Tag Archives: Dianetics

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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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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Scientology: Hypnotism or Persuasion

Posted on October 17, 2013 by | 156 comments

Jefferson Hawkins began an insightful deconstruction of Scientology ethics in an interview with Tony Ortega at his Scientology Underground Bunker page.   I believe the techniques Jeff exposed had (have) broader application in the process that Scientology employs in implanting its constructs as hard-bound reality.  It is not limited to the indoctrination on ethics. I had noted this myself while spending several months of each day listening to a Hubbard lecture from the fifties and sixties.

In an early chapter of The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra gives an accurate and concise history of the evolution of logic and thought in the West and the East.  In doing so, he necessarily mentions virtually every significant philosopher who lived and wrote over the past couple millennia. I read that after the stint of listening to dozens of Hubbard lectures given over a two decade period.   Here is my contemporaneous margin note at the end of the chapter on evolution of thought in The Tao of Physics:

‘By this point (20th Century) in history, Hubbard has invalidated and laid to waste every great thinker who made possible and contributed to his way of thinking.’

One might recognize that Hubbard’s techniques of persuasion are used far and wide in today’s society.  In politics, in business, in advertising, in self-help, in religion, you name it.  Whether one wants to label it ‘hypnotism’ or ‘how to influence people’ or ‘persuasion’, it cannot be gainsaid that the  technique of indoctrination Jeff breaks down for us was employed throughout the history of Dianetics and Scientology.  And L. Ron Hubbard was a master of it application.

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Posted in acknowledgments, black dianetics, ethics, healing, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, policy, propaganda, tech, the Reformation, training, Uncategorized

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Scientology In A Nutshell

Posted on October 7, 2013 by | 223 comments

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.

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Posted in ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, policy, Scientology, tech, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Crossing Over

Posted on September 25, 2013 by | 413 comments

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.

 

 

 

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Posted in Buddha, Casablanca, healing, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, Scientology, tech

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Time and Space

Posted on July 13, 2013 by | 99 comments

Time_and_space_Wallpaper__yvt2[1]

Studies in science and consciousness (e.g. Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, Biocentrism by Robert Lanza, The Field by Lynne McTaggart, My Big T.O.E by Thomas Campbell, etc.) have demonstrated through a variety of means that time and space are constructs of  human and animal minds.  They have no independent, observed or tangible reality in and of themselves.  We create them in order to establish dimensions within which to survive amongst and with other organisms and to play games.

Transcendent experiences, such as enlightenments, peak-experiences, even Scientology releases, are instances where the automaticity of creating time/space constructs are ceased – even if for the briefest of spans.  At those moments we experience more of the true nature of the universe and its interconnectedness. Here is the realm where psi (psychic phenomena – or theta perceptics – such as clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and telepathy) activities are observed and exercised. That reality only appears perceivable and achievable outside of our mental time and space constructs, which by their very purpose and definitions create the apparency of separateness.  Those transcendent experiences are often far and few between for folks because they have so permanently implanted upon themselves – and begun to mistake for ultimate reality – the reality of the time and space constructs they create. But, the more frequent a practice makes their experience possible, the more chance we have of, as Ken Wilber put it, converting temporary states more toward more permanent traits.

L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics and Scientology processes are exercises in restoring the ability to cease the automaticity of creation of time and space.  Understood in this context, it is very easy to run processes, to run groups of them (grades/levels), or even the complete program (or Bridge), to their fullest potential gain.  Not a lot of duress and dogma designed to instill unswerving devotion and surrender is required to bring about ability when that simple, if all-encompassing, framework is kept in mind. When viewed against this scientific/consciousness field of evolving, tested context Hubbard processes can become as natural and simple to deliver as driving an automobile.

I think the more a practitioner appreciates these facts, and our increasing objective (scientific) understandings and how they relate to consciousness, the more proficient, effective, and empowering his or her practice becomes.

This ability can become unachievable in Scientology; much in the way it has in many other practices.  There are a number of reasons for this.  However, all of those factors can be recognized and understood to one degree or another as invitations or commands to build further time/space constructs, and to believe so implicitly in them that one – once again – puts the process on automatic.  Whatever titillating or inviting backdrops against, or foundations upon, which one presents such enticements to build new mental constructs, they still have the same regressive effect ultimately.  They send one back down the rabbit hole of time/space construction, which after enough practice ultimately to one degree or another goes back onto automatic.

Consequently, a simple axiom evolved for me that I have found useful in studying and applying any work in the fields of spirit, philosophy and psychotherapy.  To those cemented into the permanent constructs some paths tends to embed one in, this will sound like the most rank heresy.  To those not so embedded, it might help keep you from falling into the wet concrete looming along certain paths.  It is simply this, to the degree data assists with relieving additives to the mind that enforce automatic time/space construction it is valuable; conversely, to the degree data invites introduction of additives that further automatic time/space construction it is destructive of higher awareness and states of consciousness.

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Posted in healing, Integral Theory, Ken Wilber, l. ron hubbard, philosophy, Scientology, the world, Uncategorized

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The Future

Posted on July 7, 2013 by | 192 comments

I am in the process of writing two books related to Scientology.  It seems to me at this juncture of that process that they will probably be the last I write about Scientology.  In keeping with the philosophy I follow in helping people on a one-to-one basis, I am writing with the purpose of assisting people in a fashion that does me out of a job.  I think that modus operandi evolved out of recognition that somewhere along the road Scientology sowed its own seeds of destruction by inculcating a sort of unhealthy dependency.  I consider what I do to be of the nature of outfitting and guiding folk to begin charting their own paths.  Hopefully the books will relate all that I know to be workable in assisting people to move on up a little higher.  The first book is about moving up from the ultimate trap that is Scientology for those stuck in it to one degree or another. The second book is about applying Hubbard’s workable discoveries in an integrated fashion that proofs one up against getting entrapped in the first place while seeking higher levels of awareness and consciousness.

The former is a recommended guide for moving on up beyond what Scientology has to offer. The latter is a recommended guide for integrating safe and sane application of that in Scientology that can be effective for those who wish to apply it.   That is, an integral practice which by my own estimation is the only fashion by which Hubbard’s workable ideas will survive or serve salutary purposes for future generations.

All of my books to date, including the first future one introduced here, are directed at a very limited audience: Scientologists and potential users of Hubbard methods.  As much as Scientologists and even former Scientologists would like to convince themselves otherwise, I know this to be a tiny minority in today’s society.  The audience is so limited that writing books on the subject is not a means to make a living; in fact it is an impediment to doing so.  The books are written out of a sense of obligation for imparting what I have learned through my own experiences of moving into, through, and beyond Scientology.  It is my hope that somewhere down the line that the audience for the second book, the integral guide, might gain a wider audience;  or, at least, serve to get some of Hubbard’s ideas into the conversation and mix in future integral mental and spiritual practices.

By necessity, the books are second in priority at the moment to making a living.  When they might be completed will be determined by the time I can find for completing them.  Notions of integrating, evolving and transcending are apparently not the most popular among former members; and most certainly, thinkers and researchers in integral practice don’t want to even hear the words ‘L. Ron Hubbard’, ‘Scientology’, or ‘Dianetics’. Resources and interest in the former church member community seem to be increasingly directed toward efforts to expose Scientology as a scam, expose and denigrate church leadership as the why for Scientology’s unworkable or destructive aspects, or even – of late – attempting to resurrect a weak imitation of the original.

In the interim so that nobody feels like a mystery is being dangled, virtually everything I have to publish can easily be derived from everything I have already written (in three books and nearly 1,100 blog posts; including its recommended reading).   I don’t purport to have brilliant, original new ideas.  I think all of them that are useful to moving to greater heights have already been better articulated by others.   My ideas simply have to do with connecting dots that have long since been created by others.  I have decided to write the books to organize those thoughts for the benefit of a) those ingrained by Scientology with the need for structure, construct and maps,  b) the loud few, and those they confuse, who insist it is dangerous to read my words because ‘I don’t know where Marty is going’, and c) (and perhaps most importantly in the long term) future integral practitioners who could benefit others by incorporating workable ideas of L. Ron Hubbard into programs of human betterment.

The two future books I have mentioned will largely focus on integration, evolution and transcendence.  The previous three books and the blog have focused more on identification, association and differentiation so as to possibly awaken folk to the necessity or wisdom of integrating, evolving, and transcending.   I will continue to attempt to do that on the blog as time permits.

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Posted in Casablanca, healing, independents, Integral Theory, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, tech, the future

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Why Bother?

Posted on July 1, 2013 by | 233 comments

Some hard-core ‘independent’ Scientologists have ruminated  among themselves lately the idea that I am somehow trying to bring down L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology.  Otherwise, they reason,  ‘why wouldn’t he just move on and let it be?’   I am going to try to address this concern as directly and succinctly as I can.

L. Ron Hubbard developed a number of unique, aggressive methods for tackling problems of the human psyche.   Used intelligently there is nothing that compares to their direct, predictable effectiveness in intensifying present awareness.

However, there is a potential trap in the fields of therapy and spiritual practices discussed by Ken Wilber in his Kosmic Consciousness interview series that applies in spades to Scientology.  In segment eight of the series, Wilber speaks of people attaining ecstatic, exalted altered states in their particular discipline that they consider to be so miraculous as to be without compare.  They are convinced that they have found the only way, which results in a sort of tunnel vision and puts a figurative ceiling on their own continued growth and development.  Such people become opinionated, exclusive and intolerant – ultimately repelling others from experiencing the transcendence they experienced and losing whatever they gained in the process.

This trap is particularly acute in Scientology, because along with the peak and plateau experiences it delivers, its scripture is saturated with reinforcement of this sense of only-one way and superiority to mere mortals.  As intensively and effectively as Scientology can focus an individual’s attention and concentration, it just as intensively and effectively conditions those new found abilities onto worshipping and defending to the death the construct that made them possible.

In an ironic way, the zealous, judgmental, super egoic, ‘I will save you if I have to kill you’ mentality of the advanced Scientologist serves as testament to the effectiveness of that which they are hell-bent on defending and promoting.

Just as assuredly, it is evidence that somewhere along the line the science of ‘knowing how to know’ is converted into the practice of ‘knowing so best that we had better not be exposed to learning anything else and not allow anyone else to either’.

The observation I am trying to share is that it is this vicious cycle that is at the root of the demise of the methodologies of Dianetics and Scientology.  It is the cause of every other ill – disconnection, fair game, Simon Bolivar, violence in management, money is everything,  image is everything, you name it – every other ‘situation’ that folk continually mistake for the ‘why.’

I have witnessed tremendous relief, rehabilitated ability to learn, and renewed capacity for transcendence by getting this ‘why’ understood by many who have devoted their lives to Scientology.   I have also effectively helped a number of people with Hubbard methods by using them – sans the only-one religious indoctrination;  people who knew little to nothing of Dianetics and Scientology when they came to me.

It is for this reason that I believe the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard are doomed to the extent they are not used in an integral (integrated) fashion.   The whole package – taken as the whole package requires it be taken – leads inevitably to all of the ills ex-scientologists, those effected by Scientologists, and Scientologists (including and especially independent ones) seem to make a pastime out of clamoring about.

Why do I bother?  Because I want to help free those who are stuck in this Scientology dichotomy, and because I don’t want to see the demise of ideas and discoveries that can be effective in helping people in the future.

233 Comments

Posted in Casablanca, disconnection, ethics, healing, independents, Integral Theory, justice, Ken Wilber, philosophy, policy, Scientology, tech, the future

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Buddha’s Brain

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | 161 comments

 

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

buddha

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

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

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

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

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

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Does Scientology Work?

Posted on December 15, 2012 by | 442 comments

 

Some dots are going to be connected here.

The following recent posts come into play and will have some light shed upon them:

Past Lives Survey

Between Lives Survey

Fear No Evil

Does It Get Any Darker Than This?

Perhaps the best way to put it all together is to recount a conversation.

In the early nineties I was virtually commuting between Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.  Between late 91 and late 93 I travelled to Washington on dozens of occasions as part of negotiations with the IRS for the church of Scientology’s tax exempt status.

I had not seen anyone from my mother’s side of the family since the early sixties shortly after my mother had committed suicide.   My mother’s sister, my aunt Carol, reached out to see me sometime during that 91-93 period.  As there was no such things as vacations or even days off in the church of Scientology at that time, I arranged to see her briefly during a flight layover at Chicago O’Hare airport.  We met in an airport lounge.

After exchanging pleasantries and expressions of love, I asked Carol, “my mom received electro shock treatment while I was in her womb, didn’t she?”    Carol’s jaw dropped, her face went pale and her eyes welled up.  After several seconds, she replied, “how did you find out?”

I told Carol that I had recalled the incident during Dianetics and Scientology auditing.  I told her that I was confirming this with her because my father had gone to such great lengths to forget the tragedy of my mother that it had been a tacit policy in the family to never discuss the matter.  She knew of the policy and told me that it was one of the reasons she had steered clear from our side of the family for all those years since coming to comfort me and my brothers after the suicide incident when I was five years old.  She encouraged me to continue.

After explaining Dianetics and Scientology procedure a bit, I asked her to confirm or deny my specific recollections.  I told her that I recalled that my father took my mother to a private mental hospital in the rolling, wooded hills north of our home in Mill Valley, California.  It was a beautiful, windy drive through redwood groves that lead toward a pleasant looking compound set upon a big meadowed hill.   I described my father’s car accurately in detail, even though the car had been sold shortly after my birth.

Carol was transfixed.   She said that every detail I described was completely accurate.   She asked me about the experience from my perspective.  I told her that I clearly recalled the jolts and the overwhelming pressures and pains.  At one point I felt like I was ejected from  the body and found myself viewing  the procedure from above the operating table.  I considered taking off and finding a new body.  However, I felt a tremendous amount of empathy for my mother and returned into the body with the intent to help her heal and to protect her.

I told her how we did heal and how despite my mother’s frequent psychotic behavior during the first five years of my life, she somehow managed to treat me with a great deal of love and care.  I described a number of incidents and landmarks from those years, all of which Carol confirmed the accuracy of.

Carol expressed sympathy and guilt about the effect all this might have had on me psychologically.  Although I hadn’t read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning by then, I described how I always considered the experience a positive in that I knew I had weathered something so violent and overwhelming and survived that there was really nothing I was in fear of confronting.   This was particularly true after I had run out the engrams (moments of pain and unconsciousness) associated with the matter.

A couple years later when my father was on his death bed, we had a similar discussion.  He, again, confirmed all the details of my recollection.  We both reached a meaningful closure of the experience.

All of the details reported in Scientology Inc.’s recently published materials on this subject are recorded in detail in one place and one place alone: my auditing (counseling) folders maintained at Scientology Inc. headquarters.   I have discussed the details with nobody beyond my father and aunt except my Scientology auditors (counselors) in minister-penitent privileged auditing sessions in the ‘church’ of Scientology.   Not once did any member of the church of Scientology ever write a report about these incidents.  Never were any of these details the subject of any ‘ethics’ action, nor were they ever mentioned outside of a minister-penitent privileged auditing session.   The matters were not even ever probed by anyone administering auditing. Instead,  every detail was freely offered by me, on my own originations during the process of auditing.

The tone and context of Scientology Inc.’s treatment of my early life experience seems to stand for the proposition that a being can be permanently damaged and Scientology is incapable or ineffective in remedying such trauma.

Apparently, David Miscavige wants the world to know that when you are down, you are gonna stay down, Dianetics and Scientology be damned.

I beg to differ.

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Posted in black dianetics, David Miscavige, ethics, harassment, healing, independents, miscavige crimes, office of special affairs, propaganda, psychs, tech, the future, the Reformation

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