Category Archives: tech

Comal County, Texas

From some recent visitors:

Thank you both so much for having and sharing your beautiful space with me.  The environment here is really perfect for working on spiritual advancement.

This visit has been exactly what I need to sort out ‘confusions’ that lingered – some I didn’t even know were there.

I am looking forward to living with my new awareness.  Thank you.

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Guadalupe River

Marty and Mosey,

Today is 5 of 7 and I woke up this morning asking myself ‘if this is what auditing was meant to be by Hubbard,  then what-da-f___  was I doing while in the church?  I do not recall having the kind of experience I’m having here at Casablanca.  I came here with the intention of wanting peace and quiet – and time to reflect on all that has happened in my life.  Since I left the cult I have been trying to sort out all the confusion in my head, and it is being sorted out in the sessions you have been doing on me, Marty.

There is something serene about having deer roam about your property and as I watch them from my bedroom window the song ‘long time sun’ by Snatam Kaur comes to mind.  You can find it on Youtube, it’s four minutes long.

Namaste,

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Sweet Pea

Came here with ‘stuff.’

Now – so quiet, so at peace.

This has been a most amazing experience.

I leave with clean water at all levels.  The mud has settled.

Mark, Monique and all the animal friends became part of my life.  I will forever feel this is a second home, a safe refuge, a place of memories and experiences.

The ‘life coaching’ – more than just auditing – was spot on and very validating of native beingness.

Thanks to all.

Loving kindness,

A visiting soul on the awareness journey we call life

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Pedernales River

Scientology and the Sea Organization

The report on Laura Decrescenzo’s ordeal filed by Tony Ortega is a must read.

It is sobering. It probably catches the reality of being subjected to Sea Org captivity more authentically than anything I have read to date.

Godspeed to Laura and her team.

Organized Crime and Standing One’s Ground

I have not commented much on Monique Rathbun v. David Miscavige.  I believe the case stands on its own merit.

But since David Miscavige has dictated and issued a public statement in response to Monique Rathbun v. David Miscavige that centers wholly upon me, I will briefly respond.  The statement calls me a coward for supporting my wife’s effort to be free from Miscavige’s organized domestic terrorism operations.

I have investigated organized crime at all levels.  My life has been threatened while investigating traditional La Cosa Nostra figures on the east coast, and while investigating local branches of national street gangs in South Texas.  In both cases I stood my ground and lived to tell the stories.  I have studied gang and organized crime activity and had extensive liaison with experts in the subject, from local law enforcement, to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, to the United States Department of Justice.  I have learned a little something about the tactics and behaviors of organized crime members.

One thing I have learned is that the heavier and organized the threat manufactured by an organized crime member the deeper the cowardice of the manufacturer of the threat.  Another thing I have learned is that if anyone stands his ground against organized crime, the automatic default strategy of organized crime cowards is to attack the loved ones of the person who stands his ground.

That in a nutshell, that is what Monique Rathbun vs. David Miscavige is all about.  It is about bringing to halt the to-date unrestrained practice of a policy that Scientology Inc. applies relentlessly in the face of any criticism or defiance.  That policy is the memorialization of the organized crime principles I have summarized above.  It is the bible of David Miscavige.  It states the following:

EVOLVED OPERATING PRINCIPLES:

        A.  COUNTER ATTACK TO OBTAIN THE REMOVAL OF THE PERSON with a product of DISMISSED ATTACKER.

        B.  If on test, A is not feasible, SURVEY TO FIND WHAT THE PERSON CONSIDERS VALUABLE AND USE IT FOR RESTRAINT. 

        C.  AVOID WHERE POSSIBLE THE COMMOTION AND WASTED ENERGY OF PARALLELING AN ATTACKER’S OWN EVIL PURPOSE OF DESTROYING HIS OWN GOVT, AGENCY OR INSTITUTION AND INSTEAD DISCOVER THE ATTACKER AND OPERATE TO COST HIM HIS JOB.

        D.  Where A and C fail, use B.

        PLAN:

        (a) Wherever an attack is in progress (and even when being held off by counter-propaganda from PR or actions from Legal) at once swiftly draw up a precise program using Intelligence principles and cross filing to isolate the attacker.

        (b) Identify the instigator.

        (c) When identified or even suspected as the instigator, draw up a project which includes at least three channels to cost him his job.

        (d) Draw up a second project at once to survey and discover what the person really is defending and threaten it effectively.

        (e) Execute the projects rapidly.

        (f) On achieving success inform PR so that PR can call off the PR counterattack and capitalize on any information gained if it does not expose Intelligence.

        (g) Inform legal so Legal can replan and utilize the information also gained to mop up.

        NOTE: Intelligence in these regards is not feeding PR and Legal as the only fruit of its endeavors.  It is OPERATING INDEPENDENTLY of these two functions with ITS OWN PRODUCT: I.E.  A DISMISSED ATTACKER or its secondary product: a totally restrained and muzzled attacker.

– L. Ron Hubbard 28 March 1972, COUNTER ATTACK TACTICS

This policy is the institutionalization of organized crime cowardice. It is intended to and directs the ruin, and has resulted in the ruination, of the lives of innocent, well-meaning people.  It was implemented against Monique Rathbun because I stood my ground against organized crime.  Now, the target of the domestic terrorism it calls for is standing her ground.

You are damn right she has my full support.

I have nothing else to say, at this point.

Pursuit of Understanding

I am introducing my recommended reading list to anyone who has attained the Scientology state of Clear.  By doing so, I am not promoting or trying to win over anybody to a particular line of thought.  Nor am I attempting to dissuade people from continuing to worship their firmly held religious constructs. I respect their First Amendment rights to continue to do so.  Instead, I am responding to the relative few who have expressed genuine curiosity about from whence I have come and to where I am going.  Folks can take it or leave it, or pick and choose to satisfy their own curiosities. And, as is their wont, Scientologists can of course nitpick and snipe so as to kill the agent who brings news they will likely find is anathema to their Scientology religious beliefs.

I recommend that these materials, minimally, be studied before embarking on Scientology OT Levels 2 through 8.   Actually, I think anyone would gain a tremendous amount of insight by reading these books. But, I believe this (or a comparable) recommended study is essential to understanding from a scientific and spiritual view what it most likely is that makes a meter read on a Clear.  It also gives a much deeper understanding of what it is that Ron Hubbard was grappling with on the upper levels.  To pursue a subject calling itself a ‘science of the mind’, while subjecting oneself to religious mythological belief constructs (as one inevitably does by running headlong into the OT Levels of Scientology) sets up a vicious form of cognitive dissonance: religious belief masquerading as scientific certainty.   The result is the inability to perceive as-is; defeating the entire stated purpose of Scientology.  More debilitating, Scientology at the upper levels continues a process of self-affirmation and self-fixation that firmly shackles an individual from rising to greater heights; locked into a solidified ego as he or she becomes. I think this recommended study can alleviate that dissonance, freeing an individual to continue to move on up a little higher.

I am not creating some new study by this recommendation.  I am sure there is an infinity of gradients and steps one could, and some certainly have, take to navigate the mire that is implanted at the Scientology upper levels.  I did not follow this recommendation.  I went through numerous other valleys and peaks along my own way. For example, as part of my own study, I studied and evaluated what Hubbard studied and drew from in developing Scientology; and I haven’t included that byway on this list.  I reviewed my path and noted those studies I feel were integral in understanding Scientology in the only way Hubbard himself recommended anything could be fully understood. That is, studied against data of comparable magnitude.  When one does, I believe one cannot help but recognize that Ron was definitely onto something in his upper level research, but that developments in science and consciousness far more rationally and accurately revealed what it was.  One may or may not also see in the light of this understanding, that continued, blind adherence to mythological constructs supplied in Scientology might be crippling of spiritual evolution.

If sufficient interest is communicated, I may follow up with a series of posts on each of these references, explaining why I consider them important, connecting dots demonstrating relevance to the Scientology experience, and making sense of the sequence, etc.  In either event, I hope some people find this of some assistance in their graduation and transcendence process.

1)      Tao Te Ching – Stephen Mitchell translation

2)      Siddhartha – Herman Hesse

3)      The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran

4)      The Four Agreements – Don Migel Ruiz

5)      The End of Suffering – Russell Targ and J.J. Hurtak

6)      Buddha’s Brain – Rick Hanson

7)      A Brief History of Everything – Ken Wilber

8)     Kosmic Consciousness – ten part interview with Ken Wilber, Sounds True Productions.

9)      A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

10)   The Biology of Belief – Bruce Lipton

11)   The  Unobservable Universe – Scott Tyson

12)   The Secret – Rhonda Byrne (book and video)

13)   The Intention Experiment – Lynne McTaggart

14)   The Field – Lynne McTaggart

15)   Entangled Minds – Dean Radin

16)   The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra

17)   Quantum Enigma – Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner

18)   Biocentrism – Robert Lanza

19)   A Gradual Awakening.- Stephen Levine

Some folks have already expressed dismay at such a recommendation in that it is a hefty amount of reading.  One person implied that I am asserting that one must become proficient in Quantum Mechanics in order to achieve enlightenment.  I am not suggesting that.

I am suggesting that if one devotes the better part of one’s life to following someone who implants in one’s mind a certainty that what he is following is proven scientifically to be the only road to spiritual freedom, one is demonstrating a large degree of gullibility in accepting and dramatizing that implant with no context explored against which to evaluate the truth of that implant.  Understanding is an universal solvent, in my opinion.

Scientology In A Nutshell

L. Ron Hubbard devised methods using Aristotelian and Newtonian two-value logic constructs that can and do sometimes create peak experiences of a non-dual, infinity-logic consciousness nature.   However, Hubbard also constructed a philosophy that is simultaneously inculcated into adherents that anchors them into two-valued logic thinking and living.  The philosophy includes as a senior element, an utilitarian ethics system.   The ethics system is made senior and precedent to the peak experience therapy techniques that otherwise could give glimpses of intuitive non-duality.  The utilitarianism of the ethics system is only apparent.  Its representation that it is based upon infinity-logic is false in practice.  It is corrupted by creating a central ‘utilitarian’ equation that always has what is good for the group (the Scientologists) weighing senior to all other considerations and thus is always considered what is best for all.  That fact makes the system, in fact and in practice, a two-value logic system.  What redounds to the benefit of the group is good; what does not benefit the group is evil.

The net result of Hubbard’s system was that he could create adherents who were given a taste of infinity-logic, non-dual reality, but were prohibited by his group ‘philosophy’ and ‘ethics’ from exercising or sustaining such reality.  The former serves as the glue that holds adherents to the latter.  The adherents could appreciate the possibility of intuition.  However, in practice only Ron Hubbard could exercise it consistently.  Against those constrictions of the Scientologists’ adopted philosophy and ethics, an inescapable result manifested.  To adherents Ron Hubbard was considered a special being from a higher universe as only he could naturally and consistently demonstrate intuitive powers. Scientologist were reduced to aspiring to be like Ron.  Ultimately that was an unattainable goal, when adherents were anchored to an ethics and philosophical system of thought predicated upon two-valued logic.

In effect, Scientologists who rise to the highest levels or otherwise adopt Scientology’s dictate that it is the only path to salvation, not only for the adherent but for all others, are trapped in a rather debilitating cognitive dissonance (the persistent attempt to hold two conflicting ideas in harmony).  On the one hand, they are thoroughly convinced that they are following a scientifically proven, utilitarian path that leads to transcendent consciousness.  On the other hand, in practice, they are prohibited from exercising transcendent, intuitive consciousness by their philosophy and ethics which are firmly grounded in two-valued logic.

The ‘Truth’ Rundown

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

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

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

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

ORIGIN OF THE RUNDOWN

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

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

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

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

BRAINWASHING

Here is the truth rundown in my own words:

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

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

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

Scientology Culture

Henry David Thoreau’s description of mid-nineteenth century American culture could serve as a fairly accurate description of Scientology culture today, in my opinion.

Thoreau:

It is remarkable that the highest intellectual mood which the world tolerates is the perception of the truth of the most ancient revelations, now in some respects out of date; but any direct revelation, any original thoughts, it hates like virtue.  The fathers and mothers of the town would rather hear the young man or young woman at their tables express reverence for some old statement of the truth than utter a direct revelation themselves.  They don’t want to have any prophets born into their families, – damn them!  So far as thinking is concerned, surely original thinking is the divinest thing. Rather we should reverently watch for the least motions, the least scintillations, of thought in this sluggish world, and men should run to and fro on the occasion more than at an earthquake.  We check and repress the divinity that stirs within us, to fall down and worship the divinity that is dead without us.  I go to see many a good man or good woman, so called, and utter freely that thought which alone it was given me to utter; but there was a man who lived a long, long time ago, and his name was Moses, and another whose name was Christ, and if your thought does not, or does not appear to, coincide with what they said, the good man or the good woman has no ears to hear you.  They think they love God!  It is only his old clothes, of which they make scarecrows for their children.  Where will they come nearer to God that in those very children?

Crossing Over

There comes a time when it well behooves one to review the bidding in the game called life.

What follows are some thoughts that some might find useful in such a review.

I have used the term ‘construct’ many times on this blog and in my books.   This is the definition I have mainly been using:

Noun

1 b :  a working hypothesis or concept <the unconscious was a construct that came from the daily effort to understand patients>

To date I have used the term mainly in reference to the space opera scenarios inculcated into Scientologists at the upper levels of the Scientology.

I believe that one reason some Scientologists have so hysterically reacted to the idea of considering such indoctrinations as constructs is that they are implanted to believe constructs to be unalterable truths from the get-go of their Scientology experiences.   Consequently, they are living in a sort of parallel universe; an agreed upon and reinforced one that requires such firm policies and notions as ‘disconnection’, ‘squirreling’, ‘treason and enemy conditions’ and the like to protect its constructs from analysis against data of comparable magnitude .  By adopting such self-constricting, voluntary-ignorance vows,  Scientologist can be thoroughly dissociated from observation outside of their firmly believed constructs.

With that introduction, I am going float an idea that is liable to shock the sensibilities of the most liberal minded Scientologist.  That is that just about everything one learns in Dianetics and Scientology is a  construct; a working hypotheses or concept to hold in order to practice a ritual.

In fact, the very first unalterable law one learns is so thoroughly implanted as unquestionable fact that what I am about to impart is pretty much guaranteed to lose me friends and readers.   But, I’ll go ahead and share the idea, confident that it will be of some service to some who have made honest efforts to integrate, evolve and transcend their Scientology experiences.

All of Dianetics and Scientology from one’s first introduction through the highest of OT Levels are utterly dependent upon this first construct.   I will be the first to vouch for its workability to a certain level.  I will also be the first to state that if not evolved and transcended from, continued adherence and reverence to it is the very glue holding a debilitating addiction in firm control of the individual.

That construct is the equation expressed as a fundamental law of the universe even three years before the publication of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.  The equation is “the individual is lesser than bank (the reactive or subconscious mind).  Auditor plus individual are greater than bank .”

If one were allowed freedom to experience the ‘state’ of Clear (the long-held goal of Dianetics and Scientology) one could not help but to soon realize that upon attaining Clear.   But, that is not allowed in Scientology.  Instead, the equation is re-stated with a great deal of false promise and threat of eternal damnation upon the attainment of Clear.

Some people who have moved on through solo auditing will understandably chafe “that’s bullshit, when I solo audit it is me against the ‘bank’.”  And here is where the thought stopping theater of the absurd begins.  First, what bank?  It was supposed to have vanished at attainment of Clear.  The reaction from the die-hard Scientologist of course is that he feels betrayed by this question because it is the ‘bank’ he has vowed never to converse about.  So, the conversation ends there with some.   And the solo-auditor will assiduously go on confronting the bank that no one can speak about, directed every step of the way by his solo C/S (case supervisor), solo D of P (director of processing), Master at Arms (Ethics Officer), ad infinitum.  In other words, it is no longer ‘auditor plus individual is greater than bank’, it is more like ‘individual plus C/S, plus D of P, plus MAA, plus the Sea Organization, and the 5th Sector cavalry might have a fighting chance against the inter-galactic forces of evil that constitute what is wrong him.’

Few, it seems, stop to contemplate and recognize that the further one goes, the more formidable, and interminable his baggage becomes in Scientology.   Fewer still, it seems, recognize the construct nature of the fundamental law that served as the glue to addict him or her to cult life in the first place.

‘The bank is great than individual’ or ‘the individual is lesser than the bank’ is an invented construct.  It has its uses.  But, it is not a fact.

Those who have achieved Clear in Scientology might learn a handy lesson from the man L. Ron Hubbard once claimed to be the architect of the heritage of Scientology, and once claimed to be himself, Siddhartha Gautauma.    The Buddha has been reported as passing along this little parable:

A man walking along a highroad sees a great river, its near bank dangerous and frightening, its far bank safe.  He collects sticks and foliage, makes a raft, paddles across the river, and reaches the other shore . Now suppose that, after he reaches the other shore, he takes the raft and puts it on his head and walks with it on his head wherever he goes.  Would he be using the raft in an appropriate way?  No;  a reasonable man will realize that the raft has been very useful to him in crossing the river and arriving safely on the other shore, but that once he has arrived, it is proper to leave the raft behind and walk without it . This is using the raft appropriately.

In the same way, all truths should be used to cross over; they should not be held on to once you have arrived.  You should let go of even the most profound insight or the most wholesome teaching; all the more so, unwholeseome teachings.

 

 

 

That’s As Real As It Gets

It don’t get no realer than that.

The world is seeing the actual aftermath of Scientology real time, thanks to Leah Remini.

As Jason Beghe noted on Tony Ortega’s blog, overcoming intense, directed negativity is not an exception for stars, it is the rule for those who dare to leave Scientology.

Jason also talks plain truth as to the provenance of the vengeful nature of the Scientology cult.

In my view, the moral of the ongoing story is:

Regain your positivity and contribute to the resurrection of others who are similarly situated.  Help one another to gain your own definition.

Justice

Jesus Christ is reported to have said, ‘The measure by which you give is the measure by which you will receive.’

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. {Oi chusoi Dios aei enpiptousi}, — The dice of God are always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there behind.

Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, but they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.

‘Compensation’, Essays: First Series.