The following is an excerpt from chapter one of A Course in Graduating From Scientology.
At its core scientology revolves around the auditing process. The word auditing comes from the Latin root audire which means to listen, or to listen and compute. The entire purpose of a scientology auditor is to provide an environment in which an individual may look at his or her life in such an honest fashion that that which is viewed no longer has a hold on that person. Scientology postulates that ‘charge’ (mental energy) ‘erases’ through that process. One could just as easily consider that one’s witnessed experience objectifies. That is, one’s experience moves from the subjective (part of, and affecting oneself) to the objective. In that construct, matters of the mind that tend to drive one on an automatic basis are no longer hidden and automatic. Objectivized energy of the mind is no more capable of driving you than any other person or idea that you can clearly see as apart from yourself. Given a workable methodology for pursuing such objectifying, your own choice in the matter of what to do, what to choose, what to pursue and what to react to can be restored to you. Each time one honestly witnesses in this wise one recognizes a little more about the true nature of self and its relationship with matter, energy, space, time and life. Witnessing is what led the Buddha – and many other sages – toward recognizing the impermanent nature of matter, energy, space, time, and life forms.
It is my view that any time devoted to honestly viewing the content of your mind, your experience, what arises in consciousness, is progress in moving the external world back out of one’s head where it no longer drives you. That is so provided one is permitted to do so on a self-determined basis and to cease once one’s attic is cleared to one’s own satisfaction. Hubbard once described the mechanics of auditing in this very wise in the book Evolution of a Science.
There used to be a saying in scientology, ‘any auditing is better than no auditing.’ No matter what processes, what grades, what levels attained or not, every hour spent objectivizing the subjective was net gain. As we shall see, all that radically changed along the development path. At the upper reaches of the scientology way one is indoctrinated to believe that viewing certain aspects of the mind is a potentially deadly activity – not only possibly killing one today but keeping one comatose and crippled for millennia to come. Because of indoctrinations like this and because there is so much emphasis included in scientology about the attainment of static grades and levels, and purported permanent states of consciousness, the failure to attain very high on the Scientology Bridge (the chart of progressive grades and levels of spiritual attainment) tends to serve to invalidate the work a person did execute in witnessing his or her own mind.
Scientology contains so much dogma asserting superiority to and difference from all other forms of witnessing that people tend to lose sight that they spent a tremendous amount of time and effort doing just that, witnessing. I use the term ‘witnessing’ because it is a generic term that captures what is at the heart of all effective psychotherapeutic and spiritual practices. Most forms of meditation (Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, etc.), most forms of psychotherapy, and Scientology too, create a desirable effect to the extent the individual applying it honestly views what arises within her own consciousness.
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NOTE: To those who have already completed venture one, you’ll notice this passage has been revised. As I learn from you all I find myself going back and adding to and revising. I will continue to post significantly revised passages like the above as previews for blog readers, and a heads up to you that changes were made.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 