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Scientology Golden Ages

Posted on September 9, 2014 by | 470 comments

This essay does not stand alone.  It will not make much sense absent first reading the essay ‘Standard Scientology.’

There is a rationale behind David Miscavige coming out with ‘Golden-Age’ campaigns.

Consistent with the essay ‘Standard Scientology’ (and chapter 25 of Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior) there is every necessity to continually revise, re-revise, compile, re-compile and re-issue the words of L. Ron Hubbard.  And thus there is some logic behind the Golden Age of Tech, the Golden Age of Knowledge and the Golden Age of Tech II – the three major Miscavige directed re-compilations of Hubbard.  Whether you agree with the way the church of scientology went about it is an entirely different matter.  But, moaning about the fact of the re-compilation is about as sensible and effective as complaining about the weather.

The original Golden Age of Tech was done in response to virtually all of the established technical hierarchy of scientology (Class XIIs, mainly trained under Ron’s regime) being about as capable of applying scientology fundamentals as the leading electro-convulsive shock therapy psychiatrists were.  I know, I was there, having been the only one in scientology who I am aware of to train uninfluenced by the scientology technical hierarchy.  Nearly all of the Class XIIs at Flag could not read an e-meter, could not deliver a crisp command, and did not apply a single tool effectively for salvaging a session gone south (which occurred frequently).  Quite a few of them could not make it through an entire session without dozing at some point.  When put on a correction program directed by me personally, by personal observation the majority of the Class XIIs were by modern societal standards nut cases.  About 90 percent of them were incapable of correction.   One reason for that was that they were convinced that the only valid correction was to ‘blow’ the body thetan who suggested that they screw up in the first place.  “It was misownership; not my overt” was the common refrain; and once the body thetan was addressed, they exclaimed gleefully “it’s all handled now!”  Not only had they bought Hubbard’s space opera constructs literally, that universe view was running their lives helter skelter.  I have written earlier that had the XII’s remained in boot camp with me to learn communication training routines the hard way and how to naturally and accurately handle a meter I believed that 90% of the problem would have been solved. But, alas Miscavige’s and the Class XII heirarchy’s killing of Lisa McPherson ended that program.

Having had six years of experience watching what passes for ‘independent scientology’ outside the walls of the church, having deconstructed the subject through intensive study and practice, I have come to the conclusion that there was something even more fundamental than Training Routines and metering that needed to be addressed.   It is covered in the post ‘Standard Scientology.’   Virtually every Class XII in the church at the time – those at Flag, those on the ship and those at the International base, including Senior C/S International Ray Mithof – were empowered to squirrel to their hearts’ content by none other than L. Ron Hubbard.  They, much like some of the die-hard scientologists who continue to frequent this blog or have disconnected from (while claiming Miscavige is a squirrel for allegedly reinstating the disconnect policy) and declared war against me, could and did regularly come up with an LRH reference to justify just about every technical crime imaginable.  And they routinely committed them.  You doubt that statement?  Then how could L. Ron Hubbard’s Class XII technical hierarchy from his ‘Mecca of Technical Perfection’ effectively kidnap a non compos mentis woman out of the hospital, imprison her for seventeen days, and ultimately kill her?  Lisa McPherson is only one of many products of the scientology ‘Mecca of Technical Perfection’ that went mad under scientology processing there.  And she was not the only one to die in the process.  That is impossible in an environment that has not committed every other crime and misdemeanor routinely for quite some time.  Certainly, I have made a strong case for pinning primary responsibility to Miscavige for McPherson’s fate. Just as certainly, by statistics the frequency of suicides and psychotic breaks among Flag public drastically declined after Golden Age of Tech implementation.  Some might argue that that is due in large part to heightening of restrictions against people prone to psychotic breaks being allowed on church premises.  Well, that is as it ought to be.  Scientology is eminently unqualified to practice in the field of mental health that its founder sought to take over.

In either event, Miscavige attempted to solve the problem by bypassing the Class XIIs lack of responsibility and understanding by making everything rote for them.  He was precluded by Hubbard policy from doing the type of radical, fundamental compilation the subject requires. That is, compilation of what ‘to do’, instead of what ‘not to do’, and communication of it in plain English.  He tried all manner of tweaking in order to overcome the inherent confusion of millions of words of dianetics and scientology trial and error, none of which could ever be accurately labeled as ‘background’, ‘historic’, or ‘no longer used’ because of firm policy prohibiting that.  And so he attempted to covertly do so through the via of hundreds of packs of drills – heralded as the Golden Age of Tech.  That effort provided endless fodder for organization-spurned scientologists.  A wave of disaffected scientologists arose, seizing on the fact of organizational revision to justify their continuing loyalty to their own interpretations of Hubbard’s incomprehensible – conflicting evolutions and devolutions must all be accepted as Gospel – body of work.  Certainly, I exacerbated that prairie fire with my continuing loyalty to Ron Hubbard.

Miscavige became increasingly frustrated as his new Age resulted in continuation of declining delivery and income statistics.  At some point he apparently threw up his hands in disgust and decided ‘to hell with it, you all listen to everything Ron said and sort it out for yourselves.’  Hence, ‘Golden Age of Knowledge.’ Given scientology’s unalterable policies forbidding any sort of rational compilation, it was not a wholly irrational measure.  It took something like that for me – done on my own – to fully appreciate what is effective and what is not and what is destructive in the legacy Hubbard left behind.  But, I am not bound – as all those considering themselves scientologists are – to submit to allegedly more informed, or more ‘with Ron’ or more ‘ethical’ or more ordained scientologists’ arrogant enforcement of Hubbard’s other writings outlawing such understanding and subsequent application.  It should be noted that that arbitrary, arrogant policing priesthood too was created by Hubbard and invested with paramilitary powers.

I have yet to review the second major phase of re-compilation heralded as Golden Age of Tech II.   It is possible some of the thorough re-compilation I have noted here that is required was assayed with that. Given the continuing absurd lust for lucre apparent in scientology promotions and the terroristic and counter-productive ways in which the organization continues to spend the take, it does not seem very likely to me that the job was approached with a motivation approximating that required to do an effective job.  Moreover, as my next book will explain in some detail, the better the job in enforcing ‘standard’ is ultimately a better job at enforcing mental imprisonment.  In that regard, habitually lamenting the alleged colossal balls up of Golden Age Of Tech II is a disservice, keeping potentially recovering scientologists caught in the paralyzing cognitive dissonance that something can be done to salvage something that if done more ‘standardly’ will only serve to entrap more people.

Even if Golden Age of Tech II were effective, however, it is likely doomed in the longer track of scientology.  That is because if it was effectively done, some bands of true believer scientologists in the future will no doubt ‘discover’ the grotesque violation of fundamental scientology tenets prohibiting such bold compilations.  In fact, some have already figured out how to make a living by condemning it sight unseen; a practice that capitalizes on keeping potentially recovering scientologists locked into a cognitively dissonant state of false hope.  All of this continuous, finger-pointing nonsense is one of the many inevitable pitfalls of converting a purported ‘modern science of mental health’ psychotherapy into a religion.   It is ordained by a system whose most advanced levels teach that ‘standard technology’ can only be realized by ‘commanding’ acolytes and not by appealing to ‘reason.’   It too is inevitable given the facts spelled out in Standard Scientology.

My sincere advice to any people still caught in this vicious circle is to move on.

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Congruence

Posted on September 6, 2014 by | 172 comments

Excerpt from upcoming book Clear and Beyond:

The fundamental two-way communication process that all scientology methodology derives its workability from existed before L. Ron Hubbard ever wrote a word on the subject of the mind.  All of its components were developed, far beyond the degree of sophistication that scientology ever treated them, while Hubbard was still engaged in black magik rituals in Pasadena.  They were perhaps best explained and demonstrated in Rogerian client-centered therapy.  It would behoove scientologists to study of it.  The best place to start would be On Becoming a Person by Carl R. Rogers (Houghton Mifflin, 1961).

What made Hubbard popular initially with publication of Dianetics was his simplifying and codifying critical principles of client-centered therapy thus potentially opening the process of self-actualization to far more people.   Hubbard himself has acknowledged that Dianetics’ fad-like initial appeal rested largely on the promise of taking therapy out of the hands of professionals and putting it into the living rooms of lay people.  Much of that particular appeal was lost as dianetics and its progeny scientology became more mass-production oriented, expensive, exclusive, and cult-like.  Not surprisingly, those negative developments can be traced to dianetics’ and scientology’s attempts to short-cut vital client-centered therapy principles in the first place.

The more failure in producing a confident, independent-minded, self-determined client, the more Hubbard introduced personality control mechanisms.  That is probably the most cardinal of sins imaginable in actual client-centered philosophy.  With pressure to deliver on dianetics’ original promises of immediate and permanent results, the training of practitioners became an assembly-line like activity.  On the one hand that helped to thoroughly crash train some workable skills, while on the other hand it omitted a more contemplative, intellectual appreciation for the agencies at work that actually create a desired effect and the responsibilities that go with such practice.

For example, for all the effectiveness of the training regimens instituted to teach the skills of counselor communication in scientology, perhaps the most important client-centered counseling ability was not only omitted but the opposite was trained in.  That is congruence.  Congruence is the term Rogers uses to describe the counselor’s natural ability to fully and comfortably be himself without imposing himself upon the client.  Congruence is being oneself as a person and not attempting to conceal it by creation of a façade, even a null one as trained in by scientology.  By establishing congruence the client has the security of the sense of knowing exactly where the counselor stands at any given moment.  Without congruence he does not.  That is critical in establishing the conditions necessary for self-actualization.

In contrast, scientology drills congruence out of a counselor to the point he can become a blank personality or a synthetic one.  Scientologists are even shown films depicting how they should ‘act’ (the ‘beingness’ they are expected to assume) as an auditor.   That is in keeping with its teaching that the way to achieve something is as simple as be, do, have.  That is, figure out the personality traits of someone who has what you want, then act them out as you do as he or she does, and before you know it you will have the fruits you sought.  Sincerity and genuineness (read congruence) are not included in the equation.   Certainly there have been mavericks within scientology who have had the courage or sense to be themselves as counselors.  And their results reflected that.  But, every single one of them was eventually caught up with and either expelled from the ranks or converted into a play-acting automaton by scientology’s policing arms.  This presages later chapters where we analyze in more depth the manifold ways in which scientology creates conforming, compliant minds.

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Reality Check

Posted on August 31, 2014 by | 184 comments

Folks who have been following the journey I have been sharing on this blog and in my books over the past five years might want to know something about a subject that I have not mentioned in quite some time.  I probably will not mention it again.  But, I interrupt the flow of the discourse here for this brief message in the interest of giving a balance to the picture of the direction that I have been sharing.  When events of 2015 are in full roar I don’t want people to get the idea that all I have written over the past two years was some sort of diversionary ruse.

I have practiced what I have been sharing.  If one seeks equanimity and expansion of awareness, I continue to recommend it.  But, you might want to know that I have also drawn from other traditions on longer term work.  Those disciplines understand that in order to increase the ability to confront sufficient to truly face the unknown, one must exercise proficiency in overcoming major sources of oppression.  It has to do with ascendency of power over force and the art and science of critical point analysis application.

Work along that line must necessarily not be broadcast for the foreseeable future.  Thus, none of what I refer to here has been disclosed anywhere, not even to my closest friends.  It has nothing to do with any current legal proceedings and is unrelated (as am I) to the scientology infotainment lampooning industry (whose main useful purpose is attention distraction).  If you hear rumors or ‘inside skinny’ about what this parallel work entails, you are hearing lies or the imagination of someone still caught in the scientology hallucinatory cause syndrome.

In the interim, I inform you that nothing about any of this is inconsistent with what I have written over the past two years.  Just as certainly, many spectators will be sure that is not the case when they witness that 2015 and 2016 make 2009 and 2010 look like child’s play.

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Posted in David Miscavige, healing, justice, l. ron hubbard, office of special affairs, Scientology, Uncategorized

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Standard Scientology

Posted on August 17, 2014 by | 1,102 comments

Those who obsess on the motivator (object of victimhood attachment) about how David Miscavige is scientology’s problem because he keeps revising scientology are like dogs barking up the wrong tree.  There is a plain fact they are not coming to grips with.  Scientology will forever be altered, revised, re-revised, repackaged, re-organized, and re-compiled.  People on the outside have been at it as hard as scientology organization folk are on the inside.  It is inevitable.  That is not because misunderstood words, the reactive mind or body thetans will forever keep people confused and incapable of applying one-hundred percent scientology standard technology.   Nor will it be because of the unstated (except in confidential upper level secrets), but actually held, scientology belief that humankind can’t get it because humankind is inherently incapable of understanding.  Instead, scientology will continuously be revised because there is no such thing as standard scientology technology.  Like the substance of scientology itself, what constitutes the standard is wholly a subjective matter.

That fact is obvious if one can unlock himself from identifying with L. Ron Hubbard and his work and read the latter dispassionately.  That of course is impossible for those who vow from the outset of their studies – and stick with it all the way through – to the notion that Hubbard is infallible and examination of any comparative data is potentially lethal.  When one who can objectively study scientology does so – particularly when he has tested its methods through extensive practice – something becomes patently clear. That is by conservative estimate more than ninety (90) percent of everything Hubbard wrote and uttered on scientology and dianetics was about how wrong all those who attempted to apply it were.  It is mostly a running stream of consciousness  (albeit held together by a hard core, two-valued logic and persuasively conveyed by a convincing speaker and writer) record of assigning reasons why the promises in the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health were never realized and how they might yet be.   Highlighting that statement is Dianetics’ promise of full memory restoration in 1950 and Hubbard’s last ‘breakthrough’ (OT VIII) – as his 1986 dying declaration – promising to address the reason folk are apparently inherently amnesiacs.

Exacerbating the confusion is that many of the methods Ron educates his followers on as the mechanics intentionally used to control and damage the mind are simultaneously employed by him to do precisely that to his followers.  It is diabolical in that the follower having been educated by Ron on those mental entrapment techniques would then never guess they would be used on the follower.  You wind up with the curious phenomenon of apparently sincere people devoting their lives to vehemently defending their own entrapment.

There is another reason why the obvious is nearly impossible for a scientologist to see.  If there is one skill Hubbard had that perhaps outstripped all others it was his ability to always convincingly sound right while making others wrong.  That skill was exercised as consistently and as uncannily as a falling cat’s ability to land on its feet.  From before the publication of Dianetics, Ron Hubbard proved as immovable as a mountain on being criticized, corrected, or accepting even the most rational of input and advice. Just as consistently, he rained hell on anyone with the temerity to suggest holding his theories up to objective standards.   When he said or wrote something it was communicated convincingly and in an authoritative fashion.  For the next thirty-six years he evolved his subjects by trial and error.  But, the running track of that development was memorialized in a unique voice.  While the track altered and changed everything over and over because of unworkability found with that which was at first communicated as unalterable, absolute fact, the voice of those continuous alterations could admit of no error.  The matter is exacerbated by the fact that it is a ‘research and development’ record based exclusively on subjective standards.   With no objective scrutiny allowed and no accurate, honest assignation of error possible, all manner of erroneous yet authoritative data are driven home just as forcefully as correct ones.

The continuous backfilling that constitutes the bulk of scientology writing and lecturing is apparent in scientology training packs.  The student is not instructed simply on what he should do and why.  Instead, he reads bulletin after bulletin and listens to lecture after lecture of Hubbard talking about how people have misapplied or might misapply what he discovered.   The materials are a patchwork of Hubbard writings and lectures cherry-picked from different periods of time.  They make for a mix chock-full of contradictions.  Without having one’s intellectual honesty compromised by agreeing from the outset that Hubbard is infallible and all of his words are literal Gospel (that which is required in scientology training – along with the requirement to attribute every success to Ron and every failure to pesky humans and their inherent fallibility), all of this would be as obvious as the nose on your face.

Since all scientology courses begin with a warning that if anyone states that anything Hubbard wrote is ‘historical’, ‘background’, or ‘no longer used’ he will be promptly convicted of the crime TREASON, how does one cope with the miasma of contradictions?   Scientology instructors employ a ‘technology’ that has the student convince himself there are no contradictions.  It is so effective that scientology students do not graduate a course until they attest with certitude that everything makes consistent, perfect sense.  The firmness of that idea of certainty is verified by one component of a modern lie detector (the stress testing electropsychometer).  Highlighting this culture of hypocrisy, the cognitive dissonance creating course rooms – which eliminate any questioning, thinking or doubts – are called ‘Academies’ taken from the ancient Greek sites where liberal, critical philosophical thinking was once nurtured.

The net result of all this is that scientology is destined to always incite debate and internecine strife – no matter how enlightened and wise its leadership may be.  There can never be universal consensus on what constitutes ‘standard technology’ given the voice (noted above) scientology is written in and given its inalterable injunctions that that voice may not ever be questioned, interpreted, or clarified.   In a strict organizational setting, the debate goes on inside each individual’s head (until settled by an instilled, arrogant brand of cognitive dissonance) while attempting to keep up, lock-step of course, with management’s latest pronunciamentos on what constitutes ‘standard.’   In an independent setting it is a self-righteous war of words in which nobody can establish a clearly reasoned high ground.  To gain any traction in the debate requires one to progressively retreat further toward adopting Ron’s certain, swaggering and authoritative personality.

That is why bands of scientologists, whether in or out of the official organizations, will always rally around certain, swaggering, authoritative types of personalities – and promptly disperse when that catalyst is removed.   Sadly, but just as certainly, about the closest thing scientologists are going to find to that original L. Ron Hubbard package is David Miscavige.

About the only common denominator all brands of scientology share as something resembling a standard in practice is this: does the guy stay on board and continue paying?  If you have been led to believe that any viable brand of scientology is applying some more enlightened standard you have simply been led to believe yet another lie.  Why do you think that the only allegedly ‘expanding’ independent scientology outfits feature the addition of 47 advanced levels of auditing?  It is like Miscavige inventing the existence of OT Levels IX through XV and beyond, only seven times over.   What you get is power of choice in picking the duration of your addiction.

Those who make a living by trying to convince folks otherwise are profiting by playing on misplaced hopes.  It is a different harmonic of the same game that was played on people within.

There is a silver lining in all this.  In addition to whatever any individual may feel he might have picked up of use along the way in scientology,  there are a couple of assets that probably all scientologists can recognize they possess.  First, they can realize that they were well meaning and trusting to begin with; scientology doesn’t take very well on people without those virtues. Second, they can recognize that they have had the opportunity to hone the latter virtue (trust) by surviving the most intense graduate school of psychological hard knocks.

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Posted in David Miscavige, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, tech, Uncategorized

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Back To The Middle

Posted on August 8, 2014 by | 194 comments

I take to heart the comments to my last post accusing me of casting too wide a net on the issue of whether one should trust a person wearing the scientology banner.  To the extent I offended some folks, I apologize.  So as to avoid such offense in the future I also provide here fair warning.  If the last post offended you, the next several probably will too.  If you want positive reinforcement for your faith, you will not find it here; but for possibly in the comments section where scientologists are free to provide their views with everyone else.  There is an evolution afoot that perhaps ought be shared with readers here.

Of late I have been asked by a number of journalists, documentarians and religious experts to explain any legitimate aspects of scientology.  Since the church responded to the revelations of the Truth Rundown series – and its progeny – by bunkering down and going incommunicado with such folks, I have sort of inherited some of their public affairs function by default. In the course of that odd twist of fate one repeated question became increasingly difficult for me to answer: whether I recommend scientology to the public at large.

My answer has evolved with my own experience and thoughts.  Ultimately, my answer is that I would not recommend to anyone that they get involved in scientology.  That is because having thoroughly deconstructed the subject I came to realize that its control and exploitation elements are so thoroughly embedded within the teachings of Hubbard as to make the journey more likely to be on-the-whole negative than positive.

Of course there are some stellar results that have been achieved by application of scientology.   But, those are contingent not only upon the person they are applied to but to a great extent by the instructors’ or counselors’ ability to inspire confidence.  In this context ‘confidence’ can be read almost synonymously with ‘faith.’   If – as in some spiritual and psychotherapeutic practices – that confidence or faith is acknowledged and imbued and nurtured for what it is within the client or supplicant, it more predictably leads toward salutary results.  But, scientology – adhered to as the ism it is – by design leads one in the opposite direction.

The raw statistics of scientology support my conclusion about whether it is worth the price one inevitably must pay for it (not just monetarily). David Miscavige (influenced, of course, by Hubbard advices on the subject) used to repeat ad nauseam to his public relations people whenever the media brought up a scientology abuse that they were to say words to the effect, ‘for every one who complains, I can bring you one thousand scientologists who swear by it.’  Having dispassionately ball-parked the numbers through thirty-five years of involvement with the subject,  I would say the truth is more on the order of for every one considering she was damaged from her experience  with scientology, scientology could probably match it with a die-hard true believer extolling its virtues.  Certainly, greater than 90% of people who have taken several courses or intensives (12 ½ hours each) of auditing in scientology have disconnected from scientology as an organization and membership body completely.   What percentage of them thought the good outweighed the bad or vice versa is anybody’s guess.  Given the extraordinary efforts scientology engages in to keep members aboard, and the draconian punishments it metes out upon any member or former member raising doubts or reservations, my guess is that the latter far outnumber the former.  Less than one thousand former members give much attention to on-line forums, blogs and other networks involving scientology at any given time.

By the numbers, it is apparent that scientologists are led to believe they and their subject are a lot more important than they in fact are to the world at large.

When I weigh that objective look against what scientology produces, both inside the official organizations and without, and with what I know about the depth of the embedded control and exploitation implantation within scientology, on balance I cannot with good conscious recommend it as a high percentage bet for anybody.

I have devoted the better part of six years to attempting to help the subject survive by elimination of its negative elements.  I concede that the experiment was a failure.  As much as independent scientologists accuse the organization (RTC , CSI, et al) of operating on judgmentalism, arrogance, utiltarianism over conscience, form over substance, and Hubbard-revisionism dressed up as Hubbard-literalism I have found all those shortcomings just as prevalent in the independent field as in the organizations. I hold no rancor for such folks – inside or out – to the extent they stay out of the grills of people who ask them to.  A dispassionate study traces those self-defeating qualities as stemming from Hubbard and his scientology works themselves.

I have found efforts over the past year and one half to help people graduate from the subject to not be very popular nor worth the effort that goes into doing so.  While some of what I have already worked on along that line may appear from time to time on this blog, the focus will veer more toward speaking to the general public – as opposed to the formers, the antis, and indies.  The blog continues to serve as a chronicle of my own journey guided by my conscience – for whatever that is worth – and you can expect it to tend toward speaking to the increasing percentage of audience who are unfamiliar with the subject.  It may well even tend toward unrelated subjects.  There are plenty other forums where positive reinforcement of existing anti, pro, indie, and ex scientology views can be had.  I hope for all of you that at some point in the not too distant future you will find your own comfortable, fulfilling middle path.

If you like that, you will probably love this:

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Posted in David Miscavige, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, Uncategorized

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Why Scientologists Cannot Be Trusted

Posted on August 2, 2014 by | 436 comments

Max Hauri is the head of the only reportedly growing independent scientology operation in the world. It goes by the name of Ron’s Org.  That apparently stands for ‘L. Ron Hubbard’s organization.’

Max recently sent out via mass e-mail one of his secrets taken from Ron himself on how he manages to keep the faithful on board.  Here is the piece he e-mailed in full:

“No, a Scientologist—an auditor can pay the debt. A Clear can never pay the debt. A person who is just Clear and can t audit could never pay the debt.”

________________

A Scientologist can pay a Scientologist: he can co-audit with him. Sometimes Scientologists get known for paying their debts. And they owe every tradesman everyplace and they owe bills all over the place, and every finance company is ringing them up on the phone, but they are known amongst Scientologists for paying their debts. When you audit them, they give you some auditing in return. You get the idea? That’s the idea of a Scientologist’s debt. And nobody gets in trouble faster than somebody who has received fifteen hours of auditing and now it’s your turn and he never turns up for the appointment or he never makes it possible. People aren’t quite aware of why they start curling a lip at this auditor, you know, and saying, “Well, he should have some more training, really, you know. He needs to be shoved back into it again.” No, a Scientologist—an auditor can pay the debt. A Clear can never pay the debt. A person who is just Clear and can’t audit could never pay the debt.

Now, because he is sensible of being somewhat overwhelmed by the auditor, in terms of having more done for him than he could ever do back, his mood could vary. And it’s only fair that a Clear would be permitted to pay it back, one way or the other, on the auditor’s terms. So whatever he paid you in cash—which didn’t pay for it—you can always ask him, “Well, now you owe me a favor.” You know, something on this order and just let it stand. Or he can pay you back. He can go out and make the society more decent to live in.

That’s a sensible way of that. But he’d have to become an auditor to do it. You get the idea?

Now, it’s true that individuals who engage in the marts of trade, in better condition, people who are handling political spheres of one kind of another have their uses. And in such a case where somebody is in such an area, you can ask to be paid back, not a favor in that area, which is a finite favor of, “Get this piece of paper stamped for me,” or something like that, but it’d have to be a fairly large favor, or this fellow ever afterwards is enslaved to some degree.

And if you ever audited somebody like a prime minister or president, or something like that, why, people over at the Treasury keep trying to write you out checks for astronomical sums that couldn’t be added up down at the Greenwich Observatory, so forth, say, “Well, what are you trying to do, pay for the auditing? Ho-ho. Boy, aren’t you ambitious! Oh, well, send it down to my bank manager. He’ll know what to do with it, I suppose. Now we’ll talk about paying for the auditing. You owe me a favor.” And it’d be a favor something like, well, govern the empire well, or something like that. See, it’d have to be in those terms of human relationships. And that’s about the only way a fellow could get paid.

L. RON HUBBARD, Founder

5th London ACC: The Skill of an Auditor, Part I, 11 November 1958

I noted in a post last year how L. Ron Hubbard corrupted the Rogerian client-centered therapy he borrowed from without credit.  The first corruption was the requirement that the client had to be a member in order to gain from the experience (see On Becoming A Person).  With membership comes a lot of control mechanisms that are antithetical to the self-actualization scientology sells the promise of attaining.  (see Identification and Membership).  Something that I never explained about these corruptions is explained very eloquently by Hubbard himself in the passage above.   That is with membership – even after paying exorbitant fees for scientology counseling – comes a continuing obligation.   Or as Hubbard more bluntly puts it ‘a debt’.

I have written before on how the church of scientology uses those created debts by application of dozens more Hubbard policies on how to dominate society and shudder into silence and weakness those who scientology has abused and who then complain.  Office of Special Affairs (OSA, Church of Scientology International’s – CSI’s – intelligence, dirty tricks and propaganda agency) has maintained, expanded and used a massive data base called the ‘power comm lines data base.’  It is continuously fed information culled from ethics files, auditing files, and various reports on communication lines scientology discovers its members maintain.   So when trouble brews in an area for scientology, the data base is consulted and the scientologist who the data base denotes as knowing people who might be influential in the matter are deployed to ‘repay the debt’ Ron refers to in the reference above.  And the scientologist invariably does whatever favor is asked, for not to would be to subject oneself to what Ron describes as “or this fellow ever afterwards is enslaved to some degree.”

With scientology’s dwindling membership, and growing reserves, a lot of this type of activity is more directly simply paid for.  See for example Corporate Scientology Mercenary,  Scientology Inc.’s Lobbying Machine, , Scientology Inc’s Secular Invasion of Washington D.C., David Miscavige The Cheater, Monique Rathbun vs David Miscavige By the Numbers.  But, the scientologists’ communication lines are still constantly being combed and utilized.  The smiley, laser-intentioned scientology celebrities are some of the most chronic and blatant – and destructive of justice and social order – offending operatives.

I am not suggesting that Max and Ron’s Org are going to these lengths.  But, certainly Max and Ron’s Org are running a cult that impresses upon its members a firm belief that they are forever in Ron’s (via Ron’s Org’s) debt.  The moment a continuing debt is entered into the psychotherapy equation, it leaves the realm of therapy and enters the zone of mind control.  Nonetheless, I thank Max for passing along his secrets of success from Ron Hubbard.  It has opened my eyes to the fact that apparently scientology can only survive when it creates members who believe they are forever in debt – and thus become never-ending sources of income and deployable agents against societal interests as they might impact scientology.

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Posted in David Miscavige, Deconstructing Scientology, Graduating from Scientology, independents, l. ron hubbard, monique rathbun, office of special affairs, policy, politics, Scientology, tech, Uncategorized

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Enemies

Posted on July 8, 2014 by | 98 comments

 

Once a close-knit ideological group initiate has bought into the proposition that it behooves him to be a member he is indoctrinated into what a member does. He then gets busy doing what a good member does in the pursuit of having the benefits of membership.

It seems that all cults have one vital type of ‘to do’ indoctrination in common.  That is, the member learns to a high level of certitude who the perceived or designated enemies of that group are and he accepts a share of responsibility for taking action against those enemies. The less rational the group the greater the importance is given to the enemy and the more overwhelmingly destructive the enemy is portrayed as.  The less the group’s principles and objectives stand on their own merit the more emphasis is put on remaining ever vigilant for signs of enemy encroachment and upon destroying perceived enemies.  Conquering the enemy can become the group’s raison d’etre.  Sometimes the highest level of ‘reason’ you will hear from some cult members is a rant about the evils of this or that nemesis as the answer to virtually any tough question.  That is a particular strain of denialism.

Irrespective of the degree of apparent effectiveness of a cult’s teachings in isolation, this enemy indoctrination feature begins a mental reversal that wipes out any potential positive and makes the member a mental prisoner and potentially dangerous.  Some groups preach that ultimate enlightenment or salvation cannot be reached absent elimination of the enemy. Some extreme cults even talk in terms of the need to ‘obliterate’ or ‘annihilate’ entire classes of people in order for themselves or humankind to survive.  Such groups clearly are of concern to family and friends of members and to society at large for obvious reasons.  It is not hard to see the negative social effects that a band of such self-righteous zealots marching to the beat of the same paranoid drum could cause.  But, ultimately the adverse effect on the cult soldier individually is more predictably certain.

Inevitably such adopted mindsets lead to the view that the individual is not in fact responsible for his own condition and its worsening or bettering.  Compare this to the simple generic principles of awareness and consciousness discussed in the previous two posts (Basics and Identification and Membership) to see how plain that fact is. In order to become motivated to dedicatedly pursue perceived enemies the group member must become convinced that those enemies are worsening conditions that adversely affect him somehow.

Indoctrination of this mindset serves as a convenient deflection or justification for many of a group’s own failures or lack of results.  More perniciously, it is the inculcation of a disease that ultimately destroys the individual member’s own determinism.   If one buys into the indoctrination that the causes of his problems of consciousness or awareness are ‘over there’ one is in for a long, painful and wheel-spinning haul.  Unfortunately, many former cult members simply continue to abide by the enemy-assignment mental machinery.   They just change the target of their wrath.  They spend years with their wheels in the mud ruminating on how their erstwhile cult and its leaders are responsible for their current travails.

On the positive side, to come to grips with these facts and how they might have poisoned one’s thinking and viewpoints opens one to an infinity of possibilities.

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Identification and Membership

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 432 comments

 

Identifying with that which arises in consciousness – as opposed to simply viewing its coming and going to, through and out of one’s own spacious awareness – is the process by which breadth of consciousness, space, process, and ability declines.  When one identifies his mind becomes the object, concept, idea, or picture rather than the spacious field through which such pass.  By identifying as a member of a particular class of people one begins to crave for and cling to that which that assumed identity craves for and clings to.  One also begins to automatically resist entire classes of objects arising in consciousness; all of those that are repelled by that with which he identifies.   All of this grasping and resistance results in persistence of dissonant energies within one’s field of awareness.

The first and most common means by which messiahs and gurus (wannabe or proclaimed; religious or secular) and their cults have entrapped, controlled, and enslaved well-meaning people by manipulation of the simple mechanics of awareness or consciousness (see Basics) is requiring the assumption of a specific identity.  Application requires one assume the identity of ‘member.’

The moment a seeker of truth assumes the identity of a designated category of person he has lost his mastery of that which arises in consciousness.  The degree he does so is the degree to which he has departed with the ability to perceive or be truth.  Once he identifies he becomes an object continually present within his own consciousness, with all its attendant baggage.  He begins to view what arises in awareness not as it is and for what it is but instead through the continuous via of the viewpoint of whatever ‘ist’ he has chosen to become.  All of the pre-determined prejudices, likes, dislikes, and judgments of his adopted ism shade and alter everything that he would otherwise view as it really is.

Self-identification breeds more identification.  It adversely influences the very process of looking.  Required membership is not only unnecessary to assisting a person increase rationality and awareness, it is injurious to it.  Becoming some-particular-body is counterproductive of the very process of self-actualization.  After some time when a cult member begins to feel entrapped he often continues so for long duration because he cannot see the source of his imprisonment.  He is certain somebody or some physical barrier is to blame. He has not yet come to realize that his jailer is himself, and his cell is self-constructed by the identity he has adopted.

Practice in viewing objects arising in and departing from consciousness (thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, etc) as the isolated, ephemeral, relatively miniscule and ineffectual things they are within the context of one’s potentially unlimited spacious awareness tends to help one separate out from unwanted previously assumed identities.  It allows them to pass on and out of consciousness along with all the other infinity of objects that so arise and so pass.  It also tends to expand one’s sphere of consciousness or awareness beyond limits one once considered fixed.

 

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Posted in healing, Integral Theory, philosophy, Uncategorized

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Longevity

Posted on May 23, 2014 by | 268 comments

 

Excerpt from Pancho Durango and the Zen of Fishing:

Wilson studied a couple of sea gulls fighting over a shred of dead shrimp on the surface of the bay. When the battle no longer held his interest, he turned and asked the old man, “Pancho, how old are you?”

“I am not sure.” Pancho continued to slowly reel and jerk his line, his attention thirty yards out and ten feet deep.

“How can that be?”

“I was born deep in the Copper Canyon. We did not keep records of anything, including birth.”

“Well, we know you are at least in your seventies and perhaps in your eighties.”

“Perhaps.” The conversation held less interest for Pancho than the three dimensional chess match he silently waged with fish that apparently only he could see.

“And you are strong of mind and body. “

“Some apparently believe so.”

“What is the key to longevity?”

Pancho said with no hesitation, and with as much emphasis as you’d expect from a request for another live shrimp to hook for bait, “You live as long as you have something worthwhile to give”.

“And who is the judge of that.”

“Only you of course.”

Wilson frowned as he squinted at the horizon. “So, goodness and righteousness have nothing to do with it?”

“It all depends on what you consider is good and right.”

Wilson sunk his head and smirked apathetically at the ripples beneath his feet. Once again Pancho had blithely turned a simple question into a deep philosophical riddle. Time to rebait the hook and make another cast. Always the right thing to do when you know your next question will be hit out of the park by the old man like a twenty year old on steroids.

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Posted in Mark Rathbun, Marty Rathbun, texas, Uncategorized, Zen

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Myth, Mysticism and Insight

Posted on May 15, 2014 by | 395 comments

 

In The Tao Of Physics, Fritjof Capra makes some interesting observations on the subject of myth in mysticism and what those of insight come to understand about such.   I had as much in mind when I wrote of constructs in the book ‘What Is Wrong With Scientology?’,  but clearly did not articulate it nearly as well.

“Indian mysticism, and Hinduism in particular, clothes its statements in the form of myths, using metaphors and symbols, poetic images, similes and allegories.  Mythical language is much less restricted by logic and common sense. It is full of magic and paradoxical situations, rich in suggestive images and never precise, and can thus convey the way in which mystics experience reality much better than factual language.  According to Ananda Coomaraswamy, ‘myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.’

“The rich Indian imagination has created a vast number of gods and goddesses whose incarnations and exploits are the subject of fantastic tales, collected in epics of huge dimensions.  The Hindu with deep insight knows that all these gods are creations of the mind, mythical images representing the many faces of reality. On the other hand, he or she also knows that they were not merely created to make the stories more attractive, but are essential vehicles to convey the doctrines of a philosophy rooted in mystical experience.”

If there is truth to this, what does one make of the understandings or motivations of those who insist upon literal conceptualizations of imaginative religious mythology?   Are they of deep insight themselves?  Are they actively preventing others from developing or attaining deep insight?   You might have experienced some of the cognitive dissonance (or analytical and/or intuitive enturbulance) that is concomitant with inculcation of fantastic mythologies, not as part of an acknowledged ‘mystical experience’ but instead as cold, hard, unquestionable fact.  Or perhaps you are comfortable with the security that comes with faith and belief in mythology.

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Posted in acknowledgments, black dianetics, Deconstructing Scientology, Fritjof Capra, Graduating from Scientology, healing, Hinduism, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, Scientology, tech, The Tao Of Physics, training, Uncategorized, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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