references:
By now, some Scientologists might have suspected that I am setting the stage to redirect them from following L. Ron Hubbard to following David R. Hawkins. In fact, while my third recommended reading assignment is Hawkins’ Power vs. Force, I would suggest to people at the outset not to latch onto Hawkins as they once latched onto Hubbard.
While Hawkins simply and eloquently describes states of consciousness above and beyond those contemplated in scientology (i.e. non-duality) a study of his arc of evolution finds him paralleling Hubbard in certain limiting senses. Both found workability in utilizing simple true/false detectors of energy connected with thought. Hubbard’s of course was the e-meter. Hawkins’ was the use of applied kinesiology. Both chartered and described the realms of higher states of awareness and consciousness discoverable by disciplined utilization of those thought-energy tools. On the other hand, both became so enamored with the efficacy of their tools that they lost the plot. First, by buying into the infallibility of their chosen mechanics, they in some ways dragged spirit/life down to the mechanics they used to explore it. Second, by overvaluing the adoration that the workability of their paths engendered, they succumbed to the seduction of guru status and the debilitating judgmentalism such positions breed. In a word, both ultimately eschewed the aforementioned lesson of the Tao that permitted them to discover what made them so popular in the first place. Power vs. Force is a very good read because it betrays little of those ultimate Hawkins failings – aside from the absolutist terms with which he promotes kinesiology.
A signal, critical difference between Hubbard and Hawkins is that the former attempted to force the world to accept his ideas and created a slave cult to accomplish that. Hubbard sought to command whereas Hawkins sought to teach.
Hawkins is recommended as a good first exercise in comparing scientology to data of comparable magnitude. You are likely to see independent validations of some core scientology principles and practices. You are also liable to begin to see the limitations of one’s scientology-controlled thinking. Power vs. Force can at once reinforce what of value one may have gotten from his scientology experience while piquing interest in other potential horizons beyond it. The latter are written about in a modern, mysticism-free manner in Power vs Force.
Another important distinction between Hubbard and Hawkins that makes study of the latter worthwhile for the scientologist is that Hawkins recognized – as does the traditional eastern wisdom I repeatedly suggest people devote some study to – the crippling effects of clinging to personal identity; ego. Power vs. Force also recognizes the value of graduating from constructs, as summarized here:
In overview, we can see that from time immemorial, man has tried to make sense of the enormous complexity and frequent unpredictability of human behavior. A multitude of systems has been constructed to try to make that which is incomprehensible comprehensible. To ‘make sense’ has ordinarily meant to be definable in terms that are linear – logical and rational. But the process, and therefore the experience, of life itself, is organic – that is to say, nonlinear by definition. This is the source of man’s inescapable intellectual frustration.
It is a lesson lost by many who have attempted to bottle and market the magical animation agent called ‘life.’ The most famous warning about that trap was summed up in one now-famous saying by Hubbard’s perhaps most important influence, General Semantics founder Alfred Korzybski, ‘the map is not the territory.’ Eastern wisdom has been communicating that in various ways for millennia. More recently, advanced theoretical physics is validating it as demonstrable. It is my observation that Scientology, applied exclusively as it requires itself to be applied, not only confuses the map for the territory, it has a tendency to convert the territory into the map in the follower’s mind.
In this book I am sharing my own journey toward recognition of the difference between map and territory and how I believe that that recognition can lead to broader spiritual horizons. I am fully cognizant of the fact that there are many people who are more intelligent or more spiritually attuned than me. What I see that I have to contribute to the mix is not necessarily wisdom or enlightenment, but instead the willingness to explore and communicate what a lot of Scientologists and former Scientologists have intuited but haven’t been willing or able to follow through with overtly. Therefore, it is quite likely that at various points along the line you might find my assistance has served its purpose and lose interest in continuing to follow this particular trail of exploration. It is after all only a map thus has served its purpose once someone is out of the ditch and heading in the direction he wants to go.
I think it is possible that by simply reading and contemplating the three recommendations that I have made in this introduction any individual is capable of graduating from Scientology in a positive sense. That is, recognizing its map/construct nature, what one attained from it, and where one might turn to expand on whatever level of consciousness or awareness he or she got from it. It might also occur at any given later juncture along the away. The sooner one finds that point of departure – hopefully with a fresh, curious outlook – the better as far as I am concerned.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 