Today, while reading the transcript of an L. Ron Hubbard lectured titled Dealing With Attacks On Scientology, 26 June 1961, a particular authoritatively spoken datum caught my attention. LRH was distinguishing Scientology from other spiritual and religious philosophies over the years that had become entrapments to one degree or another. He said:
So these former efforts were entrapments, and this is not an entrapment. It is not even a total freedom. I’ve even told you occasionally total freedom would be existence without barriers, and I think you would find everybody very miserable. All right. We’re an incomprehensible factor. This is the first time, actually, a high-powered, rather selfless philosophy has hit Earth which didn’t at once demand of its practitioner or in – the person who embraces it – that he totally subjugate himself utterly and become enslaved by the philosophy, don’t you see; and which didn’t say that the originator of the philosophy must then be carried as an imperishable valence from there on to the end of the track, and everybody should bow down to this, don’t you see. That alone is incomprehensible amongst the – the works of man. These are different. These are different.
I would like to hear your views about this. Did Scientology go astray from this unique position and join the ranks of entrapments? If so, when, how, why?
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
It seems that every spiritual initiative ever launched has strayed from this basic principle or initial postulate.
It seems to be inherent to surviving in the MEST universe. LRH points to this over and over again – from considerations taking rank over mechanics, the scene gets inverted and mechanics start to rule over thought until at bottom we reach reactivity, stimulus-rersponse.
It seems to have happened to Christianity and other religions and movements as well.
Theta needs to be continuously infused to break up the ridges that form in the course of establishing temporal organizations, whether they be our physical bodies, churches, businesses, or governments.
Bob Dylan expressed it pretty well in a song when he sang “He not busy being born is busy dying.”
If you don’t have a “live org”, then you will have a dead one.
I don’t pretend to know when it went off the rails precisely, but the mid 60’s did result in a lot of authoritative changes. My simple explanation is that LRH’s past was catching up with him re lies, white lies, etc and he was doing a lot of experimenting with intimate aspects of his own mind. Trying to grasp 3D Criss Cross as a concept is difficult- how would you audit it with that much complexity. Some of the tenets that grabbed a lot of agreement was the essay “Personal Integrity”. It was what we thought made Scn different from earlier dogma. But it was little used, and I have thought LRH eventually went the way of dramatizing ” cult leader” and many of us became dramatizing “cult members”. They are both very specific beingnesses or valences, if you will. A “package” as described in the GPM data, as I recall. I find it fascinating how what I thought was an invitation to free thought became just the oposite. As I write this, maybe that is where it went off the rails was with the emphasis on goals and stats. With the group overriding the individual. Lots of food for thouhgt on this area.
Yes. I would personally pin the point in time to the transition between “the Sea Project” and “the Sea Org”. Quals were high for the Sea Project….Cl VI, accomplished auditor. The Sea Org? Well apart from a few notable examples, not so much. (Just my opinion of course.)
But the whole technical sequence of “life continuums” and valance tech was all nailed in the 50’s and early 60’s. For those that question the “science” in Scientology, just re-read (or read) “The Basic Assumption of Scientology vs. Overts” HCOB. It makes it pretty apparent that one’s path is really one’s own, and not someone elses. Someone else dying for your sins? Not possible, really, except by ‘agreement’. It takes some Confront though.
imho
ymmv
This philosophy…. this philosopher is what drew me to SCN. Bravo!
When I talk to Scientologists, I see that e.g. some have an idea of what the dynamics are, some not. Some see that the dynamics are URGES, but most take the dynamics as the mesty dynamic-manifestation. 2D then falsely equals the husband, 3D then equals the Org… what I want to say: It is a matter of awareness. To many only MEST-realities are really real. So they just cannot but misunderstand spiritual things – until auditing will have opened their inner eyes. It´s a matter of awareness.
Scientology is Scientology. Scientology stays the same. Scientology itself never went anyway, never left the right way or went astray. But the MEST-manifestation of Scientology, the Scientology MOVEMENT and its followers, went astray, right. Maybe at the moment when Ron disappeared – since there was noone left in the highest management to remind us well enough that Scientology was sth spiritual. Those who always could distinguish between the spiritual and the mesty aspects have most probably kept their faith and have stayed with the real Scientology.
I’d say around the time KSW#1 was written.
Perhaps I’m missing something but couldn’t this very tape handle once and for all the “with LRH/not with LRH” debate that got so many upset?
To answer your question … yes, scientology did go astray and fell into the position of another entrapment —
The beauty is that because tapes such as this exist and people such as Marty and others, continue to study and learn – scientology doesn’t have to get lost.
Why it went that way I don’t know. I’m not of the belief that some have voiced here that it’s the exclusive fault of the Sea Org.
Personally I think REGARDLESS of what others have posted about the death of Quentin and LRH’s reaction — THAT seems to be the place when things started to go seriously south.
That said — I don’t believe the slide into entrapment as a philosophy can be pin pointed by ONE thing but a gradient approach … a gradual slippery slope.
As a Sea Org member in the early days but not the beginning days, I could see things becoming more and more an entrapment.
When I left scientology in 1993 it had become SUCH an entrapment that even the public were told which books they could and could not read.
And who they could and could not associate with – as well as large scale declares and disconnections.
Now — even those who have left have, as most of their friends — from what I can tell on Facebook — other indies. Very few have other non-former-scientology friends.
Very few read other philosophies and many here have posted basically
“why bother”, we’ve got the best thing goin’
It’s a very very closed group — not unlike the British and European aristocracy has become painfully inbred.
Which makes for a smaller and smaller gene pool and less and less intelligent searching.
As a start – I’d recommend going to a neighborhood veteran association, a knitting group, a pilates class, take a class at a community college and MEET some people.
My 2¢
🙂
I also had some data go past my eyeballs recently that talked about “imposing an altered beingness/identity”.
KSW#1 imposing an altered identity of LRH, as perfectish source, and imposes a disabled beingness of “sorry, but you can’t trust your own observations and research skills, NO-ONE else can either”.
An imposed identity can unmock one. It can also be agreed with consciously or even subconsciously through sales tricks or “hypnotic level”.
You could pick up these alterations and intentions to alter or subjugate and audit them out.
They could be laid on you or you could have laid them on others, such as in a group requiring a leader (if it really does is aside) – “I am smarter than you – you are not smart and need me”.
Various service-facsimiles – “All men are dumb” etc, can lay in this altering identity, and (in my humble opinion) since it is a second decision/postulate, THAT persists.
“How to create sheeple” 101.
Very much so I’d say. The goal of a free being, a powerful individual, was what Ron wanted. Early articles such as “He Didn’t Like Soup” (I may not have that exactly right) show, in my opinion, where Ron wanted to go. Like Gatauma Siddartha he just wanted to teach people how to be free and to free others. It kinda got complicated there in the middle.
Now we would be required to toe a line quite PRECISELY were we to participate in the “Organization”. Sitting here on the outside looking in, observing the massive gains my preclears and I are making free from restraint and suppression, the divergence of the “Organization” from the path LRH intended is starkly contrasted.
I think this a great quote Marty. I am sure that when GAT II comes out, this section will be missing. Ha. Anyway, I think LRH saw that this “entrapment” went with all important spiritual discoveries and he was determined to keep it “free” and that he personally had no inclination or desire to fall prey to such evil. I think he put up many safe-guards like Division V and Division I to prevent or correct other people in the Scientology organization from going down this road of entrapment and deification (as man ALWAYS has done, including DM).
In the end, I think DM was able to overcome these organization safe guards with force and false reports…. going back to 1981 or so…
I would say Yes that the organised religion of Scientology did become and is still an entrapment.
When and how is a lot more difficult to pinpoint without a very thorough study of the successive changes within the group and what the impact of those changes were. But I will hazard a guess and that is when ethics ceased to be a personal tool and became a “justice” tool to mould staff and public into a required beingness. When the rights of the individual had to be subjugated to the rights or demands of the group.
“This is the first time, actually, a high-powered, rather selfless philosophy has hit Earth which didn’t at once demand of its practitioner or in – the person who embraces it – that he totally subjugate himself utterly and become enslaved by the philosophy…”
Damn, that’s why I signed up back in ’78.
I can’t really pick an exact point of departure but I certainly did know that it was occurring. I and many others held out hope that it was just “growing pains” and that the ship would eventually right itself and find its course again. Of course it would, right? If we all just moved up the Bridge, sanity would prevail and straighten out the kinks and as a group “of freed beings” we could rise to grater heights, recognize and acknowledge our mistakes and move on. Perhaps that is what is happening now.
One of the first clues to me was that staff would not move up the Bridge which when you think about it is just an irony to end all ironies. One would think that a sane, educated, OT staff would be the exact thing needed to accomplish the goals that had been set out for the group in an expedient fashion. When that wasn’t even in the picture I did begin to think that perhaps someone, somewhere, had other fish to fry… and yet I hung in there and gave management the benefit of the doubt.
If nothing else this has certainly been an interesting study of the very things that have plagued mankind throughout time. The fact that it could happen to this very subject speaks volumes about the exact mechanisms that are the source of entrapment. I don’t know, you think we might get it right this go-round? I guess time will tell.
BTW, Marty, I find you to be one of the most level-headed and insightful philosophers of modern times.
Hmm.
I immediately thought of what is expected, via all of the Codes, like Auditor’s Code, Supervisor’s Code, Code of Scientologist, Sea Org Member’s Code, then I jumped to thinking of the various “Hats” that have been compiled.
Basic Staff Member’s Hat, OEC Volume 0
For the various upper echelon units in Scientology, there at Author Services Inc, is now the “Basic ASI Staff member hat”, which contains the key traffic from LRH to ASI staff, layingout the do’s and don’t’s and what LRH needed and wanted, from ASI staff.
I thought of the LRH traffic to Int Managment, sort of the key needed’s and wanted’s for the Int execs.
Same for the ED International hat.
Same for the IG Cramming Officer.
Same for the IG MAA hat.
All of LRH’s over the years answers to people non existence formulas sent to him, from various positions, and traffic to the various top Sea Org units, Bridge Publications, and then LRH’s traffic to CLO EU, the EU LRH EDs tell CLO EU staff what LRH wanted of them. Traffic to various Saint Hill and AO execs, were turned into extensive amounts of LRH thoughts on those units.
So, the beingness of the auditor.
The Business of Orgs.
The enthusiasm staff are expected to have about their roles, all contained in the Basic Staff Member Hat, OEC Volume 0.
I’d say that from 1961 onwards, particularly from the boom period of Saint Hill onwards, LRH focused his admin writings leaving a trail of tailor made roles, staff positions, I mean he got pretty darned specific about the daily duties of all of the various echelons.
Now, Special Zone Plan, I take as the public’s main “marching orders”, where in Special Zone Plan, I paraphrase, he says go out into the world and get in positions to help whichever organization you work in, better, etc, etc.
Then, there’s the “Hat In Life” exercise, that one does doing the Life Orientation Course (LOC), where one determines what one’s hat in life is. That is a self determined action, that course, and the listing of one’s life out by org board departments, and awareness characteristics, and figuring out the condition one is in, on all one’s departments in one’s life, is an interesting exercise.
I bring up LOC last, since it was obvious that LRH left it up to members to fire out their “hat in life.”
So, LOC, would be what I think LRH allows each person to work out for him or herself, what their “hat” will be in life.
typo: “….it was obvious that LRH left it up to members to figure out their “hat in life.””
Scientology did not become an entrapment. By itself it is potential only. It has been fashioned and used as an entrapment. The way and manner in which it has been used as an entrapment shows how far man is from being able to “have” something so liberating. Its own originator succumbed. We are left the task to sift and sort the resulting mess. And its being done quite ably on this blog.
Today, Scientology is an entrapment. From ’78 until ’92 it wasn’t an entrapment for me. I can see how it could have been for others. There’s no question that the deterioration of Scientology over the last 20 years is a product of DM’s insane management that results in entrapment. Someone might present the LRH quote here to DM, but I’m sure it wouldn’t register.
Yes. Scientology went astray from this communication from LRH and from others that were along the lines of “what’s true for you…” You are hitting on a crucial point here, Marty. I don’t know when the departure took place or if it was sudden or bit by bit. Maybe one question is: Should you enforce Standard Tech and Admin by threat of punishment? Or is the only workable way to appeal to the reason of the individual. To enlighten, to hat.
Also along these lines is do the ends justify the means?
My answer is, if you are trying to free man,then you need to free him all along the way. You can’t enslave him in order to free him. So we should take the force out of Scientology. Once we do that, people will be free to learn, think .communicate on the subject and apply it and it will make it’s way into the world to improve conditions like intended.
There is magic in Scientology. It’s wonderful. Most of us have experienced it. That is why we are still here.
Marty,
The Sea Org was established on 12 August 1967.
Here is the demarcation line where Scientology became an entrapment, IMHO.
That demarcation is the origination of the literal lunatic “priesthood’ that the few several thousand current remaining suffer from.
Fortunately for us they’re a rapidly dwindling insignificance.
L. Ron Hubbard created a religion that contradicts this quote. He established rules that created fear in his followers if they disobeyed. He would use punishment and condemnation from eternal salvation if they disobeyed. His rules and high crimes established LRH and church law as supreme rula! His rule by fear subjugated his followers. LRH was king of their souls. These are my thoughts.
Yes Scientology did go astray from this unique position. In my humble 2c, this philosophy could augment and create synergy with spiritual realitiy of people across the globe. The tech of Scientology philosophy could be applied to all of humanity without demanding that people abandon every other thought, track or bridge that may bring truth to them. Isn’t this paradigm totally consistent with the body of knowledge and teaching of LRH?
The Church of Miscavige is entrapment, actually a pyramid scheme.
Began in early 1980’s with the San Fransisco Mission Holders Conferenmce.
Then The Financial Police and De Dinging.What went by the boards is Senior Policy of” delivering what we promise” “All Arbitaries cancelled” then implementing avalances of arbitaries.Ideal Org fund raising, perverting the standard LRH org board into the Miscavige Org Board where all staff are reg’s.The IAS bases its success on money raised at events or Disasters that are culled into opportunity videos to raise more money that never goes to the stated disaster or emergency.Except of course the few locals who get paid as extras to act out that they are starving or ruined by the disaster.Thats as far as it goes. Reselling Super Power multiple times and never opening, Its the Super Power Cash Cow. The perfect carrot on a stick.
OT 9 and 10, I could go on, but it would be a book.
Marty
Yes, that was one of the things that I immediately found attractive about Scientology, this idea that the philosophy of Scientology was not a belief but a practical wisdom, and that I was not required to subjugate myself to either the philosophy or the originator.
When I contacted Scientology in 1970 it was presented like that, in my mission. However, by as early as 1973 some of heavy handedness of Scientology was creeping in. I do not know if it was date-coincident or not, but that seems to be around the same time as when Scientology adopted the “beingness” of a Church. It almost seems that, in order to assume that “beingness”, in the eyes of the public, Scientology started to adopt the attributes of other religions, and down the slope it went. (it “closed terminals”). Also, right about that time, if I am correct, LRH formed up The Sea Org. This shift now molded the senior organizations into a military “beingness”, and that “beingness” filtered down the org system, even into some of the Missions.
What evolved was a synthesis that has become a very militant church. Under David Miscavige, the worst attributes of both are being ruthlessly pursued. He has turned it into a cult.
As to Why Ron chose to head down this path. Just as a guess, it likely has to do with the situation that Ron personally, and Scientology itself was in at that time. Both Ron and Scientology were under attack, and Ron seems to have adopted these “beingnesses” for the organization in order to protect the technologies, and the practice of the technologies, of Dianetics and Scientology for future generations.
I personally feel that liberating the Philosophy and technologies from this cult and returning it to its “unique position amongst religious philosophies” has already gotten a foothold due to those practicing Scientology “privately”, outside the “church”.
There is likely still going to be a lot of “sorting out” to do, but I think we are basically on the right track.
Eric S
One could conclude that Scientology will continue forward (integrate/evolve/transcend) much as has Buddism on a time continuum.
I somewhat agree with Heath on this. LRH was the first one who penned the Disconnection policy as well as Fair Game. True he canceled them but he opened the first door for witch hunts which he so vehemently condemned in the Ethics Book.
I feel where this current Church went wrong is where every other corrupt church or political system goes wrong – money and power. It’s the swan song of every great group or nation. When the wrong people get money and power, everyone else is subjugated to their will and threats.
I really don’t think it gets more complicated than money and power. The wrong people/person got a hold of those two things.
I do believe Phil Spickler says it all in this video. Worth watching.
By the way, he was one of the top disseminators and CA mission holders before his departure. His daughter MiMi was supping the BC at 16 (the old ASHO on West Temple) and got none other than TC on the bridge later on. I hold Phil in high regard.
It is my opinion that not one single BLOW (“fleeing”) the Sea Org ~~ would have occurred
UNLESS
the escapee felt TRAPPED.
Since 1967 there are thousands that have fled.
Escaping out is to get back freedom after entrapment.
1958, LRH, more data from Phil. Did LRH change? About learning from the past…which we all can benefit from.
Yes, mid-60’s. I think it’s been covered by you and posts by Steve Hall as I recall. LRH moved away from the kindness and compassion found in the earlier materials towards dealing with enemies and suppression and developed a more black and white, us vs. them attitude with the psychs, etc.
I agree. Prior to KSW the tech was much more of a work in progress, and LRH gave credit to many of the group members that contributed to it. Then all of a sudden it was Ron the Source, and don’t you dare change a thing.
I think what happened is that Ron recognized the marketing value of L. Ron Hubbard as a brand. And it was a brand. When Ron gave the lectures the house was packed. People wanted to hear Ron in person, not just a lecture on Scientology.
The problem is, at the moment when he decided to capitalize on the L. Ron Hubbard brand, it started heading into that very trap he had warned us about. And Miscavige of course has done everything in his power to reinforce and solidify the trap.
The subject of scientology itself has never gone astray. It’s still there in the materials for anyone to study.
What did go astray are the various 3rd dynamic structures that LRH devised to disseminate, teach and apply the tech. He understood by 1952 that he had discovered something senior to religion, science or philosophy: quite literally the static on which any knowledge or experience is based. But he also knew that a pure static is hard to confront. It has to be packaged with arbitraries in order to be duplicated and accepted, just as the Tantrics surrounded their idea of a static (the clear light) with layers of mythical imagery and mocked-up deities.
I think it’s evident from his lectures in that year that he was reluctant to create any organisational structures, but considered them necessary. His first inclination might have been to simply publish all he knew and then walk away like Lao-Tse, but he probably felt that would have been dropping responsibility. In particular he was concerned that some businessman or government would seize a monopoly of scientology. Back in the days when publication meant printing, mimeo or copying of analog tapes, the concealment or even destruction of the materials was a real possibility.
I suggest that LRH was not blind to the shortcomings of any model he could choose for organisations: a business corporation, a church, a para-military force. These were the best he could do at the time, but always subject to change on the principle of “get busy and build a better bridge”. As long as the founder’s free theta and spirit of play shone behind the church, it couldn’t become an entrapment. Entrapment began in earnest when he was no longer able to unmock structures such as the Sea Org that had turned oppressive.
Terry Pratchett’s “Small Gods” has something to say about how religion can become an entrapment. A belief started by a powerful being gradually accumulates a priesthood, symbols, temples, an inquisition, bigger temples, a new sociopathic leader, and even bigger temples until the original Source is forgotten and overlooked – in the story, he diminishes until he can just run the body of one small tortoise.
Well, you know it did stray. Very much so. Even before the David Miscavige years, there was some of that attitude, “Now we must all subjugate ourselves to this wonderful movement, without which the world would be toast.” Funny thing is, there was truth to it too, and those who did dedicate themselves to the great project provided a tremendous public service in doing so, whether they were appreciated for it or not. Personally, I think the kind of intention you have found in the quotation did not drift down to the lower ranks of Scientology enough because of all the unwarranted attacks throughout the years, coupled with man’s basic lack of understanding in the first place. Even Ron himself hunkered down and tried to compel obedience and a unified front through a sense of embattled necessity. But that was never his philosophy about the whole thing. He was just trying hard to make things go right. Please don’t compare what the present psychopath is doing to what ought to be done. There is no comparison, really. DM has consistently twisted the entire subject and amplified its worst or potentially worst features to represent everything to be found in the subject. He has created a real horror show.
It is most amazing and remarkable how Ron preserved nearly all of his writings and lectures for future investigation and use. Who else in all the wide world and in all of its history carefully preserved such a voluminous production of writings and lectures? Good find on that one, Marty.
I think it’s a case of saying one thing and doing another. LRH certainly had a keen sense for what people wanted to hear, and he was glad to give it to them.
I think Scientology did become a trap, there are enough stories of abusive SO and staff subservience going back decades, to prove it was a trap for many.
My curiosity lays in wondering if it was designed that way from the outset or evolved into one. I think LRH was highly, highly sensitive to criticism of any kind and was prone to take any and all business activities or govt. regulations as personal attacks and insults. I know Hubbard had enemies, there is no doubt some of his paranoia was justified, but he also played a part in creating enemies for himself when it wasn’t necessary. I wonder if these factors possibly drove LRH to make Scientology more controlling, his paranoia making him think he couldn’t trust anyone and therefore must have a degree of power or control over them if they were to have involvement in Scientology – otherwise they were a pos liability to him.
The sec checks were always an example of this mentality IMHO.
Simply brilliant advice for everyone!
That’s one way of looking at it, and I can see that viewpoint.
I kind of see it this way: The basic problem LRH was trying to solve was one of scale. Per KSW, early groups where he could maintain “quality control” did OK, all the way up to Old St. Hill. Some early franchises also did well. The introduction of a Qual Div, the C\S hat (with the totally violated ‘Ivory Tower’ rule) and Auditor Internships were essential hat turnovers, but recall, also, in KSW he specifically turned the hat over to each one of “us”. Delivery of service to others has been totally subordinated to “fund raising” under the Ayatollah Miscavige….LRH’s maxim was “Solve it with Scientology”. Those SO members that have tried to right the ship (Guillame comes to mind, for example) have been brutally savaged and degraded.
I think it is an open question: Does Scientology delivery “scale” well beyond a certain size? I think it could, but tech would have to be kept “in” on every cycle. A daunting task.
Scientology could only go astray in the eye of the beholder.
Thanx Karen, I hang on your every word. Also thanx for posting the YouTube link a couple weeks ago showing OT V111 George in action, with his whole face hanging right out there!!! Whoaaa!!!
Thank you Karen! Same goes for me on the mission and Class V org level.
I don’t see a problem with standard tech myself and having standards. The medical field has exact standards. All fields of professionalism have standards. The problem is people pretending to adhere to these standards when they are not.
Entrapment is any situation where a person can not get out, or it is any kind of problem to get out. Hubbard came up with the Int rundown so people could get out. He organized the auditing methods so people could get out. I got out. I stayed out. And I left whenever I felt like leaving. I was shocked to know people remained in the Sea Org or on staff long after they did not want to be there. So why did they? Fear of punishment! Fear of loss? Can people become so entrapped with out fear? I doubt it.
All during the Scientology boom, if someone was upset about anything, an ARCX auditor to the home to clean it up.
Not any more, not for decades unless you are Tom Cruise.
Technology and Qual got replaced with ethics threats and justice. The sociopaths grabbed that as a means to harm attack and suppress.
I was at a friend’s house once and her little girl did something she did not like. She started screaming “YOU’RE GOING TO ETHICS!” and sent the child to her room hysterical. This was a class Vl. I never returned. What a looney. Had another class Vlll brag that she beat her children AS A CLASS Vlll to livingroom full of people in L.A.. Watched Jenny Linson run through the base screaming at people as if she were a bully a street gang. Actually, that is exactly what she is.
I did not meet many kind people in the Sea Org. They had to be willing to turn on one another on command. That makes a group very very fragile and keeps people teetering on the edge of an enemy condition 24/7. That is a LOW condition. When you declare someone, when you send someone to the RPF, when you issue one of these justice “remedies”, you IN FACT PUT EVERYONE IN A LOWER CONDITION OF ENEMY towards the person under justice. Do you know how many enemies a Sea Org member is supposed to inherit? How many friends are they allowed to have? NONE. What the HELL do you think this has done to the Sea Org? It is part of the hat to remain in an enemy condition towards entire groups and cultures! For a group to remain in a high condition it’s members must be in high conditions! NOT eaten up in an enemy condition!
I refused these unspoken obligations and got labeled with everything from theetie wheetie to suppressive reasonable. No. I just did not care to shift into the low condition of enemy. This is the damage attackers and sociopaths put on one. They get you to agree to fall into a lower condition of enemy. For every coin you spend on these justice cycles the issuer pays a price too for the justice. A fall into a lower condition. It is YOUR condition when you go there, not the other persons.
“Oh”! I was asked, “Why are you RAILING against justice?”
How is it justice when I have to slide myself in condition because of someone else?
How is that justice I ask? That is INJUSTICE. It’s also REACTIVE.
Scientology is a STORE. You go there to buy shit. You don’t like it, get a refund. It should have stayed THAT SIMPLE!
Macy’s doesn’t have a justice department. Either do the other stores selling items of interest. Hubbard sold knowledge. That’s all!
A staff member isn’t cutting it? Just fire him like everyone else does!
The billion year contract made Hubbard responsible for people like children. Although he loved the pledge and the commitment, he TOO was part of that contract. He could NOT just fire them. So then we got the RPF. And we got the ethics department in the Orgs for who? Mostly the staff under contract!
There was already an existing justice function in this society before Hubbard mocked up his own.
Any Scientology who is on the bridge, who is helping, who is getting help and helping, does not need justice and ethics. Their ethics are already in or they would not be on the bridge or helping others.
The ones that come along to tear things up and make damage need to be cut loose, relegated to reading books. Every Org could have just hung a sign like everyone else saying, “We have the right to refuse service”. That’s it.
To date I think I am the only one on this planet that can think with the ethics conditions, even Hubbard did not see that causing people to turn against one another put THEM in a lower condition.
You know who survives in an ENEMY condition? Nobody. If you are not in normal or above you are not on top of the game, all across the dynamics. Look at the original grade chart all the way at the top POWER ON ALL DYNAMICS.
Miscavige says, “Power is getting others to listen to you.”
That is NOT power for me. Power is NOT HAVING TO RESPOND. NOT HAVING TO REACT.
The WHY? REACTIVE JUSTICE policies! “If he does this, then you do that!”
Oh yeah, let’s mock up ANOTHER reactive mind! It’s mandatory!
Um, no thanks. I’d rather just smack someone, let them know what I thought, and move on. I don’t need courts and trials and ethics files!
I don’t need to be POLICED!
What emerged from the REACTIVE JUSTICE POLICIES? POLICE and SOLDIERS!
The Sea Organization is a reactive mind Hubbard left behind.
Rob Lowe portrays the perfect O.S.A. staffer in the film “Knife Fight”.
“Attack attack attack!”
Perfect.
And this is the current product! Top of bridge, A list Scientologist!
A 1.5 ser facy bully!
Thinking with REACTIVE JUSTICE. It’s ALL DED, DED-DEDEX, DEDEX. The “Deserved” action.
No, I believe it started before KSW. Talking to VERY old timers the word is that a more forceful or more serious LRH seemed to begin after he returned from Africa but the date co-incidence could also be his OT research as he starts to plot the OT sections at that time. First, ethics policies come out at St Hill, a sort of, “if you are not for us you are against us” type mentality which escalates. It is suddenly a whole new world per the old timers. The first issue of KSW is a year or two later (1965) and by 1968 you have have RJ67 focusing on OT3 stuff and SPs suppressing the planet, the formation of the Sea Org and a beef up of the Guardian’s Office. An interesting whatershed of a time period which I believe is also repeated later after the FBI raids and perhaps on into the 80s.
There is an interesting tech thread that goes along with all the other factual threads that make up the analysis of what the hell happened to turn the church into a cult. Though LRH had a great many things taped by the early 50s, plotting the bridge was not one of them. It is not as if it was all worked out first and a bunch of guys did the bridge and THEN, and only then was Scientology begun as an organization. No way, LRH worked it out as he went.
In the very early 50s he thinks he can make clears with Dns (and he can) but that starts to look like it is not the case so he is tries to work out clearing produre culminating in the Clearing Course, so some people are already clear but don’t know it and so get busy doing power and the clearing course, yet they are already clear. Then LRH has to plot the OT levels because clear is not the ne plus ultra and perhaps he does not know why. Then he thinks OTIII is it, all the trouble is handled with OT3. Then we have OTIII expanded but that’s not it either. So we have the old OT sections (IV through VII) and from observing those old OTs I call that “body building for thetans” because they were powerful but wayward IMHO. Later LRH finds out that OTIII and OTIII expanded is not it, it only maked a small dent in that area of case but that all comes after the GO crimes and mess. I find it interesting that the GO guys did their criminal thing and then got NOTs. And things progressed from there
This a very short, edited version of the tech thread or string and I am not saying it justifies what happened but I think it is part of the puzzle and bears looking at.
Scientology became entrapment without a shadow of a doubt. It should not have (an organization with the tech to release beings from their traps uses entrapment?) but it did.
Yeah, kind of would have been nice if Ron had continued to hold that point of view, instead of doing a steady 180 throughout the 1960s – 70s. This is the last stage of “1950s Ron” or as Tony calls him “Old Testament Ron” (which unlike God, was the kinder, gentler, more liberal version) But, whadday gonna do? – can’t put the genie back into the bottle as the saying goes. The CoS slowly but surely became a completely authoriatarian, totally doctrinal church, which brooked no disagreement, and the groundwork was laid for its eventual decline. Now, if Scientology as a movement ever grows again, it will have to expand on a totally different model, one of self-determinism in thought and action, and “policy” will be a more flexible agreement among people who do not want to be and are not willing to be “commanded”, but instead are focused on a more free and happy life for themselves and others.
Extremely good question.
Where does the tech of spiritual enlightenment and consciousness
run into MEST barriers and it’s entrapments? When does ethics
enter in to curtail straying from the path upwards? This is what most
religions have run into and in most cases put the majority of their
attention on. So Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Islam has all
their rules and regulations to stop any possibility of disobediance.
And on it goes with other religions.
Possibly LRH thought in the beginning that a free man would be
impervious to transgressions as he becomes more and more aware.
In the late 60’s he realized we needed codes of conduct and a set
of rules and conditions to be able to in the physical universe move
away from destructive acts and back onto the bridge. It is a run-in
of the MEST universe and the spiritual universe. Does a thetan
automatically become a God-like being as he is freeing himself
from the bonds of the body? Ron had to re-evaluate this from
what he saw. He then also worked on this with Tech of O/W’s
sec-checking and FPRD, in other words, for many years after
the late 60’s. Maybe even before then as the missed, missed
withold came out before then.
In my opinion that’s the why, how and when to this question.
I would quess when it got “off purpose”, which seems to have happened gradiently starting when Miscavige took over. I want to believe that LRH had the purpose for the Church and Scientology to help people. That he knew if people went through his tech and through his orgs they would come out better for it- the same purpose he had from the beginning. I dont know what Miscaviges purpose is, but i dont think it is that. So then you are in this organization that has a cross purpose. The LRH draws you in, but the other purpose chews you up and you dont know whats going on until you get all the data and look at it from an exterior viewpoint.
It seems that while LRH was around people were generally happy with the Church. There are some who say that things started to go off the rails while he was here, but the idea I get after reading a lot and hearing a lot of stories and comments is that the 60s-70s and even early 80s were a pretty good time to be a Scientologist, regardless of any organizational or group imperfections . I dont see how it’s possible to be “entrapped” by belonging to a group that is operating on a purpose you agree with and support. It’s like being entrapped by a bus thats on it’s way to the airport, and you happen to need to get to the airport. If you are entrapped by that bus it’s you, not the bus.
I just had another thought. How many times have your heard that being on staff is the “third side of the Bridge?” Never seen it written but certinly have heard it in almost every Org I’ve been in. It’s an interesting datum, similar to the idea that if one is “connected to Source” that person somehow mystically benefits and channels the OT abilities of others. It creates a superiority, the idea that simply because you are there you’re automatically a bigger being than those outside, the “WOGs.”
Who needs study when we can just ooze OTness just because we’re one of The Chosen, the upper tenth of the upper percent of the “most intelligent” beings on earth? You get an uneducated group that is no different or better off than any that have come before it – dare I say it – WOGs! – and down the road we go that every other religion seems to have followed. How could it possibly do otherwise?
Bingo.
I’m trying to get my scone (head, noodle, mind 😀 ) around the fact to be truly free and able to help under any and all circumstances, I need to eventually assume a viewpoint of source.
I think a key point of education is when one understand to the point one can originate the tech. This level of judgement is my goal.
I deeply appreciate all LRH did in research and all others have done in research, but source is not a sole viewpoint.
It’s just not the way life works.
Scientology as an applied philosophy, when made your own, and one is allowed to practice it as a free being, is not a trap. Not even close.
Setting up a false front, with high dollar gizmo’s and flubdubs that are sold as “duties” to save Scientology, like the IAS, and the organized Corporate Scientology, ARE traps.
Scientology is like no other. No matter what, no other applied philosophy even compares to the end result of Scientology grades, when well applied and with the end result being to give the PC gains, not credit card bills and disconnection pressures.
There is a real magic to the tech when you practice it without additives. It really is something best experienced when you can have and own your gains, cogs, abilities and realizations without having them interrupted by an enforced trip to the reg or more IAS baloon juice from Howard Becker or Dave Pomerantz.
Agreed just watched some of Phil’s interview. #3 will really pull at your heart strings and give you a glimpse of those early days through Phil’s eyes.
Maybe the turning point was when we declared someone who wasn’t a suppressive person.
ML/A
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I believe that between 1952 and 1986, a mechanism became automatic, unthinking and rote in the upper echelons of Scientology management. It’s the one described like this:
From Lecture 5212C12 PDC-39 GAME PROCESSING:
“This is how to make a piece: First, deny there’s a game. Second, hide the rules from them. Three: give them all penalties and no wins. Four: remove all goals. (ALL GOALS.) Enforce their playing. Inhibit their enjoying. Make them look but forbid their being like players.”
Basically, the GAME of Scientology changed to an activity where the parishioners are all pieces, not players. That means effect, not cause. Check your PDCs for more on piece/player theory.
The day that tech morphed into a ‘religion’ and the organizations into a ‘church’ was the last days of freedom. It was downhill from then, exasperatd by the creation of KSW and the SO, then of course the coup de grass, or whatever it is called, DM.
my opinion
When it went astray it was no longer “Scientology.” That is so simple that it’s hard to comprenhend. The original work, that worked, WAS Scientolology. The crap that followed that untrained and uniformed people still call scientology is NOT the original technology and it doesn’t work.
That being said, there are some qualifications to being able to recognize what the old stuff that worked is vs. the new stuff that doesn’t work and only makes you hand over your hard-earned money.
Some of those qualifications include being able to recognize identities, similarities and differences, one’s general emotional tone in life and the lack of evil purposes and the presence of good purposes towards one’s fellow man. Along with a dose of personal integrity.
It takes more than just a couple of hours of study to understand what the original works consist of. It takes a lot of study, some USE, experiencing it and seeing that using it correctly does in fact work. Once you run an engram for real you will have an epiphany. Just talking about it and thinking about it does not make the difference. After running an engram You are still You–you don’t end up brainwashed. You just simply looked into your past, which was always there, and with the help of a trained auditor examined it in a certain way and came out the other end seeing how it affected you. The bad effects, seen for exactly what they are, then diminish or disappear completely. Very simple, and very effective.
If this doesn’t happen then it’s not by the book–the old school that got results.
I know for myself this is true for the “red and white” auditing technology. The “green and white” administrative technology and directives had a lot going for them but also had some noticable shortcomings and these (and the sea org highly restrictive rules) IMO had some strangeness and negativity that helped make it possible to invalidate the already-proven and working “red and white” technology of auditing.
Possibly in this new evolution taking place outside the C of $ the workable things will be maintained and the controlling unnecessary rules and regulations will be omitted. I don’t think anyone ever said Hubbard was perfect, and he never said it about himself. He was trying to protect what worked and what could actually change the course of a failing civilization.
There is only one way to see if it works—is there improvement, greater survival, success, prosperity and happiness? And more importantly spiritual growth, ability and awareness? If not, it ain’t Scientology.
Ive seen quite several new religious movements start in the 70s with a handful of people having profound, transformational personal experiences, in a freeflowing environment void of rules of policies, Freedom and individual choice was the only rule. As the word of mouth about these mystical experiences spread, more and more people joined in, like moths attracted to a light. As more and more people, the need appeared to organize events, rent halls, have insurance, transport things, create materials, have money to pay for this..
To provide that, organizations were created. To run these organizations, policies, procedures. To operate these procedures, skills needed to be developed. Behaviors, skills and knowledge were needed. Behaviors were prescribed. Trainings were designed. Organizers came to see individual freedmo as a hinderance to organizational performance. The spiritual elan and the organizational dynamics became at ods.One was seeking freedom, the other sought control. A timeless dilemma whcih many masters of times immemorial must have known. But a challenge exacerbated in modern times, where going global–and hence dealing with masses-can happen rapidly
Now, to Marty’s point entrapment……quite a few religious movements that had started as gateways to free people from worldly entrapments, became entrapments, to some extent. To their defense, its easy to talk freedom, and its very difficult to create and manage organizations that enable freedom while performing.
To satisfy both the need for organizational performance and the need for individual freedom and fulfillment is a never-ending challenge. All organizations, to a certain extent, can be seen as entrapments. And yet all organizations also, because of the possibilities that they afford, are springboards for accomplishing a lot of good.
My view is that, ultimately, freedom from entrapment is to be found by each person, one breath at a time, whether they are in or outside an organization. Organizations are not the only contexts of entrapment. ive seen lone wolfs entrapped in their solitude, prisoner of their isolation. I’m not a Scientologist, just someone with a keen interest in Scientology. And I dont know the organization. But my own experience from having spent decades in another new religious movement is that there is no such thing as a perfect organization, and that freedom is to be found within only.
When I was in this religious movement, at first I was chronically critic of the organization. But then I saw that as I was making organization my focus, I was losing on the experience, and in a way entrapping myself. Thats when I realized that no organizational dysfunction was worth me losing appreciation for each breath.
Thank you Marty for asking pertinent questions, and to all of you for really interesting comments.
Marty, I can state without a doubt that the highly unethical, predatory and even abusive, for-profit corporation posing as “Scientology” which exists today under David Miscavige is not the same philosophy to which LRH was extolling back in ’61. Not at all, actually. They are utterly different groups with utterly different aims. LRH wouldn’t recognize the p/t situation as anything having to do with his original aims.
I really am not in a position to posit what might have been the point at which the tides turned. It could have been during LRH’s later years, or it could’ve been after DM hijacked it.
What I can say is that State Of Man Congress is some of the very best of a young, excited, LRH. It was in the ’50’s and he was winning. Fast forward a decade and a half and I can hear in his voice a pretty big sea change.
Hope that helps.
Awareness Characteristics
Total Freedom
Power on all 8 Dynamics
21 Source
20 Existence
19 Conditions
18 Realization
17 Clearing
16 Purposes
15 Ability
14 Correction
13 Result
12 Production
11 Activity
10 Prediction
9 Body
8 Adjustment
7 Energy
6 Enlightenment
5 Understanding
4 Orientation
3 Perception
2 Communication
1 Recognition
-1 Help
-2 Hope
-3 Demand for Improvement
-4 Need of Change
Levels below “Need of Change”
from human to materiality:
-5 Fear of Worsening
-6 Effect
-7 Ruin
-8 Despair
-9 Suffering
-10 Numbness
-11 Introversion
-12 Disaster
-13 Inactuality
-14 Delusion
-15 Hysteria
-16 Shock
-17 Catatonia
-18 Oblivion
-19 Detachment
-20 Duality
-21 Secrecy
-22 Hallucination
-23 Sadism
-24 Masochism
-25 Elation
-26 Glee
-27 Fixidity
-28 Erosion
-29 Dispersal
-30 Disassociation
-31 Criminality
-32 Uncausing
-33 Disconnection
-34 Unexistence
Power on all dynamics and Total Freedom imply a person at the top of this scale would not be wallowing in an enemy condition.
People comment on Hubbard’s flaws. He was dragged down. He was bullbaited. He had suppression on his lines. The Sea Org staff seem to think they are the most suppressed people on Earth. Nobody is suppressing those people but David Miscavige and each other. Nobody has cared a hoot what is going in the Church of Scientology except it’s OWN MEMBERS that have been suppressed and have suppressed others! It is a self suppressing entity! They have fucked over everyone that had filed a law suit against them. They have fucked over everyone who is fixated in an enemy condition towards the Church on ESMB. Those people are simply stuck in a lower condition of enemy. Dramatizing whatever whoever was in an enemy condition towards them! The justice BREEDS lower conditions. If you are not in non existance or above with the Scientology, you are not going up the bridge. So, you get someone who is in non e with the Scientology, they get introduced into the culture, first thing that happens is that they are required to flop into an enemy condition! There is a GPM with conditions. And a person forced in an enemy condition and dwelling there with have that condition seep along his other dynamics.
“This is the first time, actually, a high-powered, rather selfless philosophy has hit Earth which didn’t at once demand of its practitioner or in – the person who embraces it – that he totally subjugate himself utterly and become enslaved by the philosophy…”
I personally don’t know of any high-powered philosophy that subjugates and enslaves the person who embraces it, save the current CoS. Is he talking about Christianity? If so, I would have to disagree with his premise.
As soon as one considers himself “in” the universe of Scientology he begins a cycle which can lead to being an unwilling effect. He is mocking up that Scientology is a bigger universe than his is and that he is inside it. As LRH says, a person always obeys the god of the universe that he is in. In its most unfortunate manifestation, it would lead to obeying DM, since you are considering that you are “in” that universe, and he is the god.
The Proper way to view ones self in relation to Scientology is to see Scientology as a collection of tools and information which one can use to better his conditions and the conditions of his dynamics. That way Scientology is part of your universe, and not the other way around.
As long as you are following LRH’s definition of Scientology as a subject that enables someone to play a better game in his own estimation, you are on safe ground.
The idea of Scientology is not to produce someone who is always a cause and never an effect. Having acceptable barriers, acceptable freedoms, and worthwhile purposes brings games into balance. Willing cause, willing effect, that is where happiness lies. LRH explains this very well in the quote Marty put forth.
The idea of total freedom is just a protest against unacceptable barriers and is unworkable as a goal, as LRH said many times. It is in fact just a dramatization and a manifestation of PTSness. You always process someone in the direction of games, and never in the direction of no games.
This by the way is one of the central points in the film “The Master.” The lead character Freddie is going for complete freedom, and it was never the LRH character’s intention for the tech to provide that, thus their two goals were irreconcilable. LRH tried to convince him that this was an unachievable goal, but Freddie never got the point.
That key point in the movie was missed or misinterpreted by almost everyone.
Chris, I think you covered me with this. One more point. It seems with the Independents that the tenets of Scientology and what LRH says in the above reference by Marty come alive and become true again.
Yes, it fell into entrapment. When? When LRH departed in 1986; his body-as he mentioned in RJ 68 – was a symbol; in this case that symbol could have represented the idea of leadership, an inmense care for others and the Source of an assembled knowledge that he genuinly shared with others so they in turn could find their truths, abilities and so on.
That been said leave us with Why? – the answer can be found in the HCOB of Simon Bolivar and the handling of Power. Without the need of repeating specifics that we all have shared on this web it can be safely concluded that the subject or principle of handling power has been completely violated by this character named DM.
I could go on at lenght, but I consider the above sums it up.
Marty, Well, since LRH’s 100th birthday is coming up on about a month, we will see whether DM and his scribe puppet Dan Sherman have ever heard this lecture. Somehow I think it has escaped their attention. But it’s not too late for them to totally replan this year’s March 13th event seeing as that from past experience none of the speeches have even been started yet.
Actually, Marty, I believe SCN/DN frankly began in the entrapment field (survive/succumb – all the way to “full OT”), and since LRH’s passing, it has completely gone to other-determinism as a MEST-force religion/cult.
I’m not going to talk here about when LRH went this way or that; on or off the rails; who said what or when etc. – all these things are specifically inconsequential to the key question and issue: the gorilla in the room; specifically, the philosophic rendering of the Scientological system, as opposed to former efforts – joined or not in entrapment?
If I read this blog post correctly 1) LRH is saying that other former efforts (religion, philosophy etc.) were entrapments, and SCN is not. 2) Though he has said in the past “occasionally,” that SCN “was” ascribed to total freedom (without barriers), he says here, in this directive, it is not. Hmmm.
The third point is, I think, that LRH is saying SCN is a selfless philosophy, and one can not or should not subjugate himself to either the subject (SCN) or its creator (LRH). Again I’m also not going to be talking here about LRH frailties, for despite any of these, and there were quite a few, there are more major “kernels” of truth that he unearthed to be found and worked out herein, than any other system or philosophy out there. Period.
Finally, the fourth point (bringing it back full circle to point #1 above) is that LRH is saying, regardless of anything else, SCN is different – and is not an entrapment.
My 2cents is that Scientology is frankly all wrapped up in winning and surviving etc., and it therefore was, in fact, a “game” from the very beginning. And as such, it was doomed to be “barriered” (aka entrapped), just like all other philosophies: i.e., the “system” as a whole, has fundamental flaws. It takes real separation and duplication of what is there – the incredibly important points – and personally stringing these together, on one’s “own” (making it one’s own data etc.) – to make one’s own “map,” – per se – not necessarily a “Bridge”…
Let’s explore entrapment for a moment. Per FOT (Fundamentals of Thought: “All games are aberrated, some are fun”), there are goals, purposes, winning and losing, barriers and unknowness etc. Games ARE entrapment. Like Yin and Yang, you can’t have just winning – without also the losing, as they are part of the entire package (see the Axioms on considerations), and are inextricably linked together. In point of fact, one has winning solely because of it being compared to losing. Think about it – how would you know what a win truly was, unless you had a comparable datum (loss) to it?
Per this quote today (great topic Marty this 🙂 of “…total freedom would be existence without barriers, and I think you would find everybody very miserable…”, SCN becomes ipso facto a paradox as something that allegedly brings total freedom: by definition, this is no longer in a game theater; yet as the process “Conceive a Static” (found in COHA) shows, thetans/Static don’t like “nothingness!” – they MUST have their games! There is something very wrong with this, and this is the “incomprehensible factor” from the referenced LRH quote.
Yet, to a thetan, any game is better than none; any mass or problem etc., better than none. Yet these “are,” like it or not, considerations of aberration, pure and simple. Unfortunately, other than reconciling the first few Factors (and most specifically Factor #1: Before the Beginning, there was a Cause…) with some pretty personal intense questioning and straightwire, LRH pretty much stayed within the realm of games his whole tenure in SCN – therefore laying in the substrata of aberration inherent in games – though he definitely punched through to Static unlike anyone else, at isolated times. And we are indebted to him that he did!
Therefore, I disagree (with LRH, in point of fact) on this point that SCN – as a system – was not, and is not an entrapment, for it falls (and as fallen) factually below full Tone 40 and full pan-determinism (no contact with the game) etc. Please note, I said “as a system,” as within its walls are the pearls to find the freedom(s) one is looking for. And it just might be that some of the freedoms one just might be looking for lie just “outside” the game of winning and losing…
Food for thought 🙂
Not only did they join the lines of entrapment, the poor sods can no longer see what’s wrong with it.
This post reminded me of a story told to me by the husband of a Messenger close to LRH in the late 70s.
The Messenger was in town at a grocery store with LRH. It happened to be her birthday. He wanted to buy her some chocolate and asked what type she liked. She tried to decline, respectfully explaining, “uhh, Sir, the Pep Bulletin and all….
(the HCOB entitled “Pep”, partially quoted here: ….”Sugar is a deceptive thing. Sugar, that is supposed ‘to produce energy’ does so only at the expense of physical health for sugar does not build up a body, it only burns it up.
The result of a heavy intake of sugar and carbohydrates is to feel tired all the time-no pep. If one is going to run a car, he has to feed it the right fuel and oil. If one is going to run a body it has to be fed the right food and that has to include protein.” )
LRH’s reply to the Messenger was “Baaaa!” And he dumped a bunch of chocolate in the shopping cart.
(note in the bulletin he was talking about a heavy intake of sugar and the Messenger’s “on-source” alteration became “NO sugar”.)
That was 1978, Palm Desert, just outside Winter Headquarter in La Quinta, California where the tech film project started of which all of these people and myself were involved. Time on and off the set with LRH was a pleasant mixture of story telling and straight communication of “Tech tech”. I’m sure many of you have heard the stories of how he discovered the alteration in the TRs bulletin on TR2 and how he discovered the bastardization of the basic procedures of Dianetic engram running while shooting on the set and had those matters set straight right then and there. The Tech he cared about.
I think some of you just have to get off the fixation of LRH’s story telling and differentiate it from the technology.
My opinion is that those who are fixated on the story telling, aren’t really interested in the tech anyway.
Or they’d rather hear about the times he got mad during tech films shooting. So what?
If you want to know how he felt about the tech, and if you want to know what he was like when he got mad, listen to the Class VIII lecture “Standard Tech Defined”, one of the most memorable lectures ever delivered.
I, for one, saw him live and breathe it.
As to Policy and organizations, he gave it his best shot against all odds.
“No case on post” is a tough bullet and not enough of us were very good at it. I think the few who really were good at it, and/or who managed somehow to avail themselves of the tech and handle their cases, are the ones who are out there delivering Scientology outside the organizations right now.
That, in the end, long haul as it will be, is how clearing will happen.
I believe it was the forming of the Sea Org, and giving this group all that power and status. That’s when the walls started to build.
I think it’s quite obvious to everyone that the Church of Scientology became the very thing the quote claims the subject is not, and it happened early and fast.
Looking at this from a Data Series perspective, I don’t think we can blame the Sea Org as the ultimate Why. The Sea Org is not a Why, it’s an outpoint. We have to answer the question “So what was going on earlier that allowed the Sea Org to become cold chrome steel? How did DM manage to steal power from under the noses of everyone else? And why did so many people let him do it, especially as the subject was designed to prevent that very thing from happening?
Is the subject itself inadequate?
Does the solution exist and just wasn’t applied properly?
Is this all just 4th dynamic confusion on a grand scale blowing off?
We could disband the S.O. entirely, but what’s to stop something else coming along and setting itself up as Priesthood Mk 2? Until we have the real Why for how these things happen, I think it is doomed the repeat. It happened to almost every other large religion in Man’s history, CoS included, so the problem is most certainly not solved yet. And just because LRH says he solved it, doesn’t mean he did. He might have solved it in his own personal life, or firmly believed he did, but we can all see that he didn’t on the 3rd dynamic.
Ulf made a very perceptive post in the previous blog where he listed out chronologically how he saw things change over the years: starting with free-thinking, intellectual, freedom-seeking types who need little in the way of rules, and gradually accumulated more and more cruft and more and more process to accommodate the rest of society.
Somewhere in that progression there was a shift that allowed bad control to get a foot in the door. A huge outpoint is of course KSW1 or more specifically the tone in which it is written. The 10 points do make a lot of sense, sups and auditors would have to keep them in mind if the want to get results. But the tone of the PL! My God, there was nothing like it before – all that stuff about condemnation, eternity, the OneAndOnlyTrueWay…. It’s all out of character for Ron. Consider everything he wrote and said for 15 years prior – no-one can keep up a pretense for 15 years so it’s probably safe to assume he was at heart someone who cared deeply about others.
The questions when? how? why? are important, but only to find the answers to this more important question:
What is going on with humanity that allows entrapment to happen at all with such maddening frequency?
The billion years contract is an entrapment. When was it introduced?
I would say Yes.
The Code of Honor was written in 1954 I believe. The second item on the list reads:-
“Never withdraw allegiance once granted”
This, at least to me, seems like a very transparent attempt at entrapment. LRH seems to be saying “you’ve pledged your allegiance to Scientology and it would be dishonorable for you ever to withdraw this”.
I don’t understand why such an attitude is honorable. If you discover that the person or group to whom you have pledged your allegiance is dishonest or criminal then it seems entirely honorable to withdraw your allegiance. In fact, continued support of a person or group you knew to be dishonest or criminal would be entirely dishonorable. I can’t see any other logical approach.
As I say, this was published in 1954.
As with any other group or company that vanishes from the surface of Planet Earth: continued big Top Management errors!
Samples from my point of view:
1976 the 10 times stats initiative. Munich had at this time 40.000 central files. 400.000 is total unreality. Unreachable goal. Result: Stat push. Lies and false stats. Honest staff being removed from top positions.
Later the price increase. As it started it might had been neccessary. Then greed of money started. Result: apply heavy ethics to staff and later to customers to push it through. Start and heavy use of „Overt“ tech on staff first and then on customers.
NED for OT: total technical failure. First it had been audited as rundown. Did not work. A friend of mine spent all his money on that first NOTs and went back half blind. Then some re arrangements of how to do NOTs and finally rearrangeing the whole bridge to „make NOTs work“. Result: failed cases and a lost bridge. More lies as „tech always works“ and if not it is the fault of the customer. Customer is PTS. Start of SP hunt, disconnection and more heavy ethics.
As Top Managent could not do any mistake it could not admit making mistakes and thus had to „make it go right“. Result: unrealitiy and total madness.
Marty, i think its pretty obvious that it did go astray and go from “the only route out” to itself an entrapment.
The why is perhaps also pretty obvious: power, money, and control by a high-functioning psychopath.
Contributing factors to the “why” are perhaps the structural flaws in admin structure and policy as well as LRH’s failure to fully implement a plan for succession and continuity in managment. In otherwords, he did not groom a specific successor (either an individual or governmental body) and plan for his eventual passing. It is interesting to note that whenever he left the helm of the church it would invariably start to go off the rails, requiring him to “right the ship.” Its my understanding this happened many times. One can only conclude from this that either SCN is inherently unmanagable or that an effective structure with good people in place was never acheived.
The “how” is well documented in your What is Wrong With Scientology book. However, i would ad that effective entrapments always prey on either the best or worst of a being. Either the desire to dominate and control others for selfish purposes on one hand, or the burning desire to find enlightment for oneslef and help others to achieve and benefit from the same.
the is a theta trap. i don’t know in which lecture lrh talks about the demise of scn and the takeover of the grand poobah sp, but he does…. of course! it makes total sense now!!! the end product of scientology IS total freedom! to get there, one must go through the exact opposite! to know total freedom, one must know total enslavement? or the apparency of it? makes sense to me! After I rehabbed my state of clear, I looked back and wondered what the f#@k I was doing… and why wasn’t everyone else thinking the same? what brilliance this man, lrh!!! i had a conversation with my auditor about the idea that this WAS the plan all along! in that lecture i mentioned, lrh specifically lays out what will happen/is happening. the ot’s will truly step back and SEE it for what it is! …not BE effect of it, but BE out, due to having gone all the way through. i’m blowing down right now! dial after dial! and it isn’t that the church/experience is “bad” and all that… it is what it is…. but now I know that it really doesn’t have cause. I am cause. You are cause. IT isn’t/doesn’t. that effect that people dramatize is their own mock up. it’s the clear cognition, but across more than the 1st dynamic. i get now what my charge is/comes from… i want to just shake people sometimes when they mock up bank! i feel like i have to wait for others to get it…. but i want to say HEY!!!!
Even LRH didn’t have the future to look back on, as we do. He had no crystal ball, insight in abundance, but no crystal ball. We all have our blind spots, case if you must, but to look back upon LRH in such critique now to me is unfair and factually unwarranted. Why? We have the Tech. To disregard his shortcomings may be shortsighted, but to continue to focus upon them is a staircase to degradation.
And finally, there is the booby trap (speaking if entrapment) , in the doubt formula. You come out of enemy condition and you are coming up and then you find, 3. Decide on the basis of “the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics” whether or not it should be attacked, harmed, or suppressed or helped.
Well, you are given four items there:
Attack
Suppress
Harm
Help
That’s a short list. I never had an item on that list.
Me: “Well, I don’t want to help _________, but if I choose attack, suppress or harm, aren’t I back downwards in another enemy condition?”
Ethics officer: “Oh no! You are still in doubt! It says so right here.”
Me: “If I am attacking someone or suppressing them, I am in an enemy condition not a doubt condition.”
Ethics Officer: “No , it says right here that is part of doubt.”
Me: “What if I just want to move on?”
Ethics officer: “That is not an option.”
Blah, blah, blah.
If you are running to suppress someone, you have slid back downwards into an enemy condition. Yet, people do it, then get upgraded to step 4.
Nobody ever seemed to get it! On step 3 you can go back into an enemy condition by taking one of those items!
Anyone that says, “Whoa! Oh yeah babe! Ima gonne go suppress the shit out of that mother fucker” is NOT in a condition of doubt. They are in an enemy condition.
So, when you get up to step three, decide what your own item is.
Having looked at the situation before the Sea Org was formed and the
experience and experiements done When shore bases arrived
Personally perhaps I think the Sea should have dismantled after the flag land
base and Hemet were bought Before the Sea Org the expansion was going
Very well from the Hay Days of St Hill and beyond ,The Aos forming
and the Franchises Missions doing very well throughout the world.
It was the take over by Dm lying to LRH and his family and to Missions
and beyond and removing them.Dm’s manipulation to control and remove
any one that got in the way of what Dm wanted, thats prooven by whats
happened.He remains with that lie and destruction and falsehood created
to those and those withinand Public, and he is responsible for this
misreprenstation that he created Of what Scientology really is. For me
then in that respect theirs a degree of entrapment for Scientology within
and aren’t able for what ever reason to leave. The current state within will
not improve unless the SP is gone.
.
Well said. I agree. The good news is that the tech is known and not going away. Its being put to use. You used the word movement to describe the future. I would prefer simply enlightenment. Lets leave 99% of any organizational urges behind. Anything more than a loose association among persons or groups should be a cuase for concern.
Here’s a question that might be posed: Who and What were and was Dianetics, then Scientology circa 1950, 1954 respectivly, the biggest threat to on this planet? Answering those questions might just aim one toward the Correct Target.
Nice context Trey. Scientology should be viewed as a collection of tools and information. Perfect. I would add that the genesis of the universe of scientology that one found hmself “in”, with its rules, punishments, etc, belongs to the decade of the 60’s. It grew from there in application and reach into members lives. What began as a lotus flower is now a walnut in its shell.
Really interesting Haydn!
and agreed: “Scientology became entrapment without a shadow of a doubt. It should not have (an organization with the tech to release beings from their traps uses entrapment?) but it did.”
a total and complete INVERSION. AND THE PERFECT TRAP!
Scientology was lead astray at every point that the spirit of the philosophy was set aside and something else of a lesser nature entered in as a “solution” or someone with a dominating, know-best attitude refracted the philosophy in a direction toward MEST. Scientology is no more a religion to me than canabalism (the similarities are stunning). I nearly walked away way back when I saw the term “church” across the front of the org. I got the explanation of this being the REAL definition of church that applied. I was not interested in another dogma where people gathered and claimed one thing to be true while doing another, religion being rife with people who did not practice what was preached or used it as a yard stick by which to measure the value of and salvation of another, oh my how far, far, far from the true philosophy of life have things gotten to! My journey to find my own path toward God was an honest pursuit to find the means by which a person could be helped in their day to day living to BE more god-like aka to be an uplifting person to be around.
Every time a Scientologist used their position whether it be as a staff member on a post in an organization or as a human being in conversation with people in life, but every time a person attributed their words/actions to the Scientology technology yet used the technology as they understood it to laud over another, to appear smarter, more important or to dominate another – that’s when Scientology went astray and became a cheap mockery of itself.
How right can a person be when they are being “the winning valence” instead of just being? cob is showing the world that he can be right at the expense of LRH, the tech and the individuals who make up the community of people who call themselves Scientologists. I know the workability of this tech. Applying it to oneself and others will philosophically make life better for those around those people.
It’s ironic that I find the most severe lack of practicing what is preached within the Scientology world when the lack of practicing what was preached is what kept me looking for my own spiritual path that lead in to the cofs to begin with…
Great point you’ve make here !
Beautifully put! “You said “Having acceptable barriers, acceptablefreedoms, and worthwhile purposes brings games into balance. Willing cause, willing effect, that is where happines lies.” So true – that is pan determinism defined. Sometimes you have to let the other guy have his way if that is the greatest good. I had a chat the other day with someone who has gone totally off Scn because he says it does not work. He has not seen anyone at total cause over life and MEST. My response was that that should not be an attainable goal, because you have to have room for other people to have their cause too. Its all about balance. Total Freedom seems to be associated with total cause over everyone and everything. Who in their right mind would want to be boss of the world? And you’ve also piqued my interest in the movie. Thank you!
Friedrich… great handle and great post..and you are so right.
In 1973-74 I was on staff at AOSHEU in Copenhagen and worked in Div V and one of my jobs was to get ALL the staff audited up through Power and onto Advanced Courses (R6EW at the time). I was able to get almost all the staff in the whole organization onto the Ad Courses. It was great fun and everyone co-operated with me. I recruited internal staff onto my internship and had sometimes 3 full time staff staff auditors. I squeezed staff onto Power Processing sessions in the HGC (including myself) which was the bottleneck.
Contrast this to 2005 when I was on OT VI Solo Course at Flag AO… I talked to the AO D of T (Advance Org Director of Training) and noticed he was not just a robot, but a totally f**ked-up black massed individual. I couldn’t believe it, but it seemed like his entire case was intact. So, I went down to the Org Board to see senior Flag AO postings which showed their case levels, and sure enough he was a Grade 0 release. Then I saw the rest of the AO postings… many or most of them were at the bottom of the Bridge or no Bridge. The non-confidential area of Div IV at Flag AO was being run by unaudited staff!! Only auditors, C/S’s and the sparsely populated Div V were OT IV or above. Then from 2005 to 2013 I saw people coming out of Flag, Int HQ, etc.. and even after 27 years some had NO advancement in auditing, despite having great stats as a staff members for all those years! It seems people are coming out of the Sea Org today at the SAME case level as they went in after 1, 2 or almost 3 decades as a staff member. What a sad, very sad state of affairs. It is also a bait and switch for people joining the Sea Org thinking they will get audited it trained. What a hoax.
LRH has a tech for handling this situation: If you discover that the person or group to whom you have pledged your allegiance is dishonest or criminal then you apply the Doubt ethics condition formula, which would result in withdrawing your allegiance.
Right on Tango 23!
At some point, early on, LRH formed an audacious new goal in response to being unexpectedly persecuted by government authorities, first in the US, then overseas. The new, unspoken goal was to establish a safe space for Scientology: a country where the government would come willingly under Scientology’s control, clearing the way for all fields of society to become unaberrated through the widespread application of LRH tech.
To lay the groundwork to run a whole country (even a tiny one), LRH would have to originate a substantial body of admin theory and practice, so that he could delegate the day-to-day decision making. He would need to establish lines of justice and rehabilitation.
Next, he would need a continuing influx of money under his direct control. He would need cadres of trained, committed, dedicated supporters – directly responsive to himself – to put his new admin and ethics policies into effect.
All this would require a centralization of finances and administration. There would have to come an end to the freewheeling grassroots movement of the early days – in which LRH had been content to help his associates build up largely independent Scientology practices which profited them more than himself.
Therefore new central orgs would be needed, whose income would fund LRH’s new enterprise (instead of going to franchise holders or investors), and whose best, most dedicated PCs could be recruited for full-time allegiance to LRH. To bring money and students to the new central orgs, LRH would originate a new generation of tech to be delivered nowhere else.
The preparations were years in the making. The last step was the Sea Project: a pilot for running a whole small society based on LRH admin and ethics – and a scouting expedition to survey the territory and choose a country with favorable conditions to plant the Scientology flag.
The plan would succeed only through military efficiency and the utmost focus and dedication of everyone involved.
Unexpected difficulties arose. Money was burned up much faster than anticipated, and it became apparent that a lot more would be needed to achieve the objective. Whatever the challenge, LRH could meet it by extending his authority through Sea Org missionaires, and if necessary, writing and revising policy and tech. If the goal was achieved – a country safe for Scientology – it would all be worth it, any temporary excesses could be excused, ARCX cleaned up, and LRH would set all to rights.
However far-fetched this scenario may be, it does seem consistent with the publicly known history, and offers a rationale for the broad evolution of admin, ethics and tech from the late 50s to early 70s, by which Scientology transitioned from popular movement to authoritarian cult.
Disconnection, overboarding, the RPF and the use of hypnotic techniques to shut down the critical faculties of the mind are all forms of entrapment that were built into Scientology. Hubbard’s notion that the only reason someone would want to leave Scientology is because they had committed crimes sets up a catch-22 designed to entrap people in a logical circle. Yes most religions use means to entrap people (primarily with guilt, bribery and blackmail) , but Hubbard’s assertion that Scientology avoids this is ludicrous and the height of hypocrisy.
That said I do believe that Scientology techniques can be used without violating a person’s autonomy. If you drop the nonsense about OT’s having command over MEST. If you disclose the fact that ‘exteriorization’ is simply a reduction in temporal lobe activity where your sense of self is generated. If you’re honest about Hubbard as a deeply flawed man with interesting (although not especially unique) insights into human behavior….then you can begin to claim that you’re not entrapping people.
Changing it from a philosophy to a religion. Forcing people to pay.
Can you make it to upper levels of Scientology without a lot of money or working long less-than-minimum pay wages? If you cannot – that would be a form of entrapment to me.
January 4, 1963 – July 7, 1977 U.S. Government Raids
January 1, 1982 – September 21, 1993 Formation of Religious Technology Center
June 7, 1985 – March 14, 2008 Inspector General Network, Inc and Religious Technology Center
These are periods of general decline of true purpose with the last
period evolving into a totalitarian regime and corruption of
the technology.
“The fate of any piece of knowledge man has ever been able to
learn about himself, his society or this universe has sooner or
later become subservient to some special interest with a curve on
it to make more slaves. And this is one time when as long as I’ve
got words in my mouth and breath in my thetan — this is one time
when that curve isn’t going to happen. And that’s all I want your
help in. We want to make sure that what we know never comes to
serve some special interest for the subjugation of man.
Knowing who you are — you knowing who you are, knowing what you
are and knowing what you’re capable of, are to that degree
masters of your own destiny, not slaves of somebody else’s
destiny. And don’t you ever think you have to do something
because — merely because I told you the truth sometime or
another. You have no obligation on this line of any kind
whatsoever. You owe me nothing. That’s the way it is. It isn’t
that you should or did or anything of this sort.”
It’s pretty obvious that man comes up to civilized peaks and then
they drop off and then he rises to new civilization peaks and
they drop off and so forth. What we know that’s different about
this is that he repeats his whole cycle over long periods of
time.
Think of the wonderful thing it would be to have a society
totally capable of all scientific developments and thingumbobs
and doingnesses and everything else and have at the same time
people with judgment, courage and decency enough to handle them!
Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
And I don’t think the future will require that we put many
billboards alongside the superhighways nor very much on the TV
stations or much literature in people’s hands because I’m looking
in the very, very near future to Scientologists themselves
representing in themselves such tremendous gains and advantages
that people look at them and say, “Well, that’s a Scientologist,
of course!” And that is the best dissemination program we could
have. Isn’t it?
The only reason I’d feel bad at all about any of the — some of
the press stories and so forth I see coming out — if it’s made
any of you feel bad or made any of you upset. They certainly
haven’t any effect on me anymore. I’ve read them all before and
I’ve seen the guys that wrote them before, now writing little
favorable mentions.
– L. Ron Hubbard Melbourne Congress Lectures
Final Lecture 19 November 1959
Excerpts
As long as I was in (1974) it’s been this way…..LRH contradicts himself constantly in some policy and Tech…..He says the Ideal scene is to have ARC with others and live your life with Integrity but then you hear him say things like how he could have united with Psychology and help them see the error of their ways but then he says in the next breath something to the effect of how he wouldn’t have a game and he likes the randomity of fighting them.
I think LRH was a bit nuts in many ways and really smart in others.
Another example: talking about the dynamics and being ethical…But he was estranged from most of his family…. and in the end was hiding from everyone…..Always thought people were out to get him and that’s why he lived the way he did. I think Ron thought he was God and found out otherwise when he died. There is much truth in this philosophy but it did not come from Ron….He made us all think (and successfully) that HE was the Superior being…..When you have an LRH office in every org and mission and pictures of him on just about every wall…..That communicates exactly what it’s intended to communicate. And for me personally…..I had to have been so weak and so gullible to have ever stayed as long as I did. I agree with what Paul Haggis said on Rock Center….That in the beginning it’s fun to be a part of group that’s against the world but then you stay and make friends and your family is in it and one day you look around and know that you can’t leave or you would lose too much. Those aren’t his exact words but that was the gist of it. Scientology is not a religion….It’s a business…and it always has been.
Some ideas to consider regarding loosing sight of the goal:
How can a mind reconcile that one’s teacher, Ron, plotted the road to truth but lied about his past ?
How does a mind justify that the stated goals of some levels, that are the end phenomenon of those levels are never scientifically verified or justified. This was supposed to be a science and science is not based on anyone’s belief.
Show me one stable exterior with full perception and total cause, only one that can be double blinded in the lab.
When an ability is stated to be available, unequivocally, to be attained, and then not attained in truth, the mind then has to come up with all sorts of distortions to justify why a stated/paid for attainment is not attained. Or sometimes OTs have gone into the imagination of abilities attained as real.
I am not saying those states are a non reality or can’t be attained, or that these states were not experienced, to some degree in auditing, I am saying those states were promised attainments on the grade chart. Freedom from overwhelm was never qualified by the word ‘sometimes’ free from overwhelm.
Lets get those scientifically produced products into the lab to prove the science.
To this test, there will not be any takers to a strict study. And the justification in the mind that gives an excuse why this science cannot be scientifically tested is how Scientology has gone off it’s goal. A road to truth that is scientific always invites unbiased investigation to proof or disprove because it is truth that is at stake not the reputation or emotional need for a belief to be validated and justified.
How to study a science: test it in the lab with an outside unbiased testing fascility. How far has Scientology left it’s stated goal? : by not allowing the strict discipline of science to vailidate it’s stated assertions or to disprove them. Stablely exterior with full perception would be a cake walk to prove or disprove.
Science is not sometimes a science. A road to truth must essentially be truthful.
If so? …Yes.
When? …The seeds for it’s departure existed long before Hubbard was born, nonetheless I believe it become most evident when he moved to Saint Hill.
How? …For me the how is well documented in both Hubbard’s published works and the well documented history of his legacy.
Why? …That’s the million dollar question Marty. I have an answer that satisfies my own curiosity enough to let it be. For better or for worse I feel it best to not try and convince anyone else of it. Despite my view I would be very interested in any conclusions you feel are worth sharing.
You make an interesting point…but of course, if the church will grossly overprice Scientology services and training such that the average person can never hope to realistically partake, then the church must offer them something. Even if that something is really nothing.
What better than OT’ness thru osmosis? And of course, if you gain a staff at slave wages, it becomes rather inconvenient to deliver services to them as well, so offering erzatz OT’ness to them is of benefit also.
Any criminal will tell you, getting something for nothing is more holy and more renumerative than any level of mutually beneficial exchange, even if exchange is very doable.
The heavy handedness was there then. I was on the internship of the HSDC as a public in 1974 and accused by the then course super ( he was later declared SP) of going by a misunderstood word , which by the way was the wrong indication. I was sent to ethics to an individual holding the hat, now an OT VIII and a corporate Scientology supporter. It was all about TRs and the changes of them and my PC not running well. We found out later the PC was already overrun big time before even I got to audit him, The ethics terminal comdemmed me “never to be trusted again and from now on wear sack and ashes” .
I was totally caved in and contemplated the word “never” and that it did not matter any more what I would do to clarify the situation, it would “never” change anything. Since I was thinking in eterneties this was horrendous.
At home my husband got out our trusted Mark 5 E-meter and put the cans into my hands and asked me a few questions until I F/Ned and wrote it up and went to confront the ethics terminal, who took back the ethics order, admitting that he was unhatted. We did not have an ethics book then either, had no idea of policy or other tech.
I never finished the internship, I left Scientology to sort out waiting toi find out what was wrong with the tech from LRH. We returned after the “Tech Round up” and shortly after attested to Clear.
I could say much more on that subject, but perhaps another time, I am on deadline just now.
To the subject of freedom I want to say that the idea of freedom and facilitating it with a good command of communication was what attracted me to Scientology, especailly after my first course, the original fabulous HQS Course.
Freedom is quite a concept and suggests that one has to have a game in order to seek freedom from something or gain freedom to do something of choice. That of course suggests that there are already barriers.
Being an unbelieving “Thomas” by nature I loved that concept because it allowed me to do my own research when ever and where ever I chose. I could agree or disagree and thus, to this day, I read about 5 or 6 books along side of each other, some for entertainment value, like world literature, others to find information or fill in missing data or to discover the history of something as far as it is known.I even read the news papers! On the WC! … and on line.
As far back as the time of the Tech Round Up I have encountered individuals in Scientology that threw away all their books that were not written by LRH. I just laughed, thinking that they are crazy,but to each his own. Their freedom of choice, I thought, not mine.
But all those freedoms that I chose to enjoy have been bit by bit eroded and great harm has been done to the deciples of Scientology the way it is run for quite a while now. I have not participated in the Golden Age of Tech, when I was introduced to it on the Freewinds when it was being released to the general public. I thought that LRHs Tech was already golden , especailly if I used my ability to differentiate and evaluate from all my sources, information available and especially if I consulted my “knowingness” , my gut feeling, which has always served me very well.
“This is the first time, actually, a high-powered, rather selfless philosophy has hit Earth which didn’t at once demand of its practitioner or in – the person who embraces it – that he totally subjugate himself utterly and become enslaved by the philosophy”
When I read this I nearly coughed out my mouthful of coffee! Whatever Hubbard was thinking at this point his subsequent decisions, theories and actions, as well as those who have succeeded him have resulted in the total opposite!
Whilst he was in charge but even moreso since the philosophy/religion of Scientology has become possibly the most ‘entrapping’ of all and definitely one in which the practicioner must “totally subjugate himself utterly and become enslaved by the philosophy”
Rhetorical question wouldn’t you say. And LRH contradicts himself. Now-a-days the point of view is: you are either following the program or you are out. The program is no longer open to interpretation of what works for your life. Your life works for Psyentology or you must be re-educated until it does.
Scientologism at work.
The air and attitude in his lectures and issues after about 1962 start to change. Not sure what happened then but I do know he was himself auditing GPMs and the first really harsh comments about psychiatrists started to pop up.
It was also around this time he seriously was establishing a central organization and delivery facility as covered by many lectures in this time period (Saint Hill). Despite running a successful Saint Hill as far as delivery statistics he kept getting oddball telexes from other orgs and franchises where tech was reportedly squirreled, altered, shortcut and in some cases it resulted in legal action against the Church.
KSW and an array of ethics and justice policies came out. The idea of an outside “enemy” started popping up in HCO PLs and other Ron issues and articles.
LRH went to Rhodesia and didn’t have the most pleasant encounter with the head of state over there, in coordination with certain key folks in England.
At this point his efforts seem to have been shifted towards more discipline and militaristic measures to counteract the opposition from US and English intelligence, Mental Health vested interests and financial interests who somehow saw LRH as a threat to whatever they had going on. If he wasn’t a threat they wouldn’t have bothered me thinks.
He decided to form the Sea Org and from that point policing, internal intelligence, report systems, justice, etc., became the order of the day world-wide, as exported by the Sea Org.
I wasn’t around back then but it appears from what I’ve read and heard from people who were around back then that whatever amount of “deification” that LRH was getting by his public was 10Xed by DM.
I believe the entrapment came gradually because of what he encountered in trying to run an organized activity to forward the basic principles of the first 10-12 years, including the one you shared above.
Due to his frustration over people not behaving and not doing the “right thing” despite reams and reams of orders and direction, together with the pressures from being attacked externally, caused this gradual shift into an entrapping and policing activity, but, I believe this was still intended to lead to freedom in the end.
I assume LRH finally concluded that staff and public needed to be forced into certain rules and dogma for “their own good” and just “trust what he says” to “bypass their reactive think” (or some such idea) and that was the beginning of the downfall of the philosophy that was developed and intended to be free of the entrapment of yesteryear.
Fortunately we still have that original philosophy and a large majority of that philosophy even after that point in time still dealt solely in freeing from entrapment.
If we can figure out how to take his original intention without falling into the same factors he encountered which lead to an organization which would inevitably bring entrapment we will have given mankind one of the best services we can ever give it!
So many insightful comments!
Yes, Scn went off the rails, both as an organization and to some extent as an applied spiritual philosophy.
The organization itself went type III psychotic when it created the double binds of “must follow the tech” / “can’t follow the tech.” For example, “must let everyone make up their own mind per words of source” / “can’t let others make up their own mind per words of source”; and “must destroy enemies per source” / “must be ethical per source”; and “must free people” / “cannot let people be free”; and “must face reality that LRH was flawed” / “cannot face reality that LRH was flawed”; and “must enable people to think freely and analyze data” / “cannot let people think freely and analyze data”; and “must apply communication as universal solvent” / “cannot allow communication that is off source, or enturbulative”; and “must protect the confidentiality of auditing records” / “must review and use the auditing records to control people”, etc.” And so on.
We all have an impulse or drive to surve through groups, as one of the dynamics. The group of CoS, Inc. has driven itself bonkers, and is literally out of touch with reality.
As to Scientology as an applied spiritual philosophy, the core subject is fine. It is illuminating and liberating and quite effective. Where it runs into trouble is the same place almost every religion runs into trouble: fundamentalism, especially the the belief that every word of the founder (found/”fund-“, same root) must be taken literally and with equal weight.
This is where fundamentalist Christians can drive themselves into a sort os schizophrenia. “You must stone the adultress” / “you must forgive the adultress” and so on. Some Christians get around this by emphasizing that the New Testament is a _new covenant_ that supersedes the _old covenant_ of the Old Testament / Jewish scriptures.
Scientology is in almost the reverse situation. It may need to eschew the _later_ work of LRH in order to preserve the relatively earlier profound insights and decontaminate them of the paranoia and reactivity seen in strict ethics, censure, disconnection, cutting of communication, and such actions.
The CoS organization drove itself down the CDEI scale (curious, desire, enforce, inhibit) and right out the bottom into unknownness — unknowing of its own overt acts, for one thing. Thus you get an organization guilty of many crimes, including false imprisonment, massive perjury, incredible out exchange with its staff, and attempted murder claiming to be the most ethical group on the planet. It is a 3D (third dynamic) psychosis brought on by driving itself nuts through its own overts that destroyed CoS.
The subject of Scientology as an applied religious philosophy can survive this by using the very tools of Scientology _and_ the best practices of common sense, intelligence, and the avoidance of A=A=A (a fixed and faulty belief that everything LRH said was equally as valid as everything else — in what universe could that possibly be true since LRH contradicted the truth of his own life (not giving exact form, time, place, event, etc.) and since some of his writings contradict some of his other writings, as Marty and others have pointed out?
If the founder is a man of contradictions as well as a man of deep insight, it take openness, frankness, and intelligence to sort out what is what. I personally think the enlightened aspects of LRH would expect no less. That no one should be a follower as much as a duplicator, originator, owner, and source him- or herself.
LRH is dead, he left the body in 1986 and he left us with his legacy.
Is the legacy that counts.
Is what we do with his legacy that can make it a trap or the road to a better condition as beings and possibly to a greater freedom.
Yes, we have been lied to and we gave up our rights to understand and to evaluate – to establish what is right or what is wrong for us.
We elected as leader someone that seized a power he shouldn’t have been given, we in lesser or greater degree contributed to the creation of the trap in which we fell into.
We got out of it and we should learn from it, we have to be able now to use really what we learned and we have to stop looking for a GURU or a new Priest to direct our actions.
We must really use the legacy and I think there is so much sanity and power in the philosophy that WE have to match that with our intelligence and attitude.
We have been “trained” to be slaves.
Is time to untrain from that and go free for good.
Aristotle, one of the western luminaries heralding milestones of reason, believed that heavier objects fell faster than light ones. I am sure his incredible intellect conjured up stunningly convincing sophistry to prove the ‘obvious’.
All the had to do was take two differently weighted objects to a cliff and drop them.
Then whatever elegant, exquisite, awe inspiring intellectualism peppered with aesthetically orchestrated vocabulary, Aristotle used to bolster his argument regarding gravity’s effect on objects. , could be shot down in flames and exposed as wrong knowledge by an ignorant peasant boy dropping objects from a high point.
Appreciation and reputation of someone’s ability to be reasonable and scientific is not proof of those qualities.
I became a Scientologist because of the grade chart. End results were sold as attainable.
Were is a peasant boy when you need him!
Wow! Interesting how we can find what went wrong with Scientology in Scientology it self. Which goes along with Jason’s suggestion to Marty that we can fix Scientology with Scientology.
The Freedom Straightjacket
It has been an absolute pleasure reading this blog. So much charge blown and so many cognitions and insights. Thank you Marty and all who have joined in to make it so wonderful.
I perceive that something that starts out as a pure theta flow from on to another on the basis of “This is wonderful” slowly turns into a MEST trap. This occurs ever so slightly as we move into using more and more MEST to assist us in our goal of enlightenment, for our self and others. From just plain observing for indicator of enlightenment over to just plotting a state of some MEST item as the only indicator of success. And somehow deep down realizing that this is not right but instead of pulling that red flag we push on harder with more MEST stats of empty enlightenment.
Along the way we stopped, looking, observing and understanding, only to be left with a burning desire to obtain enlightenment and a stat.
This I will call this the Freedom Straightjacket. The desire for freedom for self and other only to be restrained by the MEST, that we are using in our desire to be free. We have lost out focus on our target as other great religions have also.
But we do have the tech that other religions didn’t. We can understand, exteriorize realizing where we went wrong and be refreshed again, to try it again.
Oh so wonderful.
Now just to tip my toe into the MEST world – I have just register the web site freedomstraightjacket .com
In case Marty wants to use it as title to his new book. I believe it has mass appeal and positions Scientology, in a comparable way that leads to understanding, insight and enlightenment.
Cheers
Ross
Yes! I keep asking “total freedom from what???” As we searched for meaning we forgot to live our lives. The narrowness of the organization became so restrictive by the time we left in 95 (actually just slid on out quietly). Our children grew up, we aged, and the time spent in the cult became rather meaningless in the grand scheme of living our lives..
LRH: Born: March 13, 1911, Tilden
Unfortunately, this quotation is a prime example of the self-aggrandizing, bombastic and largely ambiguous claims LRH was altogether too fond of making. In a few short sentences he dismisses thousands of years of philosophical works and vilifies the intentions of all other thinkers or leaders. It is quite a challenge for anyone who is not a part of the movement to listen to appreciatively, fighting words for those he offends and an alarming mistreatment of truth to free thinkers and scholars both.
You can bet no one in his organization or in his lecture hall took him to task for his obvious exaggerations. More likely, thrilled by the passion in it, basking in the glory of it, and rallied to fight the good fight against the ancient evil that besets man, they no doubt cheered and applauded.
It is my observation that there have been philosophies that did not at once demand subservience and subjugation. There still are. That they were put to harness as instruments of subservience and subjugation is a problem of politics and culture, the time worn slippery slope from philosophy to ideology. The same slippery slope that culminates in the in the current culture found in the Church of Scientology.
I define freedom as the unhampered ability to intelligently identify, navigate, create, eradicate and manipulate barriers in response to current conditions. Entrapment is all about the loss of such freedom, the curtailment of liberty and the inevitable oppression that results.
As I see it, the only thing that ever was and possibly still is unique to Scientology is the auditing technology and the core philosophy that supports that technology. In my opinion, this quotation is a violation of that philosophy with its nearly incomprehensible and highly exaggerated claims, sweeping generalizations, arrogant invalidation and cavalier treatment of truth.
If entrapment is the issue, then liberation is the antidote. Liberation from bondage, imprisonment or oppressive control and the restoration of power of choice, freedom of expression, and exercise of free will. With intelligence and due regard for liberty and justice for all.
War is the antithesis, even when undertaken in the name of liberty, for it is always a call to oppression, to sacrifice, to cruel or unjust impositions or restraints or harsh exercise of authority or power. War justifies maltreatment, persecution and any and all means to prevail. War destroys everything in its path, good guys and bad guys alike.
When: 1959
How: The implementation of the confidential HCO Manual of Justice
Why: Oppression.
The war ended in 1993. But the instruments of that war were never laid to rest and dismantled in the Church of Scientology, and so oppression deepened and spread like an infection throughout the organizations.
Sid writes, in the comments above:
“LRH seems to be saying “you’ve pledged your allegiance to Scientology and it would be dishonorable for you ever to withdraw this”.
I don’t understand why such an attitude is honorable. If you discover that the person or group to whom you have pledged your allegiance is dishonest or criminal then it seems entirely honorable to withdraw your allegiance. In fact, continued support of a person or group you knew to be dishonest or criminal would be entirely dishonorable. I can’t see any other logical approach.
Allegiance is an interesting word. If you look it up on Wikipedia, it is defined as “a duty of fidelity said to be owed by a subject or a citizen to his/her state or sovereign.” That’s where the use of the word came from. Interestingly, Wikipedia makes no mention of other uses of the word, like in business or politics-or religion. “Allegiance” was traditionally used by English legal commentators to represent the feudal liege homage, which could be due only to one lord, while simple homage might be due to every lord under whom the person in question held land.
The doctrine that no man can cast off his native allegiance without the consent of his sovereign was early abandoned in the United States, Chief Justice John Rutledge also declared “a man may, at the same time, enjoy the rights of citizenship under two governments.” In 1868, U.S. Congress declared in the preamble of the Expatriation Act that “the right of expatriation is a natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment of the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
Clearly, other uses of the word “allegiance” come from this original connotation.
If one applies these understandings around allegiance to a lord to allegiance to religion, allegiance should be revocable.
This raises however a second question. Sid mentions “Dishonesty” or “criminality” as two reasons for which allegiance can be broken.
The problem is that “dishonesty” is a very subjective concept, it often—not always—resides in the eyes of the beholder. “Criminality” also varies a lot across legal systems, and even within one legal systems, legal experts will debate divergent interpretations of what is criminal or not. What is acceptable under a Shariah law for example is criminal under the Napoleonic code. Obamacare, to some, is constitutional. To others, it is not.
The deeper issue however is that by commoditizing the option to revoke allegiance, one runs the risk of undermining the significance of pledging allegiance: what value is there in pledging allegiance if it can be revoked at any time for entirely subjective reasons? Marriage is for “better and for worse” but divorces are the rule. If one is not sure that one can honor “for better and for worse,” why not just remain unmarried partners?
Similarly, with religion, there are many ways to be associated with a religion: irrevocably, or in a more flexible ways, which do not fully commit and allows for change of minds without breaking pledges. The point I’m trying to make is that its important to think twice before committing, there is something beautiful in the act of pledging, of committing. And of course there are legitimate situations to break pledges. Like a parent who discovers that their spouse if abusing their children, etc..
Sid, thank you for your comment, and thank you all for the interesting conversation.
It seems to me that the big events that happened to Scientology in this period (just prior to 1965) were the FDA raid in Washington, DC on 4-Jan-1963, and then the Australian (State of Victoria’s) Board of Inquiry on Nov. 27, 1963 which led to the “Anderson Report”.
LRH’s “tightening up internal ethics” (with KSW and other similar policies) might have been his attempt to get the organization to take personal responsibility for these and subsequent emergencies (including the later Britain ban and problems with other countries). But that tightening of internal ethics also instituted a “you’re with us or against us” type of thinking. And while this may have served the organization well while it was under heavy attack from various quarters around the world, once the emergencies were over (the US, Britain and Australia all overturned their decisions in subsequent years) this thinking — as antipathetic to the core Scientology philosophy as it was — was never purged from policy.
In my view, these strict policy and ethics rules are a hold-over from a long forgotten period of attempting to respond to the cold-war, J. Edgar Hoover, and Nixonian politics. And should have been dropped from Scientology policy years ago: if not by the early 1980s (when they clearly were not working with regard to the G.O.), then at least by the early 1990s once the IRS decision was given.
“Although it is often too late when bad policies or pressure group laws have been the order of the day to slash them all from the books and exhume basic purpose, the action of sweeping away unreal, unapplicable and impeding laws and policies which were originally based on rumour and bad sources can have the effect of rejuvenation on a being, a group or an organization which has begun to die. Periodic sweep-outs of antiquated and didactic laws (rather than general concepts and sub-purposes) MUST be undertaken by a being, organization, group or race or species. However, such an action must be carefully done, selecting only those laws or rules which came into being because of pressure groups or infrequent enemies or which were derived from no experience.”
— L. Ron Hubbard, “The Structure of Organization: What is Policy?”, 13-March 1965 (emphasis added).
As Maria pointed out a couple days ago, “fanaticism” might have had its place when the world’s governments were trouncing on the philosophy and religion of Scientology back in the 1960s, but when the world changed (USSR fell and the IRS capitulated in the early 1990s), it seems to me that that would have been the right time to re-evaluate some “antiquated and didactic laws” from Scientology, and restore the basic purpose.
“L. Ron Hubbard created a religion that contradicts this quote.”
L. Ron Hubbard may have created a “church” (or organization) which contradicts this quote, but the religion (or philosophy) of Scientology IS this quote.
Policy needs to adapt. It’s that simple.
Yes. It became about worshipping idols and playing follow the leader again. It seems man is very uncomfortable with the idea of real freedom.
Sid
Yes, I also find it a bit of a struggle to get fully behind that one.
I don’t know if you have seen the additional data Ron provided regarding that point.
The entirety is, and I quote….
——
“2. NEVER WITHDRAW ALLEGIANCE ONCE GRANTED
“It is ten times worse to be a backslider than to never have been part of a group. This is the situation where you grant allegiance – make a postulate that you are going to have allegiance – to a group, an entity or a god and afterwards decide you are not going to. The person who never made the postulate, of course, isn’t trying to overcome a postulate. But the person who says, “I am now a true son of the church,” then a few years later discovers he is not a true son of the church, and doesn’t want to have anything to do with the church any more, really goes to the devil. The only thing that is making him go to the devil is his postulate to be the part of that group. So, it’s much worse to be a backslider than never to have been at all.”
end of quote.
——–
I can understand the point about the granting of allegiance being a point of honor, ( I have had to address such things in auditing,) but it seems that Ron either had not discovered, or failed to mention, that Auditing handles that kind of thing.
But I agree. Putting the word NEVER at the front of that one really sets the stage for entrapment. In any situation where one has postulated that he cannot, or must not, change his mind he has limited his freedom.
Eric S
Miscavige is the Pharaoh and LRH the Sun God(s) – giver of all life and he who must be obeyed without question. The old God and slavery routine. But people have to enjoy being slaves to accept it. No responsibility for self. Regardless of what people’s individual interpretations of tech and policy may be the call to ‘think for yourself’ has always been the loudest for me. Which in itself is quite a skill to learn in the absence of any agreement don’t you think? – I’m having a ball playing with it 🙂
And you don’t have to agree if you don’t want to (LOL) ❤ Love to all xxx
I ALSO think LRH made some mistakes. If nothing else in failing to communicate clearly enough that there could be no misinterpretation… But hey! He’s only human. It’s allowed 🙂 Part of the human condition is to learn from our mistakes. If we were all perfect we’d have it all licked already.
Damn Marty – you got me started off now 😀
x
David,
Great post.
One thing that so many authors of LRH’s life miss in their biographies, is LRH’s development of the core of the philosophy from 1951 – 1954.
Without having that as a foundation, it would be like criticizing the mistakes and foibles of the United States of America without understanding it’s underlying documents and political philosophy from its earliest decades.
Perhaps the greater question would have been “did any of you go astray”, rather than limiting it to a mere body of knowledge/wisdom called Scientology? Hubbard might have gone astray himself, but in the end it is what “we” did that betters answers this question, IMO. 😀
Sceientology definitley went astray. When or why is somehting I am still trying to figure out but it was long before David Miscavige came along.
AND in all fairness LRH couldn’t cover everything. Including every possible way the tech and policy COULD be misinterpreted and what he REALLY meant. So it seems asking for all of that would be asking LRH to do the thinking for everyone as well as trying to get something workable out into the madness of the human mind. Tall feat. Hats of to anyone brave enough to even consider trying it. And double hats off to anyone who comes out of it in one piece let alone with ANYTHING workable. And treble hats off to people who can take what works for them without craving agreement from everyone else or a new leader to follow.
OK – done now 🙂
Thanks Marty. x
Great observations Trey!
NoJokin8,
You are to be commended for this view. In my case I never fully bought in.
“..it’s use is a luxury use, providing one sees eye-to-eye with the Code of Honor.”
— LRH, in pre-amble to the Code of Honor.
p.s. With that said, personally, I always had a problem with the above second (and also the third) line of the Code of Honor, by their use of the word “Never”.
Regarding the why…
…for me, and again I really don’t want to impose my conclusions in anyone, but for me the clue to the why is bursting out like a neon beacon within Hubbard’s own words.
The words I’m referring to are those he penned within the reference titled “You can be right”.
I hope my words are of some help.
Brilliant Maria!
“The war ended in 1993. But the instruments of that war were never laid to rest and dismantled in the Church of Scientology…”
Couldn’t agree with you more. That (or the early 1980s) would have been the right time to do it.
Have you read the Otto Roos story?
In short – LRH got run on almost every process, listed on every list etc He was, in fact, as he said, just a man. A very gifted, “just a man” though. His pc folders were compiled into a filing cabinet from all over the world when he became ill in the 70’s.
A FES was done, it took months for highly trained (read Class XII) auditors and c/s’s to do this cycle, it was never completed.
Ever had over-run, or Out lists???
That filing cabinet was full, and it was full of over-run (by another or LRH himself solo) and Out lists (the laws of listing and nulling came later. F/N rules came later).
When tech goes out, ethics goes out.
David Mayo took over the handling of LRH and that filing cabinet stayed as it was. Cycle never got handed over as a declare order went out after LRH read his folders and found Rocket Reads on some naughty goals (indicated his goals were naughty). PC read his folders and got missed witholdy and critical, paranoid.
Mayo and Roos met up later, Mayo confirmed this to Roos about the cycle ending when Roos was declared.
As LRH noted in PTS/SP lecture “Out Tech” – (paraphrased) “When a pc is over-run it is a suppressive action – and the pc will act in a slightly suppressive fashion”
That’s the story as I know it, as I have read.
Just imagine the amount of losses, protests and non-comprehension accumulating over the years, all made evident in today’s world.
ML/A
Windhorse
You make valid points. I have realized that my entrapment began when I took my first step into a mission in 1983, and was blown away with the understanding that I was a spiritual being. From that point on I bought the concept, which was constantly reenforced by staff and other church members, that Scientology had the answers to every question I posed about life – that everything written and taped by Hubbard was the only acceptable truth. As I moved up both sides of the bridge, the blinders, I. myself, allowed to be created, cut off my peripheral vision more and more; until there was only Hubbard and Scientology.
By the time I was auditing on OT VII, I was totally entrapped. Politics, economics, sociology,psychology, the sciences, religion,and the arts were measured against what Hubbard had formulated. Yes, he gave some credit here and there to various writers and disciplines, but basically, what he had synthesized and what he had originated, was the truth.
And that point of view was continually reenforced by church staff and the members I knew. I remember sitting in the confidential course room during one of my “refreshers”, and a fellow next to me pointed the passersby outside, saying that “those poor guys didn’t have a clue”.
Everything was measured against Hubbard’s writing and seen through its prism. That still seems to be the view of many who have left the Church. The trap is still sprung. Windhorse has wonderful suggestions. I have one too – one that Hubbard thought fruitful, but I wonder how many have availed themselves of it – and that is to read the Durants’ “The Story of Civilization”. That would be a great start – a “basics” study that would begin to pry open the jaws of the trap.
One more thought of how the goal of freedom, hightened intelligence, critical independent thinking got curtailed (I think it is systemic and gradual and not one time or place) is when people allowed themselves to be subject to this one, destructive to critical thinking question: “have you ever had a critical thought towards L. Ron Hubbard?”
And then have cemented in association, while a Scientologist, this gate way drug, associative logic, to distructive cult mentality: Criticism of Ron and being evil or supressive or having an MU. Essential any criticism of Ron is something wrong with you.
What does that do to critical thinking? This needs to be critically considered. A=A comes to mind. Criticism of Ron = A supressive person.
Entrapment can only be brought about when a person is overwhelmed. He is made to agree he is weaker than some power or force upon whom his survival is dependent.
In monotheistic religions, the belief in God cannot trap you. Yet the bishops and priests and rabbis and imams who you agree have a “line” to God can subjugate you. For you accept you will be punished if you do not obey them.
Thus, Scientology, as a philosophy, cannot become a trap.
An organization can trap you if you cannot escape it and it has powers and the viciousness to torture, imprison or kill – see North Korea or Cuba or any dictatorship.
Miscavige’s organization has become a trap because some believe they must be part of it. They agree DM owns the Bridge to Total Freedom and their eternity is in His hands. And DM is allowed to punish – expel, ban and deny one’s eternity. Much like being excommunicated from the Catholic Church and banished to purgatory till the end of time.
The solution to a powerful organization that is yet not a trap is “democracy,” – rule by the people. In business, this is the publicly traded corporation whose stock is owned by thousands or millions of shareholders. In nations, no one sane feels trapped by Obama or Cameron or Hollande for their term in office is limited to just several years, their powers are restricted by institutions around them they do not control and the citizen feels he is at cause because he elected them.
Scientology, to achieve its goals, must get organized. Be its goal a “Cleared Planet” or a “New Civilization” or wide-spread influence over Mankind. If we do not hold such ambitious goals, why bother?
Only working together, supporting each other, can we accomplish such goals. And only an organization we own and control can nurture enthusiasm and creativity.
This is the one piece Ron left missing. We should forgive him for this failure and figure it out ourselves. There are many successful examples around us we can emulate.
At Dror Center, we have created an organization following these principles and it has proven highly successful, though on a smaller, local scale. But it does prove this can be done.
LRH’s Admin Tech should be followed. Policy and managerial tools should be constantly tested and modified by managers and leaders so we progress towards our goals.
The first paragraph in this response is so important. While it is somewhat true that other religions and philosophies did indeed wind up trying to control people this sort of rhetoric is primarily a strategic attack on all other thinkers and philosophies before Scientology.
The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‘We did it ourselves’.” Lao Tzu
There’s the thing – Im not familiar with any other denomination of priesthood that has that amount of ‘dramatic exits’ from their orders. Not certain if I remember seeing any Buddhist monks pootle along on a motorbike at 5 mph, while being pursued by cars full of Buddhist handlers, a la Marc Headley, but I may be wrong…
Total Freedom=Total Anarchy=Total Kapitalism
This is the onley A=A=A I adhere. ask me your questions
“I’ve even told you occasionally total freedom would be existence without barriers, and I think you would find everybody very miserable”
Total freedom sucks
Paul,
Very well thought out and constructed post.
I on the other hand my view on allegiance or even commitment is that if one pledges himself or herself to someone or something, then I would argue that the individual can at anytime revoke that stance for whatever reason they feel is justified in their own estimation.
Of course this naturally raises the specter of what is a man/woman’s word worth if you can’t rely on it being kept and that the person may change their mind or their allegiance at any time – justified or not. My view is that life is in the now and we create our own future. How we decide to live our lives and create our futures is our responsibility. To be trapped into any agreement one has made and not to be able to change ones mind or direction in life is a trap and a dwindling spiral into the abyss of smaller and smaller beingness.
If we take as a truth that we are in fact thetans and we are immortal then it is obvious that we have all made many agreements over time, and if we were to honor all of those agreements we have made we would be in a nuthouse.
Maybe I pledged my allegiance to a king or ruler in the past to rid the world of all heathens by either converting them to Christianity or killing them. And then lets say I was a member of a group, or even its founder, where I pledged my allegiance to eradicate all organized religions. So what do I end up as? Developing some new set of postulates that seem to rationalize these two. Only by being aware of the two postulates and the circumstances surrounding them am I able to inspect them for their current worth and make a new clean postulate about my beingness in the present and what future I will create for myself.
So to be beholden to a past postulate, simply because someone else says it is the right thing to do, it to negate oneself and shift the responsibility for the original postulate to another cause. That is an entrapment.
If an individual seeks spiritual freedom, then with that freedom comes the right to change their past, present and future agreements irrespective of whether those changes are pro survival or not. With freedom comes responsibility and that responsibility includes complete self dertminism across all of ones dynamics.
Typo correction: On the other hand, my view on……
Genghis Khan once said,
I am the punishment of God
If you had not committed great sins
God would not have sent
A punishment like me upon you.
This blog and others like it sending similar messages are all communicating to Davey Miscavige with the above message. You need to get this Davey because punishment is being visited upon you every day….one of these days you will get it and step down.
Yet again Margaret, beautifully said!!
Bhuddism and all other spiritual views hold answers. Keep what works, discard what holds you back
Cat Daddy
Thank you.
Oh, right. My father was born in 1913 and LRH was born in 1911. Never mind!
One thing about the way Ron ran things, as compared to DM is that when Ron made a mistake, he corrected it. One of several examples I could give was his “The World Begins With TR0” LRH ED, issued in 1971.
This ED came out right in the middle of what was probably the biggest boom in Scientology history, before or since.
All of a sudden, everything stopped, planet-wide. EVERYONE was on “hard (ie blinkless) TR0. You had to do 2 HOURS NO BLINKING in order to pass.
Fat chance. I knew of maybe 2 people who supposedly passed it; I’ll bet they faked it.
Outside every MAA’s office was a growing list of goldenrod, declaring people who had started on the Comm Course but who had blown because they simply could not pass this MF’ing requirement.
This major, major LRH error stopped Scientology cold in its tracks.
However it only took him probably 10 weeks of observing the stats to realize the “2 hour blinkless” requirement for passing TR0 was simply not working.
So in August, he cancelled it. Rather artfully, I might add. Something along the lines of “you guys didn’t duplicate me; of course bodies must blink. It’s thetans I was talking about who shouldn’t blink”. (PARAPHRASE!)
This is but one of many similar examples I could give.
Point being, the man actually analyzed data, and adjusted course as needed, just like it says to do in the Data Series.
DM does not know how to do this, or does not want to, because he’s so damned sure he’s RIGHT.
Cherry-picking parts of the Code of Honor and leaving out the the caveat LRH wrote in the introduction to it can cause misinterpretation. Here it s with the intro:
“No one expects the Code of Honor to be closely and tightly followed.
“An ethical code cannot be enforced. Any effort to enforce the Code of Honor would bring it into the level of a moral code. It cannot be enforced simply because it is a way of life which can exist as a way of life only as long as it is not enforced. Any other use but self-determined use of the Code of Honor would, as any Scientologist could quickly see, produce a considerable deterioration in a person. Therefore its use is a luxury use, and which is done solely on self-determined action, providing one sees eye to eye with the Code of Honor.”
1. Never desert a comrade in need, in danger or in trouble.
2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted.
3. Never desert a group to which you owe your support.
4. Never disparage yourself or minimize your strength or power.
5. Never need praise, approval or sympathy.
6. Never compromise with your own reality.
7. Never permit your affinity to be alloyed.
8. Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it.
9. Your self-determinism and your honor are more important than your immediate life.
10. Your integrity to yourself is more important than your body.
11. Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today and you make your tomorrow.
12. Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.
13. Don’t desire to be liked or admired.
14. Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.
15. Be true to your own goals.
This is the ethical code of Scientology, the code one uses not because he has to but because he can afford such a luxury.”
LRH’s comments fully address the issues IMO.
Another point is that LRH did not invent or “make up” this Code. He discovered it was”native” to persons. In fact many parts of Scientology are explicit statements of what was discovered to be the ways people naturally or instinctively did things, but that had never been analyzed out in detail.
The Conditions and their formulas are an example of this. In general, LRH did not “invent” things but paralleled nature, ie, whatever he found to be true by observation, in setting out the philosophy of Scientology and “codifying” it’s contents..
Really good post, grundoon!
I am rejoicing in and admiring of what I am seeing as the “choosing” of this blog and its participants, to distance from, what is to me, the limiting, entrapping, ego nourishing, disconnecting, dependence and disharmony producing aspects of operating from the viewpoint and beingness of a third dynamic for one’s spiritual quest, to operating from the unlimiting, freeing, love nourishing, connecting, self empowering, self guiding, self growing and harmony producing 7th.
Although, to me, still difficult to consistently assume that consciousness as there are still ridges and needs within me that conquer it (and are becoming less and less), I see how it allows me to embrace and connect harmoniously with all other human beings and see each one of us as souls instead of as Scientologists, Ex-Scientologists, Wogs, or, for that matter, Republicans or Democrats 🙂
.
There is no longer, in my experience, a need to hang on to or defend a viewpoint or beingness one is assuming, as one is not creating the conditions that makes one “take personal” any attack or criticism of them. One is just not allowing oneself to become a viewpoint or a beingness that has to be protected.
3rd Dynamics, I have been involved in, have demanded, in my experience, the assumption of and faithfulness to the viewpoints it forwards, and an entrapping beingness that only serves to cause disharmonious individuation from other beings, and a severe disconnecting from the truth of who we really are.
Dan, I don’t follow your line of thinking. Whatever your beliefs about the existence of a spiritual dimension to life, or lack of such, the fact is the most dedicated and die-hard proponents and researchers of brainwashing (the entrapment and “re-education” of people) in the world have been the philosophically materialistic regimes of China, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and the materialistic behavioral psychologists of the West.
So to me it doesn’t follow at all, that eschewing all belief in the existence of a spiritual dimension of life will somehow lead to a greater respect for individual autonomy. It seems like the opposite has been true in practice.
Trey
Well stated indeed.
So true. Very sane and wise advice. So true.
Perhaps “total freedom” should never have been put at the top of the grade chart as an attainable goal.
However, that is a subjective and personal awareness. The way I see it, everyone has total Freedom, and they are free to mock themselves up as slaves. Or criminals, or free to put themselves in traps. The condition or awareness of a thetan will not be reflected in a society of people that do not have such notions. Once a person rises above the bank agreement he falls into a responsibility for his own universe and how he knows it and manages it.
I consider “power on all dynamics” having every dynamic at the top of the CDEI scale. Where every aspect of each dynamic is living as desire or curious about only. Others may have different ideas about what that means. Sure there is some enforcement, taxes, resources, traffic lights. But if one becomes willing and able to manage these things and then it is not enforced. It’s only “pay to play”.
Personally, I don’t know how any thinking or intelligent person, with all earlier bridge actions done correctly, could finish L12 and not consider themselves at “total freedom”. 🙂
Thanks again Trey!
Personally I think if that’s why Paul Haggis was in Scientology and stayed in for so long, he was in it for the wrong reason.
There is a basic flaw in the whole idea of double-blind studies, even the ones the pharma do in developing their new drugs. The flaw is that all people are the same.
I think so too ! it was a “solution” to the problem of using E-meters and auditing.
From Axiom 37: “The solution to a problem is the As-is-ness of the problem, because by solution is meant: what will cause this problem to dissipate and disappear. With As-is-ness we have reached the solution to all problems. We have reached an ultimate truth. So that we know we have in Scientology a total subject.”
This “solution” created a BIGGER problem that is still with us today.
Ad nothingness to that
Well, how different is that from the actual conduct of a nation whose founding principles include individual liberty and freedom? Which yet maintains and uses armed forces and spends billions on the researching and production of state-of-the-art weapons of mass destruction? Also makes billions selling these kind of weapons to others?
Yes, I’m talking about the USA.
Apparently there are some paradoxes involved in the business of survival, eh?
Man needs rules, be it good rules he occasionly can sin a bit against, that makes man happy
“In a few short sentences he dismisses thousands of years of philosophical works and vilifies the intentions of all other thinkers or leaders. ”
I did not get that message at all. That is not at all what he was saying to me when I read that. And in his second book, Science of Survival, he made a long list of people he was grateful to for making his work possible at all.
It has since been erased by David Miscavige’s editing.
Two people are always involved with a communication exchange. The speaker, and the listener.
I can’t agree with this. David Miscavige is not being punished, he is found out. Genghis Khan said it because of his arrogance. He was in a position to be arrogant. It is called Meglomania. I asign you the condition of what that is called in various types of religions.
Cat Daddy
Grundoon,
If you are right, and it does sound plausible, then the switch in focus from individual spiritual enhancement to managing an entire society is perhaps the only explanation needed for why Scientology (the organization) has gone off the rails. Politics and philosophy have never been cozy bedfellows.
Good post! I agree, the evolution of “organized Scientology” was driven by LRH’s increasing awareness of organized opposition to his and Scientology’s goals and ideals.
I was 20 years old in 1965 and I can tell you, there were some huge ideological issues in play, and a lot of people were “playing for keeps”. The Vietnam war was going full blast and so were social and political reform efforts, on the heels of the HUAC, McCarthy, and J. Edgar witch hunts, which exploited the existence of real threats. EG, the Premier of the Soviet Union publicly delaring “We will bury you!” to the USA and the West, the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba just offshore of the USA, the assassination of John Kennedy followed by the assassination of his brother Robert F.Kennedy in 1968.
There was a huge surge of activism against the war and compulsory military service in Vietnam which was becoming a slaughterhouse worse than the Korea War had been. Scientology was willy-nilly (butcorrectly) identified as part of what was called “the Human Potentials movement”, which generally represented ideas of human advancement and evolution towards higher states of being. As such, all these were seen as threats to the “status quo”, the existing political power structure(s). They were seen that way, because they in fact were. Spartacus was standing up and declaring himself all over the place.
Anyone who thinks there was no organized opposition to Scientology and other active movements towards increasing freedom, simply wasn’t there to see the obvious.
Paul, I can only repeat what I wrote in response to Sid’s comment about that point of the Code of Honor – and indeed, any other point if it:
No part of that Code can rightly ever be considered as “doctrine”!
How do some people consistently overlook what LRH himself wrote in introducing the Code? It’s no wonder organized Scientology went off the rails as it did, given the cherry-picking and lack of duplication on the part of those who were supposed to be applying the Scientology philosophy! Here’s how LRH actually introduced it:
“No one expects the Code of Honor to be closely and tightly followed.
“An ethical code cannot be enforced. Any effort to enforce the Code of Honor would bring it into the level of a moral code. It cannot be enforced simply because it is a way of life which can exist as a way of life only as long as it is not enforced. Any other use but self-determined use of the Code of Honor would, as any Scientologist could quickly see, produce a considerable deterioration in a person. Therefore its use is a luxury use, and which is done solely on self-determined action, providing one sees eye to eye with the Code of Honor.”
It’s obvious the Code of Honor can never be considered to be “doctrine”!
My full comment is here:
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/entrapment/#comment-253197
Aristotle did claim a lot of nonsense based on what he regarded as general principles (the stars being embedded in crystal spheres), but the falling objects question was not one of them.
He was describing the observed fact that a lead weight falls faster than a feather (actually due to air resistance). The peasant boy would need a vacuum pump or to get to the moon (where astronauts did drop a feather and a weight and they fell at the same rate).
Galileo eventually proved Aristotle wrong, not by conducting a real experiment, but by describing a thought experiment. What would happen if you tied two weights together? The combined weight must fall at some intermediate speed as the faster is pulling the slower and the slower is holding back the faster, but at the same time it must fall faster than either because it is heavier than either. The only way out is if they all fall at the same speed.
Yeah, but freedom of case and freedom of games are two different things.
+1
Well said, Gayle. Thank you.
I don’t know Maria. Did LRH really mean that the way you think? I guess I’d have listen to the whole lecture to decide. Marty quoted only a part, which sounds like a conclusion, without quoting the lead-up to the conclusion.
LRH did often pan other efforts. I think he was trying to make the distinction that Scientology was at that point in time still fresh and had not degraded the way other existing efforts had. Also to distinguish it from faux religions, philosophies, theories, and ideologies, which are a dime a dozen He was never shy about using hyperbole and evaluating for people!
I tend to think he was responding to inputs he was receiving such as we find today as on ESMB, with some people putting out the opinion that “there’s nothing new or special about Scientology, the same knowledge can be found elsewhere etc.” Thus he wanted to make sure folks didn’t lump it in with any other efforts.
Whether he did this in an effective or the best possible way, I have no idea. How would you have done it, assuming he was in fact responding to the perceived problem I have stated?
That’s fascinating and aligns with some things I have concluded, Haydn.
I wish I could be part of that tech discussion.
In studying 1961 you have a fascinating “Bridge” in the 1st PreHav scale, and all of a sudden around April of that year, Sec Checking is being entered in, and the PreHav Scale is expanded beyond comprehensibility. Dennis Stephens says that he entered this scene (start of the St Hill course) and LRH was markedly down tone from having begun listing his goals for pages and pages (kicking off the GPM research).
I find a very powerful, comprehensible and workable route to OT up to this point, then it gets confusing.
The Dart Smohen (pen-name for a prominent old-timer) story sheds further light on this period. As does the Otto Roos account of finding these “pages and pages” of essentially, out-lists.
Getting into this time period has been a real tech recovery for me and I am pleased to see others noticing this along a similar line.
Perhaps this is not clear. The flaw is THE ASSUMPTION that all people are the same and are interchangeable integers. It’s the basic A=A=A in the basic protocol of those kind of studies.
Ulf and FOTF: I think you both make some very interesting and very insightful points! REALLY GOOD STUFF!
Scientology can only make Scientologists.
Buddhism can only make Buddhists.
Christianity can only make Christians.
Enforced identity-creating happens in any proprietary spiritual path. Proprietary spiritual paths consist of:
* Creating and enforcing doctrinal-based identities
* Keeping organizations financed at the expense of parishioners
* The need to make converts
* Creating good PR and countering bad PR or PR disasters
* The demand tp send money and power to the top
* Reaching a spiritual plateau and then insisting that this plateau is the zenith of Existence itself, this while it is knowing that it is in fact not the apex of Existence.
In its present form, the Church of Scientology is a trap that dead ends in an immensely boring cul de sac of Ideal Orgs into which only “Scientologist in good standing” are allowed.
In the Church of Scientology, LRH is not an imperishable valence. Rather, his image and name have are used in PR by David Miscavige to solicit endless donations for Ideal Orgs, IAS, Super Power, etc.
Plus, LRH’s life experiences are no more controversial than the times he lived in.
I would say :
when enough of earlier similar third dynamic engrams were restimulated and not audited out. Not audited out beause we are IN the engram. I find myself still trying to understand what is non-understandable instead of auditing it out.
There is quite some Not-isness behind that dwindling 3rd dynamic spiral. Life itself is organised like a 3rd dynamic : spirit-mind-brain-nerves-muscles-organs-cells-mest. Same schema for a plant, an animal, an insect, all physical universe is running on that same schema which is … Isn’t that an Org Board ?
As long as the controlling spirit of the living creature is in control that creature behave as it should. When another one take it over it seems some strange behavior happens. Goals and purposes have changed. Scientology has the potential to upraise us above toward places where this old life-mest universe-schematic is not mandatory anymore. But that schematic is appropriate to running things in the physical universe, not in theta universe. Those who did their OT levels knows it well.
But we did it. I contributed to that 3rd D aberration. By not stopping the destructive action when it was time to stop it. Or by keeping my mouth shut when I should have spoken up loud. By forgetting Theta – the Spirit – Thetans are at the top of the org board and the laws of theta (ARC) are above those of the Physical universe and its games. Impossible to play a game or keep a group toward success when the laws of theta are violated amongst its members.
Thank you!
Did Scientology go astray from this unique position and join the ranks of entrapments? If so, when, how, why?
Of course it did. When? From the moment the Sea Org was fprmed, starting with standing ovations and having to look adoringly at a picture of LRH, or yelling “hello Ron” at the top of our voices at staff meetings (what is TR8 about?) reminding me too much of Hitler’s era. Also from that moment SO members started to behave like mafia capo’s “do it – or else” attitude to public as well as regular staff members, plus an attitude of “I’m in the SO, therefore better than you”. It put me off joining the SO right from the start.
That was also when undue attention got put on the stats instead of the product, taking Scientology out of the realm of delivering spiritual freedom and into the realm of making money And here you have the why too.
I’m talking about 1969 when I did my first course.
The above does not mean that I don’t admire LRH. I felt it much more appropriate to interest “wogs” and get them started on s course as a much better way of showing my admiration and appreciation of LRH. He was/is a genius, which I can appreciate all the more since my schooling was in the sciences and understand 100% why LRH defined it a science.
You know, one thing I noticed very early in my Scientology history was that many of the people I knew who had been in Scientology for quite awhile were nonconformists before Scientology. But they found something in Scientology that they could use, so, yes, I think that in the last few years, the established church has become a sort of entrapment. And I can’t really say when this started as I only became introduced to Scientology in 1988, and I think things had already started to change at that time.
^^ ditto ^^
In feudal allegiance, there was understood to be an exchange. In exchange for the vassal’s service and taxes, the lord was duty bound to deal honorably with the vassals, to provide for the common defense, to judge disputes fairly, etc. Similarly, fair exchange is fundamental to any contractual agreeement. Failure to carry out the agreed exchange by either party usually incurs a penalty and allows the other party to drop out of the agreement.
In “Never withdraw allegiance once granted,” there is no notion of exchange. If the obligation is all on one side, “allegiance” might not be the word that fits best.
Of course you didn’t get that message, and it was intended for an audience of people defending Scientology. Keep in mind that the title of the lecture is Dealing With Attacks On Scientology.
Now read it in a new unit of time, and from the viewpoint of a member of one of those philosophies he is referring to, a person who undoubtedly has not read any other works and who has never had any auditing.
Sam, you make a good point.
Here we’re talking about Freedom vs.Entrapment, but as I think about it, a slave is free of many things. He is free of many responsibilities! And he is not totally entrapped, either. He has some freedoms, too.
I just read an article by Tom Martiniano on Scientology-cult about folks who are PTS to “The Middle Class” and how Miscavige has created a “middle class” in Scientology which recognizes that there are things wrong with the Church, but resists anyone’s effort to change them for the better. They are afraid to lose their comfortable slavish life by openly thinking for themselves and possibly losing their “friends” in the CoS, or their jobs or whatever.
Somehow I thought of this in connection with your post.
Valkov, I am really not talking about his innermost intentions here. I am talking about the very real consequences of making such statements publicly.
He fully expected to be able to freely make such statements, to criticize, and to invalidate the efforts of others with impunity and denounced the inevitable backlash as suppressive acts.
I call it CREATING antagonism.
Seriously, if you heard this or a variation of this, and you were a member of one of the philosophies he pans, what would your response be? Would you be insulted? Offended?
And when you argued back, as I just did, what would your response be to being told that you are a suppressive person? A degraded being? Someone with overts and withholds? Ill intended? Unwelcome in a Church of Scientology?
I guarantee you it would not be a raise in tone. And if you had a loved one involved with him, would you be concerned? Pissed off? Angry?
What is good for the goose is good for gander is the old saying that sums up what I see on all this.
Someone criticizes Ron, with warranted and reasoned criticism and they are targeted as belonging to a group of people who really should be shunned or made to get their overts off.
Ron criticizes them, dismissing their work and their efforts — no problem.
Well it was a problem. He should not have been applauded for this. He should have been handled just as he stated any other person should be handled at the time.
But of course, people loved their auditing.
What to do about it? Nothing. LRH is no longer with us except as recordings and written materials. Sadly, this legacy of putting other groups down and criticizing them, but do not even think about criticizing the Church of Scientology — you will be declared, disconnected from and possibly even harassed is very much at the heart of the problems with the Church.
I think what Marty is doing right now is exactly what needs to happen and so I am contributing the best I can to what Marty is doing.
Marty, you ask whether Scientology became an entrapment or not.
According to Wikipedia, in criminal law, entrapment is a conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offense that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit
When people with sane minds remain in entrapments for long periods of time, they may be seen as victims of what is known as the Stockholm syndrome, a phenomenon in which, according to Wikipedia, “hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness. Stockholm syndrome is a form of traumatic bonding, which does not necessarily require a hostage scenario, but which describes “strong emotional ties that develop between two persons where one person intermittently harasses, beats, threatens, abuses, or intimidates the other.”
One commonly used hypothesis to explain the effect of Stockholm syndrome is based on Freudian theory. It suggests that the bonding is the individual’s response to trauma in becoming a victim. Identifying with the aggressor is one way that the ego defends itself. When a victim believes the same values as the aggressor, they no longer become a threat. Battered-person syndrome is an example of activating the capture–bonding psychological mechanism, as are military basic training and fraternity bonding by hazing.” I have seen mild versions of Stockholm syndrome in some fundamental religious movement. I have no idea whether this happened in Scientology, since I am not a Scientologist.
Regardless of whether there was entrapment or not in Scientology, all this raises an interesting question: most established religions with a good media image have pretty extreme constraints, especially for those followers who choose to dedicate. Is this entrapment? The Catholics have the trappist monks, for example, who choose to never speak again. Some are brilliant scholars, and suddenly they lived locked in a little cell and vow to never speak again. Total vow of silence. The Franciscans flagel themselves in search of forgiveness for their sins. Other monks wear a cilice, undergarments made of coarse cloth or animal hair worn close to the skin. Other features are added to make cilices even more uncomfortable, such as thin wires or twigs. Cilices are still used in several religious traditions to induce discomfort or pain as a sign of repentance and atonement. Members of the lay catholic organization Opus Dei practice mild self-flagellation using an instrument called a “discipline”, a cattail whip usually made of knotted cords, which is flung over the shoulders repeatedly during private prayer. In some Shi’ite communities worldwide, Shi’ites march in massive parades while flogging themselves on the back with knives, blades and chains every year to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein . This happens in many countries of the world including India , Pakistan , Iraq and Lebanon . In Iran there is an unannounced ban on the use of knives and sharp blades for Mätam or flagellation but chains can be used
Interestingly, we do not hear in the media these days about catholics monks being brainwashed. Are these monks victims of entrapment? Or of the Stockholm syndrome? Are they brainwashed? Do all people who choose extreme obedience to a religion brainwashed? Maybe, maybe not. I frankly have no idea.
Admittedly, there is big difference between a hostage situation, where one cannot leave under threat of physical death, and a religious context where one can physically leave, but may fear, if one does so, for one’s spiritual salvation, which in the end is as bad or worse than getting killed.
Then the question becomes… how to be sure that choosing extreme obedience is not falling for entrapment? How can one be sure that a religion that offers extremely rigorous forms of obedience is offering a path to freedom rather than a path to entrapment?
My sense is that, in essence. reliance on only one belief is the source to all excesses. Having a core religion is in my view fine, but limiting one’s beliefs to one religion is unhealthy as one sets oneself up for entrapment. I see it as a good system of spiritual checks and balances to keep exposing oneself to other systems of beliefs. This is not easy, as every religion has a tendency to demand always more from a person, rather than push them to explore other horizons.
Even within new religious movements, while many people preach the importance of exposing oneself to other idea and belief systems, few people are able to benefit from several paths at the same time. Most of the time, their interest in other paths remains on a level of intellectual curiosity, and they do not really immerse themselves.
I see it as real important and healthy to step back, put any religion in perspective, and look at several other religious or philosophical angles as afforded by other religions, and to create one’s own unique stairway to liberation, or whatever one calls it..
I’m not sure it started as late as the mid-60s. It may have been the case that Ron always, or nearly always, had two sides to his personality, and that things always,or almost always, ran on parallel tracks. Until recently we either didn’t know or chose to ignore Ron’s more authoritarian side.
The quote from Ron that Marty cites is from 26 June 1961. Yet on 7 April 1961 appeared the ‘Jo’burg Security Check’, followed by ‘The Only valid “Have you ever had any unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?” Security Check’ of 22 May, 1961; then the reassuring talk (above) of 26 June 1961; this was followed by ‘The Students Security Check’ of 29 June 1961, and then followed by the ‘Auditor’s Security Check’ of 7 July 1961, which was followed by the ‘Children’s Security Check’ of 21 September 1961.
Although it does not appear to be currently online, if one is interested in earlier similars, one can look for old editions of “The Aberee” newsletter from the mid-1950s. Or simply do a Google search for: newsletter scientology OR dianetics “The Aberee”
Maria… Can I just say I hope you stick around and comment many more times in the future on this and any other blog that takes a your fancy.
Genius.
It was from the beginning on.
It is a matter of Marketing, Pr and sales (from the beginning on) and honesty!
1. original thesis
2. Evolution of a Science
3. Then it was a Science (but in disreguard of any scientific principles that were standard in those times.)
4. It promised homo novis (clear) but only in 67 that goal was reached nevertheless this clear has to undergo dianetics til OT 7 to get rid of all circuits and demons as described in dmsmh. Is Ot 7 the postulated clear ?
5. Ksw stated the tech fully exists while they weren’t any oT-levels and still lots of work was done later.
From the beginning on he promised heaven on earth while he couldn’t keep those promises. 1 Million people bought DMSMH in 1950 and propably there were 990 000 Arc breaks about his promises !
Millions of people were introduced to it since 1950 and only perhaps 0.1 % believed in his promises and the rest of the people propably have an ARC break.
LRH didn’t take any responsibility for his authorative statements he made from the beginning on with this principle:
“Nothing in Scientology is true for you unless you have observed it and it is true according to your observation.
By asking people to have this attitude he could state whatever he wanted. The responsibility of truth was by the individuals ! (the best sales gimmick that ever was invented !)
How can an individual find out if his statements are truth if there is no Scientific principles behind it that proves his points !
Also in KSW if you didn’t get the results it was always you.
Scientologists and LRH have the attitude that they don’t have to prove anything as this would lead to a PTS condition !
While per my understanding it’s very easy to prove the princiles of it (IMHO).
LRH was so pissed that the establishment didn’t accept his Science that he was totally unwilling to prove anything and made a church out of it so he was free to do whatever he wanted (as its only a belief) and by this action invalidated the whole subject !
It’s all about honesty. From the beginning he calls himself a Scientist and an ingeneer, he even called himself a doctor and pred in St. Hill of makiing scientific investigations with tomatoes (PR and Marketing).
he wasn’t interested in honest exchanges with the establishment. He had quarrels with Dr. Winter with Robert heinlein and many other people from the beginning on and so lost lots of goodwill byy society itself !
It’s easy for me to make those statements in retrospective as I don’t have all the real data. Perhaps there aren’t any ! It is like it is.
Ron gave different directions and spoke differently to staff members vs. auditors. To auditors, Ron gave the tech, and gave lectures and guidance like the one here. He said “Learn it well, and run with it.”
To staff, Ron said – “Do this exactly, and do not vary it.” Staff are not auditors, and auditors are not staff.
KSW was for staff, not auditors. KSW was for supervisors and those that ran courses telling them to run a standard course room, and team Scientology standardly.
Policy is primarily for staff, not public, and not auditors. But even policy was to be thought with – by people who knew it well. Ron’s theory of management has been picked up by Harvard B-School and best-selling business books years later – but of course, not attributed. Of course, Ron picked up a lot of management data from the military. CSW, for example, was from the Army.
When you are on staff, you have signed up. You no longer have the luxury of doubt, of a case (“No case on post!”). Of completely independent judgement. You are on staff, and you are there to forward the goals and purposes of Scientology – not your own idea of what they ought to be.
The structure of Scientology orgs is very, very hierarchical, very top-down. The top being Ron.
Now, auditors have a different path, and were looked at as different at orgs. There is a 2-1 Admin/Tech ratio. There are admin employees. There are tech employees. They are different.
So, this except is from a tape given to the St. Hill Briefing Course. Not staff. It was given to auditors.
So, to distill this:
1. If you are on staff, you do everything as written. You are not there to improvise. You maybe can think with admin stuff, but do not screw with the tech. You are NOT qualified.
2. If you are an auditor, you progress up the line ala “Styles of Auditing” where you learn your craft, and get better and better until you can indeed think with the tech and can apply it conceptually, to the point of breaking the rules if needed.
Important note: Around the time of this lecture, only auditors were considered Scientologists. PCs and staff members were not.
This is, to me, the main rift. There was tension on this in the mid-70s when SO admin know-best types started sniping at tech terminals like Rocky Stump and others. However, the Church went astray on this philosophy around 1982-83 when the huge so-called “KSW” push came down from David Miscavige and the CMO/SO types. And it came to complete fruition when the IAS was created.
Why? Because that was when Miscavige and his ilk considered everyone to be staff members, and therefore subject to the same rules.
Oops! Type on Paragraph 3: “teach Scientology” not “team Scientology.”
Mark
Ken Wilber’s book Eye To Eye is a very good and deep analysis of those factors. It explains very well why scientifics and spiritualists never seem to be at the same wave-lenght.
Wasn’t Ron in Africa in ’66? Or at least, ’65?
You and Luis Agostini said it all. You nailed it! Thanks a lot
Grundoon, well said. In the realm of spiritual enlightenment, to create a postulate that cannot be undone, results in the individual ceasing to be at cause over their own creation.
Now I must behave in a certain way, or do certain things, that are now against my own integrity, simply because I previously made an agreement. Straight on down from there.
Alternatively one could say, yeah I made an agreement, and at that time I thought it was the best thing to do, but now things have changed and I no longer agree with it and have decided to not honour that agreement. As you have pointed out, generally there is some way out that involves a further agreement – such as non-compete clause in business or a divorce.
In RCS you are expected to be there for the duration! Sure, you are free to leave anytime you like as long as it is on their terms and the exchange is you get nothing and they get your supposed agreement to never say anything to anyone about your experiences ever again. And if you do, then they assert that they are justified in attacking you, your family, business associates with the intent of shuddering you into complete silence.
Hence why said in my earlier post to this blog (not this particular thread) that in my personal view that Scientology became an entrapment when the rights of the individual had to be subjugated to the rights or demands of the group.
Yes the group is a trap. But let’s see that most of us didn’t come there to be a group member or a parishioner. I couldn’t be less interested, never ever I was interested on being anything there
I have read Diantics evolution of a science, and I was so excited by this book. I wanted go clear. That was all. And people which were there at this time wanted auditing . That was a big psychotherapy.
Years later we saw very strange newcomers who had the purpose to « clear de planet », « help the third dyn » you name it. Strange robots cult member. And they took over. (and I audited some of them while helping to audit staff, they actually were not up to any spiritual purpose. The only thing which would do some TA action was their guilt of masturbating! They actually did their post out of propitiating and guilt)
There were also this guys at this time on the GO. I remember the GO in the manor. A James Bond feeling, remind me « From russia with love » , Rosa Kleb character. That was the time. Some people wanted to have auditing and also gave some, that simply was scientology. But there was those guy in GO, playing James Bond, or some kind of stalinist spy (Jane Kember was a prior monster to Miscavige, I would say she was even worst).
The point is those few crazy people. Nothing new, those guys will ruin anything. I think any high religious, political concept can be used by totalitarian crew to entrap.
This is basically what LRH call « authoritarian personnality » in An essay on management (red volum1951), and later call an SP. But I think
« authoritarian personnality » is a much better definition and An essay on management should be part of any SP/PTS checksheet.
I also remember people wanted to be auditor but when they failed, then they went « to help the GO ».
Miltant type of people, it’s easy, they have done that in all there time track. SP leaders (time track full of them, Hitler, Stalin kind of) and they blindly follow!
We do have normal homo sapiens in scientology, and they always have been subjugated by such personnality. Implanted kind of people. That’ all. LRH didn’t create them, he finally didn’t succeed to be understood on the subject.
It’s just usual robots and PTSes being under the control of some suppressives.
So the message is as simple as that : Miscavige is an SP, soviet type I think. With his hair cut of apparatchick!
So, you blinkers in OSA, poor implanted idiots, Wake up!!! Throw this little piece of dictator into the hole and let’s start again!
But you won’t do it, poor people, rather let the church be fully destroyed…
ything out of po
I agree with your view of it. One thing that I always remember that I think explains Ron’s strategy with Scientology is the the Five Conditions tapes. Ron talks about how you have to heavily promote your product (he uses eggs as an example) and then you worry about delivery. He says not delivering is deadly, and that you have to do whatever you have to do to get it done. Then there is quantity, quality, and viability and so on. He used this method of developing and selling Scientology.
I see where he knew he latched onto something with past lives in Dianetics, but he was selling beyond his or the foundation/orgs ability to deliver in what was promised in the book. He worked out kinks along the way, but I don’t think anything worked perfectly from the get go. Yet, the book sounds like a slam dunk. He attempts to make it sounds scientifically valid: all tested and true. I don’t believe he had discovered from actual cases that 70% of illness are psychosomatic. I think he was always on a strict time line and so once something indicated as being true or plauseable, he went for it and made it known as truth. One example is that he knew at one point that DMSMH book 1 auditing was not the most effecient way to clear a persons case, and that handling engrams with the meter, r3r etc, was the way to go. He ended up writing Dianetics Today, which is a great book. Consequently he wrote a policy to actually stop promoting DMSMH. When the book sales went down, he wrote a policy to reinstate it as a way to get people in. The two policies are right next to each other in the vols.
I think that he could have added an explanation in the first book about how there is now even a more effecient method of getting rid of the reactive mind. This could have served as the ‘come on’ without invalidating the usefulness of the current DMSMH. Instead, the book was to be continually pushed and frankly the claims can not be verified to this day. If someone wanted to go clear using Book One style auditing, then would be refused. I knew a woman who was not a bit interested in Scientology, but wanted to go clear. She just wanted to be audited until she was clear, ‘just like it says in the book”. The mission audited her, but told her she had to have a DCSI (before CCRD) to verify that she was clear.This was unacceptable to her. In essence, promoting DMSMH as a method of attaining clear and then not employing that method is false advertising and is a bait and switch.
Continually moving in fast forward and using the public as ‘ginney pigs’ while selling the bridge as a ‘carefully taped route’, or as a ‘done’ is simply a sales technique which has always cheapened Scientology.
All the clears who didn’t know they were clear (because no one else knew)got audited on DMSMH only to find out later that this was the worst thing that could have happened, and then were told to BUY a special intensive to prove it, should have been given the intensive! They (me included) were given the wrong auditing and then the R factor is also that OT5 will then require more intensives, is another example of selling, then working out the problems. Any other product that is purchased and does not work as promoted can be replaced or money back (without repercussion). The church, or Ron, is never wrong. And on occassion, like with clear, when there is an admittance of a ‘discovery’ which changes a person’s auditing, then compensation should be made. Pc do not c/s thier own cases. Trust is put on the Founder, the C/S, and the Auditor to deliver the correct process. If a blunder is made– and auditing a clear on dianetics is a big blunder– then Ron/church should accept responsibility and handle it by GIVING the person the correct auditing for getting the right indication. But, somehow this isn’t how it was ever done. When something is deemed incorrect, then the ‘taped route’ becomes a “pioneering route’, and we are all part of forging the path and so no compensation is offered. I do know of one person who has been on OT7 for 20 years (and a few years ago found out she ‘wasn’t clear’) did get 1 intensive given to her. Wow, after 20 years of paying huge sums every six months. She thinks it is her case as she LOVES DM. ugh!
Ron always said he never held anything back from us on a tech situation and as soon as he knew, we knew. Maybe that is true, but I still say he sold and promoted and delivered before truly testing it all, and then we all had to pay for the product right or wrong. And if wrong, we keep paying. This strategy may have kept the GI up so the church could keep running, and Ron could keep working, but the bridge was never sold as an ‘in progess’ or ‘research foundation’ but as a completed package promoted and sold as such. It was a dishonest way to operate.
I know the whole operation was a tough one to pull off, to say the least. However, the fury and demand to ‘get the show on the road’ with unquestioning obedience was always part of the church climate and I no longer believe that the truth was held as important. I know a friend who states, with a propitiative tone, that “Ron has never lied to me”. Possibly. But the guy was witholding in a major way, including money he was stashing. He stayed in hiding while his wife and Jane took the fall.
Still, I can’t argue with what I know to be workable and I’m grateful for what there is of the tech. I just wish there had been more honesty and that Ron hadn’t picked a military model of organization with him as the dictator. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator, it is oxymoronic.
He wasn’t talking to “a member of one of those philosophies he is referring to, a person who undoubtedly has not read any other works and who has never had any auditing.”
I could also read it from the viewpoint of a person who does not speak English. That would make it seem like complete jibberish.
Yes, Windhorse, LIVING LIFE by one’s own determinism is theraputic and sane. Create your own adventure and meet wonderful people on the way.
Agreed!! Marty is such a clever 3rd dyn auditor, asking questions, carefully watch the comments, if a TR4 is necessary and guiding the attention by the next blog article. My highest respect!
This is doing so much for all of us as a group, I hardly can believe it that we are so lucky having him do it for us! It IS making the real Scientology alive again!
If anyone can tell me what other philosophies LRH was referring to in the “Dealing with Attacks on Scientology” lecture. I see the connection with political philosophies such as Marxism and Communism. But I don’t see it in regard to other religious philosophies such as Buddhism, Christianity, Tao. I just don’t see it. Maybe as misapplications, but not as the essence of the philosophy. I get the irony of what LRH is saying in light of what Scientology has become. Still I don’t grok his premise. Can anyone help me understand it?
. . . times in which he LIVED.
Windhorse, on a personal level, it must have gone south for LRH before Quentin’s suicide, otherwise their broken relationship and Q’s condition would have been averted.
It’s a matter of gradients – infinity valued logic. One is entrapped to the degree that one is at effect – that one has agreed not to be the cause point in one’s life. You’ve got to be at some effect to have a game. And you can enjoy doing that. For most of us, we got involved in Scientology as an activity which was senior to the game as played in the MEST universe as it EXPLAINED the game of the MEST universe. But then came some point where one went into agreement that it was OK for another to have the right to overrule one’s own cause. Think of an early time when your “no” (for whatever reason) was no longer acceptable to a reg or a recruiter or a senior getting a program step done, and the “grinding” and the big league sales and the “handling” of your objection continued seemingly forever, until you agreed or were punished. At the point you agreed to continue to “discuss” or debate the issue, you agreed that the cause point of your life had slid over to another entity. Thus entrapment. We can pick out various items in the mamoth amount of work LRH did that facilitated this, but even in DMSMH, one’s objections to the auditing process were not credited to any free will or viewpoint of the individual (or even a wrongness in how the person was being handled), but were considered a manifestation of his bank.
For me, Hubbard was a daytime situation. I had others on my mind for a constant. Maybe I should not even be posting on these forums. Except Daytime runs into night time, and the right time only happened for me after I traveled through Hubbard time. Whatever…for those complaining of the gift, well I am sorry you were disappointed. That was not me, ever.
Did scientology go astray and join the rank of entrapments?
No.
Scientology is just a body of data and mental and spiritual techniques.
One adheres to them, or one adheres to some of them, or one rejects them altogether. What is true for you is true for you.
The entrapment factor only comes into play once you agree to be trapped.
The cause of entrapment isn’t Scientology, or Black Dianetics, or Hubbard, or Miscavige, or the IAS. It’s our failure to look, and to be self-determined and pan-determined.
At one point, we agreed to be trapped, to be victims, and that was our undoing.
It’s all very well to blame Hubbard, Miscavige, the Sea Org, disconnection, constant sec checks or out-tech for our condition but these are not the real whys.
The real why lies in each and every one of us. We agreed to be trapped.
No subject, be it scientology, communism, vegetarianism or nanotechnology can entrap us unless we agree to be entrapped.
The first step out of any trap is to realize this.
Or we can keep coming up with justifications as to how it was everybody else’s fault.
We create our own mental and spiritual prisons.
In magic, in Scientology, you can look a,t Who / What would oppose something, yes. Flipping that into always look at opposites. Who/ What would succumb to something? A person can undo this entrapment. On the L’s flipped backwards. But I do not expect someone that has not done the L’s to understand,
Entrapment occurred when Hubbard incorporated policies and procedures that made his own enemies into the enemies of the group.
Yes. Scientology went astray.l
In the beginning LRH honestly helped people and wanted them to be more able and free – without a pitch or a curve” (“THE REHABILITATION OF JUDGEMENT”– 12.11.59)
“No, I’m not making operating thetans to do anything. And the answer of course we’re making operating thetans for their own sake and so they can be free. See? There’s no pitch, there’s no curve. And I don’t always tell the truth, that I assure you. I learned a long time ago that there were two brands of lies, and after that I could become a fiction writer. There were the lies that hurt people, you see, and then there were the lies told to involve them and twist them up and plow them in. Get the idea?
Now it’s indicative to something in this society today that they say that all imaginative utterances are lies. So we have to pull back out of that and realize that you’re perfectly, one is perfectly free to create the past, present or future. See? One is perfectly free to do this, unless he creates it with a pitch to injure, enslave, or upset. See? You got a, got a big curve on the line and an overt act very definitely is an overt act, basically in the pc’s own consideration, but in the area of relative truth, relative truth you see, not the absolute truths of the first axioms.”
It is amazing to read that LRH was talking about the fact that he lies and invents, and this was still OK because he did not have any pitch or curve.
Then it changed. I have no idea when but it looks like LRH got into a different valance – Valance of God or know all (I even read somewhere a theory that he died and was replaced by a double). For me the biggest outpoint is that in KSW he states:
“We will not speculate here on why this was so or how I came to rise above the bank.”
This is where LRH claims to have a HIDDEN DATA LINE, and he uses it as a MYSTERY SANDWICH. This is, I think, where LRH became authoritative and “God” and therefore had the right and duty to control and say what and how to think as he had the real truth and we could not get it ourselves.
KSW was always sounded dead serious to me and here started damnation and hell.
There is no doubt that LRH was a genius and helped mankind, but we need to have our own judgment and check each datum if it helps or suppresses.
Scientology was always for me “an applied philosophy” and never a religion!
The other BIG mistake, I think, of LRH was trying to control all expansion and delivery. He thought that if he was brilliant enough to develop the tech he can do the same with administration. There are some “diamonds” in the Green Volumes, like conditions (which I think is more of a technical issue than Admin), but overall the Admin tech was not needed to get Franchises booming and people processed and trained.
If you look at the Scientology time track, it started in Non Ex, got into a Danger condition when LRH changed, and Enemies were fought, etc., and those are the steps we have to apply now:
“4. Handle the personnel by Ethics Investigation and Committee of Evidence
5. Reorganize the activity so that the situation does not repeat”
And that is exactly what the Scientologists, be it Inbdies, Freezone, etc are doing now!
Last, but I think this is a very important point.
Most of us, Scientologists, blame DM and assign him cause over the problems of Scientology. Truth is he is not the real WHY. He is too small and insignificant, a bully and a tyrant, that sucked his power from thousands of good people, who meant well.
The real WHY is that LRH changed Scientology from helping applied philosophy to a money hungry cult, and DM just stepped into those big shoes, and as he is a bully, with dramatic crimes!
What is important, therefore, is what you, Marty, are doing now. Clearing the real, constructive, brilliant LRH Tech from the harmful policies and practices and helping Scientologists cognite that each has to be SOURCE.
It is AMAZING from the comment how many Scientologists already knew this, and that now when we discuss it becomes clearer and clearer and more real!
I still adore LRH and thank him for the GOOD he did.
Oh, please. There’s a lot of ‘LRH did this’ and ‘LRH did that’, and it’s his fault ‘we’ all gave up our free will and went into agreement with that truly evil dictator and despot David Miscavige. It was DMSMH, it was something in Science of Survival. It was KSW. Blah, blah, blah.
What a load of crap.
If even one person escaped The Weenie Miscavige’s Trap, then no one else has any “excuse” for doing so. David Mayo did not go into agreement with the trap. The Pilot didn’t go into agreement with the trap. Pierre Etherier, eventually, didn’t go into agreement with the trap. Lots and lots and lots of others didn’t go into agreement with the trap. And, the reason these people did not go into agreement with the trap is, to a man and woman, the exact same reason: THEY READ AND UNDERSTOOD WHAT LRH HANDED DOWN. They did not rely on someone else’s judgment. They were not sheep. They did not, in the end, give into the ‘desire to be liked or approved of’ by their fellows. They adhered to the Tech, without alteration, I might add, long enough that they could rise to the level of actually having judgment about the subject matter.
And, they did not see LRH as some God to be bowed down before, which is pretty good obnosis, since he wasn’t even remotely in that camp.
So, all this stuff about what LRH did, or didn’t do, amounts to exactly and only one thing: Placing the Responsibility for Your Own Failure On Somebody Else — i.e., A Service Facsimile.
“Scientology” went off ther rails simply and soley because those left behind when LRH died did not apply the tech. It is that simple. There is no other explanation, and no where else to look to for responsibility. Hell, even that besotted curr David Miscavige is such an impotent little snit that had even 10 people had certainty in the tech, he would have folded like the pusillanimous bundle of disreputable degradation that he fundamentally is.
Stop trying to come up with alternative explanations. Confront YOUR own responsibility, study the Tech (hell, you can even alter it if you like, it’s YOUR life after all), apply it as faithfully as you know how, and get on with it. Who the hell cares if David Miscavige stole everyone blind? Do you think there is soooooooooooooooooooooo little value “left” in the Tech that its accurate duplication and use will not yield massively beneficial results? Why do you think David Miscavige is keeping all of us busy with his perverted distractions? He WANTS us to “try to save Scientology”, thereby focusing our attention, and wasting what precious little time we have, on the likes of his perversions. Ignore him and get on with it. Forget about looking for explanations — that is what historians do.
Just get on with it.
Which “… other spiritual and religious philosophies over the years …”?
As much as Hubbard developed counseling techniques to free a person’s mind and spirit, he wrote policies that entrapped people later on. This is the first time I’ve read this transcript excerpt. He sounded sincere in saying that he didn’t want to be worshiped and that he didn’t want to be followed blindly. That lecture was from 1961 and that was his mindset at the time. He should not have strayed from that viewpoint.
By the mid sixties he created the para-military sea org and heavy ethics. His viewpoint changed from ‘live and let live’ from that lecture to ‘my way or the highway’ afterwards. Am I reading that excerpt the wrong way? Just think about it. Hubbard said that freedom without barriers would make life miserable. I can agree to that. But by creating all these rules, ethics conditions, sea org, Gardians Office, etc, he created way too many barriers. In other words, auditing freed people only then to be entrapped by too many rules and regulations.
It is a book – “Going Clear” which despite some inaccuracies I found to be a riveting read and full of stuff I wasn’t aware of or hadn’t the context for. For me, ALL of Scientology makes a lot more sense when understanding LRH’s life and travails – and I don’t mean that in any derogatory sense.
This reference “This is the first time, actually, a high-powered, rather selfless philosophy has hit Earth which didn’t at once demand of its practitioner or in – the person who embraces it – that he totally subjugate himself utterly and become enslaved by the philosophy, don’t you see;” is written just a few short weeks AFTER this one:
“…I spit. DO they [Org] think a society in this shape will approve Scientology into power? Hell no! And to hell with this society. We’re making a new one..” (HCO PL 26 May 1961 Quality Counts) and this one:
“All staff members, tech and admin, of a Central Org, each one altogether, have a right to demand that … any or all staff personnel be given a Joburg Sec Check… If we’re going to put a new world here, we better get going on the project. It isn’t as if we could fool people for ever.” (HCO PL 29 May 1961 Quality and Admin in Central Orgs).
Now, to my simple way of thinking, the two concepts expressed 1) as above in the OP, and 2) the two PL references – written within a few weeks of each other – are pretty much diametrically opposed. And this is fairly consistent with so much in Scientology: “think for yourself, as long as you think the way X reference says”. “If it’s true for you it’s true – as long as it agrees with something I’ve said” – and so on.
My opinion and opinion only, is that the formation of the first “Church” in 1954 was probably the point of no return, after which entrapment and cult-hood was more or less an inevitability. Scientology was never going to be accepted as a religion by the general public – probably because it isn’t a religion!
There – I’ve said it!
Ulf and Valkov, here is some additional information about the time period that supports what you have suggested. Its long, and Marty I do apologize, but I believe that it is tremendously important to understanding the radical shift in LRH attitude and strategies. Maybe you will touch on some of this in your upcoming book?
The primary trigger was undoubtedly having the Church’s tax-exempt status withdrawn in 1958.
The journalist Garrison, in the book Hidden Story of Scientology reported: “the federal tax agency sent the Church a letter withdrawing their tax-exempt status on the ground that the exposition and propagation of “tenets set forth in the books of L. Ron Hubbard, and related instruments of instruction relative to ‘Scientology’ in training courses, clinical courses and otherwise” did not constitute an exclusively religious or educational activity.”
LRH’s response (or at least date-coincident) was to form HCO, and issue the confidential HCO Manual of Justice in 1959, which was issued only to bonded HCO and Church personnel until it was published on the Internet in the late 90s. This manual was the precursor to the Guardian’s Office, laying out intelligence, investigation, and justice procedures to weed out dissident and disruptive elements coming into the Churches.
In April 1960, LRH clearly violated the regulations restricting tax-exempt organizations from political activity and sent out a bulletin that concluded: “It is my hope you’ll vote and make your friends vote. But please don’t vote for Nixon. Even his own secret service agents assure us he stands for nothing we do.” This was pretty much waving the red cape in front of a bull, only the bull was really a 300 pound gorilla. Nixon was Vice-President of the U.S. at the time, and Hoover was chief of the FBI. Under the auspices of the Committee on Un-American Activities, Hoover had directed campaigns in the U.S. to root out subversives and communists, using all manner of illegal methods including false propaganda, search and seizures, etc.
Then unsurprisingly, the 1963 FBI raid: “On January 4, 1963, under the guise of executing a warrant authorizing the seizure of E-meters, a raiding party of U.S. Marshals, joined by FDA agents and three narcotics officers from the D.C. Police Department, swooped down on the church. In Gestapo fashion, they ransacked desks and filing cabinets and, in addition to E-meters, carted away a truckload of creedal literature. Hoping to find some evidence of drugs the officers invaded residential quarters occupied by the church staff. There they rifled closets, bureau drawers, and even lifted bedcovers.” (O. Garrison, Playing Dirty, pg. 25)
Note: Investigations in the 1970s disclosed a wide variety of dirty tricks used against individuals and organizations targeted as un-American, subversive, or communist throughout the 1950s and 60s. When the records of the closed executive sessions of the subcommittee under McCarthy’s chairmanship were finally made public in 2003–4, the report was prefaced: “Senator McCarthy’s zeal to uncover subversion and espionage led to disturbing excesses. His browbeating tactics destroyed careers of people who were not involved in the infiltration of our government. His freewheeling style caused both the Senate and the Subcommittee to revise the rules governing future investigations, and prompted the courts to act to protect the Constitutional rights of witnesses at Congressional hearings … These hearings are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur.”
To add to the scene, and running as a constant undercurrent from 1949 on, was the National Institute of Mental Health, which took a highly influential role in shaping policy, research and communicating with the public, legitimizing the importance of new advances in biomedical science, psychiatric and psychological services, and community-based mental health policies. By the mid 1950s, it was growing leaps and bounds. Simultaneously at the global level, in 1948, the World Health Organization and the World Federation for Mental Health were established with a similar mandate. Of course, these organizations were enthusiastically supported by the AMA and APA, both profit-making industry organizations formed for the purpose of forwarding market penetration for their membership. In 1963, the AMA/APA formed the Committee on Quackery, which ran its own propaganda smear campaigns against alternative health methods until 1987, notably chiropractic, the Supreme Court ruled that the AMA had engaged in an illegal conspiracy to destroy the chiropractic profession by engaging in “systematic, long-term wrong-doing with the long-term intent to destroy a licensed profession.” They targeted many, many organizations, not just chiropractics. They even went after the fledgling vitamin industry in the 1970s!
Hysteria about mental health was probably fueled to no small degree by the coining of the term brainwashing by Edward Hunter, a CIA operative and journalist who released his bestselling book in 1956, Brainwashing: the Story of the Men Who Defied It. A mix of propaganda and fact, this book detailed the brainwashing methods used in Mao’s China and in Korea against U.S. prisoners in World War 2. It scared the living daylights out of people, and was intended to offset communist propaganda. Hunter basically asserted that we were in a war for the minds of people. World War 3.
Behind the scenes, and in secret operations, CIA was busy working on mind control, ostensibly rushing to catch up on the new weapons of mind war. Their operations were divulged during investigations in the late 1970s, some of the most vicious experiments in mind / body manipulation ever exposed. ECT, surgery, LSD, mind altering drugs, you name it, they did it – illegally, secretly and in complete violation of human rights. They also acquired the Nazi concentration camps experimental information at the end of the war.
All of the above has been thoroughly documented and exposed starting in the mid 1970s, with new revelations appearing in the 21st century, exposed because of the Internet and the Freedom of Information Act.
LRH was aware of and diametrically opposed to many of these activities and consequently came under fire — heavy, concentrated fire funded with millions of dollars by government agencies and health industry organizations. The wonder of it all was that he never did knuckle under. But I believe he paid for it with his health and we paid for it with the war machine he was forced to mount. For the tiny C of S, this was suppression and oppression on a major scale. I don’t find it at all surprising that he sought for ways and means to detect and handle enemies of the Church. The enemies were real. They were not just enemies of the Church — they were enemies of the constitution with their constant efforts to implement mental and physical health laws that effectively took self-care and alternative care out of the hands of the population, stripping people of their rights under the name of the common good.
All of this against a backdrop of a conservative, patriarchal culture where blacks went to separate bathrooms and schools, women belonged in kitchens, children went to Sunday School and Father knows best. No sex before marriage for women (but men sowed their wild oats), unwed mothers hidden in shame, and don’t even think about being gay unless you wanted to be run right of town. Perfect nuclear families all eating apple pie and ice cream, glued to the five o-clock news on black and white TV.
From: “A Short Briefing of Guardian’s Office Technical Personnel”, 2 August, 1970:
“So this has landed us in the interesting position of practically anybody who has entered Scientology since ’67 – ’66 or ’67, mostly ’67 on up – have never had their lower grades. So of course they’re walking around with hidden standards, with chronic problems, with this, with that, with the other thing, and they haven’t been made into the people that Scientology can make them into.
So discarding of the subject also then discarded a high quality of staff member that we used to have. So you have the difficulty now, of working with the staff member, in a majority, who has never had his lower grades, who doesn’t know Scientology exists really, and if anybody goes above Grade One, without having Grade One put in, you have exactly the same number of suppressives that you have on the street. ”
I believe that today it is much worse than 1970, when LRH re-issued KSW 1 and wrote “Cases and Morale of Staff” and other issues to handle that situation.
John you could be right, but in my readings Aristotle had a belief about falling objects being the same. In any case, my point is that simply because a person is perceived as a giant of reason doesn’t mean all of his suppositions are correct. Simple testing of a theory answers all.
It could be a good idea to include what happened in those years on the planet, the Berlin-Crisis, the Cuba-Crisis, atom-bombers in Turkey, the immediate threat of atomic war. Those years have not been quiet times. These things belong into the picture as well.
@ Valkov-The grade chart had end phenomenon. The bridge was once declared standard. Exterior with full perception was sold as a product. Stablely exterior was sold as a product.
I have never met one Scientologist with that ability gained. Some will take this as an anti-scientology rant.
Science cares not for anyones cherished beliefs. Exterior with full perception! I am sure all scientologists at one time were confident that some level of OT would deliver that. It was promoted to deliver that.
Double blind is not esotericism. Double blind is called quality control for products.
Very simple
LiPO Scientology was promoted as a science not spiritualism.
I think everyone has some responsibility in it.
We all made our choices. No doubt.
That doesn’t mean that LRH didn’t play any part in it.
How about you? What’s your story? Are you in hiding or have you been out in the open for years? Just curious.
I love it when the materialists tell us what’s going on in the brain that makes us think we’ve “exteriorized”.
This guy tells us it’s because of “temporal lobe activity”, reductions in.
A few years back, I read where some shrink PhD attributed “out of body” experiences prior to bodily death as being caused by neurons firing in the brain stem.
They cannot prove any of this “scientifically”.
Physical materialism is just as much a religion as anything else.
Excellent points, S.W.
Not delivering what was promised is when Scientology went off the rails. Not making a strong headway towards the stated aims of Scientology is when it went off the rails. When fighting enemies became part of the mindset, when condescension towards all other paths.
Not delivering what was promised is really the essence of what went wrong.
I’m not implying that people did not have life changing, life affirming, incredible wins in Scientology, (I have friends who could say the same about going to seminars or going getting therapy or meditation) I’m saying states of being were considered already chartered out, mapped out with ‘standard’ tech, giving standard results, one for one, we’ve done it, we have the science, all you have to do is get on the bridge, your out of body with FULL perception is only a few steps of the grade chart away.
We all remember that day when that state was such an exciting possiblity. It was trilling to consider being able to traverse the cosmos, at will. All of us believed it would happen on the grade chart. It wasn’t a ‘maybe it will happen’, it was a product that was sold to us. It was science, attainable, new hope for man, the zenith of all prior philosophic and religious strivings, the promise of Buddha, liberation from the darkness past centuries.
And now I find myself listening to people rationalize why they did not attain their promised goals by saying LRH didn’t mean that, or SPs harshed his mellow, or don’t have a hidden data line, or it’s the next level that will give me what my last level promised, or scientific methodology does not apply to our science.
Failed help anybody?
This is sort of the 3D equivalent of asking a husband at what point his wife started to become so bitchy.
I think over all the tech was developed not to entrap but to free, later on it was a turn around thanks to Davey boy. Worsel I agree, any early developments were tainted by the times and due to the tribulations LRH endured. Again we need to apply and adjust for the here and now. What do you call that? Present time? So, see that barrier, Go over and touch it. What is its color? ARC Bill Dupree
A great comment by J. Swift who writes : “Scientology can only make Scientologists ….. Buddhism can only make Buddhists. Christianity can only make Christians. Enforced identity-creating happens in any proprietary spiritual path, it consists of: Creating and enforcing doctrinal-based identities, keeping organizations financed at the expense of parishioners, the need to make converts, creating good PR and countering bad PR …. demand to send money and power to the top… In its present form, the Church of Scientology is a trap…”
The question that I have seen in many new religious movements then is: “What does a person, who likes the essence of the religion but becomes aware of a trap?” I have seen 4 scenarios in which people respond:
1) If you still dig this path for yourself but are not into starting a new group, your just step back and practice your religion in a “light” manner, and refuse to adopt a doctrinal-based identity, finance an organization and make converts.
2) If you still dig this path for yourself and want to spread a different approach to this path and bring in new converts, you create your own group. A challenge is that dissident groups, if they exclude the original group, become a proprietary path at the very moment they get created, and they go through the same pains of exclusion than the organization it rejected. See what happened with the protestants, the Orthodox, etc.. The Orthodox churches are among the most corrupt on earth in terms of collusion with the political powers. And Protestantism has given us Michelle Bachman and people like that.
3) If you like the religion but are intent on hurting the religion that you believe entrapped you, you can battle the original religion. Problem is that the energy absorbed by criticizing, from what I have observed in other religious movements, hinders spiritual progress, i.e the mind gives you the illusion that you can wage war and life a non-judgmental life, for example. Soon, “wins” are achieved by hurting the original religion, rather than from inner victories. The lines are blurred, the changes are imperceptible.
4) If you like the religion and believe you have found a better way, and would like the world to know about it, but at same time you are aware of the pitfalls and traps of creating your own new movement, and of becoming absorbed by battling the original religion, then an option is to create a new movement that, from the conception, is immune to the traps of the original one. You need a few core principles that will immunize the new movement against developing the same flaws as the one from which you came. These principles could include: inclusion of different faiths, non-judgment as a rule, forgiveness as an operating principle, kindness in actions, etc..Not to imitate Gandhi. But look at what he accomplished and the courage he had.. There are many positions available for new leaders to emerge, each with their original, new way to propose a solution to make this world a better place. What is missing is clarity and vision..
Good data re dates. Thanks. It appears to be a long ongoing process. I suppose if one of the criteria we would have signed off on as part of our entry is that we would be willing to conform to another person’s views and rules re our behavior regardless of our own thoughts, there would have been less of throwing caution to the wind. Yes, there were many good things to be had and they were not necessarily strictly from the hand of Ron, despite of representations to the contrary. And I still hold those gains in place. But were they worth the cost of living in the C of S- I would say no. There is a point where I had to concede that I had been duped and then picked the true and important pieces off the floor and still working on discarding the rest. Wheat from the chaff, I suppose. And that is an ongoing process of its own. It sometimes seems even when Hubbard was telling the truth philosophically, he was still lying with respect to his own actions ( specifically re the info from the tape transcript provided above ).
Thanks Maria for elaborating with specifics that I only touched on. I too agree with you that there is no wonder he created the systems within the Church that he did because him and the Church just weren’t left alone, really ever all the way through his death.
With all your knowledge and research you really ought to write that biography Dan Sherman will never get to, and even if he did, will never be accurate, truthful and objective.
Actually Publius — there is a great deal about the brain vis a vis emotions that CAN and ARE proven scientifically – thanks to advances in science and a fMRI.
Not sure about the source that spoke about “out of body” experiences but there is plenty of current research being done that proves what various areas of the brain are doing and when.
IF you are interested in this area here’s just one link:
http://www.news.wisc.edu/13890
There are now hundreds of studies … Harvard etc
Christine
Understood. It was a time of great turmoil and change. However, by him creating policies like on how to deal with suppressive persons and disconnection (which he later cancelled officially, but continued to be used unofficially) his ‘What is true for you is true for you’ doctrine got side-stepped by authoritarianism.
Yes, LRH went to Las Palmas (an island off the northwestern coast of Africa) around February 1966 for about a month, and then went to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). This is per the “About Rhodesia” lecture dated 19-July-1966.
Rob Roy, very well put.
Maria, I kinda get what you’re saying but in this case I will continue to suspend judgement.
The situation is analogous to a ball game in which the referee calls the foul she sees, but the foul which provoked that foul goes unpunished because no ref noticed it. This is fairly common in games like basketball and football. The police also go by that kind of rule.
Since the issue Marty quoted was about “dealing with attacks on scientology”, I assume it was a response to some attacks that had taken place. The nature of the attacks is unstated as Marty did not post any quote about that. But from the content of LRH’s rant, it may have been attacks along the lines of “religion is a scam, a control operation, an attempt to entrap gullible people” etc., and lumped scientology in with other religions in that way. Some folks feel all religion is a scam; unfortunately religion has been used in some unsavory ways, like to subvert and control populations, instead of enlightening them.
LRh did state some opinions about previous religions, philosophies, and practices having been “booby trapped” in some ways that they no longer led to freedom and enlightenment, although they still promised such. Certainly some practices like Christianity, at some point stopped
“delivering the goods”. Have you read,for example, Elaine Pagels little book “Beyond Belief”, about early Christianity and the Gospel of Thomas?
I wish he had gone into more specifics on this, but in the lectures I’ve heard, he did not.
I have to agree that LRH was sometimes impolitic. He took perhaps unnecessary potshots at some people and institutions, in a way that Buddha, for example, apparently did not. LRH could be quite intemperate at times. This seemed to create antagonism, and maybe it did. But I wonder, was the antagonism actually already there to begin with? Why were there any attacks early on, to begin with? Was it because of his potshots at the medical profession in DMSMH? If he had abstained from those, would the overall course of events been any different?
I don’t know the answers to those kind of questions.
But to some extent, I feel you may be criticizing him for being too outspoken. Not being a “good politician”. I have to agree with that. He was not a “good politician”. But was he “too outspoken”?
Wow Maria, a lot of great research you’ve done to create a “big picture”!
Thanks for posting this! 🙂
Brian, I met folks in the early 1970s who had done the “original OT levels”, who had gone a long way towards achieving some of those EPs.
Brian, I have no problem with anyone who wants to design and apply double-blind studies to Scientology auditing and results. I say stop generalizing about it and go for it!
Why do you suppose it hasn’t been done? Or, are you sure it hasn’t been done? The CIA at one time funded research for quite awhile into paranormal abilities and used folks like Ingo Swann who had done the original OT levels.
Whose responsibility do you think it is to fund and do these kind of experiments? Talk is cheap.
Aside from the question of how do you design an objective study to measure some subjective phenomenon like exteriorization?
Yes, there are lots of studies. Interestingly enough, the results are open to interpretation, and can be explained equally well by Scientology theory as by materialistic “brain” theory. So the basic argument is not settled.
Brian, I understand everything you are saying. But it needs to be put in the context of the times, from 1948 to 1955, when the bulk of the work was done on both Dianetics and Scientology and the full meaning of these terms understood when using them.
LRH claimed it was a science. He obviously would be using a definition of science of that time period.
From The Consolidated-Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary 1954 — Science: Knowledge; comprehension or understanding; knowledge coordinated, arranged and systematized; hence the knowledge regarding any one one department of mind or matter coordinated, arranged and systematized (the science of botany, of astronomy, mental science); art derived from precepts or built on principles; skill resulting from training; special skill. — Applied science, a science when its laws are employed and exemplified in dealing with concrete phenomena, as opposed to a pure science, as mathematics, when it treas of laws or general statements apart from particular instances.
He registered Scientology as a Church in 1954. Consider the definition of spirit from The Consolidated-Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary 1954 —
Spirit: The intelligent, immaterial and immortal part of man; the soul, as distinguished from the body which it occupies; a person considered with respect to his mental or moral characteristics; the human soul after it has quitted the body; an apparition; a spectre; a ghost; a supernatural being; an angel, fairy, elf, sprite, demon, or the like; vivacity, animation, ardour, enthusiasm, courage, or the like; emotional state; mood; humour: often in the plural (to be in high or low spirits); the vital or essential part of anything; inspiring or actuating principle; essence;…[more meanings to do with things like alcohol]
When LRH released Dianetics, the Original Thesis, he stated that it was a heuristic science. Here is a description of heuristic from the 1945 text How to Solve It by G. Polya: Heuristic reasoning is reasoning not regarded as final and strict but as provisional and plausible only, whose purpose is to discover the solution of the present problem. We are often obliged to use heuristic reasoning. We shall attain complete certainty when we shall have obtained the complete solution, but before obtain certainty we must often be satisfied with a more or less plausible guess. We may need the provisional before we attain the final. We need heuristic reasoning when we construct a strict proof as we need scaffolding when we erect a building. Heuristic reasoning is often based on induction, or on analogy.
Note: Heuristics are in heavy use in computer science and have been since day one. It is very rare that double-blind studies are used in computer science, but no one would dismiss computer science as a belief system or unworthy of being called a science!
We know for sure that LRH was studying some kind of computer technology, just from the analogies he uses in Dianetics: the Evolution of a Science. That was very heuristic.
As regards the idea that religions cannot and should not be considered scientific, I beg to differ and so would the Christian Scientists, the Religious Scientists founded by Ernest Holmes, author of the Science of the Mind, and quite a large number of others, all of whom are recognized as tax-exempt religions in the United States and around the world.
Not to mention The Science of Yoga: the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali, published in 1961. Patanjali lived sometime in the 2nd century B.C.E. Yoga Sutras are very religious, very practical and definitely organized as a science. Good luck with convincing several million Hindus that their religion must be reclassified as a science because yoga is organized into disciplines or because they do not pray in Churches with ordained ministers!
Brilliant, brilliant research Maria.
And I think you may have found the “basic” on the chain — LRH’s response to the IRS revocation of the Founding Church in Washington DC in 1958 with the 1959 “Manual of Justice”.
I don’t know if you’ve read the FBI files on LRH, but the evidence in those files fully backs up your statements. At some point, a covert smear campaign began to be run on LRH in those files, in which all earlier files in his folder were effectively stamped with “quack” or “mentally unstable”. My guess is that someone in the FBI (probably at the instigation of Hoover) had done this in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
No really Valkov, I am questioning his double-standard. He can criticize and be very critical but anyone else has overts and withholds or is suppressive. That attitude, carried out as Church policy, especially on a rote and unthinking basis is exactly what most of the people on this blog are complaining about and mostly why they are here on this blog.
But, he has EVERY right to his opinion. EVERY right.
OPINION that is.
And yes, I agree, he was impolitic! But then almost every private organization in the world was guilty of doing this sort of thing because they did not have to worry that their words and actions, taken in private would be published on the Internet. They are ALL scrambling to deal with the impact of multiple viewpoints and instant online publishing. I mean, consider wikileaks and its impact! Wow!
Thanks Joe. I think the film, The Master, brilliantly illustrates my point. There is a scene where Laura Dern’s character questions Lancaster Dodd on why he changed a process from ‘visualize’ to ‘imagine’. Dodd suddenly exploded with indignation at being asked such a question. The film I believe captured the early days of the Dianetics movement brilliantly. You clearly see Dodd’s character shift to authoritarianism.
Brian,
Have you ever made an effort to study what Scientology OTs, Pat Price and Ingo Swann, were able to do under controlled scientific conditions? Have you read any of Hal Puthoff’s and Russell Targ’s books or papers (“Mind Reach” comes to mind)?
When Ingo Swann started on the research path in the late 1960s (RIP, by the way, he just passed away Feb. 1. 2013), he had no idea the control he had with the ability to exteriorize and perceive the environment. When asked publicly, twice, in the 1970s whether he felt the Grades and OT levels affected these abilities, he placed them squarely as a result of auditing the Grades, Power Processing and the OT levels.
(“Advance!” magazine #21 in 1973 and #53 in 1978 — if anyone wants the exact quotes, let me know.)
Paul, I think Marty used the word “entrapment” because the proper opposite(antonym) of the word “freedom” is not “slavery”, it is “entrapment”.
Thanks for mentioning the reference on “Authoritarian personality”. You say “red volum 51”, Where can I find this reference now?
Bravo Maria!!!
We are applying the tech. The “bring to understanding” tech. The “two way comm” tech. The “communication is your pay for living” tech. The “qual” tech. I don’t want to “forget”, that is not a purpose of mine. My items are not a load of crap. We matter. We want to KNOW more. I want to “LOOK”. We ARE taking responsibility by understanding and knowing.
Christine, seems to me this is more or less the same argument as “does structure monitor function, or vice versa”?
Even if the brain shows neurons firing when someone is exterior, that does not mean the firing neurons CAUSE the “feeling” of being exterior.
Point being, I think I agree with you. I’m sure that if you hooked someone up to an oscilloscope and then audited them to an F/N, there would be a change in brain wave patterns. But that does not mean the brain wave pattern change caused the F/N – The person being audited changed his or her thinking, had a cognition, blew some mass – which resulted in the change of brain wave pattern.
The scientist tends to think otherwise – “if we could just figure out how to control the brain wave, we could just hook someone up to a machine or give them a shot or pill and make them feel better”.
The problem scientists, reporters and “journalists” have is they just can’t get their arms around the idea that the real solver of problems is something other than physical universe mass or energy.
I think it’s Axiom 51 that summarizes all this.
Yes, haydn, you’re pointing in the right direction. Rhodesia, FBI raids, etc. as very well documented by Maria in her post below, and in a lot of other posts too.
But “they did this to me, I’m/we’re going to do that to them” doesn’t give the full picture yet. The Fair Game policy, for instance, from the same time spà is an interesting one – the “he who rejects the group rejects everything about that group” or such – can you think with that one? I can’t. Especially when I look at it through the NOTs Tech magnifying glass.
I’d need to play with it a bit to get the concept. Does that mean that when Hubbard was rejected from Rhodesia he felt not only himself was rejected but all he had to offer? Does that mean that when the press and media did reject him they, and society as a whole, did reject all his work, Scientology, the research and discoveries et al?
Martin wrote in his post: “…I spit. DO they [Org] think a society in this shape will approve Scientology into power? Hell no! And to hell with this society. We’re making a new one..” (HCO PL 26 May 1961 Quality Counts)
Some pc would spit out an item like that I’d be looking for THE ARC break area in my program. Thus my opinion is that at the basis of all the tribulations and changes in the 60es and afterwards there is a huge ARCbreak. A friend and old timer who knew Hubbard well told me Hubbard was somehow bitter because of non recognition of his huge work. He wasn’t acknowledged for what he did during his lifetime by society and especially by guys working in the field of the mind, psyche, philosophy. Was that where he failed?
The only thing I disagree, haydn, is your statement here : Then he thinks OTIII is it, all the trouble is handled with OT3. Then we have OTIII expanded but that’s not it either. … Etc. Up to NOTs. Well, no – OT III IS it. III is the last level of so called “negative gain”, next levels are adressing the positive. The Final barrier to OT. Nots is a corrective action for OT IIIs, and while there might be reasons why to CS someone for IIIX, nowadays it’s rather handled on NOTs. One could say NOTs or rather Solo Nots does the job of OTIIIX. And OTIII and Nots are nearly light years apart as to their target and function as well.
OT III is a marvel on its own. It is the answer to every quest for Truth any Great Thinkers on Earth ever had. Thus, in the context described in this thread, ARC broken, rejecting the society per the above and not wanting it to have that jewel and the fruit of his work – what would Hubbard do?
Well, I guess he would make sure the society would NOT have it. It’s only for Scientologists, exlusively. OTs do better amongst OTs right? Would you go and give a lecture about the Tech in a school or University? Sooner or later you’d have a question about III, especially now that’s all around the net, then you could for sure talk about some methaphore etc.
So OTIII landed as an UFO in the middle of the Bridge and the Tech. And Hubbard carefully coded the level, it’s a real beauty. He used his Sea Org project to test the items. Here he puts the cans in the hands of a staff “are you a Loyal Officer?” LFBD, indicated and he got his items. Dartsmothe, pen name, while himself clueless, writes on ESMB how Hubbard tested some incidents on him.
One I find cute – there is this ultimate guy impersonating Evil, his group is the Renegates. Opposite we got the Loyal Officers, but wait… Who is the Head of the good guys, huh? You can fill in the blank space, lol. The write up is so nicel, using the best of the GPM tech, geared to get the Sea Org cog.
It could have been different. There is no need to perpetuate this ARC break nowadays, An ARC break causes individuation, then overt-motivator sequences occur, this is the root of this silly disconnection policy. Those in charge (lol) of the Tech and of the subject shouldn’t confuse beîng three feet behind society’s head with individuation – those are completely different levels of operation.
Yep, how much of an entrapment is it? It isn’t, as long as one gets the Truth.
[Third attempt to post this. Hope it goes through this time, and that it isn’t a duplicate/triplicate.]
INGO SWANN (1933 – 2013)
For those who missed it, Ingo Swann passed away on February 1, 2013.
He was 79.
Ingo Swann is generally considered the “father of remote viewing” (aka exteriorization) and he wrote several books on the subject. He was also a big name in US government-funded paranormal/psi research through the 1970s and 1980s. He was also a Scientology OT.
Some details of Ingo’s life can be found here: http://www.rviewer.com/IngoSwann_encyclopedia.html
His website can be found here: http://biomindsuperpowers.com/
Though unmentioned in most biographies of Ingo Swann (such as the one above and in his wikipedia article today) was his prominence in the world of Scientology in the 1970s. He had done the OT levels and had completed the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course (SHSBC) making him a Class VI auditor.
He also authored and presented a paper titled “Scientological Techniques: A Modern Paradigm for the Exploration of Consciousness and Psychic Integtration” at the “First Conference on Psychotronic Research” in Prague in 1973 on behalf of the Church of Scientology. (The proceedings were published on 6-Sep-1974 and can be found online at ntis.gov.)
Ingo gave credit for his control of his psychic [OT] abilities to both the Scientology Grades and the OT levels in two articles in Scientology’s “Advance!” magazine in the 1970s.
From “Advance!” issue 21 (Oct/Nov 1973, UK edition, published by the Church of Scientology):
ADVANCE!: “How did these [psychic] abilities develop with relationship to your auditing on the [Scientology] OT Levels?”
INGO SWANN: “They are solely the result of auditing. Not particularly even the OT Levels. I had extremely good gains from the lower grades. And some had developed certainly by the time [Scientology] Power Processing took place. But steady good control over them, the control I have now — which is not perfect by the way — occurred after the completion of OT III Expanded, and is even better than ever now that I have finished OT VII. So they are solely the result of auditing.”
(In the introduction to the interview, it states that he started in Scientology in 1966.)
—
From “Advance!” issue 44 (Jan/Feb 1977, US edition), Ingo Swann was a member of a five-person panel — an “OT Symposium” — discussing, among other things, his involvement in the scientific testing of paranormal/psi abilities at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) [with Pat Price, Hal Puthoff (two other Scientology OTs), Uri Geller, Russel Targ and several others] in Menlo Park, CA.
—
From “Advance!” issue #53 (Jul/Aug 1978, US edition):
ADVANCE!: “How did your psychic abilities develop in relationship to your auditing on the [Scientology] Advanced Courses?”
INGO SWANN: “They are totally the result of auditing. The point of going Clear and attaining the OT Sections is to rid oneself of reactivity and to enable one to confront life better, more completely, more productively. And I view psychic abilities as only a part of that.”
(Ingo apparently left the Church of Scientology in the early 1980s with the mass exodus of long-time Scientologists at that time, and was quoted in a May 1984 newsletter from David Mayo’s Advanced Ability Center in Santa Barbara regarding the fact that Ingo was taking services there; Ingo had earlier mentioned in the 1978 Advance! article above that he was looking forward to doing New Era Dianetics for OTs [NOTs] in the Church of Scientology.) (The newsletter was at one time available online at freezoneamerica.org; unsure if it is still there.)
In 1994, once the US government had declassified much of their paranormal/psi research through the 1970s and 80s, Ingo began publishing an online history of his involvement in SRI and the government research.
The whole history is very fascinating and one can find it at online at:
http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/2.html (for the early years)
The history of the later years can be found in books/papers by both Ingo and Hal Puthoff and others.
With regard to Ingo’s involvement with Scientology and his opinion of the difference between the subject and the organization, he stated this in 1996 on his website:
“What mattered to me, as in all things I’ve studied, was what I got from Hubbard’s ideas, concepts and theories — and which was considerable, and none of which I’m ashamed of or regret in anyway.
“The story of what I got, and the evolving, complicated story of Mr. Hubbard’s organizations are two different matters. People who want to learn and know more always have to labor to separate the wheat from the chaff — while throwing the baby out with the bathwater gets one nowhere.”
(Source: http://www.biomindsuperpowers.com/Pages/RealStoryCh24.html )
—
Fly in peace, Ingo.
You just reminded me of “Source Nights” – you’ve been on post 24/7 reading or cramming LRH or getting others to do same – then along comes Saturday night when you crave doing something – cinema, skating, marbles, washing your hair, ANYTHING that isn’t LRH, and waddya get? Source Night – yippe!
Well said, especially about people who have left the RTC not expanding out on friends and activities and studies. I have been out since 1986 and audited every year since then, while doing many things and making many friends, I recommend it.. I had many friends who joined the Sea Org…and while I know you think it not part of the problem, I feel the SO enabled all that went wrong from any errors of LRH. I spent several stints as staff (Dissem, Div6, Tech and Qual) which I do not regret.
The tech should free you to get above think-think figure-figure and find what is true for you. But in the end a man or a woman (read that as Thetan) in this universe needs to realize and learn exactly what are the laws of the 8 Dynamics and much like Objectives gets you back into agreement with the MEST Universe, allow that one cannot violate the agreements made on those Dynamics till one has gone back into agreement with them. Live on all Dynamics and never pit one against the others. That is OT in this Universe.
LRH said that Scientology was the one Solution that should run itself out…so that this solution does not become the next problem. How many here, and elsewhere have tried to apply that I wonder.
In “The Responsibilities Of Leaders” he addresses his concerns on freedom: Perhaps he felt he had to create these fights to keep people sane. At least himself.
“Unless there is something to free men INTO, the act of freeing is simply a protest of slavery. And as no humanoid is free while aberrated in the body cycle, it is of course a gesture to free him politically as it frees him only into the anarchy of dramatizing his aberrations with no control whatever and without something to fight exterior. And with no exteriorization of his interest, he simply goes mad noisily or quietly.”
That explains a lot. I really didn’t get were he was coming from on that. I just took as an origination from him. It wasn’t real to me . Except to notice that once people are freed they tend to want to fight. Against suppression given enough freedom to fight against it It sounds like a warning against freeing people.
In “Rewards and Penalties” he also writes: “We are not an earth-wide amends project. No good worker owes his work. That’s slavery.”
Try walking through the Flag Land Base now as a “consumer Scientologist” where the staff are not even permitted to chit chat with public and feel the animosity because you OWE something. Every donation is obtained from this point of view.
Funny, because of all of the donations it has taken, David has turned the Church of Scientology into an Organization that really does it’s owe it’s help at this time. It owes it’s members everything it has promised in exchange for those donations. That is why I have said the Church is insolvent.
Yes Gayle, very well said. My perspective is very similar to yours.
Well I’m glad I missed all that – all the double standard stuff. Maybe not getting up the Bridge has, for me, that plus side.
But I always thought when he talked about o/ws he was talking about himself as much as anyone else. Who could he possibly think he was fooling? But to establish organizations I guess I think “do as I say not as I do” is inevitable. It’s part of the game. It certainly was in my family, for instance. I think, if anything, LRH erred on the side of not censoring his words enough. It’s a schizy world in which people act schizy, knowingly or unknowingly, but they do.
III is the last level of so called “negative gain”, next levels are adressing the positive That statement is plain false.
This is true enough, but “guilt by association” was in play,and anyone associated with LRH would be tarred with the same brush. I mean, that was the age of the McCarty hearing etc. I think LRH may have thrown people under the bus as a misdirection to stay on the “right side” of that whole scene. All actual drawbacks of communist theory and practice aside.
Or better yet, you can do a course on remote viewing based on the original training materials developed for the U.S. Military by Ingo Swann and Carl Puthoff.
From the website that offers the training:
RVIS, Inc. provides the most comprehensive remote viewing training available today. While on active duty as one of the longest-serving intelligence officers in the Star Gate remote viewing program, RVIS’s Chief Instructor and CEO, Dr. Paul H. Smith, was personally taught controlled remote viewing by the legendary Ingo Swann and Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D., the originators of remote viewing. Read Paul’s credentials. Our remote viewing training is skills-based, multisensory, and individualized. We reject the “assembly-line” approach of our competition and focus on small, intimate classes with intensive, yet friendly instruction. http://www.rviewer.com/index.html
Bottom line: The military long ago established that remote viewing was viable and went ahead and trained people on how to do it.
So that is at least one element of exteriorization that has been tested, charted and put into training materials.
You would be surprised at what the military has been working on! While everyone else was sneering at the materials to do with the potentialities of the mind and spirit, they were busy getting down to brass tacks.
You might also like their mind to mind helmets.
LOL! What is weird is that you have come up with a phrase I heard a LOT when I was growing up in the 1950s, and here it is… drumroll.. fanfare… DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO. I am not kidding. Word for word! Just about every parent I knew from that time period knew that phrase!!! And acted on it too!
I don’t know if you’ve read the letters LRH sent to FBI,but “appears mental” fits perfectly
+10
Thank you Gayle.
+1
There is no way that Spiritual Enlightenment and ABUSE go together.
It is a pretense to call it a “Bridge” to advancement while GREED for the public’s $$$$$$$ supersedes all.
Talking about PRETENSEm Buzz feed shows some rip off from Steve Job’s AD in the Scientology INC “Knowledge” ad
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/scientology-super-bowl-ad-sounds-very-familiar
Yes, we are responsible for our conditions. Each of us who were members of the church bear some (if not all) responsibility to what happened with the church.
Ack!
That does not excuse the actions of David Miscavige. And, frankly, is really okay to be pissed at the jerk.
While we are all feeling culpable and bad for letting the church go bad, the church is still bad. DM is still doing what he is doing. The church is still creating nightmare after nightmare.
it is all very well and good for you to basically say “we pulled it in,” but that does not excuse disconnection, forced abortion, “The Hole,” physical violence, rip-offs, squirreling in the church… shall I go on? Those as commit the overt are responsible for the overt.
Sure, part of the solution is to “Just get on with it.” That truly is part of the solution.
However, The Free Zone, various indies, various others have been “just getting on with it” for over thirty years. To what end? Is Scientology really better off today because of that?
No. The subject of Scientology is at an all-time low as far as public acceptance, number of products delivered, etc. There are less people calling themselves Scientologists now than there were ten years ago.
I’ll tell you what has been getting TA with the church and with the name of Scientology: Scientologists taking responsibility for the church and exposing the crimes, ruthlessly. And delivering Scientology. It is a two-pronged attack.
But, just delivering alone will not do it. Exposing must be added to this.
And, we need to understand and evaluate in ourselves exactly what happened that allowed us to accept this downward spiral of the church.
Marty’s posts of the last few weeks have been getting TA among Scientologists – to the point of rifts and arguments (as I understand it). “Marty’s not with Ron!” “KSW is the devil!” “Ron is a liar!” “Ron is a Saint!”
“KSW is Sacrosanct!”
Great! We need to confront what is, not what we want things to be. We need to truly confront the fact that just the fact that we are posting here, in a public forum, our disagreements and issues with Scientology means we are committing High Crimes against Scientology, according to LRH.
We also need to confront the fact that by delivering Scientology outside the structure of the church we are committing high crimes against Scientology, according to LRH.
Therefore, I don’t care how much you love Standard Tech and KSW, you’ve blown it. You have rejected standard LRH. You can’t tell me you follow KSW or Standard Tech or are “with Ron” and in the next breath tell me you are an Indie. You have already told me you reject something. And you have to some degree rejected LRH. The question is, what have you rejected, and how much?
We are all in this boat. Some are next to it treading water and trying not to drown. Some are wishing the boat didn’t need to exist. And some are trying to sail it into the future.
Now, you and I are close on this one. I am not blaming Ron or DM. I think the difference is that the tech will be a lot better served if we expose the crimes, confront the backlash, and do this while delivering.
Mark Patterson
Read ” The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout and you will discover that a major indicator of a Sociopath is that you OWE them. Even when circumstances do not warrant it (FLAG)
Thank you Ulf, but really it is Margaret who is working on a factual biography and her research into LRHs career in the Navy is incredibly thorough – I am looking forward to her publication. And Marty too is working on this, but likely from a different perspective. I know that they both read this blog and I hope that what I am posting will aid their efforts as I am confident that they will both come from a balanced point of view.
It really amazes me the wide difference experienced by people who went on staff. Some got no auditing or training, some got lots.
When I went on staff at Toronto Org in 1970, just as soon as one was hatted and done with Staff Statuses…all went onto Tech training.
All got auditing, and it stayed that way till I left. Never knew it as otherwise.
When at ST Hill all there (still early 1970s all (here I was public) were getting training and auditing…lots of it.
Later 1973-74+ at St. Louis Org, some auditing and training occuring when I first went on staff, and from the time I got to being DTS, then D/Tech Sec there was very little resistance to when I put in a lot more staff tech training and loads of auditing.
Later though while at other orgs, such as ASHO and AOLA, Denver, Columbus and cinccy and vsiting off and on at chicago orgs from 1975 thru 1986 I saw very little of this. Shitty wages and long hours are not enough when you ask a being to salvage theta.
The exchange went out big time. No matter what one does in life there has to be exchange of some sort. To do more than an assist or Ruds for free on someone is to commit an overt of out exchange if there is no agreed upon and committed exchange. Orgs, auditors, PCs all need to keep exchange in.
It’s a gradient of responsibility.
I have not read the files — its good to have verification! Yes, LRH came under the gun early on — my guess is that urging people to not vote for Nixon had something to to with that!
This is just my opinion. Feel free to reject any or all of it.
It seems to me there were two LRHs, the one prior to the KSW era and the one that comes after. And I’ve asked myself, “Why would LRH morph from the guy who was collaborative to the guy that had to be the most important guy on the planet?”
In the early lectures and written material, it seemed to me that LRH was right in the fray working with other groups of auditors and like-folks interested in Dianetics and Scientology. You know, he seemed more like “one of us”, a man of the people.
Then later, he mocks himself up as the “one and only discoverer”, wrote PLs such as KSW, created the ethics and justice framework, GO really gets going, and such… IMO, he may have considered himself a multi-lifetime provider of the means for escaping planet earth. Mocking up the Sea Org was just another step in forwarding his own purpose.
I think the purpose of Scientology as a group changes in the mid-60s from “Let’s work together to free each other” to “Let’s remake the planet in Scientology’s image” (with the caveat that LRH was the supreme dictator of the group and the image to be created was his vision alone). For me, this is where it goes off the rails.
Pure speculation: Did some person or group try to take Scientology / Dianetics away from LRH in the mid-60s?
How else can one explain such a shift away from the basic purpose of helping each other to go free?
I think Scientology spreads the best when it is used in life and in context. The original purpose was the best one.
Really glad you posted this. Just finished that lecture last week. What it says and your comments are CORRECT. That lecture series deeply tells you how to salvage those who were not even allowed to become a piece of the game, as well as salvaging the pieces and the players. Highly recommened, and make sure you word clear and demo as you go thru it. worth the listen and reading of the transcript…then the rest of that lecture series after that.
go for it!
Good post Trey. This shows the sanity I have always come to see from you. Well done! And thanks to Marty for getting this discussion going, another well done.
All right. Perhaps I had in mind parts of Orignal V and Vi only and then wrote about it usiing something I heard before having access to those levels. I’ll inspect that. So much for careless driving.
That wasn’t the point I was making. Whereas any practice in the field pf the mind Man endulges in is covered in lower levels and although some drills/processes found on levels above III (and Original IV) can be found in some disicplines, shades of them, III is unique. It’s Hubbard’s baby. As he says correctly many have attempted to crack that area, unsuccessfully.
The way he positionned it and used it for his movement is very important. I might not have explained it correctly and more could be said, but you know, overworked, little leisure time to go on the net, write, re-read my post etc.
There are many reasons one might feel “trapped”. You can feel trapped by marriage, a job, your car, your shoes, your location on the map, your own mind, a group you belong to, waiting in line at the post office.
Great many comments in this tread have touched upon the crude reality of survival. All valid of course but, something that would not be entrapping if time where really considered arbitrarily.
ML/A
You got me curious with your remark, Marty. I had to check as it was last century, some time ago. When doing Original V and Vi, with earlier levels fully in, especially III, I or guys I know hd nothing but positive gain, per positive processing in tech dict. Whatever, it’s off topic here.
Very well said Maria. And slightly off topic Ulf but I could not help but notice on the back page of the most recent Freewinds Magazine that a full multi book set of LRH’s biography is being offered. No price ….. contact your registrar for the full fledged fleecing. It sort of looked like it was an assemblage of the Ron Mags of old.
Entrapment:
It is not in the nature of the philosophy as I have ever understood it. I have never felt entrapped by the information, but only felt freed by it. I have also not felt compelled to force myself to agree or follow that which isn’t true for me, even before reading Scientology. The reason I chose this philosophy over others is because I didn’t feel like I had to follow a bunch of rules about living my life: dressing a certain way, eating or not eating certain foods, or monitoring my behavior to align with someone else’s version of right and wrong. I just wanted to experience more as a spiritual being, not a body.
However, if I view the organization as a separate entity, and define entrapment by being boxed by group think or by the command of a dictator, then in that sense Scientology has always involved a certain degree of mental entrapment, if one followed the rules of the game. It has also been a legal entrapment for those who fight the game. It is the policies of ‘justice’ which not only allow for revenge against individuals but promote attacking others for what they say, which I consider to be entrapping, rather than freeing. Fighting for the legal right to practice the religion is one thing, but covert aggression against the critics is quite another kettle of fish. Yet, this is considered to be ‘fighting back’ and anything under that agenda is okay. In fact, in Scientology, not fighting back is considered apathetic or simply wrong. Turn the other cheek is not ever a strategy. But, if any individual Scientologist ‘pulled in’ a bunch of negative actions and became a victim, he/she would be told that “you are pulling in motivators”. The overt/motivator sequence somehow does not apply to the church, and never has. It has, from day one, been using the persecuted religion card to justify any action against others in the name of freedom for all. You can’t act in an anti-social manner and expect that you are freeing anyone. Those who committ overts against their fellow human being ‘for the greatest good’ need to reexamine what the greatest good really means. I have observed that greatest good, means good for Scientology only. Ron says to never defend and to always fight back. Yet, all the church has ever done is defend by showing how individuals, the government, the media et al have been picking on it unfairly. Would this justification/explanation fly for an individual in an ethics interview or in session? “What have YOU done to…” would be the million dollar question directed to the person who was the recipient of any attacks. Do as I say, not as I do, is closer to the organizational mantra. Creating strategic plans to ruin indvidiuals reputations, jobs, family and so on is suppressive. Threatening Phone calls and verbal degrades are not in the high band of the tone scale. Ron, (tongue in cheek) says that anyone below 2.0 should be shot and the planet would rise in tone level (paraphrase). Well, the activities that have been normal for the church since its inception have been lies and threats regarding enemies. Again, an indvidual Scientologist who was guilty of the above would be kicked out and (correctly) viewed as anti-social.
The justice rules Scientologist are supposed to follow are quesitonable-or should be, if questioning was allowed. The action of talking to a person who is deemed suppressive or is somehow ‘in bad’ with Scientology is a crime but it is ridiculous and thought stopping. If we can’t use the pts/sp data based on our own judgement then to that degree we agree to be entrapped by organizational command. Finally, there is iron clad group think regarding the mental health industry, education, politics, professions, and other practices. These ideas, from what I can tell, all come from LRH’s comments which are duplicated or sometimes misduplicated by Scientologist who adopt anything which LRH has said as their own opinion.
I would say that there is an entrapment side to Scientology. It begins and ends with the rules and the group think both explicit and implicit(and often hypocritical), which surround the philosophy. I think that this has always been a part of organization as Ron had no intention of making it a democracy. However, the group think has gotten more solid because now there is a person running it who has HIS OWN IDEAS OF WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN ALL MATTERS OF SCIENTOLOGY AND LIFE, and those still in the church who adopted LRH’s views have now assimilated DM’s views.
The driving force of life may be ‘SURVIVE !’, but the driving force of Scientology is ‘AGREE !’ which is the twin brother of ‘OBEY’, and we all know that is NOT what we signed up to do.
Hi Marty, for the spanish comunity I put my blog back most for spanish people, but today I put a short story regarding Taiwan.
http://www.cristianlandivar.wordpress.com
My humble opinion is that this entrapment centers on three things.
1. The language. You still see vestigial language on this blog, though not nearly as much as if you watch event videos, or graduations, or read church promo. The language is isolating, and so often, it’s entirely unnecessary. Scientologese serves to isolate Scientologists from the world around them. I bet you most Scientologists would not have a way to honestly explain their beliefs to someone who was interested, without totally confusing that person with a series of acronyms, strange portmanteaus, or words used in ways that don’t match a normal usage. You see this same kind of isolating language in evangelical Christianity, too. I grew up in an evangelical Christian home and we’d use words and phrases that an outsider would be confused by. I imagine it’s 50 times worse for Scientology. For example, the technical dictionary is unintelligible for someone who has not been in the church or who has not studied the church intensely. When you isolate yourself by creating an unnecessary language, you create an insular culture. And that breeds that “entrapment.” Nobody else understands the world the way I do, because nobody describes it the way I do- nobody has anything to offer, because only LRH and church doctrine speak the way I speak.
2. The “church.” Scientology becoming a “church,” something it is not, was a big factor I think. Why not just stay a self-help group, or a group that teaches you tools for your life? Why try to take on the garb of a religion? LRH and church leaders should’ve realized that this comes with all the baggage of being a religon- dogma, most of all, and dogma is entrapment. Furthermore, the “church” concept is completely deceptive. Scientology insists on aping the Catholic church publicly- by insisting that the Sea Org is like a monastic order, or that there is “priest-penitent” privilege, or by talking about ministers… clergy… Sunday service… why keep aping all of these words and concepts? Scientology has little in common with Christianity or the Catholic church, and that’s fine! That’s not a bad thing. So why take on the deception? Be true to yourself. A lie causes entrapment and an insular way of thinking. Why try to become something you are not (and should not be)?
3. The force. I see plenty of comments already explaining that the formation of the Sea Org (a paramilitary group) is a factor, as is the steely-eyed KSW material. That goes without saying- the introduction of all these factors breeds entrapment. Forcing people to change their lives just leads to dogma and is the exact opposite of a way to enlightenment.
If you watch DM at the LRH death announcement event, I think you see everything you need to see… a little man in his bossy, forceful paramilitary uniform, up telling blatant lies in Scientologese on a stage to protect “church” dogma. That is the living embodiment of the entrapment right there.
What you say is perfect to entrap someone – to tell someone who has been defrauded that he chose to be effect, and therefore should not complain.
You cannot remove the responsibility and accountability of people for their evil deeds claiming it is our choice to be effects to them. It does not work that way.
First, I don’t believe we are trapped. We are in a game, not a trap. I enjoy life and have no desire to escape it.
Second, in that game we cannot be total cause as you pretend. We have to balance cause and effect to play well this life game. We agreed to grant others certain responsibilities, and be both cause and effect of Laws and government, friends, spouse — all our dynamics.
There is nothing wrong in letting someone to be cause over you and there is nothing wrong in having people accountable for their actions.
Total cause is for someone who doesn’t want to play, as it is total effect. Life is in between.
“Try walking through the Flag Land Base now as a “consumer Scientologist” where the staff are not even permitted to chit chat with public and feel the animosity because you OWE something. Every donation is obtained from this point of view.”
Corporate Scientologists are automatons in a state of forced happiness locked together by an invisible chain of slavery.
Gotcha. I thought you were referring to the III through NOTS band.
Bingo!
Ingo Swann also authored and presented a paper titled “Scientological Techniques: A Modern Paradigm for the Exploration of Consciousness and Psychic Integtration” at the “First Conference on Psychotronic Research” in Prague in 1973 on behalf of the Church of Scientology. (The proceedings were published on 6-Sept-1974 and can be found online at ntis.gov.)
I’ve read them Swenon. Hubbard sent the list of “communists” in the organization at the request of the FBI. It’s then portrayed today (by Hubbard’s critics) as though Hubbard had originated the list, as though he was paranoid or some-such. Very easy to label someone as “appears mental” when you leave out important details like that (or the fact that he submitted himself to psychological testing, and passed easily, shortly after the “appears mental” rumor started with his ex-wife Betty/Sara in 1951).
It was a smear campaign.
Important note: Around the time of this lecture, only auditors were considered Scientologists. PCs and staff members were not.
What a great point Grasshopper. This context and differentiation is so completely lost by most (and even by the CoS circa 1980s), I’m really glad you brought it up.
A 3rd Person Perspective.
A problem inherent in most religions is that there is typically a large amount of scripture that’s been written over an extended period time. The natural result is that some of it will seem to contradict something that was mentioned earlier. Even though I haven’t read a lot of what LRH wrote, I’ve seen contradictions. A perfect example, is something he said about ensuring that the new recruit is fully in, rather than sitting on the fence so to speak.
This has served Miscavige well, as he can pick & choose the quotes that seem to provide him with some creditability. Even in the video of Tom Cruise, he talks about either your on board or your not on board, giving the impression that there is only one way to practice or apply this philosophy.
That’s what’s causing some of the biggest problem in your religion. Miscavige has made it clear, there is only one way to be a scientologist, that’s his way. While this approach has proved to make Miscavige extremely powerful, it has weakened your faith as a whole.
Just imagine if you were allowed to practice Scientology as you perceive it & as you want. You guys would be so much more powerful & effective than you are now. By causing huge divides within your church, Miscavige has reduced Scientology’s ability to expand. The more people you have to demonstrate what Scientology is & what a scientologist is like, the more appealing it would be, because there would be more diversity, more options, that will appeal to a wider variety of people.
Simply put, Miscavige’s strategy strengthened his power, however it was at the expense of Scientology as a whole. He’s divided you guys to the point where the resouces you have (ie people & money) are being used to fight each other rather spread the word of Scientology. The longer this fight goes on, the less likely you are to grow as a church & time is running out. With all the negative attention Miscavige has caused, eventually it will be too late because the ‘brand’ of corp. Scientology will be too soiled to revived.
I enjoyed reading this sentence written by Maria: “In a few short sentences he (LRH) dismisses thousands of years of philosophical works and vilifies the intentions of all other thinkers or leaders. It is quite a challenge for anyone who is not a part of the movement to listen to appreciatively, fighting words for those he offends and an alarming mistreatment of truth to free thinkers and scholars both. You can bet no one in his organization or in his lecture hall took him to task for his obvious exaggerations. ……It is my observation that there have been philosophies that did not at once demand subservience and subjugation. “
I have seen the same phenomenon at work in other new religious movement. The founder is so thrilled to have discovered a new path to truth that the first enthusiasm among the disciples is soon followed by criticism of other paths. A “holier than thou” attitude soon becomes the norm. What was once awe in front of the discovery gets replaced by arrogance. As arrogance gets institutionalized, ignorance settles it. There are indeed, as Maria points out, philosophies (and religions) that did not at once demand subservience and subjugation. The first that come to mind are Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, although there Hindu fundamentalists who are rather intolerant. Also Ahimsa, which is not a religion per se, but a set of universal principles that have been incorporated into Jainism, Buddhism and Jainism. Ahimsa means kindness and non-violence towards all living things including animals; it respects living beings as a unity, the belief that all living things are connected Avoidance of verbal and physical violence is also a part of this principle, although ahimsa recognizes self-defense when necessary, as a sign of a strong spirit. It is closely connected with the notion that all kinds of violence entail negative karmic consequences. Ahimsa refrain from criticism and speak up only if they are actively threatened and only to defend themselves, not to harm the other party. Mahatma Gandhi was a follower of Ahimsa. Ahimsa principles are also incorporated in other religions. In Jainism, the understanding and implementation of ahimsa is more radical, scrupulous, and comprehensive than in any other religion.[4] Non-violence is seen as the most essential religious duty for everyone (ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ, a statement often inscribed on Jain temples).[5] Like in Hinduism, the aim is to prevent the accumulation of harmful karma.
Interestingly, all these religions have precepts, which one can also see, depending how one look at them, as entrapments if they applied to the extreme. Here are 8 Buddhist princinples, the “strong” version of Buddhism for those for whom the traditional 5 precepts are not enough. The Buddha himself gave these 8 precepts, as well as instructions on how to practice them. Some implementation terms are pretty extreme:
For example, precept #1 means that Jains cant go out at night for fear to kill an insect that they may not be able to see.
1. I undertake to abstain from causing harm and taking life (both human and non-human).
2. I undertake to abstain from taking what is not given (for example stealing, displacements that may cause misunderstandings).
3. I undertake to abstain from sexual activity.
4. I undertake to abstain from wrong speech: telling lies, deceiving others, manipulating others, using hurtful words.
5. I undertake to abstain from using intoxicating drinks and drugs, which lead to carelessness.
6. I undertake to abstain from eating at the wrong time (the right time is after sunrise, before noon).
7. I undertake to abstain from singing, dancing, playing music, attending entertainment performances, wearing perfume, and using cosmetics and garlands (decorative accessories).
8. I undertake to abstain from luxurious places for sitting or sleeping, and overindulging in sleep.
So do all religions enable entrapment? It looks like every religion has one or several “light” versions, and one or several “rigid”, “fundamentalist” versions. Then its up to the individual to choose whether they want the decaffeinated version or the caffeinated version.
Some people will feel free in the “rigid” version. Others will feel constrained even in the “light” version.” Because all religions, at least to my knowledge, have the potential to be practiced in an extreme, totalitarian manner, my view is that it is important to never been constrained in one.
I like this sentence from Mahatma Gandhi, who was a deeply religious man: “God does not have a religion.” By that, I understand he meant that no religion should be seen as having the exclusivity of self-realization and access to God.
Extreme dedication not to a religion, but to the pursuit of truth may be the best way to harmoniously lead a life spiritually fulfilled, void of entrapment and conflict.
In Scientology Inc’s Sea Org which is what my above post referred to ~~~you do not feel trapped by marriage or your shoes.
You feel trapped because of abusive punishment, constant threats, domination, insinuations of an RPF assignment, mind numbing sec checks,
no contact with outside world, no annual leave, rarely if ever a day off, sleep deprivation, and a lot more.
Chris Mann have you ever experienced the Sea Org or the RPF ?
Yup, basically hardcover versions of the Ron Mags. Lots of pictures, little objectivity, no citations/references.
Phil Spickler on the subject at hand…
Yes, and the Tax Code that disallowed religious leaders from formally taking political positions had just gone into effect recently, in 1954 or 55.
I read it. All the others also available on the subject. “The Sociopath Test” even had a thread of the Church of Scientology in it! Valuable information in these books. Thanks again to Marty for the recommended reading!
Hoo-yah!
There were a lot more than two! There was Ron the photographer, Ron the writer, Ron the Mariner, Ron the executive, Ron the husbands, Ron the magician, Ron the hustler, Ron the poet, Ron the C/S, Ron the intelligence spy, Ron the sailor, Ron the yacht salesman, Ron the explorer, Ron the Don Juan, Ron the father, Ron the auditor, Ron the American, Ron the citizen, Ron the millionaire, Ron the defendent, Ron the judge, Ron the co conspirator, Ron the researcher, etc. etc. etc. So, he viewed life from many different angles and I can understand why he contradicted himself sometimes. And I could probably say that about anyone living on this planet. It’s wardrobe department for thetans.
Talk about insightful posts! Your double bind examples are spot on! I agree that openness, frankness and intelligence wins the day. I find this pooling of knowledge and free discussion to be extremely beneficial. I really appreciate that people have taken the time to deeply consider various aspects and offer them on this blog.
Well, we can pick and choose now which knowledge we purchased, what we would like to keep,and what we would like to toss out. That is your right whenever you purchase anything. This thing slid into a grey area with “orders”. And “commands” when actually it was just a store. Yes, a store where you could purchase knowledge and ideas. That is all it has ever been. As with any other purchases one is free to sort through it, arrange it, live with it or not as one decides. I prefer the original store policies when people were regarded as customers:
SERVICE 29 Oct 1959
” We will win if we ARE Scientology, not a lot of
isolated groups.
The watchword is SERVICE.
I don’t care how many rules you break if they’re
broken to give unselfish service to one another and
the public. We live for service not for rules.”
FIRST POLICY ( march 1950)
“MAINTAIN FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT
AND THE PUBLIC”
SENIOR POLICY 21 nov 1968 issue I
” We always deliver what we promise.”
Thanks Chris! I try to keep up with this blog and post but its really a matter of how much time I have available.I am pleased that I have had a bit more time this last month
Well, Christianity does require some belief in a few things…..
Jewel – Wow!! GREAT post!!!! Really hit the nail on the head.
You don’t understand sec check questions. Sec check questions are not a reverse moral code – as in if the question is on a sec check, then the converse must be moral. It is not a crime to have “unkind thoughts toward LRH”. Actually “unkind thoughts” are not overts of any kind.
Sec check Qs are what the PC might think is a transgression and do not reflect in the least what the moral code of Scn is.
Read up on OW theory. Right before the sec checks there are a number of HCOBs and tapes that explain it.
ExScnDude – this is THE key question for me in the history of Scientology and really, we can only speculate on it. My best guess is that at some point before KSW, LRH lowered his estimation greatly in re: to the condition of Earth beings and decided that if Scientology had any chance of making an impact as a movement, he had to get tough, tough, tough (and very, very “unreasonable”) on even the individuals who were already IN Scientology to get them to rise to the next highest level as a group. In the DMSMH description of a Clear, you get all these very high level attritbutes like being rational, moral, constructive, creative, etc. I think once LRH decided that there was a lot more to handle than just one’s own reactive mind, he also decided that no way do you really come close to those attributes in a clear (if you DID, then you could obviously leave the clear alone to ACT that way, right?). Thus came all the PLs in the 60s about all the outpoints of juniors that you run into when trying to be a senior; all the different types of dev-t, counter intention, the emphasis on non-compliance being the biggest problem for a senior, all the ethics and lists of crimes and high crimes and penalties and “justice” procedures, and then in early 1970 with the coming of the FEBC, the idea of HE&R being the biggest barrier to production and having to bait and badger and handle juniors’ ethics, and then of course the whoe emphasis on handling OWs and evil ints, from integrity processing (confessionals) to Ex Dn, False Purpose RD. and all the other rundowns where OWs are handled, the OW write-ups, etc. I really do think Ron’s estimation of the condition of Earth beings, including staff was one of the key factors that led him to change his approach and no longer respect the self determinism of the very people that were working to help him (and so no longer having this self determinism as any type of real practical goal – now “duty” was the highest motivation). Though I think this was also accompanied by his own case problems, his tone level dropping – you can read many reports of him getting pissed off a lot, getting rid of tr.usted friends, etc
I’d like to add one other comment to my above post. I think the biggest error in judgement Ron made during these years (though I will freely admit that his methods WORKED – with all of the bullshit going on, Scientology still went into a definate affluence over the years from the early St. Hill days of the early 60s to the start of the 80s) – anyway, this huge error in judgment in my opinion was to copy many of the successful actions of Earth religions, as those religions DID in fact go into high affluences on numbers and had large impacts on this planet. I’m talking specifically about Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. LRH took from these religions many things, but I’ll just note their emphasis on righteousness, being the ONLY true religion and way to salvation, the tons of sins that can be committed, and the many penalties that one can be subject to when breaking any law, the total committment demanded, the total obedience demanded, etc etc etc Really I could write pages and pages on this and draw many parelleles with many, many specifics. These religions (and others) did in fact HAVE successful actions and methods that worked in growing their religions. And so yes, many of them worked in Scientology too. But DRAMATIZING the practices of these religions, even when successful, came with ultimately a huge price (yeah, the current Scientology Pope is just one of them) as ALL DRAMATIZATIONS MUST DO.
Now that I see they are back online, I would like to provide the link to The Aberree newsletters, These historical newsletters may provide some data regarding the early history of Dianetics and the Church of Scientology. The first newsletter is dated April 1954. The last is dated April 1965. As the website summarizes: “The Aberree shows that convention and uniformity weren’t the whole story of the 50s, by a long shot. It also shows that Scientology, which has grown famous for its attempts to silence dissent and criticism, was trying to squelch debate 50 years ago … with similarly ineffective tactics.”
http://www.aberree.com/
.
Good lord, that guy is a jackass.
I do not consider total freedom to be an absence of barriers, but I see it as an ultimate ability to overcome the barriers through ability to learn and to know how to increase own ability to the level necessary to overcome any barrier. Which is a Scientology – knowing how to know [enough to overcome any barrier].
Maria, thank you for this. It really sheds a lot of light on the situation and it’s progression.
If my understanding is right we are talking about a group engram, some introduced arbitrary that is not understood by the group. To introduce understanding solves the non-understanding. We may not be able to do that completely due to some data missing. However, we can give it a try.
If L. Ron Hubbard had expanded his ARC into mankind and had not been withdrawn into narrower dynamics, then those wars and dangers were not turmoil “over there”. They were the smell of smoke telling you that it is your house that is on fire. (I just learned that the big shock for the military guys in the Cuba-Crisis was not that the Russians could place missiles threatening the USA with atom-bombs. The big shock was that someone else would be doing what they themselves had done and that they had to think their own plans over. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article32084.htm)
As I understand Ron there was a big deal of connectedness with the then planetary political situation. To him it was not something “over there”. Then add other facts into the picture: what he was searching at, situations in orgs, etc. I do not say “become reasonable” or “figure out possible explanations”. I want to say: the solution to a mystery is to understand. And in order to understand one better looks at all the facts that can be made available.
In times of peril allowance for tolerance tends to be given less room. And if Ron perceived what was going on outside of the orgs, then this has to be taken into account for an understanding. Therefore what might look like “authoritarianism” – when someone wakes you up in the middle of the night and tells you “leave the house and get some water” – there might be more parts of the picture than just the character or mood of that person.
To solve a group engram one has to look at all the facts and gain any possible understanding of the true and complete circumstances. Understanding will solve it.
Oh my God. That COS message is the height of hypocrisy.
“What’s true is what’s for you.” ?????
They dare to even MENTION that LRH quote?!!!!!
Ha!
If anyone hears this ad and comes into an org, they will find that what was that really means is:
“What’s true for you is true for you – as long as you agree with us.”
and also:
“What’s true for you is true for you. It’s nice that you agree with that. Now give us all of your money. Oh yes, and we will also want you and any children you have to sign long term employment contracts to work long hours for us in exchange for…we’ll discuss those details ‘later’. just sign here and get busy finding more suckers like you.”
Lol, I see, that would have been a strange statement indeed.
Scientology went off the rails the moment people stopped treating it as an applied religious philosophy and started treating it as a ‘religion’, instead.
Applied Religious Philosophy: you actually have to *do* something.
Religion: You don’t have to do anything, because you are ‘tied together’ with others who “are doing things” and therefore, by some form of ‘osmosis’ you are “just as good as everyone else in the religion”.
Classic case of 3rd-dynamic Bank Agreement versus ARC/KRC on all Dynamics and all flows…
This is a little beside the point, but what I always wonder is, how people like Lawrence Wright,Tony Ortega, Ursula Caberta, et. al. can read texts like that by LRH and still think he is some sort of a con man…
Marcel Wenger
Scale of entrapment:
1) Force
2) Ideas from external sources
3) onw ideas
practical:
1) force screens that hold you in place (on a physical universe level with body would be a wall)
2) You should not do… kind of stuff. Or you should do … in order to …
3) I should not do
The perfect trap is conviction that one has to be this or that in order to be this or that. This is the most effective or lasting traps of all. I should not eat animals. I should not have evil thoughts. I should quit smoking is a perfect trap. All attention is on not smoking instead of enjoy the smoking. Stuff like that.
There is a little mechanism running by those people.
They don’t want to increase their R (reality) on the beneficial aspects of Scientology. For, as soon as they would recognize Scientology for what it is, they would cave themselves in.
Therefore they only “see” things in the materials which they can “prove” wrong. Doing otherwise could “kill” them.
It’s interesting to see that (for instance) Caberta is giving up shortly after she met with Marty in Gernany. It may be that she for first time in her life has seen something beneficial in the subject of Dianetics and Scientology. I don’t know. It just could be.
Wow – stunning. My suspicion was that this commercial solicited more anti-scn banter in the livingrooms than anything – what “religion” spends a ga-jillion dollars to advertise during the Superbowl? The one that worships it of course! The one where your donations are the measuring stick for your spiritual potential of course!
Keeping Scientology Working.
This, in my humble opinion, is one of the points where things went astray.
There is only one Source: LRH. If it isn’t written, it isn’t true. And if he didn’t write it, then throw it out!
That’s how that little introduction in S.O.S. got tossed out. Plato and Socrates? Children! Locke? Confusious? Buddah? Morons. ONLY LRH!!!
I remember having to F.D.S. the hell outta this on the FEBC. And at the end of the FDS, what do you read to replace the false data? ONLY RON!!
Got wrapped around a telephone pole over this for a while, till I finally made up my own mind … what was true for me. AND could have just that.
Scientologist choose to over-look Ron’s humility as humor. That he REALLY IS 100% knowledgable in all things, and when he says otherwise, he’s just being silly and cutting up with the audience.
What is TRUE… for You… is what is true. Period. Everyone else can piss off. It’s really that simple, and don’t listen to anyone tell you otherwise.
But where have we heard that before?
It seems possible that this is a deliberately adopted defense against brainwashing as outlined by Edward Hunter in the book Brainwashing – the Men Who Defied It.
Hunter describes a closed-minded attitude as one of the key strategies to preserving one’s own mind under the onslaught of brainwashing in a POW camp, while suffering from deprivation, as described in the following quotations:
“A remarkable proportion of the outstanding cases of mental survival was of men with a closed mind on communism. They shut their ears and closed their eyes to what the Reds were saying. They based their attitude on two simple premises. They knew that the Reds were telling them lies, and they knew, too, that when the Reds did tell them something truthful, it was for the purpose of harming them.”
[…]
“Perhaps the strongest confirmation of the importance of the closed mind came from a man who broke speedily, providing the false evidence on which his associates were framed.
Near the close of a long discussion with him, I mentioned the closed-mind factor. “Other men whom I interviewed considered communism bad and refused even to discuss it,” I said. “They had a closed mind on it.”
In a subdued voice that betrayed his shock, he replied, ‘But that is the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard in my life. A civilized man doesn’t close his mind to anything.’
He could not have better phrased the confusion that led to the undoing of himself and so many others. He had mistaken a brainwashing chamber for a college classroom and a brainwashing session for a collegiate debate. His liberal upbringing had blinded him to the fact that an open mind is useless and even dangerous when it is calculatingly cut off from the information it needs. What this man was defending, although he did not realize it, was not an open but a perpetually indecisive mind.
I thought of those who had survived brainwashing and who told me what a great help a closed mind on communism had been to them. They were not intolerant or illiberal men. They had merely decided upon a counter-tactic to the enemy’s, recognizing that this was an all-out fight in which they were engaged.”
[…]
“A closed mind, of course, is a radical preventative. Fanaticism can easily be confused with it, and this is not what it means. A fanatic not only closes a door in his mind, he cements it shut so it can never be opened again, and shuts every other nearby door the same way, irrespective of where it leads. An intelligent person closes the door when he reaches a conclusion, moving on to other problems, but keeping the key safely in his pocket so he can open it again if he wishes. If he does, it is by his own free will and judgment and not at a brainwasher’s insistence.”
Maria, Margaret and Valkov, thank you for your thoughts. I have read them and will get back to you. At present my time requires attention in other areas and I cannot respond in the manner I will.
I’ll get back as soon as I can. Thanks, B
Strictly speaking, this is not true. This is why larger studies are considered more valid than smaller ones. That is to say, the larder the study, the more reliable the resulting data as this will tend to overcome individual differences or anamolies and point to commonalities in how body chemistry (or whatever is being studied) works.
Spirits may be ver different one to another, but bodies do have commonalities of design, as does the reactive mind. Therefore, as double-blind studies work well for bodies, if one should choose to study the effectivemess of any procedure to reduce the reactive mind, a double-blind study would be a valid tool.
I understand what you are saying, Michael, and witnessed many others responding in similar fashion to you – I suppose it could be called “the closing of the mind of a Scientologist”.
However there were many others who never came close to falling into this particular vortex. I count myself one. I was a professional auditor for years, but I never once believed I needed or required an LRH quote to tell me what I thought about “politics, economics, sociology,psychology, the sciences, religion,and the arts”.
More importantly, over 35 years of heavy involvement in both the training and auditing sides of the bridge, NO ONE ever pressured me to think a certain way about any of the categories you mention.
For reasons that I still don’t completely understand, some fall into this trap you mention, but many others don’t. Why? As I’ve said before, it may have something to do with one’s level of education and experience prior to finding Scientology.
I’ve just about arrived at the conclusion that perhaps people should have been required to do both sides of the bridge – to keep an equal balance between training and auditing. Sure, that would make it a longer route for many, but I think training might be the most effective way to avoid falling into the trap of having your every opinion about everything determined by some LRH quote – an application of his work that I truly believe would make LRH apoplectic.
I don’t know any highly trained, experienced auditors who are not capable of thinking and observing for themselves. I’m sure there are exceptions; I just haven’t met them.
LOL!
I agree with you 100%, AR. It is well known that a subject can be invalidated by invalidating its founder. It is also so easy to attack someone who is no longer there to defend himself. But where does it lead?
On the other hand, there is probably a small universe full of bypassed charge in the form of withheld communication – considerations, opinions – about LRH and the whole Scientology experience that needs to be expressed (and hopefully as-ised). Confusion blowing off, as it were.
But in the midst of all the confusion and negativity, it’s a real treat to read of the wins and life changing experiences that people have had with the subject. That’s where the important truths are – in the very effective help that the proper application of these amazing tools can actually deliver to people.
Maria, Margaret and Valkov, I will try to respond as concisely as I can.
I will dump the word science from my argument since arguing the semantics of it’s definition will take me off point.
Regarding spiritual abilities: Their existence and reality is not in question, nor the point of my post.
Regarding Ingo Swan et al: So what? A few men with psychic abilities that were enhanced by Scientology is somewhat unremarkable because people who never used Scientology have these abilities. I have known some personally. I have some of them myself but choose to leave that private.
Regarding Patanjali: I am a student of the practices, theory and procedures of yoga and have been meditating daily for a little under 40 years. I am a student of Paramahansa Yogananda. Patanjali is one of my main dudes. Yogananda’s book Autobiography of a Yogi is rife with OT phenomenon. I have no problem with power or those who wield it.
The essence of my view:
Scientology was sold as a product. The original grade chart ( I left scientology early eighties) had end phenomena sold as a standard result. Do this process, get this result.
Stable exteriorization at will was and is the cheese that caught the nose of many little meeses to flock to this completed bridge to total freedom.
The bridge was for the common man, not simply for the uncommon man (Ingo) who probably came into this life with a natural flare for incorporeal talents, (the result of past life spiritual practice) and thus to be used like celebrities are used to sell products that aren’t delivered.
There are many OT’s made from the grade chart out there. Gather them all up, or one of them, or two or three or whatever. Find me one stabilized OT who can operate with full perception. Just one.
It was sold as a product, it was not delivered.
And all the excuses in the world are simply the mind trying to justify a belief system. A far cry from any definition of science. And in the same category as any religious fundamentalism.
Addendum:
Stable exteriorization is my only test for non delivery of a promised product. Many people, including myself, have had wonderful experiences across the dynamics in Scientology.
But, it was Total Liberation and Cause Over Life, MEST, exterior at will, direct perception of my oneness with the Supreme Being that brought me to Scientology. And many others…….. many many others!
It is interesting to note that for all of the rhetoric of “reason, science, technology, applied science etc. that first appealed to my western mind with Scientology, it was men who followed Patanjali, Buddha, Shankara, Krishna, Jesus etc who were the only ones, in my investigations, to have attained the products Scientology sold who knew nothing of Ron’s Scientology. Plus they had the ability to teach others that practice that makes students like them.
It was these ‘inverted eight dynamic, only keyed out’ types that demonstrated and taught me that the path is quintessentially painfully simple but difficult to master.
Failed to delivery stable exteriorization, is the elephant in the room.
Failed stable exterior killed Scientology.
One, only one, stabilized exterior with full perception would require scientology to have guards at the doors to handle hordes of new public with cash in hand.
Well said!
He is out in the open on another forum. Probably not using it here because of his anti Marty chanting.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify. With a better understanding of what you were getting at, I have to say: I agree.
I agree that there appear to be 2 LRHs, but I don’t see any mystery surrounding it. I think it is because he shifted gears from, first, researching, discovering and codifying the basic philosophy and auditing tech, to, second, creating, establishing and trying to ensure the survival of temporal organizations for preserving, transmitting and delivering this tech.
Those are two very different purposes.
Early Christianity faced some similar issues, and what happened there is very well described in a vivid little book by Elaine Pagels, titled “Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas”, available as a free PDF download here:
http://ebookee.org/Beyond-Belief-The-Secret-Gospel-of-Thomas_322357.html
This book describes how the established “scriptures” came to be created, and why. The original liberating teachings were gutted and re-written to the form they have now; many significant writings like the “gospel” of the title were left out or de-emphasized, in favor of those which fostered a more sheep-like and obedient-to-authority attitude among Christians, and essentially replaced the original teachings of immediate “salvation”(liberation) through “gnosis” (knowing), with the entrapment of “Heaven someday, if you’re good enough”.
I highly recommend this book for achieving a broader, more “horizontal” understanding of what Scientology has been and still is going through.
I never actually heard anyone say the phrase, but it was obviously the rule of the day!
Thanks for this Margaret! I take back what I posted somewhere around here, that LRH may have “thrown some people under the bus” in order to stay on the right side of the McCarthyite milieu!
Brian..YOU SAY:
There are many OT’s made from the grade chart out there. Gather them all up, or one of them, or two or three or whatever. Find me one stabilized OT who can operate with full perception. Just one.
It was sold as a product, it was not delivered
I say:
Where are your stats or rreasons to say:
iT WAS NEVER DELIVERED? Just exactly how many people who did the Original OT levels correctly have you met and examined? I have seen this crappy argument from quite a few. No one who has said this has met even a few percent of those who did this tech. Your argument is without fact, as you base it on a lie, as you have not said who you have checked out. it is a generality.
If you want to honestly check out a sizeable number of people who have had this auditing to verify, I have no objection. But till then you are just giving generalities with no evidence to back it up. So go to it, do the science bit and let us know how it turns out. But do it honestly and with a fairly large group of people…not some who did coffe shop, or self auditing, or who CSed their own case. And make sure they had it done by real terained tech people…not those who got a bit of tech in the R:PF under crappy conditions and stress.It would be great to have these results, and I would thank you or whoever does this graciously. But do not in the meantime fake it with statements that have no real data…based on 3rd party data. Please.
Tell us what you have gotten from your yoga. As Comparative World Religions was my minor 45 years ago in University i would find this of interest.
Frank
Pardon the few typos above. Fingers typing faster than computer, and my not doing a good enough spell check.
Frank
OK I get it Brian. I don’t disagree. Personally I have always felt LRH was hyping things and that many of his statements like the Grade Chart represented an ideal scene and “your mileage may vary”.
Someone, I think may be Jewel, just recently posted a discourse about LRH’s use of the Non-Existence Formula which I think is right on. It is what I felt myself, before I had even heard of the Non-E. From the beginning, (DMSMH), he had a tendency to “Promote, then prepare to deliver”. Example, the characteristics of a Clear he laid out in DMSMH. And other things that he said were based on “done research”, which he hadn’t researched(yet). Thus as he went along, he had to amend his “gospel”, as additional research and results made it necessary to do so.
I think he had a pretty good idea of where he was going with it all, but often had not actually reached it yet.
“By his bootstraps”, all the way.
I must add, I don’t think anything :killed” Scientology, or that “scientology is dead”. That is a completely unsupported opinion as far as I’m concerned.
No problem Frank! Your post hit the nail right on the head. I hadn’t guessed until he actually posted it, that the punchline of Brian’s entire exercise in “logic” was nothing more than an attempt to “dead agent” the idea of the possibility of stable exteriorization.
In fact, I would like to see some proof that the “great men” of Yoga did not naturally have their abilities to start with. That seems to be the crux of any kind of yoga – do they consistently deliver any kind of results, stable or otherwise?
As far as the Scientology Church is concerned, it’s dead. The spirit is gone.
What stays are the ideals – but these we must find and follow by ourselves.
LRH wasn’t perfect. But ideals he had.
Frank, it is not my argument to prove. I am not selling anything.
I was a Scientologist for 11 years, I was in the Sea Org, I was married to a Scientology celebrity whose handler was Spanky (of Travolta fame). Most of the celebrities I knew were OTs.
I hope that gives you more of a context.
Thank you Maria 🙂
Just my opinion Valkov. It is possible that the Independents will take it to another level. We have eternity to find out. But the goals I came into Scientology for have been discovered in other practices.
I almost fell over when I saw that ad “what is true for you etc”. This saying was completely suppressed in the revised basic books and within the culture of the church, but it is a hot topic among the Indies and what do you know…bingo, it’s on the TV during Super Bowl no less. I thought about how certain outpoints noted on this blog have prompted the church to take action: the quest for Heber on the internet produced Heber at 1 event shortly after (of course this was not lasting, but it was timely). The information regarding Planned Parenthood’s commentary regarding church staff getting abortions was followed with the church now not harassing pregnant SO women and allowing them and their 2d to leave on good terms with money, and Tommy D created quite a stir with his confused explanations of ‘no disconnect’ policy and is now gone.
DM is reactionary as he scurries to cover the church’s ass. He clearly manages from an effect point. He is in a pressure cooker with the Indies being the weight on top, and some wonderful bright sunny day he will explode when it gets too hot!
Margaret,Thanks for this posting! I didn’t know he died, but his name was just mentioned on Coast to Coast radio show.
Maria, very interesting post regarding Edward Hunter. I will have to put it on my ‘to read’ list.
Ingo Swan was a regular guest when Art Bell was still hosting. I’ve read his accounts of remote viewing. Some of it I believe, but his accounts of extraterrestrial encounters are hard to swallow. One can make outlandish claims. Unless one has proof, they are just science fiction.
Yes, but the Code of Honor says NOT to withdraw your allegiance. And it was written in 1954 so plenty of years to go back and clarify/amend/remove.
Valkov – I think you’re seriously sidestepping the issue.
I think it’s very questionable for the leader of a religion to say (implicitly) “this is my religion, you are members of my religion, this is what I consider to be honorable behavior of my members, but it’s up to you as to whether you pay any attention to it.”
….and then to make very controversial statements such as “NEVER fear to hurt others in a just cause”.
If LRH wrote it, you have to assume he believed it, and you have to assume members will take serious consideration of his beliefs, and in my opinion he must have known how people would use this to justify certain behavior.
Thank you for sharing this news on Igo Swann Sad to here this
I had the pleasure to meet him and found him a special character/
Sid,
Honestly, I don’t HAVE TO assume anything. You’ll find that my approach to LRH is to deal with what he actually said and leave my own assumptions and conjectures out of it, except where I specifically note it.
I think you are missing the whole point of the distinction between a moral code and an ethical code in the first place, a distinction LRH drew in many of his lectures and writings.
My point is that the Code of Honor is very clearly stated to come
from within and any point of it which is followed, is followed by the individual from within. it is not something that can be imposed from without, without resulting in a degradation.
Your conjectures about what LRH knew or did not know about the effects of publishing it are your conjectures, and nothing more than your conjectures.
I am simply going by what he actually did explicitly say about it when he
published it.
You may read into it whatever significances you do read into it, it’s common for people to do that, and it’s OK as long as you realize you are reading something into it that is not placed there by the author. Which is the case here. It is what I call the “Tower of Babel” phenomona – each person reacting with his/her own idiosyncratic understanding of what another says/writes, which may not be what the originator is saying at all.
Sid, in case it’s not clear already – I am not sidestepping any issues at all – those are your issues, not mine. Those are your conjectures and projections and judgements about LRH, not mine. To me, they are non-issues. LRH was never my “religious leader” in the first place.
Great! If “stably exterior” is one of those goals which you discovered and achieved in some other practice, don’t keep it secret, eh? Don’t you think there are plenty of folks who would want to know about it? Didn’t you post yourself that many would flock to a practice that could deliver that, as the Grade Chart purported to do?
No Valkov I have not acheived that. But that is not what yoga meditation promotes in the market place of possibilities. Yet, the gradations of achievement, including states way beyond simply leaving a body, are inherent in the practice. I am supremely satisfied with my progress thus far.
I look forward to my meditations like meeting a new lover for the first time. What is within us is so wonderful, so joyous and wise, full of love and happiness.
At this point I don’t care if I am in or out of a body. As long as I’m happy. Being out of a body is not a free ticket to grooveland. Miserable stuck haunting ghosts/souls are out of a body.
Location is not important to consciousness. Consciousness is the creator of location.
Those are two very different purposes.
I do agree with this Valkov … but I also think Ron should/could have stuck to the core Codes and Creeds more, in the admin policy.
By you own words Marty: “Obviously I had zero faith in anybody in the hierarchy of Scientology…”
Is it possible this to be the answer?!
I getcha Brian. Glad we arrived at this point! 🙂
OK, I’ve been thinking this issue (the alleged “entrappingness” of earlier efforts) over and here’s what I came up with, by way of doing some catching upon Geir’s blog….(Data of comparable magnitude and all that)
Vinaire has said he was on the ship, and also that he was at Flag for a while as a Word Clearer no less, back in the day……
I think if LRH got his ideas about some of the Eastern philosophies, like Buddhism and the Vedantics from Vinnie, it’s no wonder he decided they were nothing but traps!
Interesting thought. Though I would venture to say that the real culprit was the early translators who were scholars ONLY, who translated from their own cultural and religious experiences. Later we get translations from people who actually spent time studying and practicing the information and we get practitioners who learned English and started to correct the translations.
BRAVO Chris! Well said indeed! I ‘splain it to people like this, if they’re willing to listen at all that is. Scn is basically broken down into three zones, areas, parts or sections. The first one is the facts of the woof and warp of everything. Where it all came from, how and why. It is all demonstrated and proven by logical analysis just like we can show that 2 plus 2 equals 4. The second part is the philosophy and processes that come out of the analysis of those facts. The third part is the organization that applies the Technology. If it is applied with broad and deep understanding of exactly how and why the Tech works, then great effects are the result. To the degree that such things are NOT understood, then the results are less than they should be. So when someone asks me about Scn, I have to ask them just what it is that they mean, and give the above explanation because virtually no one, including around 99% of the people who follow the works of LRH, see this. To them, Scn is just one big mash up and they don’t see that the potatoes and meat in the stew are PARTS of the stew, and not the stew itself. It’s all one big jumble to them. And that is why the Co$$$$ is in so much trouble now; very few really know what it’s all about.
Randy
Martin, do as I have done. Read ALL of the basic books at least twice through. Then read all of the R&Ds and then the Tech Vols and listen to as many tapes as you can. After a while, you will begin to see WHY things are the way that they are. The more knowledge you have about a subject, the more you will be able to understand it and APPLY it! When an engineer really grasps the subject of engineering, then it can be used to create great and lasting effects. If engineers do not grok it, then bridges fall down and machinery breaks often.
LRH used engineering, mathematics and logic to analyze Man instead of suppositions and voodoo chants. He deconstructed life and livingness to see what they were all about. Ron said that Dianetics was engineering applied to the Humanities.
From the outside of it, no one who has never seen a machine before would ever figure out what it was or did. But by taking it apart, one can then see certain things and eventually figure it out. When an Auditor or C/S sees and understands the concept of a Being as existing OUTSIDE OF the MEST, then they can do something with it. But when that understanding is missing, it’s a dog’s breakfast at best.
Randy
Margaret,
Please look up and read the 31 Questions and Answers About the IRS sometime.
ARC,
Randy