Category Archives: Graduating from Scientology

Effect and Cause

Posted on August 23, 2014 by | 1,007 comments

Aristotelian and Newtonian two-valued, space-time logic  philosophy and science are demonstrated to be essentially of a mind construct basis by developments in quantum mechanics and the related fledgling field of science of consciousness.   Those historical three-dimensional views were popular for a couple thousand years because they proved so workable in taming the wild, creating material comforts, and suppressing and killing competitors for those comforts (fundamental motives driving the evolution of civilization).  Aristotle and Newton were not only worshipped by scientists for centuries, their theories were ruthlessly enforced on society by the predominant Western church as it considered their theories ‘proved’ that an anthropomorphic God was at the center of the universe who set the whole frenzied cosmos in motion.  Having monopolized the communication channels to God, a tremendous continually increasing fortune was at stake in promoting those views.  That binary thinking remains a mainstay of social darwinists today who preach ‘survival of the fittest’ or as Hubbard’s mentor Aleister Crowly put it ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ to justify their rapacity and greed.

This is not to say Aristotle and Newton were not pillars in humankind’s evolution toward greater understanding.  In fact, few compare to their contributions.  It is to say, however, wisdom and understanding like life itself continually evolve.   And that mental and spiritual philosophies grounded in limited logic are to some degree obsolete.  Just as many of Newton’s and Aristotle’s principles are defied and transcended by nuclear and quantum physics (whose breakthroughs at least 70% of our economy is based upon), so are those of the mental and spiritual philosophies based upon  their systems of thought.

In the traditional Cartesian (strict mind vs. matter view, as validated and supported by Aristotelian and Newtonian thought) construct, in the beginning there was a cause and the entire purpose of the cause was the creation of an effect; and we are all more or less the effect of the resultant infinity of cause-effect sequences.   Therapies that promise to wed one or return one to the native, original cause in all this set themselves up for lifetime income from clients/adherents.  Their ‘why traps’ are outfitted with an infinity of divining in the never-ending cause-effect sequences.  It is akin to charging a squirrel for running in a wheel for eternity when modern science has demonstrated that ‘cause’ isn’t any more important than ‘effect’ and that in ultimate reality (read beyond the traditional five animal senses) does not even necessarily precede it.

If this sounds intuitively similar to the ideas you may have experienced in studying Buddhism or the words of Lao Tzu, others have too.   Many have written about that correlation.  The most easy to follow and enjoyable to read for me has been Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics.  Any mind yet somewhat intact after years of adhering to scientology sci-fi mythology as cold, hard reality, still has the potential for seeing through the self-limiting constructs it has been persuaded to abide.  The greatest difficultly with that is getting the person to give ‘the highest purpose in the universe is the creation of an effect’ a rest for a moment. That is followed by the next greatest difficulty which is getting the person to spend a little time learning of the evolution of thought on planet earth.  The Tao of Physics, again, is a great – relatively easy to follow – place to start on that score.  There is not a single generic phenomenon (unpatentable) that Hubbard attempted to monopolize by complicating and masquerading with his inimitable, sci-fi fanasty universe view that is not explained in simple, scientifically-supported terms by Capra.

One last word of advice.  Should absorbing intellect not crippled by compliance to two-value logic prove impossible for the binary thinking scientologist, a primer may be in order.  The End of Suffering by Russell Targ and J.J. Hurtak gives a wonderful introduction to four-valued logic, the real thing Hubbard began to introduce – but ultimately eschewed in scientology – under the heading of ‘infinity logic’.

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Posted in Buddha, Deconstructing Scientology, Fritjof Capra, Graduating from Scientology, healing, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, Scientology, Tao Te Ching, The Tao Of Physics

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Standard Scientology

Posted on August 17, 2014 by | 1,102 comments

Those who obsess on the motivator (object of victimhood attachment) about how David Miscavige is scientology’s problem because he keeps revising scientology are like dogs barking up the wrong tree.  There is a plain fact they are not coming to grips with.  Scientology will forever be altered, revised, re-revised, repackaged, re-organized, and re-compiled.  People on the outside have been at it as hard as scientology organization folk are on the inside.  It is inevitable.  That is not because misunderstood words, the reactive mind or body thetans will forever keep people confused and incapable of applying one-hundred percent scientology standard technology.   Nor will it be because of the unstated (except in confidential upper level secrets), but actually held, scientology belief that humankind can’t get it because humankind is inherently incapable of understanding.  Instead, scientology will continuously be revised because there is no such thing as standard scientology technology.  Like the substance of scientology itself, what constitutes the standard is wholly a subjective matter.

That fact is obvious if one can unlock himself from identifying with L. Ron Hubbard and his work and read the latter dispassionately.  That of course is impossible for those who vow from the outset of their studies – and stick with it all the way through – to the notion that Hubbard is infallible and examination of any comparative data is potentially lethal.  When one who can objectively study scientology does so – particularly when he has tested its methods through extensive practice – something becomes patently clear. That is by conservative estimate more than ninety (90) percent of everything Hubbard wrote and uttered on scientology and dianetics was about how wrong all those who attempted to apply it were.  It is mostly a running stream of consciousness  (albeit held together by a hard core, two-valued logic and persuasively conveyed by a convincing speaker and writer) record of assigning reasons why the promises in the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health were never realized and how they might yet be.   Highlighting that statement is Dianetics’ promise of full memory restoration in 1950 and Hubbard’s last ‘breakthrough’ (OT VIII) – as his 1986 dying declaration – promising to address the reason folk are apparently inherently amnesiacs.

Exacerbating the confusion is that many of the methods Ron educates his followers on as the mechanics intentionally used to control and damage the mind are simultaneously employed by him to do precisely that to his followers.  It is diabolical in that the follower having been educated by Ron on those mental entrapment techniques would then never guess they would be used on the follower.  You wind up with the curious phenomenon of apparently sincere people devoting their lives to vehemently defending their own entrapment.

There is another reason why the obvious is nearly impossible for a scientologist to see.  If there is one skill Hubbard had that perhaps outstripped all others it was his ability to always convincingly sound right while making others wrong.  That skill was exercised as consistently and as uncannily as a falling cat’s ability to land on its feet.  From before the publication of Dianetics, Ron Hubbard proved as immovable as a mountain on being criticized, corrected, or accepting even the most rational of input and advice. Just as consistently, he rained hell on anyone with the temerity to suggest holding his theories up to objective standards.   When he said or wrote something it was communicated convincingly and in an authoritative fashion.  For the next thirty-six years he evolved his subjects by trial and error.  But, the running track of that development was memorialized in a unique voice.  While the track altered and changed everything over and over because of unworkability found with that which was at first communicated as unalterable, absolute fact, the voice of those continuous alterations could admit of no error.  The matter is exacerbated by the fact that it is a ‘research and development’ record based exclusively on subjective standards.   With no objective scrutiny allowed and no accurate, honest assignation of error possible, all manner of erroneous yet authoritative data are driven home just as forcefully as correct ones.

The continuous backfilling that constitutes the bulk of scientology writing and lecturing is apparent in scientology training packs.  The student is not instructed simply on what he should do and why.  Instead, he reads bulletin after bulletin and listens to lecture after lecture of Hubbard talking about how people have misapplied or might misapply what he discovered.   The materials are a patchwork of Hubbard writings and lectures cherry-picked from different periods of time.  They make for a mix chock-full of contradictions.  Without having one’s intellectual honesty compromised by agreeing from the outset that Hubbard is infallible and all of his words are literal Gospel (that which is required in scientology training – along with the requirement to attribute every success to Ron and every failure to pesky humans and their inherent fallibility), all of this would be as obvious as the nose on your face.

Since all scientology courses begin with a warning that if anyone states that anything Hubbard wrote is ‘historical’, ‘background’, or ‘no longer used’ he will be promptly convicted of the crime TREASON, how does one cope with the miasma of contradictions?   Scientology instructors employ a ‘technology’ that has the student convince himself there are no contradictions.  It is so effective that scientology students do not graduate a course until they attest with certitude that everything makes consistent, perfect sense.  The firmness of that idea of certainty is verified by one component of a modern lie detector (the stress testing electropsychometer).  Highlighting this culture of hypocrisy, the cognitive dissonance creating course rooms – which eliminate any questioning, thinking or doubts – are called ‘Academies’ taken from the ancient Greek sites where liberal, critical philosophical thinking was once nurtured.

The net result of all this is that scientology is destined to always incite debate and internecine strife – no matter how enlightened and wise its leadership may be.  There can never be universal consensus on what constitutes ‘standard technology’ given the voice (noted above) scientology is written in and given its inalterable injunctions that that voice may not ever be questioned, interpreted, or clarified.   In a strict organizational setting, the debate goes on inside each individual’s head (until settled by an instilled, arrogant brand of cognitive dissonance) while attempting to keep up, lock-step of course, with management’s latest pronunciamentos on what constitutes ‘standard.’   In an independent setting it is a self-righteous war of words in which nobody can establish a clearly reasoned high ground.  To gain any traction in the debate requires one to progressively retreat further toward adopting Ron’s certain, swaggering and authoritative personality.

That is why bands of scientologists, whether in or out of the official organizations, will always rally around certain, swaggering, authoritative types of personalities – and promptly disperse when that catalyst is removed.   Sadly, but just as certainly, about the closest thing scientologists are going to find to that original L. Ron Hubbard package is David Miscavige.

About the only common denominator all brands of scientology share as something resembling a standard in practice is this: does the guy stay on board and continue paying?  If you have been led to believe that any viable brand of scientology is applying some more enlightened standard you have simply been led to believe yet another lie.  Why do you think that the only allegedly ‘expanding’ independent scientology outfits feature the addition of 47 advanced levels of auditing?  It is like Miscavige inventing the existence of OT Levels IX through XV and beyond, only seven times over.   What you get is power of choice in picking the duration of your addiction.

Those who make a living by trying to convince folks otherwise are profiting by playing on misplaced hopes.  It is a different harmonic of the same game that was played on people within.

There is a silver lining in all this.  In addition to whatever any individual may feel he might have picked up of use along the way in scientology,  there are a couple of assets that probably all scientologists can recognize they possess.  First, they can realize that they were well meaning and trusting to begin with; scientology doesn’t take very well on people without those virtues. Second, they can recognize that they have had the opportunity to hone the latter virtue (trust) by surviving the most intense graduate school of psychological hard knocks.

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Posted in David Miscavige, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, tech, Uncategorized

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Are Scientologists Trained to Lie?

Posted on August 13, 2014 by | 677 comments

Did you ever wonder why scientologists are so comfortable with and accomplished at issuing ‘acceptable truth’ (scientology euphemism for lie)? This may shed some light on the question. For starters, scientologists are taught from the get-go that whatever is true for the individual is true. That datum is presented by L. Ron Hubbard in such wise that usually it is taken as a tremendous validation and empowerment of the reader.  It is so universally accepted as such that it is about the last scientology stable datum a recovering scientologist is willing to question. They find it difficult to reckon that such an idea can ultimately serve as a cement ceiling to any growth beyond wherever scientology might take them.

In fact, it is the first step toward a sort of chronic self-hypnotic state that ultimately automatically converts the scientologist’s subjective world into the objective world.   To a scientologist there is no objective universe, but for the one he or she deigns to be true.*  Over time that subjective reality is thoroughly shaped and molded by the universe view of L. Ron Hubbard. Once fully converted to accepting that wholly subjective, albeit influenced by indoctrination, universe view as objective fact, a hard core scientologist can act rather insanely.  No matter how hard you try to convince him about the existence of an objective fact he will increasingly cling to his ‘reality’ (which after all to him is the only true source of objective fact) no matter how fanciful or insane that reality may be.  Ironically, that is insanity according to Hubbard’s own definition  – unable to sense and perceive that which just about everybody else is able to.

That is one reason why scientology organizations can smugly count on any scientologist in good standing to comfortably commit perjury for scientology and its leaders. Scientologists can and do perform that feat with the greatest aplomb, without the slightest sense of guilt or remorse for doing so.  I have watched lawyers become dumbfounded witnessing scientologists so perform so facilely while under oath.  Those skills are honed in scientology’s ‘Success Through Communication ‘ course that teaches one to comfortably lie as a supposed social necessity.  They are refined in lengthy, arduous witness coaching sessions with scientology legal staff (sessions that are promptly and conveniently forgotten upon command by the scientologist’s cultivated ability to create his own reality).  Connected to legal proceedings or not, the scientologist’s subjective universe view reins so supreme that he can even be unaware that he is lying through his teeth while doing so.

This state of unawareness should not be considered an acquittal for the dishonest scientologist.  That is because every scientologist at some point makes a conscious decision to enter the mindset of permanent self-deception.  It is crossing that line where conscience is consciously overridden in favor of whatever promised fruits await to award faith.  The disease that conversion process nurtures was well described more than two-hundred years ago by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason (describing corrupt priests):

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. 

At some point every scientologist consciously passes that threshold where he begins to preach with utter conviction – and steel-eyed intensity; a trademark of scientology – that which in his heart of hearts he knows not to be objectively true.  But, in keeping with his training and conditioning subjectivity reins and trumps reality.  As Paine notes, that becomes possible only after a lot of corrupting and prostituting of one’s own mind.  Over time as it becomes a group validated and reinforced habit then every other crime becomes justifiable.

The result examined here perhaps highlights most dramatically the fundamental betrayal of the Rogerian client-centered therapy that scientology mimics as its ‘central religious practice’ called auditing.   Carl Rogers was quite clear and evidently sincere when he wrote that the end of intelligently and compassionately applied psychotherapy has been achieved when the client discontinues the practice of lying to himself.

 

*For the metaphysically inclined, this is not to be mistaken with Kantian theories (as paralleled and validated more recently by advanced theoretical physics) that physical matter reality is to some degree potential until sensed, perceived and conceptualized.  The distinction became clear to me while reading of Immanuel Kant. That was an eye opening experience after having listened to L. Ron Hubbard for decades repeatedly denigrate Kant and bemoan how impossible it was to understand Kant. It was also interesting to read that Hubbard’s favorite historian Will Durant observed in The History of Philosophy that philosophers subsequent to Kant who could not understand Kant were lost. Durant made that statement even while leveling scientific criticisms at Kant; criticisms that science has subsequently demonstrated as invalid.  Perhaps this footnote supports the argument that Hubbard was more confused than manipulative in heading down some of the paths he did. That idea would not hold very well if one were to demonstrate a pattern of Hubbard intentionally denigrating those whose work could unlock the methods he employed.

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Posted in Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, healing, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, propaganda

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Back To The Middle

Posted on August 8, 2014 by | 194 comments

I take to heart the comments to my last post accusing me of casting too wide a net on the issue of whether one should trust a person wearing the scientology banner.  To the extent I offended some folks, I apologize.  So as to avoid such offense in the future I also provide here fair warning.  If the last post offended you, the next several probably will too.  If you want positive reinforcement for your faith, you will not find it here; but for possibly in the comments section where scientologists are free to provide their views with everyone else.  There is an evolution afoot that perhaps ought be shared with readers here.

Of late I have been asked by a number of journalists, documentarians and religious experts to explain any legitimate aspects of scientology.  Since the church responded to the revelations of the Truth Rundown series – and its progeny – by bunkering down and going incommunicado with such folks, I have sort of inherited some of their public affairs function by default. In the course of that odd twist of fate one repeated question became increasingly difficult for me to answer: whether I recommend scientology to the public at large.

My answer has evolved with my own experience and thoughts.  Ultimately, my answer is that I would not recommend to anyone that they get involved in scientology.  That is because having thoroughly deconstructed the subject I came to realize that its control and exploitation elements are so thoroughly embedded within the teachings of Hubbard as to make the journey more likely to be on-the-whole negative than positive.

Of course there are some stellar results that have been achieved by application of scientology.   But, those are contingent not only upon the person they are applied to but to a great extent by the instructors’ or counselors’ ability to inspire confidence.  In this context ‘confidence’ can be read almost synonymously with ‘faith.’   If – as in some spiritual and psychotherapeutic practices – that confidence or faith is acknowledged and imbued and nurtured for what it is within the client or supplicant, it more predictably leads toward salutary results.  But, scientology – adhered to as the ism it is – by design leads one in the opposite direction.

The raw statistics of scientology support my conclusion about whether it is worth the price one inevitably must pay for it (not just monetarily). David Miscavige (influenced, of course, by Hubbard advices on the subject) used to repeat ad nauseam to his public relations people whenever the media brought up a scientology abuse that they were to say words to the effect, ‘for every one who complains, I can bring you one thousand scientologists who swear by it.’  Having dispassionately ball-parked the numbers through thirty-five years of involvement with the subject,  I would say the truth is more on the order of for every one considering she was damaged from her experience  with scientology, scientology could probably match it with a die-hard true believer extolling its virtues.  Certainly, greater than 90% of people who have taken several courses or intensives (12 ½ hours each) of auditing in scientology have disconnected from scientology as an organization and membership body completely.   What percentage of them thought the good outweighed the bad or vice versa is anybody’s guess.  Given the extraordinary efforts scientology engages in to keep members aboard, and the draconian punishments it metes out upon any member or former member raising doubts or reservations, my guess is that the latter far outnumber the former.  Less than one thousand former members give much attention to on-line forums, blogs and other networks involving scientology at any given time.

By the numbers, it is apparent that scientologists are led to believe they and their subject are a lot more important than they in fact are to the world at large.

When I weigh that objective look against what scientology produces, both inside the official organizations and without, and with what I know about the depth of the embedded control and exploitation implantation within scientology, on balance I cannot with good conscious recommend it as a high percentage bet for anybody.

I have devoted the better part of six years to attempting to help the subject survive by elimination of its negative elements.  I concede that the experiment was a failure.  As much as independent scientologists accuse the organization (RTC , CSI, et al) of operating on judgmentalism, arrogance, utiltarianism over conscience, form over substance, and Hubbard-revisionism dressed up as Hubbard-literalism I have found all those shortcomings just as prevalent in the independent field as in the organizations. I hold no rancor for such folks – inside or out – to the extent they stay out of the grills of people who ask them to.  A dispassionate study traces those self-defeating qualities as stemming from Hubbard and his scientology works themselves.

I have found efforts over the past year and one half to help people graduate from the subject to not be very popular nor worth the effort that goes into doing so.  While some of what I have already worked on along that line may appear from time to time on this blog, the focus will veer more toward speaking to the general public – as opposed to the formers, the antis, and indies.  The blog continues to serve as a chronicle of my own journey guided by my conscience – for whatever that is worth – and you can expect it to tend toward speaking to the increasing percentage of audience who are unfamiliar with the subject.  It may well even tend toward unrelated subjects.  There are plenty other forums where positive reinforcement of existing anti, pro, indie, and ex scientology views can be had.  I hope for all of you that at some point in the not too distant future you will find your own comfortable, fulfilling middle path.

If you like that, you will probably love this:

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Posted in David Miscavige, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, Uncategorized

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Why Scientologists Cannot Be Trusted

Posted on August 2, 2014 by | 436 comments

Max Hauri is the head of the only reportedly growing independent scientology operation in the world. It goes by the name of Ron’s Org.  That apparently stands for ‘L. Ron Hubbard’s organization.’

Max recently sent out via mass e-mail one of his secrets taken from Ron himself on how he manages to keep the faithful on board.  Here is the piece he e-mailed in full:

“No, a Scientologist—an auditor can pay the debt. A Clear can never pay the debt. A person who is just Clear and can t audit could never pay the debt.”

________________

A Scientologist can pay a Scientologist: he can co-audit with him. Sometimes Scientologists get known for paying their debts. And they owe every tradesman everyplace and they owe bills all over the place, and every finance company is ringing them up on the phone, but they are known amongst Scientologists for paying their debts. When you audit them, they give you some auditing in return. You get the idea? That’s the idea of a Scientologist’s debt. And nobody gets in trouble faster than somebody who has received fifteen hours of auditing and now it’s your turn and he never turns up for the appointment or he never makes it possible. People aren’t quite aware of why they start curling a lip at this auditor, you know, and saying, “Well, he should have some more training, really, you know. He needs to be shoved back into it again.” No, a Scientologist—an auditor can pay the debt. A Clear can never pay the debt. A person who is just Clear and can’t audit could never pay the debt.

Now, because he is sensible of being somewhat overwhelmed by the auditor, in terms of having more done for him than he could ever do back, his mood could vary. And it’s only fair that a Clear would be permitted to pay it back, one way or the other, on the auditor’s terms. So whatever he paid you in cash—which didn’t pay for it—you can always ask him, “Well, now you owe me a favor.” You know, something on this order and just let it stand. Or he can pay you back. He can go out and make the society more decent to live in.

That’s a sensible way of that. But he’d have to become an auditor to do it. You get the idea?

Now, it’s true that individuals who engage in the marts of trade, in better condition, people who are handling political spheres of one kind of another have their uses. And in such a case where somebody is in such an area, you can ask to be paid back, not a favor in that area, which is a finite favor of, “Get this piece of paper stamped for me,” or something like that, but it’d have to be a fairly large favor, or this fellow ever afterwards is enslaved to some degree.

And if you ever audited somebody like a prime minister or president, or something like that, why, people over at the Treasury keep trying to write you out checks for astronomical sums that couldn’t be added up down at the Greenwich Observatory, so forth, say, “Well, what are you trying to do, pay for the auditing? Ho-ho. Boy, aren’t you ambitious! Oh, well, send it down to my bank manager. He’ll know what to do with it, I suppose. Now we’ll talk about paying for the auditing. You owe me a favor.” And it’d be a favor something like, well, govern the empire well, or something like that. See, it’d have to be in those terms of human relationships. And that’s about the only way a fellow could get paid.

L. RON HUBBARD, Founder

5th London ACC: The Skill of an Auditor, Part I, 11 November 1958

I noted in a post last year how L. Ron Hubbard corrupted the Rogerian client-centered therapy he borrowed from without credit.  The first corruption was the requirement that the client had to be a member in order to gain from the experience (see On Becoming A Person).  With membership comes a lot of control mechanisms that are antithetical to the self-actualization scientology sells the promise of attaining.  (see Identification and Membership).  Something that I never explained about these corruptions is explained very eloquently by Hubbard himself in the passage above.   That is with membership – even after paying exorbitant fees for scientology counseling – comes a continuing obligation.   Or as Hubbard more bluntly puts it ‘a debt’.

I have written before on how the church of scientology uses those created debts by application of dozens more Hubbard policies on how to dominate society and shudder into silence and weakness those who scientology has abused and who then complain.  Office of Special Affairs (OSA, Church of Scientology International’s – CSI’s – intelligence, dirty tricks and propaganda agency) has maintained, expanded and used a massive data base called the ‘power comm lines data base.’  It is continuously fed information culled from ethics files, auditing files, and various reports on communication lines scientology discovers its members maintain.   So when trouble brews in an area for scientology, the data base is consulted and the scientologist who the data base denotes as knowing people who might be influential in the matter are deployed to ‘repay the debt’ Ron refers to in the reference above.  And the scientologist invariably does whatever favor is asked, for not to would be to subject oneself to what Ron describes as “or this fellow ever afterwards is enslaved to some degree.”

With scientology’s dwindling membership, and growing reserves, a lot of this type of activity is more directly simply paid for.  See for example Corporate Scientology Mercenary,  Scientology Inc.’s Lobbying Machine, , Scientology Inc’s Secular Invasion of Washington D.C., David Miscavige The Cheater, Monique Rathbun vs David Miscavige By the Numbers.  But, the scientologists’ communication lines are still constantly being combed and utilized.  The smiley, laser-intentioned scientology celebrities are some of the most chronic and blatant – and destructive of justice and social order – offending operatives.

I am not suggesting that Max and Ron’s Org are going to these lengths.  But, certainly Max and Ron’s Org are running a cult that impresses upon its members a firm belief that they are forever in Ron’s (via Ron’s Org’s) debt.  The moment a continuing debt is entered into the psychotherapy equation, it leaves the realm of therapy and enters the zone of mind control.  Nonetheless, I thank Max for passing along his secrets of success from Ron Hubbard.  It has opened my eyes to the fact that apparently scientology can only survive when it creates members who believe they are forever in debt – and thus become never-ending sources of income and deployable agents against societal interests as they might impact scientology.

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Posted in David Miscavige, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, independents, l. ron hubbard, monique rathbun, office of special affairs, policy, politics, Scientology, tech, Uncategorized

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Scientology: A Monotheistic Religion

Posted on July 23, 2014 by | 664 comments

Apparently, only one of the four traditional biblical Gospels relates inarguably that Jesus Christ was God temporarily visiting earth.  The book of Luke could and has been interpreted to say that Jesus was an extraordinary man who ascended – or was ascended – from humble beginnings to develop the message that humankind has found so inspiring for 2000 years.  Only the Gospel popularly known as that related by John was definitive about Jesus’ other-worldly provenance.  As noted by religious scholar and bestselling author Elaine Pagels in her book Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas:

“Unlike Luke, who depicts Jesus as a man raised to divine status, John, as does the hymn Paul quotes, pictures him instead as a divine being who descended to earth – temporarily – to take on human form.”

Of course it is understood that all of the Gospels were written up to a century after Jesus strode the earth, all reporting their own interpretations of words Jesus purportedly spoke and deeds he had carried out long before.  In the past one-hundred and twenty years, more significant purported Gospels have been discovered – including those of Thomas and Mary Magdalene.  Those discoveries have added to the rich diversity of opinions, interpretations, and faiths of Christianity.  That includes the idea that Jesus communicated that every human potentially had within themselves the same abilities and divinity as Jesus.

In scientology no such plurality of interpretation is open to the worshipper.   That is because scientology’s messiah made it clear himself on more than one occasion that he did not ascend from humble beginnings, or any earthly beginnings at all, to develop a message with which to lift humanity.  Instead, scientology’s author L. Ron Hubbard explicitly stated that he descended to earth in human form in order to deliver its people from evil. He was so dead serious about being taken literally – and not interpreted – that he instituted penalties for any interpretation of his words whatsoever that were tantamount to permanent spiritual death.  And if that did not shut up the purveyors of interpretations, such heretics were to be mercilessly harassed to the point of personal and familial ruin. He created a corporate structure which directed hundreds of millions of dollars toward etching his words on stainless steel plates, sealing them in titanium capsules and placing them in vaults in deep veins of granite so that those words could never be altered.

One example of those sacred words comes from Ron’s Journal 1968:

“And please for my sake, don’t forget one thing, I am your friend. I am not from this planet. I am trying to do my best to do a job to bring tolerance and humanity to this planet in a very materialistic and often cruel age.”

That was the same year that Hubbard delivered scientology’s most sacred, secret and advanced liturgy – the Class VIII Course. On the course ‘deans of scientology’ were created by learning from Hubbard that humankind could not be brought to ‘respond to reason.’   That is why he commanded the scientology deans that  “You are the people the planet obeys. You are the people who own the planet.”  Whether any dean of scientology – or the group collectively – ever lived up to those dictates, two things remain scripturally clear (and will remain so apparently forever) from Hubbard’s apex year of discovery.  Those are, a) there is only one God in scientology, and b) the adherent will believe it because that God has commanded that it will never be appreciated by appeal to reason.

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Posted in Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Scientology

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Clear and Beyond

Posted on July 10, 2014 by | 688 comments

The lower level scientology program up to the state of Clear is a directed form of client-centered psychotherapy.  One doctor fully trained in both client-centered therapy and scientology has astutely written that ‘directed client-centered therapy’ is an apparent oxymoron.  That may in fact be a critical entry point for the bipolar quality that seems embedded throughout scientology.  Nonetheless, the description of the end product of the scientology lower levels is nearly identical to that described as the self-actualization end product of client-centered therapy.

When a person reaches the Clear state – resembling common notions of self-actualization – he is indoctrinated into the secrets of the universe.  Fully grasping those secrets requires the adoption of a form of multiple personality disorder.  Incidentally, and not the impetus for this observation, modern mental health recognizes that certain psychotherapeutic practices can serve as a causation factor for mpd. Scientology secrets inform the individual that in fact he is not an individual at all.  Instead he is a ‘composite being’, consisting of a potential infinity of separate, distinct individuals.   Each individual member of the composite has quadrillions of years of its own experiential history that it brings to the dizzy equation.   Extraordinary, and expensive to the seeker, measures are employed to ensure the scientologist believes this universe view with utter certitude. For several tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars the advanced scientologist is invited to address and release each of his or her parasite personalities.  The process entails hundreds or thousands of individual sessions.  The process takes many years.  The individual completes this penultimate scientology advanced level when there are apparently no more personalities left but his own.

The scientologist then pays another ten to twenty thousand dollars for the privilege of determining which of the lifetimes of those now allegedly departed parasite personalities he mistook for his own.  That is what L. Ron Hubbard left behind as his legacy.

However, after completing that final scientology level himself Hubbard went back to chasing down more of what he apparently found to be an endless hoard of demonic, parasitic personalities that he continued to harbor.  Frustrated, he attempted to finally rid himself of the demons in one fell swoop and kill himself in the bargain through the application of electric shock.  He dismally failed in the assisted attempt on his own life.  Whether or not that attempt was the cause, at about the same time as his suicide mission Hubbard sustained a debilitating stroke.  He was reduced to asking others whether they could hunt down his own parasitic demons personalities for him. (see Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior)

Since Hubbard’s 1986 death scientology authorities have taken to having advanced members who have completed the full scientology program but who are still unsatisfied re-do the entire scientology program from the bottom up.  The believer is given to understand that the source of his dissatisfaction is some misapplication of scientology along the way.

For the dedicated member of this monotheistic religion that repeatedly promotes that when in doubt one should ‘do as Ron (L. Ron Hubbard) would do’, there should be little surprise that often one does not experience a happy ending.

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Posted in Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, healing, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, ot 8, policy, tech, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Myth, Mysticism and Insight

Posted on May 15, 2014 by | 395 comments

 

In The Tao Of Physics, Fritjof Capra makes some interesting observations on the subject of myth in mysticism and what those of insight come to understand about such.   I had as much in mind when I wrote of constructs in the book ‘What Is Wrong With Scientology?’,  but clearly did not articulate it nearly as well.

“Indian mysticism, and Hinduism in particular, clothes its statements in the form of myths, using metaphors and symbols, poetic images, similes and allegories.  Mythical language is much less restricted by logic and common sense. It is full of magic and paradoxical situations, rich in suggestive images and never precise, and can thus convey the way in which mystics experience reality much better than factual language.  According to Ananda Coomaraswamy, ‘myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.’

“The rich Indian imagination has created a vast number of gods and goddesses whose incarnations and exploits are the subject of fantastic tales, collected in epics of huge dimensions.  The Hindu with deep insight knows that all these gods are creations of the mind, mythical images representing the many faces of reality. On the other hand, he or she also knows that they were not merely created to make the stories more attractive, but are essential vehicles to convey the doctrines of a philosophy rooted in mystical experience.”

If there is truth to this, what does one make of the understandings or motivations of those who insist upon literal conceptualizations of imaginative religious mythology?   Are they of deep insight themselves?  Are they actively preventing others from developing or attaining deep insight?   You might have experienced some of the cognitive dissonance (or analytical and/or intuitive enturbulance) that is concomitant with inculcation of fantastic mythologies, not as part of an acknowledged ‘mystical experience’ but instead as cold, hard, unquestionable fact.  Or perhaps you are comfortable with the security that comes with faith and belief in mythology.

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Posted in acknowledgments, black dianetics, Deconstructing Scientology, Fritjof Capra, Graduating from Scientology, healing, Hinduism, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, Scientology, tech, The Tao Of Physics, training, Uncategorized, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Causation

Posted on April 13, 2014 by | 303 comments

 

 

hold-the-sun

Here is a passage from the Tao that appears at a critical juncture in my in-progress book.  I have also referred to it in previous posts.

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises all by itself?

Review where your important cognitions, realizations, or problem solutions come from.  Do you create them?  Or do you let go sufficiently so that you may perceive them as they arrive all on their own?  Are you the author of something brand new to the universe?  Or do you open yourself up to see something that was already there?  Do the brilliant ideas come when you extrovert sufficiently from self and self- importance to make way for them?  Or do they come when you are undisturbed – or encouraged – to gather your true master-of-the-universe bearing sufficient to birth another masterpiece?

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Posted in Casablanca, Graduating from Scientology, healing, Integral Theory, Tao Te Ching, Uncategorized

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Scientology and Presentiment

Posted on April 4, 2014 by | 460 comments

 

human-presentiment

More than thirty years of research has demonstrated rather conclusively that the average human being when connected to a galvanic skin response detection device (generic name for a Hubbard Electro-psychometer) routinely registers presentiment of about five seconds.  That is,  the meter reads on average 5 second prior to the subject being provided with a concept to respond to.  This research has been performed on people taken off the street, with no previous psychic or spiritual training or study.  It has been conducted applying exacting scientific standards.

What do you reckon the implications of these findings are to someone who has received hundreds of hours of standard Scientology auditing?   That is, a process in which the practitioner is only permitted to address those concepts or incidents that react on the meter only at the precise end of the major thought as expressed in words by the auditor. 

 A few books off the top of my head where the referred to research is discussed:

The Field by Linda McTaggart

The Intention Experiment by Linda McTaggart

The End of Suffering by Russell Targ and J.J. Hurtak

Entangled Minds by Dean Radin

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Posted in Casablanca, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, healing, Integral Theory, philosophy, Scientology, the future

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