Category Archives: Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior

The ‘Truth’ Rundown

Posted on October 3, 2013 by | 314 comments

The ‘Truth Rundown’ has made the news recently.  It seems it was utilized by David Miscavige in an attempt to control the mind and communication of Leah Remini.  

Some may recall that the St Petersburg Times (now, Tampa Times) groundbreaking series in June 2009 was entitled “The Truth Rundown.”   I believe that David Miscavige was the unwitting author of that title.

After the church of Scientology was informed about the facts that I disclosed to the Times, the Times was assaulted with ‘wheelbarrows’ of material extracted from my preclear and ethics files from the church.   One item piqued the curiosity of the reporters.  It was an ‘apology’ I had written to David Miscavige in 1994.  Someone might be able to find it on the Tampa Times website – it was once posted there, and was published in the original series, but I could not find it.

I explained that it was the ‘end phenomena’ of the Truth Rundown.   The Truth Rundown is not over until such a written apology is extracted from the person being subjected to the rundown.  And that is by order, and policy, of L. Ron Hubbard.   That that is the end phenomena is evident from my ‘apology’ to Miscavige.  If you find it, you can see that that is the end phenomena by my words in  the very first paragraph.  After dozens of hours of being interrogated I report that the interrogator found no ‘black PR’ (negative propaganda) had been harbored or spread by me about Miscavige.  Nonetheless, I was required to write the ‘apology’ in order to terminate the seemingly unending interrogations.  As you can see in the ‘apology’ itself, I used a little creativity in order to achieve the ‘end phenomena.’

ORIGIN OF THE RUNDOWN

When Hubbard was on the lam from lawsuits and grand juries in the early 80’s, he was flooding the Int Base (Scientology’s 500 acre compound near Hemet, California) with floods of orders to prepare for his return.  For a complete account of that era, read Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior.

Part of the orders to the Int Base included ensuring the several hundred personnel there were completely loyal to Hubbard, for security purposes.   All manner of security checking broke out in response.  That is, forced interrogations on the e-meter (a single component of a lie detector) testing the single-minded trustworthiness of adherents to Hubbard.

In the course of the mass security checking it was discovered that a long-term Sea Org member at the base had made a comment that he felt the technical training films directed by Hubbard were amateur in quality.  Of course, any intelligent person who has seen those original films would probably agree that this comment pretty well aligned with the truth.   David Miscavige certainly fit that category.  After all, he wound up spending on the order of one hundred million dollars to upgrade those films to ‘professional standards’ once Hubbard died.

But, Miscavige – and the rest of the Int Base staff – was more accomplished at keeping his true thoughts in order, and at the Int Base that means suppressed.    Miscavige, led the chorus of Int Base executives who were outraged that such black propaganda – that the films were amateur – was being spread about the Int Base.  When Hubbard received the reports, he responded with the terminated handling.  That would be the exact procedure for what would become packaged, marketed and delivered as ‘The Truth Rundown.’

BRAINWASHING

Here is the truth rundown in my own words:

  1.   Security check a subject until you find a thought that is negative – by Miscavige’s definition – that is harbored by the individual toward someone of importance in Scientology.
  2.   Ask, ‘just prior to having that thought, did you commit an overt (a harmful act)’?
  3.  Then do the full security checking procedure – which includes forced, complete confession.
  4.   Then interrogate for an ‘evil purpose’ that prompted the overt in the first place.
  5.   When you’ve done this procedure for some time the individual finally comes to some level of realization and is happy for having completed that auditing procedure and that his ‘negative’ thoughts are prompted by deep, inherent evil intentions that have been implanted into him millions of years ago.
  6. Continue this process for as long as it takes for the recipient to originate something kind about the person he is being interrogated about.  That is, after being forced to introvert on one’s own shortcomings for up to hundreds of hours, somewhere along the line the person recognizes the objective is to make him feel remorseful for having harbored less than kind thoughts about the person in question.
  7. The subject originates – or more than likely is prompted to – to ‘apologize’ to the person he harbored a less than kind thought about.

In my two decades of experience in administering and being subjected to the Truth Rundown, more often than not I observed it being used not to establish truth at all.  Instead, it was used to enforce trusthworthiness and loyalty to the liking of the higher-up the subject had an unkind thought toward.   Generally, what occurs is the subject becomes contrite and forgets what he thought of or objected to in the first place and rejoins the group as an enthusiastic member of the Stepford (or Truman Show) culture.

Is ‘brainwashing’ too harsh of a label for this?

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Posted in black dianetics, cover up, David Miscavige, ethics, int base, l. ron hubbard, Leah Remini, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, policy, propaganda, Scientology, tech

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Emotions IV: The Top Of The Tone Scale

Posted on September 6, 2013 by | 384 comments

references:

Real Emotions

Emotions II: Play Acting Scientologists

Emotions III: The Tone Scale

Some Scientologists unaffiliated with the church clearly believe Ron Hubbard had everything completely taped with no need and no room for additional thought or discussion.  They certainly have a First Amendment right to assert their firmly held religious beliefs concerning the only way to proceed along the only road to total freedom; provided they do not commit civil or criminal wrongs while doing so.   By the same guaranteed freedom, I can continue to attempt to free captive minds caught in suspended cognitive dissonance.

Some have posited that the Tone Scale in Full referred to in the posts here about emotions refers to ‘tones’ which don’t qualify as emotions because they occur only with spirits who have transcended bodies, or are experienced by spirits independent of any other physiological phenomena connected with emotions as understood by the rest of the civilized world.  By the way, that assertion is made notwithstanding the fact Hubbard’s last words on the subject were those written in his Tone Scale film script.  In that work he had actors, in bodies, depict (with their bodies) all of those vaunted alleged out-of-body tones.  In either event,  these states are normally associated with the highest levels of consciousness attainment in Scientology.

As religion is religion because it deals with, among other perhaps less important matters, life and death and ultimate concerns, should not the life and death of the author of whose words may not be discussed or questioned be of some relevance?  Scientology demands as much by clothing itself with scientifically guaranteed claims, while adhering to institutional policy that requires the personal destruction of anyone who might attempt to objectively discuss or weigh those claims. By his own firm policy, which has resulted in the destruction of scores of relationships and careers of the curious over decades, Ron demands that the only proofs of Scientology be purely subjective.  That leaves the only available objective measure of workability to be the examination of the lives and conduct of those making subjective claims about the product of the subject.

I am interested in hearing from adherents their take, particularly as it relates to the application of the Tone Scale and emotion as they interpret it, to the ultimate emotional state or tone or consciousness state of Ron.  I have included a passage of a discussion I had with Steve ‘Sarge’ Pfauth – a very dear and loyal friend to L. Ron Hubbard to this day – about Ron’s ultimate states of emotion or tone or consciousness.   I have fully discussed – in an in-depth context – my views about it in my book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior.  Let’s hear yours.

From Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior:

Sarge (Steve Pfauth):  So, anyway, he (L. Ron Hubbard) wanted to see me.  So I went into the Bluebird and sat down.  And he sat across from me and he said, “Sarge,”…boy I wish I had written it all down because I don’t want to goof it up, because this is kind of important.  Basically he said, “Sarge, I need you to do something.”  He wanted me to build him a machine that would get rid of the bts [body thetans] and kill the body.

Mark (“Marty” Rathbun): Wow.

Sarge: Yeah.  It’s kind of heavy.  It struck me real hard.  He told me a few things.  He said, “Yeah, I’ve done all I can do here and I’m just… I’m not coming back. I’m leaving and I am not coming back.”  He wanted to die, basically.  You know, his body was going to hell and all that stuff.  He was having trouble with bts.

Mark: And you say that was in late ʼ85?

Sarge: Yeah.  Fall of ʼ85.  Yeah, it was right around October.

Mark: Like three months before he died.

Sarge: Yeah, like three or four months.  So, I didn’t want to do it. But I didn’t tell him that.  And I was hoping I could talk to Pat because Annie insisted that I build the machine.  And I said, “Annie, I don’t know that much about building machines that fry people, you know what I mean?”

Mark: Well, did he describe how it should be done?

Sarge: Basically, he wanted to hook it up to the e-meter.  And he wanted enough voltage in there that it would get rid of the bts.  And I asked him about voltages and I asked him some questions…it was so long ago. And, uh, well, I gotta tell ya, it upset me a lot.

Mark: I bet.  So, the idea was that you’d be holding the cans…

Sarge:  Turn the thing on and then, in other words, he was gonna audit the bts away and the body was gonna die.

Mark:  Right. So there would be enough voltage to kill the body?

Sarge:  To do it all.  How he figured I was going to figure that out, I have no idea…

… Sarge:  Yeah.  Earlier on I cooked for LRH.  He thought I was a good cook.  And then he got sick.  Anyway, what happened was I was very upset.  So I got pissy-ass drunk and Annie found me about four o’clock in the morning with beer cans all over the green truck, out at the racetrack.  I had passed out on the seat.  And she was screaming at me, “Oh, you son of a bitch!” Oh man, she laid into me.  And I said, “All right, Annie,” and my head was hurting.  But I was upset, I was very upset.  I was crying and everything.  That was a rough time. Very rough.  Uh, so anyway, then days went by, okay?  And Annie kept saying, “He wants to know about the machine, he wants to know about the machine. What are you doing on the machine?”  Annie says, “If you don’t do anything on this Sarge, he’s going to get the local electrician to build one for him.”  Can you picture that?

Mark: Wow.  That would have been a…

Sarge: I said “No way, man.”  So I had to show some progress. So I went to an electronics place in San Luis Obispo and I bought some Tesla coils and some up-transformer things and I got all sorts of things. I basically built him a battery-operated automotive coil type thing.  This is my reasoning now, Marty.  If he gets zapped by that sucker, it’s gonna shock him but it ain’t gonna kill him.  Okay?

Mark: Okay.

Sarge: It’ll shock him but it ain’t gonna kill him.  It’ll scare him and he won’t want to do it again.

Mark: These are like 12-volt batteries?

Sarge: Yeah.  But the voltage is going to go way up on a transformer.  It’s like an automotive coil sort of thing.

Mark:  So your thought, what you understand is that he is not going to get…

Sarge: I’m not frying him!

Mark: Exactly.  I gotcha.

Sarge:  I didn’t want anything that is going to plug into the wall.  I didn’t want to fry him, but I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t want to fry him.  You know what I mean?

Mark: Yeah, I think about what you are saying right now, and I try to put myself into your position and I…

Sarge:  It was very difficult.  I didn’t want to kill the old man.  So anyway, he used the thing and he fried up my Mark VI [e-meter].  I had a Mark VI that got fried.

Mark:  He used it?

Sarge:  Yeah.

Mark:  LRH actually used it?

Sarge:  Yeah, it was my Mark VI, yeah.  And it fried the Mark VI.  I knew that was going to happen.  Fried it.

Mark:  You mean he actually tried…

Sarge:  Oh, yeah. It had burn marks on it and everything.

Mark:  He didn’t get burnt?

Sarge: He may have.  But after that there was no more mention of any machines.  And that was my intention.  That was my intention.

Mark:  He probably got a good, hard jolt.

Sarge:  I think it scared him, or something.

Mark:  And it burned the plastic?

Sarge:  It was burnt.  It was fried.  The insides were gone.  Because, you know, those things are like a computer.  You can’t put that much power into them without zapping them…I do think people need to know. I just wish at the time when I first blew that I would have written it all down.  But I carried it because I had no terminals [people to talk to].

384 Comments

Posted in black dianetics, cover up, David Miscavige, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, ot 8, philosophy, propaganda, Scientology, tech, the Reformation, Uncategorized

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Graduating Scientology

Posted on August 9, 2013 by | 131 comments

A lot of what I do has come to be characterized by my wife and me as assisting folks to graduate above Scientology.   It is somewhat of a unique notion.  In fact, the vast majority of people who devoted much time to Scientology ultimately go through the graduation process;  reconciling what they learned and gained, differentiating it from the entrapment mechanisms involved, and finding ways to integrate with society, and to evolve and transcend as a person.  As far as Scientology-understanding assistance along that route, resources have been slim.

To date there has really only been a couple of paths for Scientologists and ex-Scientologists; at least ones that are assisted by Scientologists or ex-Scientologists who understand something about the subject.  Both avenues are of the least resistance variety; the easy, least effective ways that ultimately don’t lead toward graduation.

First, one can cling to his firmly held Scientology religious beliefs and continue with the installed cognitive dissonance that entails.  He or she can be guided to pretend that it is all ‘over-there’ in the church and play the ‘I am the resurrection of the real Scientology’ game.   That ultimately leads to a sort of bitter, secluded ‘victorious Confederate soldier’ megalomania and melancholy.  Second, one can be guided to redirect the implanted Scientology need for an enemy and spend years in a state of suspended enturbulation, senselessly flailing at the church or Scientology itself.  The latter route leads to much the same state of mind and consciousness as the former.

I think both routes are infected by perhaps the most insidious virus one is inoculated with in participating in Scientology.   That is the need to have an enemy.  I have written about this before, e.g. Cults, Enemies and Shadows.  It is a decidedly ‘effect’ state of mind; a continual restimulation of a paranoia about the external ‘true’ cause of one’s travails.  It does not lead to growth, evolution and transcendence in any sense.  It is like remaining in High School year after year, failing to evolve past the angst of adolescence.

There has been a tremendous amount of research done on stages of human growth; cognitive, psychological, moral and more.   This is research done by way of learning more about biology, and observing and interviewing tens of thousands of people for over a century.   It is not ivory tower ‘psych’ chatter.   James Fowler thoroughly studied this huge body of work and spent many years observing an entirely new category of development consistent with those already done on moral, biological, and cognitive bases.  His work was on the stages of development of faith.  Please read this excerpt from his book on the subject,  Stages of Faith, concerning the observed stage of adolescence:

New expectations, qualitatively different disciplines and a host of difficult decisions are the requirements with which societies greet the now more womanly or manly adolescent. In trying to meet and fulfill these requisites youth will call on the available and personally resonant ideological resources of their environments, particularly those that are embodied in charismatic and convincing leaders.  They will seek sponsoring groups and figures and will appoint otherwise well-meaning persons as temporary enemies over against whom their identities may be clarified.  They may band together in tight cliques, overemphasizing some relatively trivial commonality as a symbol of shared identity.  In this cliquishness they can be quite cruel as they exclude those who do not share this common element.

The Scientologist and ex-Scientologist adolescent pack mentality can be graduated from.  It opens up to view a wonderful horizon of possibilities and futures.  I think first and foremost it entails getting over the implanted need for enemies.

131 Comments

Posted in healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, philosophy, psychs, Scientology, Tao Te Ching, the future, Uncategorized

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Emotions II: Play Acting Scientologists

Posted on August 5, 2013 by | 107 comments

Scientology culture is recognizable by its collective, synthetic ‘cheerful’  or ‘enthusiastic’ emotional tone.  Scientologists learn to put on a happy face.  If they are seen without one, a fellow Scientologist considers it his duty to ‘handle’ it. And that primarily means making the person mentally deal with the life situation causing the lower emotion so that he can easily mentally cope with putting on a happy face in spite of it.  In a Scientology group one is expected to act happy.  To display any emotion less than that results in Scientologists almost instinctively interceding with a person’s psyche to remedy the perceived problem.  A Scientologist learns eventually to convincingly act happy all the time, even when he or she is feeling deep sorrow, a sense of devastating loss, or is suffering pangs of conscience.

Scientologists will bridle at the notion they are taught to play act through life.  But, the technology they are applying day in and day out is plain:

‘Force yourself to smile and you’ll soon stop frowning.  Force yourself to laugh and you’ll soon find something to laugh about.  Wax enthusiastic and you’ll very soon feel so.  A being causes his own feelings.’  – L. Ron Hubbard 25 August 1982

If you read Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (Amazon Books, 2013) you will get a fairly comprehensive picture of the mood of the Scientology community that Ron was addressing with this bulletin, and the reasons for that tone.   That includes the mood that Ron himself was in.

I think that if you look at it objectively you cannot help but see the effects of a culture en masse adopting the stable datum that emotion is something to create like play acting.  That objective look has prompted some to reckon Scientology culture as resembling those communities depicted in the movies The Stepford Wives and The Truman Show.  How else could otherwise upstanding-seeming citizens blissfully ignore wholesale human rights violations happening at their church’s headquarters, the regular disappearing of church public figures, the forsaking of long-time associates and even family on the arbitrary order of one’s church, the countenancing of extreme methods of harassment directed at anyone who expresses the slightest disagreement with the Scientology way, etc, ad infinitum.  If you believe this only applies to the corporate church community you have got a serious case of denial – maybe even the Stepford/Truman strain.

There is another, accurate, word to describe this phenomenon of manipulating one’s own emotions.  It is called ‘acting.’

As in, act, from New Oxford American dictionary: 2. Behave in the way specified, and  5. Peform a fictional role in a play, movie, or television production.

I have news.  One must for sure act in order to attain desirable emotion, such as those concomitant with ‘happiness.’   But, Scientologists  – notwithstanding all their literalness with exact, precise definitions of terms – are given  and tend to thus dramatize the wrong definition of act.

Try, definition 1, Take action; do something.

Viktor Frankl can ‘splain better than I can:

Normally, pleasure is never the goal of human strivings but rather is, and must remain, an effect, more specifically, the side effect of attaining a goal.  Attaining the goal constitutes a reason for being happy.  In other words, if there is a reason for happiness, happiness ensues, automatically and spontaneously, as it were.  And that is why one need not pursue happiness, one need not care for it once there is a reason for it.

–          Vitkor Frankl, The Will to Meaning

For those Scientologist still sufficiently brainwashed to refuse to consider the words of a psychiatrist – even one who survived three stints in Nazi concentrations camps and demonstrably walked the walk far more realistically than any Scientologist who ever breathed – maybe the following will resonate.   It is understood in the highest halls of academia as well as the streets of Brooklyn.  You gotta work hard to ‘be’ who you wanna ‘be.’   Wake up.  Perceive. Feel. Live.

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Posted in black dianetics, healing, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, propaganda, psychs, Scientology, tech, Uncategorized, Viktor Frankl

What We Do, Part One

Posted on July 28, 2013 by | 133 comments

For some orientation to what I would like to over in this essay I begin with a passage from Chapter 25 Epilogue from Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior (Amazon Books, 2013):

     As has been ably reported by Janet Reitman in her book Inside Scientology (Houghton Mifflin, 2011) and by Lawrence Wright in his book Going Clear (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), L. Ron Hubbard was a very capable marketing man. What they did not acknowledge as much, but did not totally discount, was Ron’s ability to solve problems – including those of the mind and spirit. Ron had a knack for finding out what was bothering people, putting together methods to address those things, and then selling those methods as services – the end-all that people just had to get their hands on.

     The Reitman and Wright books detailed how Ron was continually creating new rundowns, new levels and new packaging to keep the Scientology public enthused over the latest in the mind and spirit.  It was the formula that created continuing expansion of the Scientology empire during L. Ron Hubbard’s life.  A strong customer base was established and continually kept interested and buying as new, essential route-to-total-freedom items were rolled out.

     Because Ron so unequivocally mandated that only Ron could discover, create and memorialize mental and spiritual technology (the only stock-in-trade of the church of Scientology) upon Ron’s death the church’s expansion pattern also died.

     Consequently, David Miscavige took on an unenviable task when he was handed the reins of Scientology Inc.  And those reins were handed to him, whether begrudgingly or not, by Annie Tidman Broeker (Loyal Officer 2) when she sided with Miscavige against her then-husband (Loyal Officer 1) Pat Broeker. Miscavige had no choice but to radically change Scientology’s forty-year expansion pattern.

     The movement had been built and held together primarily through the promise and continual roll-out of new technology. Now Miscavige had to keep that movement going, but with no possibility of introducing new technology. For a while he seemed to have somewhat of a grasp of marketing, but all the marketing in the world could not keep an organization thriving when it had nothing new to sell. At least not an organization whose viability depended on continual emanation of new technology to sell. And by firm religious belief and church doctrine, he was powerless to create any new technology.

These facts – recognized by credible, outside observers and by insiders like myself – are at the heart of why Scientology (the whole package) is as dead as a door nail.  The promises are infinite while the delivery of them is impossible.

The first thing that probably distinguishes us from all others we are aware of who utilize some of the discoveries of Ron Hubbard is that we do not play – in any way, shape, fashion, or form – the baiting evaluation game that comes part and parcel with Scientology.  That is the incessant, overt and covert, game of continuous evaluations along the line of ‘the next roll out will really get you there’, ‘the next level will handle your problem’, ‘you need to act in this fashion so that you see the wisdom of taking your next step’, ‘you’ll understand that when you get to ______’, or any other of the pitches that were memorialized in unalterable, firm Scientology policy and mental technology throughout the years.

That most decidedly includes the insidious safety valve, bait-and-switch line ‘the reason it didn’t work for you was that it was corrupted by someone else, and now we’re going to give you the real thing’ as is so regularly chanted by the church and the shadow it casts, Scientology practitioners outside of the church.  The real thing is precisely what is described in the book passage above: the never-ending promises to the stairway to Heaven that demonstrably does not lead to Heaven.  It more often leads instead to the perfect cognitive storm: holding these two conflicting ideas counterpoised,  a) I have done everything Ron prescribed, so I know everything there is to know, and can never improve because I am already perfect – b) all the while colliding with the deep-down, suppressed self-recognition that the individual has become intolerant, arrogant, callous and miserable.

This find-the-ruin, bait-and-switch mentality is woven into the woof and warp of Scientology.  It gets played from initial marketing to the highest reaches of the bridge. It has always been, both inside the church and without, that those who play it best are sainted with being the most ‘On Source’ (with L. Ron Hubbard) Scientologists.

It also happens to be Ron’s first,  greatest  – and ultimately most fatal – departure from the technology he primarily borrowed from in creating Dianetics and Scientology: Rogerian client-centered psychotherapy.  The second the client is played – in any way, shape, fashion or form – by definition the process is no longer client centered.  Instead, it by definition becomes practitioner – or organization – centered. The road to restoration of self-determinism becomes paved with enforcement of obedient following.

Do I mean to say that Ron was a con?   Do I mean to say that everything he discovered or purported to discover was fraudulent?   No; as you shall see in further installments.  But, I am defining what it is we do and the first thing we do is stay true to the client-centered philosophy that is at the heart of – in fact, is the sine qua non of – all that is workable in Scientology.

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Posted in acknowledgments, Casablanca, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Lawrence Wright, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Orgs, philosophy, regging, Scientology, tech, the future

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My Practice

Posted on July 23, 2013 by | 121 comments

My practice is grounded in client-centered education techniques.  That is not because I sought to duplicate them.  Instead, I recently came to learn that the way I coach and counsel toward recovery and graduation from Scientology was discovered and written about long before I was born.  Reading of it helped me to improve what I was already doing.  Carl Rogers covered this approach in his book, On Becoming a Person, explaining how educational techniques logically evolve out of client-centered therapy.

That I gravitated in this direction during my own recovery and graduation should be no surprise, given the authoritarian, religious discipline all Scientologists studied under for so many years.  The client-centered approach is tailored to consulting the understanding of the client or student.  In that regard, it radically differs from Hubbard’s training approach that was memorialized as follows:

If you can’t graduate them with their good sense appealed to and their wisdom shining, graduate them in such a state of shock they’ll have nightmares if they contemplate squirreling (defined as departing one iota from the letter of what is taught).  – L. Ron Hubbard, Keeping Scientology Working

That learning philosophy was explained further in Hubbard’s highest level instructions (Class VIII course) wherein he told the most advanced Scientologists that humanity was incapable of being appealed to through understanding; and so, instead, it was their duty to command people and make them ‘obey.’   (See Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Amazon Books 2012)

Irrespective of the fact that much of the technology such methods sought to impart was geared towards bringing a person to self-determined understandings, that system of indoctrination ultimately implants fixed, subjective ideas about living, God and ultimate spiritual concerns.  At the end of the day, the methods place a glass ceiling on growth (in fact create regression) by means of enforced belief that curiosity and thirst for continuing education inherently stem from aberration.

It may well be that I was also influenced in the client-centered approach through my own earlier education, some of which was influenced by, or was even attempting to experiment in, Roger’s educational recommendations.  The middle school I attended was a fail-pass (no grade), choice of curriculum, self-scheduling format with emphasis on consulting students’ interests.  I also attended a semester of similar organization at University of California Santa Cruz.  I never knew until I read Rogers where these ideas came from.  Perhaps my Scientology study contributed to this leaning too, since I have noted in the post On Becoming A Person, Scientology’s central practice (auditing) is a modified, structuralized form of Rogerian client-centered therapy.  No matter what led to which along this road, it is interesting to note how what gets around comes around.

Having studied all of Scientology and a great deal on the subjects that led to its development (including their continued evolution while Scientology has remained static), a simple, workable rule of thumb has materialized for me.  That is, the degree to which Scientology departs from its client-centered philosophical and technical roots is proportional to the degree it harms rather than helps.  This in large part has become evident to me in helping people who were disappointed with their Scientology experience over the past five years.  Almost to a one, somewhere along the line each individual’s intent and purpose for engaging in Scientology in the first place were tampered with, rejected and replaced entirely by imposed intents and purposes.

Somewhere along the line in the Scientology experience the magic of the technology – each of its efficacious results marked by its adherence to its client-centered philosophic roots – is replaced by inculcation of the client rather than consultation and service of his or her needs, wants, aspirations and purposes.  Those goals do, and ought to if a positive evolution of awareness and ability is being achieved, change along the road.   But evolution in Scientology is geared solely toward achievement of goals that do not involve the client’s participation in establishing, except to the extent means are employed to obtain the client’s agreement to pursue them.  The attainment of those implanted goals turns out to be purely subjective – no matter how clothed in science its claims and promises are presented.   An objective examination of the result of those who pursue the implanted goals to their ends – no matter how convincing its achievers may be in professing their alleged subjective feelings of happiness, power, ability and bliss of self-actualization – proves their actions often betray their vigorous assertions of equanimity.  For the most part they have turned their own self-determinism (the restoration of which is promised) over lock, stock and barrel to their teacher (See What Is Wrong With Scientology, Amazon Books 2012).  They will lie, steal, and cheat for their religion without a twinge of conscience – all while attempting to exude a vibrant, open, extroverted appearance. Thus, they cannot be trusted by ordinary mortals, not even by their mothers, fathers or even their children. In any values computation, their religion trumps conscience.  And thus the price of the ultimate ring in Scientology is the forfeiture of one’s conscience.

That result is patently evident from counseling a number of people who have completed much of, or all of, the Scientology route both inside and outside of Scientology.  To a one, of those who graduated and moved on, their departures from Scientology were occasioned by their consciences failing to succumb to Scientology demands that they be forfeited.  To a one, of the dozens I have counseled.  The top Scientology achievers who remain, who forfeit their consciences to achieve (or at least assert) the ultimate super human powers Scientology promises, are in the somewhat schizophrenic condition of apparently being as happy as hell but in fact having nowhere to go. The result is continued, slavish adherence to the goals and programs of an organization that – by the time it has ceased delivering client-centered techniques – offers no purpose beyond self-perpetuation and world dominance.  The resultant super-amped adherent’s course is described well by Abraham Maslow, as apparently a common result of many paths that lose sight of client-centered principles:

The better we know which ends we want, the easier it is for us to create truly efficient means to those ends.  If we are not clear about those ends, or deny there are any, then we are doomed to confusion of instruments.  We can’t speak about efficiency unless we know efficiency for what.  (I want to quote again the veritable symbol of our times, the test pilot who radioed back, ‘I’m lost, but I’m making record time.’)

Client-centered education begins with finding out where the interests and purposes of the student (client) lie.  One encourages open communication in that discovery process.  Viktor Frankl’s work Man’s Search For Meaning is helpful in that regard.  Knowing the individual before you proceed is essential in working to recover and strengthen that person’s determinism.  Omitting this step tends to usurp determinism.  One doesn’t rehabilitate and enhance the faculty of determinism by indoctrination that conflicts with the client’s interests and purposes.  For example, one does not force a student who is inspired by, inclined toward – and thus usually gifted in some way – the arts to become an arms manufacturing specialist.  Similarly, one would not attempt to enforce upon a person seeking spiritual awakening the behavior and habits of a para-military religious zealot.

A client-centered educator does not preach and teach as much as find out and only then guide. He puts more emphasis on assisting an individual in finding and following his own purposes and interests.  He then does what he can to help the person move along that chosen path with the best possible chances for success. He acts more as a facilitator than an instructor.  He operates more of a resources center than a rigid curriculum school.

I have been asked, and challenged, to publish the specific route I recommend several times.  I have tried to do that.  But, each time in the process I find myself thinking of particular individual whom I have assisted in the past and recognize that a given reference for that person would not be of interest or applicable to another individual I had worked with.  No two paths are exactly the same.   I have learned through life that to the extent one tries to convince you otherwise that person is trying to lead you to where he wants you to go – irrespective of how eloquently he might convincingly represent otherwise. To the extent one attempts to enforce one way for all, one deviates from the client-centered approach – and some other interest or evaluation is entered into the equation for someone to whom it may not apply or serve any salutary purpose.

There are a number of recommendations I have made in the recommended reading section of the blog that I find myself recommending over and over again to people.   For the most part those are applicable to the Scientology decompression and contextualization process, and lead toward freeing one from Scientology’s injunctions against exercise of conscience and awareness.  Most of them were chosen because of their effectiveness in expanding people’s intellectual and spiritual horizons after years or decades of having those horizons treated as forbidden terrain.

I am working on a book that will make many more recommendations for those seeking to move up the Scientology Bridge in an integral fashion (non-cult, integrated approach), and another for those seeking to move up from and beyond the Scientology Bridge.  In the meantime, I strongly recommend that those embarking on the Scientology path – whether in the church or out – read  What Is Wrong With Scientology?, before doing so.  It will help you avoid the pitfalls inherent in the system.

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Posted in black dianetics, Casablanca, ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, philosophy, policy, Scientology, squirreling, tech, the world, training, Viktor Frankl, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Scientology and Sociopathy

Posted on July 9, 2013 by | 154 comments

Taking Scientology as the literal package that it insists that it be taken as in the Keeping Scientology Working (KSW) series, makes a died-in-the-wool KSW Scientology group an inevitable plum for the sociopath’s picking.  Witness Scientology Inc., and Scientology Inc. Ltd.

I made a recommendation originally two years ago, several times since, and will make it again now. If you want to fully understand where I am coming from with this sociopath analysis, and have not already done so, please read The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.

The following two facts have been repeatedly demonstrated and tested – not simply dreamed up and expressed by some authority:

1)      Sociopaths thrive in groups of well-meaning people; to them such an environment is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Well-meaning people – particularly those inclined to follow – are the first to justify or explain away sociopathic behaviors of someone else, particularly someone in a position of authority.

2)      Sociopaths thrive in highly structured, disciplined, military or para-military type groups.  Sociopaths – many being more clever than average – can easily learn to game such structured, policy-driven systems and thereby rise and game them toward the destruction of lives from a position of power.

Thus, a KSW worshiping Scientology group – which by policy is required to destroy anyone who might disagree with a continuous harmonious group chanting of Scientology mantras – makes for the perfect sociopathic storm.

I have mentioned in the past that in decompressing and moving on up a little higher from the Scientology experience it would serve one well to recognize the difference between walking the walk and talking the talk; both in oneself as well as recognizing it in others.  In a highly literal KSW environ, inevitably the guy or gal who talks the best talk rises to the top – and by its own firm policy, rules over the hearts and minds of his followers.  It is the ideal scene for a sociopath.  He or she can kill, maim, and disable to nothing but hosannas by those he intends to slaughter, provided he or she can stifle any original thought, and instead artfully spit out nothing but green on white (policy) and red on white (technology) of Scientology.

154 Comments

Posted in healing, independents, int base, justice, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, policy, psychs, Scientology, the future

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Dangerous Thoughts?

Posted on July 3, 2013 by | 338 comments

I recently caught wind of a whispering campaign wafting amongst independent Scientologists.  The message warns true believers to stay away from Memoirs Of A Scientology Warrior.  Apparently, some folks consider it a threat to orthodox, unchallengeable thought (belief).

For the benefit (or detriment, depending on one’s point of view) of those who might have had some of the campaign’s sentiment rub off on them, I am posting here some other points of view from people who have actually read the book.  I pulled several of them from the comments section of the blog – recognizing that a lot of people either don’t read comments or only some of them.  A few of the entries are reviews posted at the Amazon Books page for the book.  I have included the names or handles of the authors they were posted under.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to share your impressions and thoughts.

David Richards:

If you have been a Scientologist, if someone close to you has been a Scientologist, if you have ever wondered about the Church of Scientology; read this book.

Ronn:

Top shelf. Anyone at all interested in the “cult” would be well served to read Rathbun’s history as he lays it out bare for all herein. Really good read and great writing skill.

The Bookster:

This should be required reading, not only for those who have left the group, but for those who are still enjoying acceptance in the group. This read rings true, is entertaining and informative.

Carol:

Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior offers it all…drama,suspense, but most of all truth! For those involved or not this books delivers so much insight into what happened, and what happens when a corrupt person takes the reigns of any corporation, whether it be a church, a tech company, whatever. I could not put this book down. For me personally my questions were answered and I could finally “let go”!! read it!

Yvonne Schick:

Loved this book. It reads like an action adventure story. Filled with a “what
next” adventure while giving the non-fiction back story on the inside workings
of the Church of Scientology from the only man who could tell it. We are blessed
that Mark/Marty is in a position and willing to share his story. I enjoyed and I
learned and more than once had tears rolling down my cheeks. What more could I ask for?

And, for the record, it is shocking for anyone Scientologist or just interested human being to discover the depth of depravity within the church.

Grasshopper:

I just finished your latest book. Masterpiece. Incredible food for thought, and absolutely a must- read for anyone who is it was immersed in Scientology. Thanks. I will write more later, but I had to say that it is awesome. Thanks for writing it.

Margaret:

I just read your book. First, Wow! What a journey. You do a wonderful job of walking a reader through your life and your experiences. Your writing style is clear and direct, and several times I was tempted to take a break and come here to comment because of the poignancy and impact of what you were describing. But I ended up reading the first half straight through last night, going to bed, and then finishing the book this morning.
I loved the description of your life leading up to Scientology — it will bug the hell out of the anti crowd, because you so beautifully answer the question “why do people become and stay interested in Scientology even after leaving?”: the question that Wright posed, but never answered. You describe your experiences so lucidly and authentically, that only the most hardcore cultists (in the anti crowd) will find it necessary to deny and fight it.
The details of the Colletto murder … wow. I had read the news reports years later and so was familiar with it from the media’s description, but hearing your first hand, detailed account was gripping.
At a certain point in the book, I knew you could have written tomes on what went down in the legal struggles of the 1980s — but I think you successfully found the right balance of the most salient and important points. I loved the entry of Cooley into the picture. I had really never heard about or understood the FAMCO/DOJ collusion and corruption theory — I had heard about Flynn of course, and was familiar with some of the cases. But I didn’t know it to the level of detail that you provide. I also didn’t realize that the videos of Armstrong were so extensive. I tried watching a couple of the ones with Mike Rinder (the ones I found online), but didn’t have the additional extensive background that you provide which puts it into better context. I do hope that someday, someone also provides all of the documentation you mention (that the G.O. found in the non-FOIA files), and really documents the battle that Hubbard and the early CoS was facing through the 50s-70s. There have been narratives, of course, but I’d really like to see the raw documents. I’ve already seen the FOIA FBI files from the 50s and 60s on Hubbard — if there are other AMA and APA documents which show collusion, wow, THAT is a story that needs telling (and documenting).
I wish there was more on Mary Sue — her steadfast loyalty was incredible. And the part about the lawyer noticing that “Scientologists are too honest” — it’s weirdly true. But maybe “naive” is a better word.
I think you take a fair and unbiased look at Hubbard — of course the fact that you can separate out the wheat from the chaff will drive both sides of the cultic-thinking crowd nuts. And I also appreciate your sharing your take on the OT levels — a view that I personally think is more consistent with the fundamentals of the subject.
I also appreciate that you gave us the verbatim words of Sarge — that helps a person understand the whole picture. (If you’re reading Sarge, thank you for sharing more details. I could tell that Ron was a real friend of yours and I’m sure he appreciated your being there.) Wright did attempt to take additional swipes at Ron through Sarge’s words, and I hope we hear more from Sarge on it someday.
Overall, Marty, your book was both a vindication of the workability of the subject of Scientology and also a poignant and honest representation of the failed organization and the brilliant imperfect man who started it all.
And you’re right — the extremists in both camps will hate it. But I reckon that those who can hew to the middle path will love it.
Congratulations!

Bruce Pratt:

“Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Thanks for bothering, Marty.

While grace shone upon me with a marvelous time in Panama with my Dad and friends, I had a chance to read your Memoirs.

Wow!

Among other factors, it was a trip through an amusement park house of mirrors. Not me, but boy, the reflections were unmistakable.

Thank you for the opportunity to see something I would not have seen otherwise.

Brings me back to truth in this universe and my appreciation for your bother.

Truth is an absolute and as such does not lend itself to comparable magnitudes, which from this wonderful level of existence are usually essential for some understanding.

Your experience has aided me to separate LRH the man from his philosophy and the consequences of incorrect or inappropriate application, regardless of my agreement with your position, that of M2 or any other.

Dichotomies are a bitch. Fortunately they are much less so when one gets somewhat exterior to them and can identify them as such as opposed to individual terminals.

Oh, yeah, thank you my friend. Thank you and that powerhouse Mosey.

Brian:

This book is a non stop roller coaster ride. What an amazing look into the bowels of the Scientology power beast. Here, saving the world can surely end up looking like cookoo land. I highly recommend reading this war time story of the “religion” that seeks destruction of critics.

But all Marty really wanted to do is help his brother and he ended up an intel operative and legal rat fighting cosmic bad guys for the “only hope for man”.

I know people love to hate Marty or put him up on some pedestal. But I gained an empathy for him by understanding the karmic forces that jettisoned him into cookoo land.

I applaud his intimate candor and sensitivity as a boy and cringed at the way he was rocketed, as a young man, into the hypnotic influence of cult mentality.

I recommend this book.

Windhorse:

By far the best book by former #2 man in the Church of Scientology. Despite official scientology, those of us who were involved at various levels know full well that Marty Rathbun was a highly respected, feared and dedicated senior official in the Church.

He writes this memoir from his heart – pouring out his early years. The loss of his mother, his love of sports and his failed attempts to save his brother from a life time of psychiatric institutions.

Along the way, Marty reveals his thoughts about what happened to Hubbard. How he became a victim of his own philosophy. Why he created ultimately a draconian organization, intended to save him from those who might harm the organization only to find himself in the end virtually alone and afraid.

One is even left feeling sorry for the man who has become to many the nemesis of “true” scientology — David Miscavige. Himself a 2nd generation scientologist, DM is a man caught up through misplaced devotion and his own delusions in a web of intrigue, abject fear of everyone and an iron fist — made of diamonds he’s ensured are his to wear.

Definitely read this book. You’ll learn a great deal. I did and I’ve been following the unwrapping of the Church of Scientology for over 20 years after being a member for the prior 20.

Pale Horse:

Marty, I just finished reading “Memoirs…”, so your present blog post could not be more timely for me.

When I went Clear in ’92 I wanted to get on with Life and try out my new wings, but as I am sure you can guess, the reg had other things in mind for me – KTL/LOC, the Ls, blah, blah, blah…I was going stir crazy! After finally getting away from Flag and getting back into the real world, I really began to hate what I was starting to become. I find it incredibly embarrassing now to look back and see that I was turning into one of those self-satisfied, Homo Novus, I’m-better-than-Wogs type of Scientologists. And, yes, I suffered the humiliation – Thank God I had the presence of mind to be humiliated! And thank God that phase didn’t last long. It sure was the wake up call I needed to distance myself from the Church.

I particularly loved the last chapter of your book where you spell out the very danger of falling for the Crowley-esque super-ego trip and the demand that you MUST begin the battle against Xenu and the Body Snatchers. Thank God I escaped before I became assimilated by the Borg.

I see now why the M2 crowd and so many “better-than-human” Scientologists are pissed off at you. They enjoy their superiority complex too much. And I also see why you have renounced the label “Scientologist” for yourself.

Thank you for your excellent book and your thoughtful insights.

Martin Padfield:

Having just finished “Memoirs” I can say you are in for a treat. It gets better and better. I love the attention to detail on the various legal incidents; names, dates – it’s all there, and the way they are all put in the right context. Ditto the dialogue towards the end with Sarge is verbatim, so there can be no misunderstanding or misinterpretation of exactly what was said and how.

Although completely impractical and probably discriminatory, it would be great if all contributors to this blog had read the 3 books as a pre-req to posting. It sure would make for an easier blog experience! I simply haven’t got the time to wade through 500+ comments, most of which would be null or invalid as already answered in the books.

There are so many things spelled out that make recent history understandable. Just a couple of examples from dozens I could have chosen – the authorship and background to Disconnection reinstated. Similarly, regarding the infamous 1982 Mission Holders Conference: “In fact, LRH had advised or approved of virtually everything that was uttered by Miscavige and his management boys at that conference. And when they returned Miscavige sent a recording of the entire conference to Hubbard. Hubbard listened to the whole proceeding. He was so thrilled with their performance that he highly commended Miscavige and his managers and ordered that a transcript of the entire event be prepared and distributed widely amongst Scientologists. His wishes were complied with…” (Page 197)

Best of all, the VERY recent activity on this very posting and elsewhere is discussed in a way that promotes better understanding of what’s really going on and the source of it. Great stuff.

I’ve put up some more shelves; ready for the next one!

Phil Bruemmer:

I just finished reading “Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior”.
The book verified things I suspected were fact, set me straight on some “facts” which I had wrong and introduced me to some things I hadn’t expected at all.
I’m glad that I heeded the advice in chapter 15 of “What Is Wrong With Scientology” and have been studying diligently (more or less) the past few months. Things that would’ve shaken me up before didn’t.
It actually resolved some confusions and conflicts for me and restored some peace in my universe.
Considering what you experienced and how you handled yourself, I’d say you got the EP of Pro TRs on the Comm Course.

You are a hell of a writer to boot!

Dan Koon:

By the way, Marty, I just finished your book and really, really enjoyed it. You filled in a LOT of blanks for me about what went on during various periods. So a big thanks for taking the time to put it all down. Tony Ortega slammed it, which, having now read it, is about what I would expect from someone who refuses to experience any part of the subject subjectively but who depends on the experiences of those who do and did for his livelihood. I understand he is writing a book. I can tell right now it is going to be a piece of crap. The guy has been writing about Scn for 20 years and never opened Self Analysis. He should watch The Master and then do the window and wall process for as long as Freddie Quell.

Cooper Kessel:


I just finished your new book. Very well done in presenting your experiences telling your story. It is a story very worth telling.
I realized that I held a belief that Miscaviage had altered what LRH really intended and that that was the reason why things went off the rails. I really appreciate knowing that he was actually in his own mind trying to do what he thought best for LRH and Scn. And I am happy to discard that belief!

I especially enjoyed reading the epilogue. I think your book will contribute in no small way to help people with a new course of action. As Pai-chaing noted ‘….one that is different than before’.

I will raise my glass to a toast to that concept. I hope to meet you and Mosey one day. Meanwhile, thanks for carrying on with a different course which is a bit higher than before!

Scott Campbell:

I just finished reading your book last week and have been thinking about it ever since. I can certainly see how LRH’s “fight fire with fire” strategy became the default “culture” throughout scientology. It was interesting to hear of the non-FOIA data regarding the tactics of the various government agencies arrayed against the C of S and LRH.

I for one am glad that you had the strength of character to get out of that situation and ultimately do the astonishing amount of good that you’ve done in just a handful of years. Whatever you’re doing, keep it up if its what you want. You’re a good man and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

As for this other political bullshit. I’ll say what I used to tell friends of mine on the ship when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with the orgs and scientology at the time – “It makes me tired just thinking about it”.

I also think that anyone hell bent on creating any kind of authoritarian organization would be well served to heed this observation from St, Thomas Aquinas – “The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.”

Joe Pendleton:

Marty, finished your book about 20 seconds ago.  Wow!  Brilliant concluding chapter/words and a book I’m sure that everyone who posts here has either read or will be reading soon.  I won’t give any of it away to those who have not read it yet, except to say that your continuing journey has involved not only your willingness to risk the disapproval and possible abandonment of your allies, but also no small amount of intellectual honesty and intellectual courage.  For an acknowledgement, here I will quote LRH – as was once said on R3R step 8 – “OK, Continue.”

338 Comments

Posted in healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, propaganda, Scientology

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The Great Decompression

Posted on June 27, 2013 by | 158 comments

I borrowed, or coined by inspiration, from Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search For Meaning) the idea that decompression was the first and most important step in recovering from the Scientology experience with an upward trajectory.  Frankl – having himself survived years of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, and attempted to help others similarly situated upon release – noted that an adjustment period was critical for someone coming out of a strictly controlled environment to a relatively free society.  He likened it to a deep sea diver submerged for several hours far beneath the surface.  One must bring the diver back out from under the tremendous pressure he has adjusted to on a gradient basis or he will suffer from Decompression Sickness, also known as the bends. Similarly, if a person imprisoned – even mentally – in inhumane conditions, conditioned to think and act in super-compliant ways while developing all manner of deceitful (albeit as justifiable as they may be) means to survive, comes out acting like he owns earth he is going to be in for big, ugly and possibly devastating losses.

Over time I have exchanged observations with other counselors about a number of folks that we guided and assisted through the Scientology Underground Railroad – or Decompression Road.  One pattern we all have observed, and taken terrible losses on, is Scientologists entering the family of humanity with the exclusive, arrogant and judgmental attitudes they developed to survive in Scientology culture.  All of us have expended a great deal of resource and effort in helping to clean up messes such attitudes have created, and in getting people who exhibit those attitudes back on their paths after the inevitable smack downs society tends to deliver in response.   For those going through that process now, and who are discomforted absent orientation to L. Ron Hubbard references, everything I have noted thus far in this article is in complete accord with Scientology notions of the efficacy of tackling problems,development and life on a gradient scale; and even the ethics conditions formulas (see Non- Existence condition and formula).

One of the first posts on the Milestone 2/iscientology blog – created largely in protest of my books and this forum – was a piece attempting to discredit this idea of decompression as some psych-based attempt to belittle Operating Thetans and put people at introverted effect.  It reasoned that former Sea Org members and public OTs who bought into the idea they could use a tad of decompression as part of their gradient entry into the community of fellow human beings were victims of an attempt to put them at groveling effect of the psych-indoctrinated ‘wog’ world.  By God, the MS2ers proclaimed, we need to bring society up to our standards, Revenimus! (In keeping perhaps with the Class VIII indoctrination, ‘you are the people who own the planet’ – see Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior).  This mentality of wanting to cling to the inside is understandable (see e.g. the films  The Shawshank Redemption and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – I know you have all seen them, but watch them again with the Scientology experience in mind).

These thoughts arose when considering a general response to the many inquiries I have received lately asking me which of my three books ought to be read in what sequence.   That includes a lot of non-Scientologists asking what book might appeal to or help a Scientologist family member or friend. My answer is always a question, eliciting information on where the person is at on the decompression process.  When I know something about their circumstances I can recommend the single book that I think might help the person concerned.  They do not necessarily flow one to the next in the order they were written.  And all three of them aren’t for everybody necessarily.

So here is a short generalized guide to whom I believe the three books individually might appeal to, and hopefully help  –  in alignment to degrees of decompression already experienced by the concerned person.

The Scientology Reformation.

This book was written primarily with Scientologists still connected with the church in mind.  It is anchored upon L. Ron Hubbard references and attempts, on a gradient basis, to get a Scientologist to observe for himself or herself just how far adrift Scientology Inc has strayed from the intent and purposes memorialized (at least in some places) by its founder.  It introduces hope that one need not reject all of Scientology, in order to escape and even to take a stand against its abuses.

What Is Wrong With Scientology? Healing Through Understanding

This book would likely be dropped like a radioactive rock by the time a Scientologist in good standing read the first sentence of the introduction.   It is addressed more to people who are already out of the church, and for whom turning back is no option.  It is a detailed presentation and analysis of the features of Scientology that tend toward entrapment.   It describes in some detail the sum and substance of what Scientology’s effective processes are  in order to set the table for analyzing what is wrong with it and how it is ultimately used to entrap.   If one only mindlessly makes a break and declares a wholesale rejection of everything scientology, one tends to become as glued to it as ever, albeit from the opposition vector.  That is because he or she never took the time to understand and come to grips with what salutary aspects of it may have kept one pursuing it in the first place.  If one understands that, one can transcend the experience in a more desirable state than victimhood.

Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior

Because of the personal, autobiographical nature of this book and its consequent gradual, real time and subjective introduction to Scientology this can inform someone never involved in the subject with a perspective they will get nowhere else.  That is, what attracts and keeps one involved in the subject.   Popular books and films have been woefully two-dimensional and inaccurate in that regard.  They only focus on fear factors, which for those involved had next to zero effect in garnering their voluntary, self-determined involvement (the involvement that creates the most lasting effect on someone).  Many who have read it remarked that reading another’s real time experience of getting into, developing into a crusader for, and then transcending out of it prompted them to review their own experience more honestly, fully and rationally.  And that had a liberating effect upon them.

Memoirs is probably akin to a post-doctorate extension of the ‘what is wrong with Scientology’ analysis.  But not with a lot of opinion.  For the most part I let the facts do the talking.

While I still regularly use the term, and the model, of ‘decompression’ I am more often using it with a modifier to better describe what it is I am trying to accomplish: Decompression with an upward trajectory.

Link to all three books:

Mark Rathbun books on scientology

 

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Posted in black dianetics, Casablanca, disconnection, healing, independents, Integral Theory, jason beghe, justice, l. ron hubbard, Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, Scientology, tech, the future, the Reformation, Uncategorized, Viktor Frankl, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Letting Go

Posted on June 16, 2013 by | 88 comments

When I write of the idea of cultivating the skill of ‘letting go’, some Scientologists react as if I am from the planet Farsec (the alleged origin point of the universe for all psychs, reference: Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior).   On the one hand this is surprising because it is precisely what one does when one experiences a spiritual ‘release’ in a Scientology session.   On the other hand, the idea of employing and refining that capability in life is looked upon as blasphemous.  It is in a way since so much in Scientology implants precisely the opposite idea in believers.

To help get the concept across I have many times recommended folk read and attempt to think with Tao Te Ching (my recommended translation, The Tao Te Ching, an English Translation by Stephen Mitchell).   A number of people have written  to or told me that they have done so, and find the idea of ‘letting go’ liberating and useful in their quests for self- actualization (equinimity attendant to becoming who one really is and attaining toward one’s full potentialities).  Still many want the ‘tech’ to it or an instruction manual of sorts.

I came across a good description of breaking ‘letting go’ down into a process on buddhanet. net.  It is below for your perusal.  I don’t know who the author is and I don’t even know what all is on buddhanet or who operates it. All that I know is that the following description of the process rings accurate in many ways and may communicate to, and be found to be useful by, some.

Letting Go from buddhanet

If we contemplate desires and listen to them, we are actually no longer attaching to them; we are just allowing them to be the way they are. Then we come to the realization that the origin of suffering, desire, can be laid aside and let go of.

How do you let go of things? This means you leave them as they are; it does not mean you annihilate them or throw them away. It is more like setting down and letting them be. Through the practice of letting go we realize that there is the origin of suffering, which is the attachment to desire, and we realize that we should let go of these three kinds of desire. Then we realize that we have let go of these desires; there is no longer any attachment to them.

When you find yourself attached, remember that ‘letting go’ is not ‘getting rid of’ or ‘throwing away’. If I’m holding onto this clock and you say, ‘Let go of it!’, that doesn’t mean ‘throw it out’. I might think that I have to throw it away because I’m attached to it, but that would just be the desire to get rid of it. We tend to think that getting rid of the object is a way of getting rid of attachment. But if I can contemplate attachment, this grasping of the clock, I realize that there is no point in getting rid of it – it’s a good clock; it keeps good time and is not heavy to carry around. The clock is not the problem. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside – put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.

You can apply this insight into ‘letting go’ to the desire for sense pleasures. Maybe you want to have a lot of fun. How would you lay aside that desire without any aversion? Simply recognize the desire without judging it. You can contemplate wanting to get rid of it – because you feel guilty about having such a foolish desire – but just lay it aside. Then, when you see it as it is, recognizing that it’s just desire, you are no longer attached to it.

So the way is always working with the moments of daily life. When you are feeling depressed and negative, just the moment that you refuse to indulge in that feeling is an enlightenment experience. When you see that, you need not sink into the sea of depression and despair and wallow in it. You can actually stop by learning not to give things a second thought.

You have to find this out through practice so that you will know for yourself how to let go of the origin of suffering. Can you let go of desire by wanting to let go of it? What is it that is really letting go in a given moment? You have to contemplate the experience of letting go and really examine and investigate until the insight comes. Keep with it until that insight comes: ‘Ah, letting go, yes, now I understand. Desire is being let go of.’ This does not mean that you are going to let go of desire forever but, at that one moment, you actually have let go and you have done it in full conscious awareness. There is an insight then. This is what we call insight knowledge. In Pali, we call it nanadassana or profound understanding.

I had my first insight into letting go in my first year of meditation. I figured out intellectually that you had to let go of everything and then I thought: ‘How do you let go?’ It seemed impossible to let go of anything. I kept on contemplating: ‘How do you let go?’ Then I would say, ‘You let go by letting go.’ ‘Well then, let go!’ Then I would say:

‘But have I let go yet?’ and, ‘How do you let go?’ ‘Well just let go!’ I went on like that, getting more frustrated. But eventually it became obvious what was happening. If you try to analyze letting go in detail, you get caught up in making it very complicated. It was not something that you could figure out in words any more, but something you actually did. So I just let go for a moment, just like that.

Now with personal problems and obsessions, to let go of them is just that much. It is not a matter of analyzing and endlessly making more of a problem about them, but of practicing that state of leaving things alone, letting go of them. At first, you let go but then you pick them up again because the habit of grasping is so strong. But at least you have the idea. Even when I had that insight into letting go, I let go for a moment but then I started grasping by thinking: ‘I can’t do it, I have so many bad habits!’ But don’t trust that kind of nagging, disparaging thing in yourself. It is totally untrustworthy. It is just a matter of practicing letting go. The more you begin to see how to do it, then the more you are able to sustain the state of non-attachment.

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