: God
Think of it like this: a chess board is separated into individual squares to play the game. But that separation is manufactued to play the game. In actual fact the chess board is only one square. And each of the individual squares are in reality one with the whole board. The separation is for the playing of the game.
It is the same with consiousness. You are there and I am here. But that is only what the mind is saying based on it’s limited understanding of MEST. Being identified with Space, we think it is real. The universe is the chess board separated into individual consious beings, individual objects.
When, through spiritual practice, discipline, study etc. the aspiring student finds these truths within themselves. They can only be verified by actual experience. And every wiseman, sage, wisewomen etc who has travelled that path has testified to the same experience, making it double blinded as far as truth is concerned.
And the attainment of this state also is the state of Total Freedom as defined by Ron
http://wiseoldgoat.com/papers-scientology/hubbard_vs_evolution.html
“Now the Darwinian theory—now, I’ll give you some idea of the influence of false track upon this society. The Darwinian theory, which probably influenced Pavlov to the greatest degree, is just an implant*. That is an implant from man to mud.”
“Now this incident—this incident, now with a wheel dating device which gives you a series of numbers that gives you—gives you the time of these events, shows you being implanted, shows you finished implanting … , shows you being dumped in the sea, and shows you start from the sea and become seaweed and become this—and to work up stage by stage—giving the millions of years which elapse on each step, see? And you go on and on up the line, each step—each step—each step on an evolutionary channel and you run all the way through on these evolutionary channels. … and shows you eventually arriving at the state of being a man.
… some of the incidents of ‘What to Audit’ are actually out of that. Some of the incidents of ‘What to Audit’ are actual, some are out of that Darwinian implant, see?”
“A lot of characters around here got this [implant], most of them become scientists. That actually is the sole foundation of the Darwinian theory. That’s the lot. Evolution: there’s no such thing. Bodies don’t evolve. They deteriorate, but they don’t evolve. You can trace all kinds of reasons how they evolve, and why they evolve, and you can figure it all out, but the truth of the matter is when you get horses on a planet, somebody came along and mocked up some horses! Now, they also mocked up these horses with the capability of growing hair or not growing hair. You’ve got adjustment factors, but not evolution factors. So you confuse the adjustment factors and prove the whole theory of evolution. And now you know man came from mud, and you can write a book like Pavlov and get the whole world poisoned. You see how this one goes?
All of this is based on what? It’s based on errors in time. Errors in time. Because an individual has this incident: It’s a wrong time, wrong place, going wrong the whole way, and it took up two hours and actually looks like it takes up seven million, see? There are such incidents.” LRH
(from Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lecture #287, renumbered 1991: #316 “Errors in Time”, given on 18 July 1963)
It is also important to know, that individual existence is not lost in the attainment of oneness. Just lik a chessboard is one large square and many little ones at the same time. But souls have a choice to play or dissolve. That disolution is the dissolution of ego not consciousness. So a conscious being can attain to Static.
LOOK AT THIS
Oracle, Marty: I’m excited this morning. Will give you the short version. Was writing to Pip and explaining that the whole track incidents that I was seeing were what they are, but my evaluations of their meaning were my opinion.
Then, I looked at it in the other direction. What I was searching for would lead me to particular incidents. Sounds so simple and obvious, eh.
But then I saw it. Any auditing, whether done by another, or Solo will lead you down a particular path and to a particular conclusion, cognition.
The key word here is LEAD.
Now, practically every path that Ron had lead me, after further inspection, has been positive and useful, but I must always retain the right and ability to evaluate every path for myself for it’s rightness for ME. I may choose an occasional wrong path or come to a flawed conclusion, but those errors are absolutely necessary to attaining improvement. In fact, the ability to evaluate my own conclusions, in simplistic words, IS THE END PRODUCT OF ALL OF THIS. The Bridge, The Tao, Tibetan Tech etc.etc.
I must be able to evaluate, instantly, every auditing command, every process, every exercise, every idea I read, right now, in present time for it’s value for me. I can have a hundred major wins in a row, but the very next action is looked at fully in PT with no belief or skepticism that it is right or wrong. That, in itself, is a form of the actual final goal.
This is a MAJOR STABLE DATUM.
Thanks Pip, Oracle, Marty and others. You have all helped more than you know.
It’s going to be a beautiful day.
Mark
I like the word clearing habit scientology instills – Using the dictionary, especially the old ones that will give an idea of the word origin – then meditating on the word – seeing what comes up.
Joy. Peace. Pardon.
What in the above does not equal total freedom?
The bridge to total freedom is to have power over mest. ?
NLP (another great tech shamed out of existence due to founder behavior) would ask: what does power over mest look like?
And Valkov……….. why attain to union? Why is it desirable? Because that state is the very essence of joy! Happiness! Freedom! Benevolent power, Immortality.
There is a saying in Yogic texts, “having which gained, no other gain is greater!”
It is the fulfilment of every desire, the healing of every hurt, the essence of love Itself. We are that Tat Tvam Asi
Life is never looked at the same, when we are all brothers and sisters of the One Life. In that state hurting another for selfish gain is impossible because we see ourselves in them. Then all we want do is serve those in pain, because it is a piece of ourselves hurting.
That state is elegant, dynamic and most relishable.
ALSO
Any, ANY enforced, coerced, pressured agreement with any knowledge or tech, destroys the value of that data for the individual. Never, NEVER agree with anything you come across. You can RECOGNIZE,and KNOW.
Cognite, recognize, realize, decide for yourself, but never agree without your own evaluation. You WILL come to wrong conclusions, make wrong decisions, go astray. But you MUST get things wrong, look back and correct them in order for you to really KNOW FOR YOURSELF.
Having access to your entire existence as knowledge, without having to remember, and being able to use it fully in present time is one major end product of all spiritual tech.
I’ve seen similar ideas from others and said ‘yea, of course, that makes sense’. But right now, today, it fully and completely CLICKED.
But don’t ‘believe’ me. Find out for yourself.
Thank you all, Mark
Well most of the people L Ron Hubbard kicked out seem to value auditing, and it has a powerful basis as given in a lecture of october 1954
OMG, I can’t stop myself lol! This is my favorite prayer:
“Lead us from the unreal to the real, lead us from ignorance to wisdom, lead us from darkness to light and lead us from death to immortality.”
May all beings find happiness! Have a good day all!
Incredible. I cannot help but wonder, WHO in the world could possibly read what Hubbard said there, and honestly believe it? I mean, it is so blatantly absurd only an uneducated child like mind could accept it as being ‘true’.
“….but the truth of the matter is when you get horses on a planet, somebody came along and mocked up some horses!”….Hubbard
Somebody came along and mocked up some horses? and, well, now there are horses on the planet earth? Incredible.
I also wonder if L. Ron Hubbard truthfully or sincerely ‘believed’ that.
To AnotherThought:
Someone once told me verbally that “Pan-determinism is the ability to both sides of chess without cheating.” THIS IS EXACTLY WRONG. This comes from early on the track and is denial of beingness, denial of responsibility. “That’s not me, I didn’t do that.
I wrote a detailed outline of this from my own experience and ‘memory’. Just a couple of pages. It is very basic and not really that complicated. Let me know.
MarkNR@hushmail.com
Yeah SKM,
You’re quite right . We’ll discuus it another day. The next topic already started.
All Creationists sincerely believe that. I imagine that includes Muslims, not to mention many in the Vedic world.
Not to mention those who believe in some form of Intelligent Design. I guess that leaves you guys who think it all happened by chance……
Most Important: Did his flock believe it ? Remember it was a different time back than. It alsoo align with God mocking up everything, but he postulates that any person can do that but we have forgotten our true nature.
Ties in with the Scientology belief system
The proof is in your DNA
I had not enough MASS on it , haha.
Post Laureate: First, sincerely, no personal offense intended.
In reading over the various “Simples” I noted a number of logical fallacies, such as argumentum ad populum; argumentum ad verecundiam; circulus in demonstrando; cum hoc ergo propter hoc; dicto simpliciter; naturalistic fallacy; non sequitur; petitio principii; post hoc ergo propter hoc; and straw man.
So again, I’m not casting stones. All of us, me included are subject to these fallacies and others. Some specific thoughts.
Simple #1: he did the best for us. Maybe. Or maybe to make Scientology persist he felt he had to alter-is. He certainly did alter-is: military record, number of marriages, childhood travels, and much more. Your simple does not capture the whole truth, which — sorry — is more nuanced.
Simple #2: many people have found value. True. True for me in fact. But the same could be said for any religion, any philosophy, and so on. In the end, this is a “so what?” in terms of what a “wog” researcher would challenge a student to rise to. How does the value compare with other methods? How is the value quantified and qualified? How do you judge value when you are expected (read strong peer pressure) to immediately write a success story and share your wins with a group that would be shocked to hear of anything less than a win?
Simple #3: many people took value, moved on, did not get into power struggles or create an insane Sea Org. Again, so what? Many Catholics have moved on, taken good from their experience, and did not get into a power struggle with the papacy or create an insane priesthood. Same could be said of any religion. And as to an insane Sea Org, they don’t need any help in creating insanity.
Simple #4: some beings had the ability to call it like it is. Yeah, fine. But LRH did not make that easy to do.
Simple #4(second #4): ethics is the easiest to duplicate. Au contraire. Ethics was not kept separate from justice. And the education of a Scientologist on the rich and deep subject of ethics is stultifying and pathetic, and that is due to Hubbard’s myopia on the subject. He found a way to alter utilitarianism so that the dice are loaded: Scientology’s needs are always the greatest good in any “ethical” decision that impacts Scientology directly. Even take something like the good old Second Dynamic (sex and family — now redefined apparently by Miscavige to include creativity). Say your heart is torn between two people. One is pro-Scientology. The other is neutral on or even anti-Scientology. What is the _only possible decision_ that your ethics officer will agree is the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics? Or say you do a doubt formula on David Miscavige, and decide that he is in treason, and you decide (liability formula) that you must strike an effective blow against this traitor to Scientology. Will any ethics officer validate or accept your outcomes on the ethics formulas? Or will you immediately find yourself not in ethics, but in justice — sec-checked and declared and disconnected from in short order?
This goes back to why I think Scientology can and should be carefully researched using rigorous modern research methodologies. Otherwise one just looks at the good (and is an apologist) or one looks at just the bad (and demonizes the subject). There are few if any absolutes like that in life. And yes, it is more “complex” to have to look at the full range of experiences in Scientology.
But the fact of it being more complex does not make it wrong to look at complexity if that is the reality of things. In fact, a “simplicity” that not-ises reality gets us all nowhere.
Intended respectfully.
CD, this is an essentially meaningless point! Words are redefined constantly through time. Many words in any English dictionary have 2 or more meanings, and often the most recent meaning is the opposite of an earlier one, or opposite the original derivation. Especially look at the sciences and medicine, words are redefined all the time. New meanings are added, old meanings fall away. It ‘s called “evolution”. It is why you speak Dutch and I speak English, although supposedly he 2 languages have a common ancestor language.
To point at Hubbard and make a big deal of his redefining or adding a new definition to an existing word is just plain silly. People have been doing that forever.
One example – Darwin’s definition of the word “evolution” was his own redefinition of what the word traditionally meant for a long time. So much so that I bet most people in the US still don’t know what he meant by it, and how Darwinian scientists understand it.
He never said that either, in so many words.
Thanks for sharing these realizations! Knowing how to know is a beautiful thing!
“I may choose an occasional wrong path or come to a flawed conclusion, but those errors are absolutely necessary to attaining improvement.”
Yes, it’s all good!
Although bad things were done back in the 1960s and 1970s by some, there was a “division of labor” back then, and most orgs, missions, and field auditors were still delivering the products – auditing, and training of auditors, by the original checksheets.
That is the difference between then and now. Now, those products are no longer being delivered. What is actually being delivered is anybody’s guess.
The “outward facing” agencies, departmebts, or “arms” of scientology’s “government” did do dirty tricks. Most of the staff and public did not. It is no different in, for example, the USA, which has benign agencies like Social Security and Medicare, as well as maleficent ones that engage in various harmful and destructive actions against whoever are seen as “enemies”. It is time-honored model.
I don’t doubt that the Vatican, the Catholic’s version of RTC, through much of its history, commissioned harmful acts but publicly and piously stood above them when they were being committed. Just as Miscavige now would like everyone to think he is “just the ecclesiastical leader” of Scientology and has no knowledge or involvement in any of the dirty tricks.
This is not by way of excusing anyone; I like real-world history and am just noticing parallels.
CD, watcha been smokin’? When I Googled “eugenics in holland” I found nearly 4,000,000 results. Here is a sample:
http://jloughnan.tripod.com/eugenics.htm
I did not look into very many of the results, but they belie what you say. Just the first page of 10 results is enough to get a pretty good idea.
My thetan has DNA? 🙂
What you are missing is that Hubbard is not talking about the genetic line there.
CD you are doing physical “yoga”, right?
I get where you’re coming from, Brian. You do a pretty good “concordance” of various teachings, and I think you see a lot of the truth – as much as words can express.
I do think that a new “language” was needed and LRH attempted to reframe the old insights into modern English. This is necessary. If you are in the USA, the large religious “Christian” population will want to lock you up in a padded room, if you go around talking about “union with God”. Or they will see you as a “blasphemer”. They know with great certainty that Jesus was not of that “lineage” you like to think he was of.
The word God means something very different to them, than it does to you.
In any case, I like top listen to LRH lectures and I often find he has found ways to talk about the same kinds of phenomena you are talking about, using other words, like Native State. That’s a term that does not conflict with or cut across anyone’s pre-existing religious or philosophical biases or stable data. That is one thing that is valuable about Hubbard’s work.
Hey Tony,
I like the Old Testament New Testament idea. Also the whole enchilada
metaphor. Remember this one?
Well done
I am kind of a “scientological theravadist” when it comes to what is th e “tech”. It is what is contained mostly in the earlier lectures about auditing, and perhaps the “red on white” issues about how to audit. Ethics is part of tech, but not as it has been (mis)applied by the organizations, and, evidently, by Hubbard himself. He did not follow his own early principles, which is possibly why he came to a rather bad end.
By analogy, The Tibetan lamas historically allied with the secular authorities to oppress the Tibetan common people. They made serfs of them and abused them in many ways similar to what Miscavige has been doing to Scientologists, or the Kims have been doing in North Korea.
Michael Parenti has his detractors, but he provides the other side of the story here:
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
It looks to me like the lamas did not “wear their hat” regarding disseminating Buddhism and the eventual result was they “pulled in” the Han Chinese colonization.
Here is one counter to Parenti’s article, largely based on Parenti’s slant that Mao and the Han Chinese in any way “liberated” Tibetans. They did not, anymore than Mao “liberated” the people of China as a whole. Mao is well styled the “Butcher of Beijing”. The Han are no better than the lamas were; but the lamas were themselves oppressors in many ways and lived high off the hog as privileged members of that society, just as Miscavige and his cronies do, and using similar justifications.
Matt,
I agree with your invitation to Marty to know Jesus. . Marty, you’ve heard the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus.” Well, it’s true and simple..simply ask and he will answer..it’s really that easy. You may be surprised that he’s been waiting for you all this time….
“Absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds or fanatics” C.J. Keyser
Onley through Hubbard you will be set free