Category Archives: Scientology

The Secret

Posted on March 24, 2013 by | 244 comments

This is addressed those who have read the book (by Rhonda Byrne) or seen the film The Secret and failed to have its magic work for them.

The secret revealed in The Secret was the ‘law of attraction.’  In short, that which one thinks one gets.  That upon which one focuses one’s attention will be attracted into that person’s life.  As the book points out the secret is nothing new.  More than 2500 years ago the Buddha was said to have said ‘you are what you think.’ What is new about The Secret is the marvelous job it does of communicating the simplicity of the truth from religious, spiritual, self-help, and even scientific perspectives. The crux of The Secret’s authority is that great human beings throughout history have all apparently uttered the ‘law of attraction’ in their own ways as being a ‘secret’ to their successes.

However, mastering the law of attraction is not quite as easy as the book and movie make it out to be. If the secret was so simple to realize and apply, no doubt in the seven years since the book was introduced, and remained a bestseller, the world would have by now been transformed into something resembling the garden of Eden.  So, what went wrong?

Two things in my view.

First, and this is fatal to the realization of its message,  The Secret omits a most important step of realizing one’s intentions.  That step is doing something in furtherance of that realization.  One can think all the most pleasant thoughts in the world, and absent doing anything to realize those thoughts will result in a person thinking a lot of thoughts.  Every single historical figure that The Secret used for its authority for the ‘law of attraction’ was a prodigious doer.  They did not merely think about what they wanted, they pursued what they envisioned with every fiber of their beings.  Yes, even the Buddhist’s noble eight-fold path begins with ‘right view’ and ‘right intention’.  But, it is followed by ‘right action’, ‘right livelihood’, and ‘right effort.’

Second, The Secret appeals almost exclusively to people’s material interests.  While some of the historical figures used as authority for the book accumulated unimaginable riches I am pretty sure they did not do so by aiming exclusively to attain those riches.  They had bigger, broader dreams and if attainment of those more worthy intentions did not involve attainment riches, they likely would not have been any more wealthy than you or me.

In keeping with the law of attraction, when a person focuses exclusively toward the attainment of matter, they will get matter.  The problem is, that matter might not glitter with gold.  It more than likely will be the dull, painful matter that is most closely associated with thought.  That is mental mass and energy.  And so many a poor soul put all their mental power into conjuring fancy cars and yachts and wound up instead with splitting headaches.  Why?

The answer lies with another historical figure who understood the secret but who was not mentioned in the book.  L. Ron Hubbard built an extensive philosophy, psychotherapy, and religion predicated on the magic of the law of attraction.   He stated it in 1954 in this wise:

Considerations take rank over the mechanics of space, energy and time.  By this is meant that an idea or opinion, fundamentally, is superior to space, energy and time or organizations of form, since it is conceived that space, energy and time are themselves broadly agreed-upon considerations.  That so many minds agree brings about reality in the form of space, energy, and time.  These mechanics, then, of space, energy and time, are the product of agreed-upon considerations mutually held by life…

…The freedom of an individual depends on that individual’s freedom to alter his considerations of space, energy, time and forms of life, and his roles in it.  If he cannot change his mind about these, he is then fixed and enslaved by barriers of his own creation.  Man thus is seen to be enslaved by barriers of his own creation.  He creates these barriers himself or by agreeing with things which hold these barriers to be actual.

Hubbard realized that stating these facts – such as was so artfully done in The Secret – alone did little to liberate people from their self-imposed mental enslavement.  Over the next couple decades Hubbard developed a mental and spiritual technology for relieving the mental mass and energy an individual accumulates since birth while under the mistaken idea that the mechanics of matter, energy, space and time take precedence over the considerations of the individual.  He called the subject Scientology.

There are two Scientology routes to achieving a strong realization of the law of attraction and the ability to use it to one’s advantage. The first, is what Hubbard called the Training Routines.  It is a two to three week course in communication toward the ability of realizing and executing intention.  For some people that course alone will free them to clearly see and apply the law of attraction in their lives.  For those it does not deliver that end phenomenon to, it will not have been a waste of time.  At worst, one will walk away with improved communication skills and the ability to more comfortably be, do and have as one wishes.

The second route is called auditing (from the Latin root, audire which means to listen).  It can be pursued if the first route gave you something desirable, but not all that you sought toward mastering the law of attraction. An auditor does one on one counseling with a person which directly addresses one’s ability to recognize his or her spiritual self, the creator of the considerations that dictate the mechanics in one’s life.  There are six levels of counseling that follow one from another in a gradient approach.  Any one of those levels could result in a person feeling perfectly comfortable and competent in living with and by the law of attraction. There are a number of other skills and abilities attainable with each one of them.

There is an important word of warning in choosing to apply the L. Ron Hubbard approach.  As so often happens with the empowering ideas of a philosopher, institutionalization and monopolization of those ideas for power and profit can pervert them beyond recognition.  By no means should a person go anywhere near a church of Scientology nor any Scientology practitioner who does not practice Hubbard’s ideas in an integral fashion.  Such folk are religionists whose intention to help you is overshadowed by their intentions to convert people to become Scientologists.  That encompasses a world view and philosophy that in many ways is one hundred and eighty degrees diametrically opposed to the simple methodologies of helping people master the law of attraction.

An integral practitioner understands and continues to educate himself on philosophy and science outside of Scientology so as to increase his own worth and ability to apply his skills.  An integral practitioner would understand The Secret and how Scientology methods can be used to realize it and would use them in that spirit.   A true believer Scientologist religionist does not understand that The Secret is simply another way of describing the very thing Scientology was created to achieve.  Thus, a true-believer Scientologist can practice Scientology for a lifetime and never realize The Secret.   Rather than assist you to realize it, he would attempt to discredit it and to dissuade you from even pursuing it.  An integral practitioner serves with the purpose of empowering you.  A true-believer Scientologist attempts to own you so as to ‘save you.’

If you wish to pursue this route, be sure you establish that you are pursuing it with an integral practitioner.

244 Comments

Posted in black dianetics, healing, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, tech alterations, the future

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The Enemy

Posted on March 21, 2013 by | 463 comments

I commented twice in the discussion on the post Scientology Regression that there is no enemy; the malady is having to have one.  Apparently, Scientology instills the firm belief that there are people worthy of the label ‘enemy’, and that such people must be depowered and dispensed with, or in some cases made to be and act in an acceptable way.  I’m sure someone will cite to What Is Greatness?, originally published as a magazine article in March 1966, to stop this train of thought.  In that case, someone else can just as easily cite HCO PL The Responsibilities of Leaders, issued as policy less than a year later, which justifies murder provided it is carried out stealthily against the enemy of a worthy enough power.

You even have a self-auditing process in Scientology designed for people deemed by authorities in the group to have acted in a way that warrants the label ‘enemy.’  That formula requires the individual to change the very essence of his being – his very concept of his own identity – to conform to the liking of the powers that be in the group.  That can be a rather dysfunctional, destructive process given the fact that finding out who one really is is the end product of the Scientology bridge itself.  In order to be accepted back into the group he must, in addition to other steps, ‘deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger.’

I think it is worthwhile for someone who has adopted Scientology beliefs to think about what notions have been inculcated into oneself about labeling people as ‘enemy’ and treating them as such.  Think about the effect it might have on your relations and your own peace of mind.  For contemplation about how to deal with anyone who might declare you an enemy of him or her, an apt passage from the Tao Te Ching describing what is a ‘great man’ might assist:

      He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts.

463 Comments

Posted in ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, justice, l. ron hubbard, policy, Scientology, Tao Te Ching

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Integral Theory

Posted on March 10, 2013 by | 338 comments

There is a tremendous body of work available on the subject of Integral Theory.   It comes from the idea to ‘integrate.’   That is, to bring disparate parts together into a synergistic whole.  Its principle author is a philosopher by the name of Ken Wilber.   Wilber sought to provide maps for those interested in rising to higher levels of consciousness.

He approached the problems of humanoid existence from a completely different perspective than L. Ron Hubbard.  Hubbard’s approach could be characterized as more ‘subjective’ whereas Wilber’s was more ‘objective.’   Hubbard tackled the problem of what was eating him, figured out how to deal with it and developed a technology to share the route.  It was a masterful process of elimination – differentiating those datums that assisted his journey from those that did not, and then codifying the former while rejecting the latter.  His rejection of that which did not assist his route was done in the most emphatic terms, emphasis perhaps added in part, to clearly differentiate his route.  In this regard, he was unparalleled in his ability to detect and label what and who was ‘wrong.’  His emphasis became dissociation and exclusion from other thoughts and ideas.

Conversely, Wilber began with the proposition that ‘everyone is right on some level’.   All routes have a place somewhere on a bigger map.  His emphasis was on association or inclusion.  He looked for the common denominators of great religious, philosophic, contemplative, and psychotherapeutic practices over centuries and placed particular emphasis on objective indicia of workability. From that he developed scales outlining evolutionary phases, levels, and states that people went through from birth to the highest states of consciousness.  Whereas Hubbard was the founder of a mental/spiritual practice or lineage, Wilber was more a philosopher/academic who mapped common denominators of many practices and lineages.

Probably in part due to the vehemence with which Hubbard rejected and condemned other routes, and his established reputation for severely punishing critical analysis of his route, apparently even though Wilber approached the matter with the stable datum that ‘everybody is right on some level’, Scientology was never included in the analysis (at least it was never mentioned).

Ironically, at the end of the day, the work of Hubbard fits quite tidily into the broader maps drawn by Wilber outlining what objective analysis tells us are workable means toward higher states of consciousness.  In that respect a study of Integral Theory serves to enrich one’s understanding of how and why Scientology works.  It also serves as an objective, even scientific validation of the work of Hubbard.  Wilber projects and advocates integral psychotherapeutic and spiritual practice – subjects that all too often are treated as two disrelated practices .  And so it is somewhat ironic that Hubbard gets nary a mention in Wilber’s work when L. Ron Hubbard was a pioneer in the integration of spirit into psychotherapeutic practice.  That is likely due in large measure to the intensity of prohibition on integrating Scientology practice with any other learning or discipline. Sadly, virtually none of the rapidly expanding ranks of Integral practitioners and thinkers – whose work over time increasingly treads on ground tilled by Hubbard – recognize a single word of Hubbard.

Interestingly, Integral Theory also validates virtually all of the commonly agreed upon distinctions that integral-thinking Independent Scientologists seem to have agreed upon that make Scientology workable on the outside and potentially deleterious within corporate Scientology.  That, by no means, applies to many Indies who have shown a violent disdain for the ideas of integration, evolution and transcendence as outlined in What Is Wrong With Scientology? Healing Through Understanding.

There are four potential benefits for learning something about Integral Theory.

First, one can attain a much broader, far-reaching understanding of the technology of Scientology than one could possibly attain from denying himself from studying data of comparable magnitude to it.  Ironically, to those literalists unwilling to expand their horizons, such an approach to learning is recommended in Hubbard’s Data Series (Scientology logic) and Scientology Logic 8 itself: a datum can be evaluated only by a datum of comparable magnitude.

 Second, if one wants to begin thinking rationally with how the subject of Scientology might be communicated to the world, post corporate Scientology Armaggedon, one had better know the vast array of parallels that exist between it and other subjects. In the Age of Information a cloistered, my-way-or-the-hiway, damn the ignorant infidels presentation will likely wind future Scientologists up in remote caves clinging to AK 47s.

Third, for those who have ventured quite a ways up the Bridge it gives you  a number of informative standards by which to evaluate what Scientology has done for you and what perhaps you seek but have not found in Scientology.  In other words, you might find there are ways and means available on this big, wonderful planet that might serve you in moving on up a little higher.

Fourth, for prospective Scientologists and those applying it at all levels of the bridge, integral theory can help you to maintain your own intellectual integrity and sovereignty, integral to full expansion of consciousness and yet put at risk if approaching Scientology with tunnel vision.

For the curious, a good introductory overview of Integral Theory is covered in The Integral Vision by Ken Wilbur, which can be picked up used on the cheap on Amazon books.  A more in-depth, but very well articulated overview is covered in a ten-part interview series with Wilber conducted and published by Sounds True (available on Amazon, and sometimes EBay).

Word of advice.  I am not promoting or recommending Wilber’s own suggested introductory integral program at chapter 6 of the book.   It is a reflection of Wilber the guru or practice teacher, as opposed to Wilber the researcher and philosopher. The former grew out of popular demand by much good
work as the latter.  But, I think anyone who reads this blog is intelligent enough to differentiate when the two hats collapse – which in the broader field of the map making work does not happen often.  I do happen to agree with Wilber’s initially emphasizing the wisdom of an aerobic and weight-training regimen.  I read a Canadian medical study once that found that muscle stress training can greatly reduce the speed of body-aging deterioration (even claims, though I don’t grok the science of it well enough to vouch for it, that on a certain level it can reverse the aging process of the body).  In either event, I have found on a subjective level that a fit body frees all manner of attention units for work on the mind and spirit.

Note for the Kamikazee KSW crowd.   In Wilber’s more in-depth, purely research/map-making work he emphasizes that it is not wise to monkey with workable contemplative lineages. In other words, don’t change workable technology – instead, supplement it where it does not address or meet all of your needs or goals and purposes, and better utilize it by understanding it in greater depth against advances in science, the mind and spirit.

338 Comments

Posted in acknowledgments, healing, independents, Integral Theory, Ken Wilber, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, the future, the Reformation, the world

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Dissociation and Denialism

Posted on February 27, 2013 by | 182 comments

Disconnection in the church of Scientology is as blatantly applied as ever; even while it is vehemently denied.  It is denialism, and a sort of dissociation, playing out in real time before our eyes.  If you haven’t seen it already, please read this story concerning the great pianist Mario Feninger and the wonderful soul Allen Barton, Mario Feninger Disconnects From Help.  It demonstrates denialism and dissociation in living color.

I have been closely following this matter for some time.  I came very close to initiating fundraising for Mario on this blog.  The only reason I did not was because Mario made it very clear to Allen that he would prefer not to receive the inevitable blowback of being associated with our types.  The story is very competently told by Ortega and it speaks for itself, so I will not focus on the details of Mario’s plight.

Instead, I will focus on the journey of Allen Barton (for related earlier post see,  Beverly Hills Playhouse.)   Look at what his simple act of kindness and care has wrought.   Examine the responses he received – disconnections, while denying ‘disconnection’ is an active policy – from Scientologists.  Consider their ‘rationale.’   Consider the factors that resulted in such obvious denialism.

Is that denialism, and the perpetuation of dissociated behaviors that it justifies, limited solely to the ‘Disconnect Policy’?   Consider that, before you knee-jerk a respone that the immediate impulsive response  itself may in some measure  be influenced by a form of denialism.

Also consider this description of denialism that I once posted on this blog under the title Denialism:

[From] Michael Specter, Denialism, Penguin Books 2009:

We have all been in denial at some point in our lives; faced with truths too painful to accept, rejection often seems the only way to cope. Under those circumstances, facts, no matter how detailed or irrefutable, rarely make a difference.  Denialism is denial writ large — when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie…

…Unless data fits neatly into an already formed theory, a denialist doesn’t really see it as data at all.  That enables him to dismiss even the most compelling evidence as just another point of view.

182 Comments

Posted in disconnection, harassment, healing, los angeles, policy, propaganda, Scientology, the Reformation, the world, Uncategorized

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OT VIII – Hallucinatory Cause?

Posted on February 25, 2013 by | 236 comments

Here is a reality check on where the Scientology Bridge leads, at least within corporate Scientology.   The following is a published ‘success story’ of a recently minted OT VIII.   With all you have read on Super Power and the Super Power building on this blog – use the search feature in the right hand column if you haven’t read much – please consider just how hard this OT VIII is working on creating delusory reality after expending God knows how many years and how much money attaining the supposed state of not having to continually do such.  Really take some time to think about this.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel for the guy.  But, look at what’s what here.  He’s apparently been listing incessantly why, after completing the highest pinnacle of the Scientology Bridge, he caved to ruthless regging not only for more rundowns (Super Power) but no doubt status-raising donations for completing the grounded space ship that is going to take the planet by storm (the $200 million plus Super Power building).

If it is even possible that a person could spend decades and hundreds of thousands to achieve the state of ’cause over matter, energy, space, time and life’ and wind up in such a delusory, perhaps even hallucinatory, state don’t you think it might behoove you to take a little time to evaluate this path against some standards not instilled along that path?

SUCCESS

Dear Theta Buddies,

While trying to wrap my wits around a particular item  on the BC Level F checksheet, I decided this was a good time to see Rebecca, the word clearer. In the process of sorting out my confusion, I was reading a couple  of the pages from the transcript for the lecture I was listening to, and lo and  behold… I had a HUGE cognition on how Super Power was going to work!

This particular lecture is called “Routine 3A.” It was a modification to
the existing Clearing Procedure, Routine 3. But this theory behind this “little”
modification was the reason why thetans hold onto aberrations for eons:
counter-intentions; counter postulates. In other words, problems, created by
oneself, or other intentions agreed to by the thetan. What does this have to do
with Super Power? LRH had lectured in the mid 50s about how he didn’t really
know why it worked, but when a person who was having trouble with his spouse,
received problems processes auditing on the spouse, the spouse ceased to be
trouble. The EP of the modern day Suppressed Person rundown is that the terminal  antagonistic to the PC originates a friendly communication to the PC! The reason  for this is that when you have two terminals (or even the PC himself with a postulate/counter-postulate) with equal force holding a problem in place, when one side of the problem is unbalanced through auditing, there’s nothing (or much less) force to keep the problem in suspension. This results in the terminal(s) on the other end of the problem feeling compelled to communicate to the PC.
All of a sudden, I got how Super Power was going to work its magic for World
Clearing. Many of the rundowns on Super Power address third dynamic areas:
Ethics, Justice, Consequences, etc. Based on the above, I see how when one does
Super Power, he removes his side of the problem. The result should be, that “the
government” in the form of the individuals holding posts in it, will originate
to those who have completed the rundowns, asking for help! And this is how I see Super Power as “auditing the government”! Our solutions, with our National
Affairs Office right down the street from the White House, will replace the
false solutions the government has been using, with true solutions. Truth
as-ises lies. Entheta becomes theta.

The missing step has always been,  getting the government (PC) interested in its own case (the problems of the representatives themselves and the nation as a whole) and willing to talk to the auditor (Scientologists with the true solutions). Super Power IS that step!

Needless to say, I got WAY MORE from that word clearing cycle than
I expected!

I highly recommend you stop by ASHO (or any Qual Library  with a full set of BC tapes) and pull the binder numbered Lectures 77 – 88.  Pages 64-65 of the transcript is where LRH covers this piece of  technology.

The above also explains why ANY auditing, especially the NOTs  band, results in unbalancing the problem of theta vs entheta which has been going on for eons. Maybe that’s why LRH said it’s the faintest chance this universe has…

ML,

236 Comments

Posted in FLAG, freewinds, healing, ot 8, ot ambassadors, propaganda, Scientology, Super Ponzi, tech, the future, the Reformation, Uncategorized

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Integration, Evolution, and Transcendence

Posted on February 18, 2013 by | 174 comments

Learning the art and honing the skills of differentiation, identification and association increases accuracy of observation. It increases intelligence. It increases ability.  L. Ron Hubbard aptly defined the application of those skills as sanity.

When one observes while exercising differentiation, identification and association one has assumed and assigned identity, differentiated himself from and made associations between himself and those phenomena and things that he observes.  By doing so, one is experiencing duality in the mode of causation.

Continued practice in these skills can reduce complexities and systems to simplicity and create a heightened sense and certainty of oneself and his place and role in the cosmos.  It can bring about an unrepressed, self-determined, well and happy state of being.  Scientology technology, sans cultish policy/group think indoctrination, is well equipped to bring about that state (the means and reasons why are covered in some detail in the book What Is Wrong With Scientology? – along with vital data on how to steer clear of the policy/group think cult indoctrination).

Once attained, one can trade on those skills to bring about higher intelligence and power of observation in others and/or more profit and power to oneself.  Some, though they would be the last to admit it, obtain and exercise a feeling of superiority and a comfortable identity for having accomplished a high degree of competence in the skills of identification, association and differentiation.  If the exercise of one’s skills are of sufficient value by way of their scarcity, more penetrating observation beyond them might seem a threat to the value of those skills of differentiation, identification and association and all that they garner. One can very easily find a contentment level where further observation of higher truths and unexplored realms might be seen to upset the comfort of the help, profit and power zones one is experiencing or operating in.  Some have even bought into the idea that to transcend or move on from that which increased one’s ability to identify, associate and differentiate would be tantamount to eschewing those skills and constitute the most heinous form of treason.  The act of continued observation beyond the constructs provided apparently threatens the very identity the skilled one carved out and created for himself as a master of identification, association and differentiation.

On the other hand, one could also value curiosity, sense of adventure, and thirst for higher truths above comfort and power – and possess the courage to explore them – and one could thus seek to view larger and more complex systems and the interactions between them.  Over time, one might begin to observe entire universes and their interactions.  One might even transcend identity and the differentiation, identification and association that defines it and catch a glimpse of all of existence and the synchronicity with which all elements within it seem to interact.  Contrary to the fears announced by those profiting and comforting by expertise in the skills my personal experience is that further exploration only sharpens those skills.

When one observes the whole of existence with no differentiation, identification and association in mind – simply observes the whole of existence as it is – one does not differentiate, identify or associate himself.  One is not separate and apart from the whole of existence.  One is experiencing nonduality.

If one also studied advancements in science, he might find that the higher reality of nonduality is being validated in the laboratory.  And if he continued to observe, beyond differentiation-association-identification, he might find that the universe can be seen to behave as quantum mechanics is beginning to demonstrate. That is, the behavior of the universe is dependent upon the character of the observer; that there is a synchronicity and interconnectedness across the cosmos that is largely invisible and undetectable to the five traditional human senses which are all bound up in identity, and its dependence for survival upon differentiation and association.  Planet earth’s greatest scientific minds – historically, the most skilled at differentiation, identification and association – tend to say of quantum mechanics, ‘if you think you understand it, then I know that you don’t.’

They might more accurately have stated that ‘if you think you can explain it in words, then you haven’t witnessed it.’  As Lao Tzu noted: The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.  The name that can be named is no the eternal Name.  The unnamable is the eternally real.  Naming is the origin of all particular things.  Free from desire, you realize the mystery.  Caught in desire you see only the manifestations. Einstein called it ‘spooky’ phenomena, as phenomena observed potentially could turn our entire concepts of all of existence, our very identities and the definition of God, upside down.  For decades hence science agreed to steer clear of examining how quantum phenomena might impact or shed light upon the nature of the soul, spirit and consciousness. For the past five decades, however, scientists have increasingly explored consciousness and contemplative philosophers have begun to explore science. And in this meeting of minds more clarity is arising.

The heightened abilities to differentiate, associate and identify are demonstrating with greater accuracy how we can better predict the manner in which the universe responds to stimuli.  The universe can be more causatively manipulated. It can be more thoroughly controlled.  It can be caused to bring about more comfort, profit, and power to the identities exercising identification, association and differentiation on a more causative level.

However, it seems that only when one transcends identity and the need for comfort, wealth, and power and the need to differentiate, identify and associate in order to collect and maintain them, that the higher truths of the universe can be directly experienced and perceived.  Not with the five traditional senses.  Instead, with the sixth sense and beyond – referred to in Scientology as theta perceptics, referred to in Eastern traditions as nondual consciousness or awareness.

It seems that if one can learn to let go of an avid craving and drive for the ultimate, everlasting state of ‘causation’ he or she might get a taste of it.  Ironically, contemplative teachers increasingly refer to such tastes as ‘causal consciousness.’ It might just be an activity that one cannot do, but instead a state one must actually be in order to realize.

In that experience, the universe does not respond to one’s causation. It is not something separate, apart, or even associated with you.  There is no association or differentiation between you and it. It is you and you are it.  It and you simply is.

Is one then a separate, distinct identity or a part of a single infinity?

It would appear that it all depends upon how one is viewing himself and the universe.

Can one have it both ways?

Inevitably.

174 Comments

Posted in healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, Tao Te Ching, tech, the world, Uncategorized

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Sitting In Judgment

Posted on February 15, 2013 by | 398 comments

 

In December 2012 I posted an essay on this blog suggesting that  judgmentalism is a negative  trait that Scientologists ought take care to curb.  This blog is frequented in the main by former members of the church of Scientology who still consider themselves Scientologists.  These are people that have been out of the organization for years and who profess that Scientology ought not be used to control and dominate the lives of others.  Nonetheless, a popular counter-position posted in response to my essay was that ‘labeling, and judgmentalism, is just fine in and of itself – the only problem with such practice is inaccuracy of the labeling.’   Even years after their participation in the organization, many Scientologists considered a judgmental attitude a positive virtue provided it is done in keeping with their own standards of accuracy.  The most zealous proponents of that idea resorted to ad hominem attacks on me for raising such issues, and ultimately disconnected from me.

I do not contend that the labels Scientology promotes usage of are inaccurate or harmful provided they are used in a professional manner as initially intended upon creation.   Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard created numerous constructs against which the mind, spirit and human condition could be understood and improved.   He observed and recorded gradient scales ranging from horrendous, painful conditions all the way up to beautiful, joyous conditions.   The scales are invaluable when used by professionally trained Scientologists to help move people up those conditions.  But, just like any other field of the mind and spirit – including psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and other religions and systems of spirituality – the moment one takes the diagnosis and treatment or practice scheme out of the hands of trained, responsible practitioners and applies it casually and inexpertly in the field of day to day human relations, disaster is close to inevitable.

Imagine a friend telling you that you are an obsessive compulsive disorder case – in all seriousness – , and thereafter treating you as leprous until you conformed with that friend’s standard of acceptable behavior.  How long would you tolerate that friend in your proximity?  Not for long I suspect.   Scientologists – regardless of levels of training – are encouraged to apply their own, equally judgmental, labels to others and apply them in life.

Scientology has a substantial lexicon of judgmental labels that rivals the scope and complexity of the American Psychological Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).   Its organizations promote their facile use in day to day life.  Despite that, Scientology organizations spend millions of dollars a year condemning the DSM and its misuse or even professional use.  Their argument is that such labeling is judgmental and as such it does not promote improvement but instead categorization and stigmatization.

Perhaps the most commonly used stigmatizing terms in Scientology are “suppressive person” or SP and “potential trouble source” or PTS.   An SP is defined in Scientology as one of those roughly 2 ½ percent (Scientology founder  L. Ron Hubbard estimation) of any population who exhibit the characteristics of a sociopath or psychopath.  Scientology’s diagnostic scheme for identifying an SP is nearly identical to psychology’s and psychiatry’s diagnostic standard for identifying the sociopath or psychopath.   A PTS is a supposed  member of approximately 20% of the population who are intimately connected with an SP and consequently are mistake-prone or act ill or cowed.

Scientologists are encouraged to take a three week course of study in order to achieve the purported professional  ability and  license to identify and handle an SP and the target of his effects, the PTS.  All Scientologists are required to take this course and are expected to apply it with an attitude of certainty regardless of lack of any other professional credential.   The result, bluntly, can denigrate into a community  of untrained, arrogant, Monday morning shrinks passing the most condemnatory judgments upon one another at the drop of a hat.

To make matters worse, there is a distinct SP characteristic in Scientology writings that takes precedence over the other dozens that align with the psychology field’s similar diagnostic characteristics checklist.  That is, if someone exhibits an ‘anti-Scientology’ leaning he or she is sure to be diagnosed as being an SP.  To qualify one only need question the wisdom of any Scientology writing.  This fact alone is probably more responsible for Scientology taking on the character of an insular cult than all others combined.

L. Ron Hubbard once quipped that it is futile to get into an argument with a psychiatrist.  The problem, he noted, was that the minute you get a leg up on the psychiatrist he definitively ends the debate with the evaluation, ‘you are crazy.’   Ironically, this ad absurdum joke could almost describe the modern day Scientologist.  If you attempt to even discuss a shortcoming of Scientology the debate decisively ends with the evaluation, ‘you are an SP.’  Per Scientology policy all Scientologists must disconnect from an SP.  That is, the Scientologist must refrain from any type of communication with the SP, directly or indirectly.  That policy holds whether the declared SP is one’s spouse, child, parent, business partner or best friend.   The SP is entitled no civil or human rights as far as any Scientologist is concerned.

By way of comparison, the psychiatrists’ condemnatory label ‘crazy’ is a rather mild evaluation.

Nonetheless, Scientologists – even those who have disaffiliated from its organizations because of its alleged proclivity for judgmental evaluation, trying and sentencing of followers and the population at large – believe ‘judgmentalism’ is not a problem with Scientology.   They are so dead serious about that that they are prepared to prove it by disconnecting from anyone who says otherwise.

Decompression is important in any cult recovery effort.

Re-education is probably even more important.

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Posted in black dianetics, disconnection, ethics, healing, independents, justice, l. ron hubbard, policy, propaganda, psychs, Scientology, the Reformation

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Buddha’s Brain

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | 161 comments

 

I have added Buddha’s Brain, (Hanson/Mendius – New Harbinger Publications, Inc, 2009) to the recommended reading list.  The following is my review.

buddha

Buddha’s Brain is authored by neuropsychologist Rick Hanson and neurologist Richard Mendius. Hanson is also a meditation teacher, and Mendius is also cofounder of Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom.   These fellows give a relatively easy to follow sum up of what developments in science have taught us about the function of the brain.  They also, through work with Buddhist contemplative practice masters tested for neurological and hormonal/chemical patterns created by decisions of the being, detail how the brain – and thus the body – is affected by thought.  

Buddha’s Brain provides great food for thought and correlation to those trained in Dianetics and Scientology.  The authors’ description of science’s 2009 understanding of the human brain is remarkably consistent with L. Ron Hubbard’s 1950 description of the reactive mind in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.   They describe the brain as being hardwired for avoiding danger, taking precedence over behavior/action patterns that seek pleasure or reward.   They describe how transcendent states attained through contemplative practice – their main frame of reference being Buddhism – erase reactive neuron channels and create new, more analytical, intelligent and rational ones.

Just as Scientology was somewhat vague in differentiating between the Thetan (spirit) and the mind and nearly mute on the subject of the brain, the authors of Buddha’s Brain are somewhat vague on differentiating between brain and mind, and never label that which is making the decisions that are creating a better functioning mind/brain.  To get hung up on such difficulties with constructs describing that which is invisible to the eye and physical measures would be to miss the forest for the trees.

Hard core Scientologists, if they could muster the curiosity or courage to read the book, would likely heavily tune out somewhere in the last 2/3rds of it.  That is because the material for the most part prescribes contemplative practice that the authors claim demonstrably reforms the brain/mind.  To react in such wise would be a mistake in my view.  To read it, for example, might lead to some insights into why running pleasure moments, as in Self Analysis by L. Ron Hubbard, is so therapeutic.  Could it be that Scientology processes do far more good than L. Ron Hubbard even knew given the relatively archaic state of science in his day?   One thing is for sure, those who are afraid to look will never know.

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Posted in acknowledgments, healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, psychs, Scientology, tech, the future, the Reformation, the world

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The Simplicity of Scientology

Posted on February 10, 2013 by | 179 comments

 

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Posted in acknowledgments, healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, Monique Banks Rathbun, Mosey Rathbun, Scientology, tech, texas, the future, the Reformation, wins

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Colbert Report on Scientology

Posted on February 7, 2013 by | 282 comments

Like it or not, justified or not, the following segment on the popular Colbert Report (see both segments, second the interview with Lawrence Wright) pretty well sums up the public image of Scientology.  Not the church of Scientology in the eyes of the world at large, but Scientology.   A whacky religious cult with bizarre beliefs, violent practices and a threatening way of dealing with criticism.

The Colbert Report on Scientology

Do you believe this public image can change?   How?  How long will it take to change significantly?

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Posted in celebrities, David Miscavige, harassment, int base, Lawrence Wright, miscavige crimes, miscavige lawyers, office of special affairs, Scientology, the future, the Reformation, the world, Tom Cruise

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