Category Archives: Tao Te Ching

Mission Statement

Posted on January 26, 2013 by | 569 comments

This began as my promised response to Tom Martiniano’s Op Ed that was posted on this blog on January 22.  It expanded into a mission statement of sorts given intervening events.

Before I take up particulars of the Op Ed, I want to establish a foundation.

First, I believe that L Ron Hubbard developed a workable spiritual-based psychotherapy that when applied as prescribed – according to its axioms and fundamental laws – routinely produces a well and happy, self-determined, unrepressed being.   Since leaving the church of Scientology I have applied that exact path to three individuals – from knowing little to nothing of Hubbard or Scientology to the state of Clear (quite in addition to hundreds of hours of auditing at all levels of the Bridge).  Doing so outside structured, policy-controlled Scientology is far less complicated.  There is little need for listing and nulling, extensive correction lists and the like because there is none of the sundry evaluation (under the justification of ‘ethics’, ‘pts/sp handling’, ‘justice’, or other organizational concerns) that inevitably enters when the process is complicated by later policies, and even tech, that stray from and contradict the laws and axioms which make auditing, and the Bridge, work.  I have objective and subjective reality on the workability of Hubbard’s technology.

Second, by his own admission L. Ron Hubbard could not have, and would not have, discovered that well taped path had it not been for centuries of free thinkers who came before him, most notably Sigmund Freud, Alfred Korzybski, Lao Tzu and Siddhartha Gautama.  I believe that Viktor Frankl’s treatment of Freud would have served Scientology’s future far better than the wholesale condemnation (read denial) that was later visited upon him and everyone ever influenced by him.  In the early fifties Frankl acknowledged Freud much as Hubbard originally did, noting that he was the first to look into the mind and show us that it could be done.  Frankl also acknowledged that Freud – like himself, Hubbard, and the rest of us – are influenced at least in some measure by the times in which we live.  Thus, he reasoned, one should not dismiss Freud wholesale because he, growing up in Victorian Vienna, was wrong that everything could be answered by one’s sexual hang ups.   By the same token he noted that it is just as shortsighted and stupid for us not to recognize Freud’s limitations.  To give credit where credit is due, he concluded that if he (Frankl) were able to see a little bit farther over the horizon than Freud it was because he was a mere midget standing on the shoulders of a giant.  If Scientology continued to acknowledge its once acknowledged legacy, there would be far less fuss (read impossibility to the world outside of the Scientology cult) about acknowledging Hubbard’s contributions and legacy.  There would also be a far deeper understanding available to students and practitioners of Scientology of that which they study and practice.  Further, I agree with Hubbard when he once freely admitted that had he not discovered the path he did, someone else ultimately would have.   I believe he limited future discovery beyond his horizons by later claiming his discoveries were not inevitable by the cultural evolution of humankind and his contributions to it, but instead were due to some mythic quality of his own cosmic character.

Third, because I have successfully understood and applied the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to intended result, over and over again, both in the church of Scientology and out while under intense attack by the same entity, I have earned the right to have my own opinions on the subject – as have others.   Hubbard himself acknowledged that right in the first lecture he delivered on the subject of how to study, Studying – Introduction, 18 June 1964.  If others do not have that same level of certainty of application and result I can understand their steadfast unwillingness to think with and discourse on the subject.   But, to attempt to dissuade those who have – and to condemn them with belittling labels and false accusations about  their alleged history – signifies a weak certainty on the subject in my opinion, and is anathema to the notion of broadening one’s horizons and is suppressive to the exercise of the one ability Scientology has always promised to deliver,  knowing how to know.   As will be made clear as we proceed, I would be very wary about putting a loved one’s spiritual destiny into the hands of such folk.

Fourth, with respect to philosophy, I believe that the understanding and level of application of Scientology I have demonstrated, over and over as above, helped to render me – and others – capable of the activity of philosophizing.   I happen to believe Hubbard had it right when he stated in the Philadelphia Doctorate Course:

I hope no man ever falls into that trap because it blocked human thought and human progress. Philosophy became completely abandoned as a subject…and even at this moment they still give a Doctor of Philosophy degree in universities which demands only this of the student: that he know what philosophers have said. Now, that is incredible. If you had a Doctor of Philosophy, you would expect that Doctor of Philosophy to be able to philosophize. The professors of those courses would just be shocked beyond shock if you dared come in and infer that the end and goal of their students should be the production of philosophy. No sir, that’s how you keep a society static.

…and

…Scientology will decline, and become useless to man, on the day when it becomes the master of thinking…

I believe that volumes of subsequent technical and policy writings of Hubbard put it into the minds of Scientologists that the above no longer held true.   To the extent one believes that he or she is precluded from philosophizing, by the writings of Scientology, Scientology has become no better than what Hubbard accused modern university education (or psychiatry and psychology for that matter) of being for the philosopher.  Continued adherence to such fears and beliefs will as Hubbard noted ‘keep a society static.’

Fifth, I believe that the primary reason Hubbard was close to a half-century before his time in discovering his workable psychotherapy was due to his starting with the presumption that beings are spirits, and not physical matter entities subject to scientific reductionism.  Today, many people are engaged in ‘integral’ forms of spirituality and psychotherapy and some acknowledge that in order to achieve success in either requires the practice of both.  In accordance with Hubbard’s above-noted prophesy, deep study in these fields has convinced me that within years Hubbard’s route will be discovered quite separate and apart from his own discoveries.   The reason it will be ‘quite separate and apart’ from Hubbard’s discoveries is that by his own firm policies the entities he created to disseminate his ideas are known for one thing above anything else. That is, that if someone attempts to practice and explore Hubbard’s ideas outside of their narrow-minded control, or criticize them in any forum, that someone is subject to being destroyed utterly if possible.  It is a difficult row to hoe getting integral philosophers and practitioners to listen to anything emanating from Hubbard due to the hazards attendant with doing so.  My mission to date has been to attempt to accelerate the ability of mankind to better its own lot by recognizing and applying some of the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard.   I have held the idea that an “Independent Scientologist” movement might contribute to that effort to raise the world’s collective understanding.   I am convinced that to the extent its members preach blind adherence to Hubbard and wholesale dismissal of the ideas of others (particularly of those upon whom L. Ron Hubbard chiefly relied upon in developing his own technology)  the Independent Scientologist movement may become more of an impediment than a facilitator.

Having established my foundation, I will specifically address Tom Martiniano’s Op Ed piece, which clearly represents the wholehearted views of a number of Independent Scientologists:

Some say that LRH is not the only technology that there is, nor is his philosophy the only one that works and that following his technology or values only is being blind or being robotic.  That’s fair and in theory is a solid viewpoint, but in practice it is fatal.

Fatalism, and the installation of fear, is the demise of any ‘technology.’  In fact, by definition, to claim and instill the idea that there is no other possible route takes one right out of the realms of ‘technology’, science, and even rationality.   It goes against the very workable technology – term used advisedly – that L. Ron Hubbard developed on how to study or learn.

Once an injunction is laid down that it is ‘fatal’ or even detrimental to look outside the parameters of what another has said – be it a wise man, Hubbard or God herself – you have stripped a person of self-determinism and freedom to think.  To think with, attempt to integrate ideas with evolving thought and technology, and foremost to discourse philosophically in terms evolving thinkers are developing are means by which humankind advances.

Hubbard himself once noted that if something is done in the pursuit of understanding it contains no liability (paraphrased as I don’t feel constrained to have to do lengthy searches to find quotations in order to think and discourse).   That axiom has served me well, and hopefully will continue to do so.

Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.

First, one ought to define what constitutes ‘against’.   It implies – and literally means according to at least some of the more hard core supporters of Tom’s position – contrary to any idea of Hubbard.   I contend that if you use this as a standard, you have instituted the process of ‘thought-stopping’ and have rendered yourself a less bright, intelligent and enlightened being than you were before you adopted that standard.  You are certainly free to do so – but once you have, you have left the realm of the pursuit of truth and entered the ranks of  fundamentalist religionists.   We have seen as much in recent days on this blog.   I asked people to consider where one draws the line on literal compliance to L. Ron Hubbard’s policy writings, and in return I am treated as an enemy.   When you go there, there is absolutely no difference between what you have done with your own thought process than what a fundamentalist Christian or radical Muslim has done with his or hers.  The only possible counter argument to this is that L. Ron Hubbard is different than Jesus Christ, God of the Old Testament, and Allah.   In fact, that is precisely what Tom’s piece promotes.  Such an argument will be about as effective in the world as those that the fundamentalist Christian and Muslim advance to one another.   Such absolutist thinking ultimately leads to persuasion by force and violence.  The best chance for forwarding that position – as destructive as it is – would be by zealous support of the church of Scientology and its supreme leader David Miscavige.

Is Scientology the only route out?  Yes.  It is the only applied philosophy that has the OT sections (which were removed from the bridge by David Miscavige).

Here is the demarcation point where Scientology bumps  into the glass ceiling limitations imposed by firmly held religious belief.  But I can’t address this fully in a forum with such a limited attention span as this.  I foreshadowed some of it in my book What Is Wrong With Scientology?   I invited discourse on it.  Those most violently in disagreement with it chose not to discourse, but instead to run a quiet, back channels ‘he’s not with Ron’ campaign.  This topic will be explored in far more detail in books coming out later this year.  In the meantime, look at the logic of the above statement.  It is precisely the same logic repressive clerics and politicians used to suppress the truth that the earth rotated around the sun for centuries.  The ‘logic’ went that if the earth were not portrayed as the center of the universe, holy scripture would be invalidated.  The ‘only route out’ became continuing ignorance (anyone trained on Grade IV technology knows what that statement constitutes).  Incidentally, the parenthetical comment about David Miscavige is about as anti-KSW as they come – L. Ron Hubbard never issued, nor prescribed any OT Level above OT VIII.   The group agreement interpretation of what Tom has evidently accepted as the L. Ron Hubbard real OT Levels may well afford some case gain of some sort to followers, but to pass them off as the L. Ron Hubbard OT Levels above VIII is specious.  It is rather peculiar for a guy condemning people who don’t march lock step to every word of Hubbard to be adopting and preaching such arbitraries.  It is like a kettle accusing the pot of being black.

Yes, you can read the Tao or read Buddha and so forth, but you would have to sort out a lot of wheat from a lot of chaff to get to Nirvana.  

This is a straw dog argument contention.  I have never suggested, nor even hinted, that anyone should read  the Tao or the Buddha in order to reach ‘Nirvana.’    I do contend, however, that remaining beholden, lock step, to the writings of Scientology – exclusive of any study outside of it – condemns an individual to ultimate misery, not only for himself but those he or she is intimately connected to.  That is partly because he or she will be denied the one lesson both Lao Tzu and Siddhartha Gautama taught that by omission puts a glass ceiling on Scientology.  That lesson can be summed up in two words, though it takes a lot more than mere recital of them to learn it – Let Go.

The  Scientologist hallmarks of arrogance, aloofness, meddlesomeness, pedanticism and strained intensity are not an accident.  They are inbred by scripture.  Ironically, the technology that perhaps better than any other can make the Way of Lao Tzu and the Buddha practically attainable winds up making that attainment impossible, by the implanted spiritual mechanism of ‘clinging’, ‘holding on’, or ‘mocking up’, in short, the inability to ‘let go.’  Lao Tzu and the Buddha and the Dali Lama, for that matter, have important things to say that beautifully complement Scientology.  But, one could never see that if he or she vowed to follow the next bit of advice.

Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly?  I would say so because it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.

Be my guest.   That is your religious right.  I fought for your ability to exercise it for the past thirty-five years.  And I’ll likely go on doing so till this vessel returns to the clay.

But, do not attempt to pass it off as anything other than religious belief.

And do not expect that such think and practice will popularize the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard and lead to more broad scale study of them.   The world is evolving.   Doomsday threats, fear tactics, and commands do not gain much traction in this day and age.   At least  not in the direction of educating, enlightening and alleviating the problems people face.

I do not wish to unsettle the beliefs that people hold if they wish to remain in the static comfort  of their Scientology beliefs.  Those beliefs are just as valid, and protected constitutionally, as more traditional, accepted faiths.   You may find some level of solace in the validation of those beliefs on this blog.   But, the theme of this forum is just as its title says, Moving On Up A Little Higher.  So along with the validation will always come  questioning and exploring and the attempts to broaden horizons and transcend.  So, if you wish to remain in the static comfort of your belief system, I suggest you not visit here.  It could be unsettling for you.

I have been accused by at least one ‘Independent Scientologist’ as not being ‘with Ron’ for espousing such views as I have here.   I beg to differ.  Attempting to command compliance with Ron’s ideas by blind faith, or anything resembling that methodology – whether Ron commanded such a course of action in moments of distemper or supreme, transcendent wisdom – is about the greatest disservice one could do to the propagation of his workable ideas.

I still believe Scientologists (of whatever stripe) have to make these choices: integrate or disintegrate, evolve or dissolve, transcend or descend.  Blame, irrespective of how you dress it up and dish it, won’t make those crossroads disappear.   Blame will take you nowhere but to victimhood.

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Posted in David Miscavige, healing, independents, justice, l. ron hubbard, ot 8, policy, psychs, Scientology, Tao Te Ching, tech, the future, the Reformation, the world, Uncategorized, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Introduction to Training Routines 0-9

Posted on August 19, 2012 by | 364 comments

I am providing below a copy of the introduction I wrote for people who do Training Routines 0-9 here at Casablanca.   I am not suggesting that anyone else copy and utilize it (but they are free to if they wish).  However, I think some might find the context provided of interest.

Introduction to Training Routines  0-9 at Casablanca

The cutting edge of modern physics, quantum theory or quantum mechanics, has never been proven wrong in its predictions of phenomena.  That is why technology derived from its principles accounts for more than one third of our current economy.   These facts are not widely known, in part because quantum theory reveals unanswered conundrums that seem to set classic physics on its head.   Most confounding is quantum theory’s demonstration that consciousness affects, and may even create, the physical universe.  Scientists have demonstrated over and over that the observer affects the behavior of matter in its smallest observable form (the sub atomic waves or particles which combine to form all matter). The fact that the observer (the spirit) is not of the physical universe and cannot therefore be directly measured by physical devices leaves quantum theorists scratching their heads and posing rather clumsy metaphysical questions. The seeming convergence of science into the realm of consciousness, or the spirit, frightened many scientists in the early part of the 20th Century.  That included one of science’s most free and liberal thinkers, Albert Einstein.  On more than one occasion Einstein warned fellow scientists to be wary of the ‘spooky actions’ that quantum physics revealed when the observer (consciousness, or the spirit) met matter.  He along with the leading scientists of the era were concerned that quantum theory would turn science toward the metaphysical realms of consciousness; a taboo for the masters of the physical universe. One of the pioneers of quantum theory, Niels Bohr, proffered an agreement called the Copenhagen interpretation to allay such fears.  The agreement was that the established observation of quantum physics that the observer (consciousness, spirit) affects and even seems to create matter at the microscopic level would only apply at the level of the then-fringe sub study of quantum mechanics.  Since science was unable to demonstrate the quantum observations with matter larger than atoms – in large part due to its lack of technological means to do so – classic Newtonian physics would not be monkeyed with at the macroscopic level.  Science would leave the spirit alone. 

The Copenhagen interpretation worked for several decades.  It kept science out of the realm of the spirit. But, it also kept science largely in the dark.   As technology evolved, not in small part due to the continued brave work of the few in the field of quantum mechanics, science began to see consciousness demonstrate influence on matter – not only at sub-atomic particle level, but at increasing levels of density and mass.

Consequently, of late books have proliferated on the issue of science entering the realm of consciousness.   Many  scientists have come to recognize that ancient Eastern spiritual texts (e.g. the Tao Te Ching, the Vedas) treating the idea that spirit is senior to and responsible for the creation of the physical may indeed have been scientifically sound all along.  Still, it is interesting reading such scientific thinking authors proceeding with such trepidation, grappling with that which the Buddhist described as ‘nothing’ and the Tao described as an unmeasurable ‘emptiness.’    Unable to conceive of anything outside of,  yet affecting, the physical universe, the physicists alternatively refer to the ‘observer’ as ‘brain function’, ‘chemistry’, and ‘consciousness’ among many other labels.  

If Lao Tzu (author of the Tao) and Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) are deserving of apology for centuries of ridicule by the scientific community, then L. Ron Hubbard ought to at least be given a second look.   In the early fifties, during the height of Cold War electrification and horror at the specter of nuclear physic’s then-greatest creations (the hydrogen and atom bombs) being unleashed, Hubbard was busy attempting to marry scientific thought with Eastern spiritual truth. The author and founder of Dianetics and Scientology became much maligned in the following decades for the extreme, aggressive  measures his Scientology organizations would take in defense and propagation of what began as courageous, effective research.   That well publicized drama largely drowned out Hubbard’s more important contributions.   His definition of spirit, which he termed thetan (from the Greek letter, sometimes used to convey the concept ‘thought’) so as to distinguish his ideas from a myriad of existing, conflicting notions, used more scientist-friendly terms that fully differentiated spirit from the physical universe as:

Having no mass, no wavelength, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate.  The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things…the awareness of awareness unit.

From a spiritual approach he described a thetan’s effect upon and creation of the physical universe in terms that agree with more recent quantum mechanics findings. As we proceed we will attempt to satisfy the scientific mind by staying within the realm of demonstrable scientific fact.

First, science tells us that there is no such thing as the past.   That is, there is only evidence of the past as a creation of our minds; whether that be in the form of individual and collective memory or the recounting of past events in words, images and published, digital, visual and audio media or in divining and speculating about the past by analysis and testing of physical matter.  The past is only cognizable against the created agreement called ‘time’ (the gauge by which we measure movement of matter in or across space).

Second, science tells us that the present is only what we observe – there is no physical universe but that which we observe.  Whether we create the physical universe to observe, as some religionists and quantum theorists contend we do, or not is an interesting metaphysical question.   A solid agreement on this question is not important for practical purposes of leading a happy, purposeful and meaningful life.  

Third, we are drawn into the future by our individual and collective intention.  If Sally decides she is going to spend tomorrow planting her garden the chances of her doing so are dictated primarily by her ability to follow through on her intention to do so.  Sure, there are conflicting intentions.  Her husband might intend that she instead go to the beach with him.  Her mother might intend she bring her children, the mother’s grandchildren, to her home to play.  The weather might intend to make conditions miserable for planting a garden.   If Sally’s intention is not so strong, it will likely be modified by the conflicting intentions of her husband, her mother, and/or the weather.   But if Sally’s intention is sufficiently strong she will go ahead and create the future she initially intended.   If she has refined social abilities she will first deftly obtain the agreement of her husband and mother to modify their own conflicting intentions.   If she is exceptionally able she might even inspire her husband and mother to contribute to her original intention.   Thus, Sally’s mother winds up coming over the next day to watch the kids so Sally can concentrate on her garden work.  Her husband dons his overalls and gets into the garden to help her.   This works out particularly well where everyone’s original intentions were satisfied – i.e. Sally’s mother’s original intention to spend time with her grandchildren, and her husband’s intention to spend time with Sally, both were satisfied by modifying their intentions to coincide with Sally’s.   And even though the counter intention of the weather apparently was not modified – it poured hard on gardening day – the new, stronger collective intention of Sally, her husband and her mother overcame that hardship.

We witness in ourselves and others varying strengths of intention and abilities to garner cooperation with the realization of intentions.  One factor in determining strength of intention is one’s ability to envision into the future.  If one can rationally observe and evaluate the present so as to conceive of a desirable, achievable future scenario one has a greater chance to develop one’s own effective intention and to garner the cooperation of others in helping to achieve it.  If one’s view of the present is so clouded by fixed ideas molded by undue attention stuck in the apparent past one is liable to be unable to cleanly envision rational, desirable future goals worthy of much support.   In such a case, one will not likely even muster one’s own strength toward achieving such goals, let alone obtain the cooperation of others.   

Goal conception thus can be seen as a fundamental skill in the development of intention toward creation of desirable futures.  Hubbard coined another term to describe that skill. He called it ‘postulating’, or mentally posting scenarios or results for future realization. Precedent to the ability to effectively postulate is accurate, rational observation of the present and differentiation of that from the illusion of the past.  While I am cognizant of the axiom that holds that to remain ignorant of the past is to be condemned to repeat it, there is a stark difference between the past as rational knowledge or wisdom and the past as mysterious, dictating reactivity.  In order to realize the former it is necessary to learn to differentiate it from the latter.   To fail in that differentiation is to continually, and unwittingly, create an illusion that carries force and undue influence in the present and which has a tendency to dictate the future. The most direct and powerful way to achieve differentiation between present and the illusion of the past is to develop the ability to recognize and fully perceive the present.  

Zen Buddhist masters for centuries have periodically reminded students that enlightenment need not take a lifetime of inactivity to achieve; that one is capable of deciding to be enlightened.  They have scorned esoteric and complicated forms of meditation and instead advised coming to present time at once.  20th century philosopher J. Krishnamurti often repeated that theme in writings and lectures.   The burden of his discourse was that to focus on a mantra or an object, as meditation often requires, is as valid in focusing concentration as worshiping an icon or deity is.   It is not however very effective in increasing perception and awareness.  Instead, the most effective and immediate method by which to train the mind and spirit to observe and heighten awareness is to learn to see, or observe.

I do not negate or doubt the inherent ability of some to simply do as Krishnamurti or the Zen masters have advised.  However, I am not one of those who was blessed with that natural presence of mind to instantly achieve that ability.  I was greatly assisted in the process by Hubbard, who saw eye to eye with Krishnamurti and the Zen teachers as far as objective is concerned.   L. Ron Hubbard noted that ‘the road out’ of entrapment of the mind ‘is marked by simplicity and direct observation.’    In pursuit of making that ability attainable by the likes of myself, Hubbard developed a number of simple exercises designed to help an individual attain the ability to simply be present and perceive.  From that foundation further drills make clear, effective communication possible.  The final exercises make one aware of the power of his own intentions and teach one to increase his ability to direct them and realize them.

Ultimately, these exercises became the cornerstone of the applied religious philosophy of Scientology.  When those exercises were recognized as its foundation the philosophy thrived.   That period of expansion was occasioned by the purveying of a simplicity. However, ultimately its organizations were corrupted to become the destructive activity Hubbard himself warned of: ‘By the invitation of or involvement in a complexity, we accomplish the unfathomable and create a mystery.  We sink Man into a priesthood, we sink him into a cult.’

While I acknowledge Hubbard for having created the exercises that follow, I also re-iterate his warning.  The organizations that he created have since his 1986 passing sunk into a dangerous cult priesthood, preying on the curious with a toxic mix of mystery and complexity. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to not trust anyone but yourself in applying these drills.  The moment you encounter complexity in this – or any other – spiritual endeavor sort it out before continuing.  Do not devote your time or energy to anything you do not understand or find rational reason to pursue.   Do not accept the invitation into a complexity or a mystery. 

If you find the drills difficult to do, do not mistake that for or write that off as a ‘complexity’ or a ‘mystery.’   The road to ability is not always easy.  It sometimes requires self-discipline and perseverance.  It sometimes requires strength to overcome the resistance the physical universe (including the unconscious mind) presents to keep us within its relentless tendency to seek equilibrium.  Keep this in mind: that resistance breeds resistance.  Most Eastern thought (including its martial arts) is predicated on that truth.  A spirit is not of the physical universe; it only considers that it can be affected by matter.  When spirit acts like matter, and attempts to use force to control or resist, it provides a base for counter-force and counter-control to accumulate against. What actually is occurring in that case of putting up force or effort (in accordance with Eastern thought and quantum mechanics) is that spirit is creating matter against which more matter can adhere.  When you experience discomfort or seemingly mental mass or force impinging on you during the drills, simply be aware of them.  Do not resist them.  Do not strengthen them with resistance or counter-force.  They are incapable of affecting a thetan, except to the degree that a thetan considers they can.  After all, a thetan is not of the physical universe except only by its own consideration. Simply observe such phenomena for what they are and I believe you will witness them vanish.   When they do, take heart for you will have experienced the achievement of an ability.  Realize that you are on the road to being able to comfortably, fully differentiate the present from the past.   From that strong foundation you can proceed toward more effective communication and projection of your intentions into the future.

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Posted in independents, l. ron hubbard, Tao Te Ching, tech, texas, Uncategorized

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What Is Wrong With Scientology? Is Now Available

Posted on June 23, 2012 by | 342 comments

Order your copy at Amazon Books here: What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Excerpt from Chapter Seven – Confessional:

 In this wise, a new moral code is imposed upon individuals, covertly and against their own determinisms.  It is exacerbated by repeated questioning about the individual’s failure to report on other Scientologists.  After a while, a corporate Scientologist modifies her behavior accordingly, in order to avoid more security checks.  She not only edits her own behavior and thoughts, she attempts to do the same with Scientologist friends and family members, so that she does not get into trouble for overlooking such transgressions of others.  Thus, a process that was originally intended to free a person from the self-imposed mental prison she has created by her own inability to live up to what she considers right and ethical conduct becomes reversed.  The preclear is instead forced to agree to a new mental prison, imposed by the organization based on what it decrees to be right or wrong.  In short, the process replaces a person’s native judgment with a new judgment of its own.  In practice, it is a dark and painful operation, making a person less self-determined and more other-determined.

    It seems that the only solution open to corporate Scientologists to cope and carry on within their culture is to become moralists.  Moralists who enforce on self and others morals which have been implanted.  If corporate Scientologists police their own conduct fastidiously enough, and interfere enough with the behavior and conduct of their fellows, they reckon they might be spared the cost, embarrassment and pain of being ordered to further batteries of security checks. In fact, that is the only behavior that does avoid continual, expensive, and degrading security checks in corporate Scientology.

    This is yet another example of Scientology Inc.’s  reversal of end product.  Confessional technology was developed with the purpose to help an individual recognize she is the cause of her own destiny – and it has a long history of realizing that purpose.  This priceless technology has been twisted and corrupted to the point where now the individual winds up with her destiny blueprinted and dictated by the church.

    These blueprints are enforced through a related – and now similarly corrupted – technology of Scientology: the technology of ethics.

Order your copy from Amazon Books at, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

related stories:

Remedy of Black Dianetics

What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Ten Commandments of Scientology Inc.

Meet The Editors

The Virus That Killed Scientology Inc. 

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Possession and Dependency

Posted on April 24, 2012 by | 30 comments

Possession is the way you pin people down.  If you give them enough possessions, you fixed them.  You really fixed them.  The way to ruin somebody would be to give him a million dollars!  That would just ruin him.  Right now there’s a government on the face of the earth which is making a principle of giving everybody money. And I’ll be a son of a gun if people don’t take it.  It’s a sure way to ruin. To have, to have, to have, to have; a dependency, a dependency, a dependency — it’s ruinous.  Because the only way to have is to create and then not have.  Just create and not have, create and not have, create and not have will put you in full command of time and make you cause without ever getting an effect  And the magician wanted this answer — oh, my God, how he wanted that answer!  And there it is for you.  If you create, create, create, create, create, you never violate the second law of magic, “Do not be hoist by your own petard.”  “Do not be an effect to your own cause.”  And the only way you can be an effect to your own cause is to keep moving up the time stream and acting after you’ve postulated.  So you want it — if you can get it on the level of create, create, create, create, create, create, then you’ll never have “have”  You haven’t got time!

So, how do you avoid this?  Never borrow any money from a bank — make it.  Never accept a gift — make it.  Dealing in the MEST (Matter, Energy, Space, Time) universe you can shilly-shally around and monkey around a little bit if you want to, shift possessions around — don’t take them very seriously.

                        –  L Ron Hubbard, 7 November 1952

Fill your bowl to the brim; and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife; and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back

The only path to serenity.

                                  -Lao Tzu, circa 500 BC

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Posted in independents, l. ron hubbard, Tao Te Ching, tech, the future, the Reformation, the world

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Life Is So Good

Posted on March 16, 2012 by | 44 comments

I’ve added another book to the recommended reading section. It is Life Is So Good by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman.  Dawson was 101 years old when he worked with author Glaubman to chronicle his life which touched on three centuries.  Dawson had become somewhat famous after having checked into Elementary school at 98 years of age to learn to read.

This book will be of particular interest to those who bought into Dianetics or Scientology out of concerns for health and longevity – two things the subjects have consistently promised to better.  In a way the book validates the core reasons the subjects posit as the primary causation of ill health and early expiration.  On the other hand, it might help free one from the misconceptions the Corporate Scientology culture hammers into one about the alleged importance of becoming superman and lording over people and things.

It is a wonderful exercise in ‘problems of comparable magnitude’ (a Scientology concept that if you view a problem you are having against ones of greater magnitude than your own, your problem won’t look so nasty any more).   Worried about starting a new life outside of the cult in your forties, fifties, sixties or seventies?  Read George Dawson’s story.

In either event, it is a simple, enjoyable, and educational read.   It is a view of the 2oth Century from eyes that simply observed with no jaundice, no agenda, no disappointment, no justifying.

It also a great study in the Tao. Though Dawson never references it and presumably was never aware of the writing Tao Te Ching, he certainly understood and lived in accordance with the Tao.

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Debbie Cook and Wayne Baumgarten Update

Posted on January 24, 2012 by | 205 comments

While this group is still a bit amorphous to the liking of some, it is damn effective.  In just about twenty-seven hours you all contributed what I predicted we would likely collect by Friday.  And that figure is what I thought it would take to reverse the vector of attack from Debbie and Wayne and re-direct it back onto her tormentors.

You all acted nearly spontaneously from fourteen different States of the US and six countries.

I estimate that the amount we have to work with is about 1/20th of what Miscavige has already spent in legal fees alone in mounting his attempt to crush Debbie and Wayne.   But that is one major difference between corporate scientology and Independent Scientology.  The business of attempting to kill and bury truth is one heck of a lot more expensive than is the activity of purveying and nurturing truth.

Our first point of strategy is simple, taken from the Tao:

Men are born soft and supple;

dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding 

is a disciple of life.

The hard and the stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

 

 

 

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Corporate Scientology Aggression

Posted on December 13, 2011 by | 93 comments

While I was out of town once this summer, Mosey had a lengthy, frank, off-camera conversation with the non-Scientologist minders of the corporate Scientologists who harassed us every day for one hundred and ninety nine days straight.  Monique asked them “what do we need to do to make you people go away?”   The answer was “Marty needs to stop talking to the media.”  Besides the fact that that unguarded, presumably honest answer put the lie to the entire “Squirrel Busters” front of being here to burn heretics, Mosey did not hesitate for a moment to inform the hired guns that their answer demonstrated the double-digit IQ mentality of their boss, David Miscavige.  Mosey informed them that “Marty hadn’t spoken to any media for months, until you goons showed up and made it an ongoing hard news story.”

Apparently so much so, that Village Voice Editor in Chief Tony Ortega listed it first in introducing a year-end poll on the top Scientology story of the year.  Here’s Tony’s summation:

1. Marty Rathbun besieged by the Squirrel Busters

In April, the sudden appearance of John Allender and his fellow Squirrel Busters, with matching sky blue T-shirts and video cameras strapped to their heads, was a powerful image that made for one of our most popular blog posts of the year. The goon squad had showed up at Marty Rathbun’s front door in little Ingleside on the Bay, Texas, where the former high-level Church of Scientology executive, several years after defecting, was now involved in an independent Scientology movement and inviting people not only to leave the official church with announcements on his blog, but also by coming to his house for unsanctioned auditing. To Scientology, people who conduct such out-of-church activity are “squirrels,” and the goons sent down to intimidate Rathbun called themselves the “Squirrel Busters.” The Busters rented a nearby home and set up all-day surveillance of Rathbun and his wife Monique for the next five months, until they finally managed to get Rathbun arrested on what turned out to be spurious charges. Keeping an eye on this ongoing siege is what, in part, inspired us to go from occasional Scientology writing to a daily blog that covers all things Scientology around the world, so this story was important to us personally. But it also is one of the most remarkable operations of Scientology’s retaliatory “fair game” that we’ve ever seen or heard about.

Click here for the full Village Voice Story.

Miscavige’s antics resulted in seven feature articles in the Corpus Christi Caller Times newspaper – many of which were picked up by the Voice and other web based news services.  Click here for access to the Caller Times stories. 

Miscavige is a loser.

That is because he has one impulse that substitutes for strategy, and one impulse alone that he follows: attempt to overwhelm by force.

I’ve posted the answer before  and I’ll post it again here though I hold little hope that the overexcited boy with the gangster complex will wake up and learn from it.

When two great fores oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield.  – Tao Te Ching

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The Purpose of Scientology

Posted on November 12, 2011 by | 69 comments

I want to share a few thoughts concerning the debate raging over spriritual philosophies and practices.

First, I don’t believe there is any substantive, divisive differences between Scientology philosophy and Eastern philosophies, including Buddhist, or even Judeo-Christian and Islamic philosophies.  I agree with L Ron Hubbard when he said in the Phoenix Lectures that they are all best summed up – and perhaps were even divined from – the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.

What I think is most unique about Scientology is that it contains a practice, that does not require belief or faith (and thus does not conflict with any of these brethren philosophies), that can and does enhance understanding of that common set of truths best distilled in the Tao.   Scientology is sometimes difficult to understand because it is a doingness, a practice that assists one to freely change his or her considerations.  It is not an intellectual debate toward enlightenment. Instead it is a methodology that assists one in achieving enlightenments.   Note, the plural form of enlightenment.  The entire subject being based upon infinity logic (there are no absolutes) the quantity of potential enlightenments is unlimited and inestimable.

I think the trap we get into, and the trap Corporate Scientology became, is the insistence upon absolutes.   The constant and obsessive assert that the practice is the philosophy, that the philosophy is completely original and absolute and exclusive of any other philosophy, can serve no other purpose than to alienate and make people withdraw from it.  As such it no longer serves as the unique methodology that can assist anyone increase his or her enlightenments and go out into the world exercising the ability of knowing how to know.  Corporate Scientology then became the antithesis of Scientology philosophy by erecting walls and enforcements to dictate what it is an individual can go out into the world and know.

Knowing how to know is the definition of the word Scientology.

If involvement in Scientology creates the mindset that one knows all there is to know then what good does attaining ‘knowing how to know’ achieve?

The highest attainment I have seen someone reach through Corporate Scientology is KNOW ABOUT on the Know to Mystery scale.  And when it is static, a destination, it becomes something far less, an arrogant sort of assert.

I’ve seen many an Independent Scientologist reach a far higher plane on the scale, called NOT KNOW.  And from there,with some courage and curiosity (the very qualities that I believe LRH possessed in spades and led to his own discoveries), I’ve seen them get increasingly extended glimpses of KNOW on the scale.

And the real sharp ones recognize that an obsessive must-KNOW all the time leads to a motionless, timeless, lifeless, lack of game.  This passage from L Ron Hubbard’s lecture of 9 July 1954, The Nature and Effect of Communication in Games is apt:

Well, if the state of total knowingness and total serenity were not horrible, then one would certainly stop communicating and simply assume it.  Is that right?  He’d simply assume this state, wouldn’t he?  All that’d be necessary for him to assume any kind of a state of this character would just seem to be — to simply abandon all parts of the communication system – swish!  Abandon them all, though, and abandon them all simultaneously, with no hangovers in any direction, before the system can police itself back into existence. Just have to skip everything. And if you did that, why, theoretically you’d get out into this state of total knowingness and total everything.

There must be something bad about this state. Must be.  Just must be something horrible about that state.  Or there’s something very, very betraying in the first considerations that came through, that you ought to start communicating in the first place.  That must have been a trick then; it must have been based upon a base betrayal.  And this base betrayal, then, must have led one into communication. Because nobody would start communicating at all, you know, and of his own free will and accord, knowing very well where it would lead to.  That’s obvious, isn’t it?

Oh, so there must be something horrible about being totally knowing, totally serene and without any time of any kind, so on.  This must be dreadful and probably is — probably is.  Undoubtedly is. You probably got that way and were awfully bored.  Only trouble with boredom is it’s a problem in barriers.  You can always solve boredom.  And barrier — boredom doesn’t exist unless you’re trying to go someplace, so we find boredom is part of the communication system — it’s the affinity corner. 

Well, then, there isn’t anything bad about this state of total serenity at all, is there?   

Well the way to assume it is simply drop all communication lines and all parts of the communication system and never do it anymore.  That’s what Buddha said, Gautama.  He said in one of his lectures to — discussions or discourses to a fellow by the name of Ananda: There are twelve things which you would just have to abstain from and any two of them would bring you bliss.  He’s a great man but, right there, there was a great big raw-tooth bear trap laid on the track.  If anybody abandoned any of these two parts of anything – by the way, they’re not the parts of communication but they’re wonderfully similar to some of the processes which we handle.  That is to say, he just groups a number of actions.  And if you didn’t ever do these actions anymore and if you just abstained from all these, then you’d get total serenity and so on.

Well, it looks to me like life is just life, isn’t it?  That it isn’t bad or good unless you want to make it so.  And that an individual could go into a 18 billion, trillion year communications spasm and then come out the other end unscathed.  And — but think, he would have had all of the randomity. But, look, that’s a consideration too, that one has to have a game is consideration too. 

Oh look, this is too much of a problem.  I mean, it’s just too much of a problem, so let’s not maunder around about it.  We’ll just look at the component parts of communication, restore the ability of an individual to conform with each of them and say, “All right now, you want to go be a personalized nirvana.  Well, goodbye.  And if you want to sell groceries, that’s all right with us too.” Because the truth of the matter is the primary violation which one could perform is a violation of an individual’s self-determinism.

Finally, let us never lose sight of the end object of Scientology, very concisely memorialized in Professional Auditor Bulletin 86, 29 May 1956:

The end object of Scientology is not the making into nothing of all existence or the freeing of the individual of any and all traps everywhere.  The goal of Scientology is making the individual capable of living a better life in his own estimation and with his fellows and the playing of a better game. 

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Heretics and the Scientology Inquisition

Posted on August 19, 2011 by | 314 comments

A heretic is a person who committed heresy.

Heresy (from Greek αίρεση, which originally meant “choice”) is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma.[1] It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one’s religion, principles or cause,[2] and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion.[3] The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy, are known as heretics. Heresiology is the study of heresy.

The word heresy is usually used within a Christian, Jewish, or Islamic context, and implies something slightly different in each. In certain historical Christian and Jewish cultures, heresy was punishable by law. In modern times, the word heresy is often used in jest and without religious context.

-Wikipedia

All the noise about “squirrels” and “squirrel busting” is a nifty distraction to mask corporate Scientology head David Miscavige’s operations in Texas of late.

What Miscavige is dramatizing is the centuries-old control device of burning heretics in an attempt to protect a dirty monopoly.  And as with everything Miscavige his dramatization is done with a criminal-mind twist.  The heresy he attacks is the original doctrine of the Founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard.

The following completely spontaneous video illustrates that what I state here is the truth:

Now, do you think that for one moment David Miscavige’s reaction to Erin Haskell’s heartfelt words will be anything other than “Squirrel!  Can you believe that?  Mixing Scientology with Christianity, the Tao. Squash the b____ along with Marty, goddamn it!”?

Here’s the twist and the heart of the matter. L Ron Hubbard would beg to differ with Miscavige’s view, and might even have defended Ms. Haskell:

Scientology is the science of knowing how to know answers.  It is wisdom in the tradition of ten thousand years of search in Asia and Western civilization.  It is the Science of Human Affairs which treats the livingness and beingess of Man and demonstrates to him a pathway to greater freedom

Subjects which were consulted in the organization and development of Scientology include the Veda; the Tao, by Lao-tzu; the Dharma and the Discourses of Gutama Buddha; the general knowingness about life extant in the lamasaries of the Western Hills of China; the technologies and beliefs of various barbaric cultures; the various materials of Christianity, including St Luke; the mathematical and technical methodologies of the early Greeks, Romans and Arabians; the physical sciences, including what is no known as nuclear physics; the various speculations of Western philosophers such as Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Herbert Spencer and Dewey; and the various technologies extant in the civilizations of both the Orient and Occident in the first half to the twentieth century.

– L Ron Hubbard, A Summary of Scientology from The Creation of Human Ability

 

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Time Out for the Tao

Posted on July 28, 2011 by | 175 comments

Having noticed certain shortcomings in my own conduct of late, I turned to the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu as I often do.  I am noting some passages below that particularly rang applicable given current events.  Maybe they’ll also provide some food for thought for others too.  For those folk who are still so programmed to believe any wisdom outside of Scientology is deleterious, a few words by L Ron Hubbard on the Tao Te Ching:

“It says that man could seek his Tao-hood in various ways, but he would have to practice and live in a certain way in order to achieve Tao-hood.  Now, there’s no reason to belabor this any further, but it would amaze  you that this book is a very civilized piece of work.  It would be the kind of civilized work which you would expect maybe to appear from a very, very educated, extremely compassionate, pleasant people of a higher intellectual order than we are accustomed to read.  It is a very fine book.  It’s sort of simple, it’s sort of naive and it tells you that you should be simple and economical and should do this and that.   And that is, by the way, about the only flaw there is in it from a Scientological point of view: that you must be economical. [laughter] That one is a little off the groove. But the rest of “The Way”, who knows but what if we took the Tao just as written and knowing what we already know about Scientology, we simply set out to practice the Tao.  I don’t know but what we wouldn’t get a Theta Clear.”  – lecture Scientology, Its General Background, Part II, the Phoenix lectures.

Selected passages from Tao Te Ching:

There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy.  Whoever can see through fear will always be safe.

…

If a country is governed with tolerance, the people are comfortable and honest.

If a country is governed with repression, the people are depressed and crafty.

…

The Master views the parts with compassion, because he understands the whole. His constant practice is humility.  He doesn’t glitter like a jewel but lets himself be shaped by the Tao, as rugged and common as a stone.

…

When the great Tao is forgotten, goodness and piety appear.  When the body’s intelligence declines, cleverness and knowledge step forth. When there is no peace in the family, filial piety begins. When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born.

…

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.  Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.  Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.  Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.  Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

…

He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm. 

He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far.

He who tries to shine dims his own light.

He who defines himself can’t know who he really is.

He who has power over others can’t empower himself.

He who clings to his work will create nothing that endures.

If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.

…

A great nation is like a great man: when he makes a mistake, he realizes it.

Having realized it, he admits it.

Having admitted it, he corrects it.

He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers.

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

…

What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher?

What is a bad man but a good man’s job?

If you don’t understand this, you will get lost, however intelligent you are.

It is the great secret.

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