We don’t care about money.
All I want to do is make better sushi.
I do the same thing over and over, improving bit by bit.
There is always a yearning to achieve more.
I’ll continue to climb, trying to reach the top, but no one knows where the top is.
Even at my age, after decades of work, I don’t think I’ve achieved perfection.
But I feel ecstatic all day… I love making sushi.
That’s the spirit of the shokunin.
When to quit? The job you’ve worked so hard for?
I’ve never once hated this job.
I fell in love with my work and gave my life to it.
Even though I’m 85 years old, I don’t feel like retiring.
That’s how I feel.
I find it an imperative responsibility for every Scientologist to make up his or her mind what in Scientology is workable and what is not. Lest the good will inevitably be thrown out with the bath water while the Scientologist stand watching and screaming “Objection!”, “SPs!”, “PTS!”, “O/Ws!”, “Out Ethics!”, “Misapplication!”, “MUs!” (Scientology terms for various wrongs).
And in order to sift the good from the bad – one must be able AND willing to recognize the bad and speak openly about it. As a whole body of knowledge – the totality of Scientology – it is indefensible. But parts are so good and so worthwhile saving that it would be a shame to see it yield under the weight of whats obviously bad in it.
Future generations will judge our sifting – and as attention span decreases, so will people’s patience with the unworkable parts of Scientology and they will let it reflect quickly on the whole subject. I see the general products created by Scientology since its early years up till now as being insignificant, riddled with bad apples and with some heavy bad results on the way. And I want to salvage the good from the bad that created this.
And I cannot think with all the bad being just “misapplication of a perfect or highly workable philosophy and technology”. I see the bad results as systemic, rooted in the technology and the philosophy themselves.”
When the traffic gets high, when posts get more than 500 or even a 1000 comments, I am bound to miss questions from my readers.
I want to answer your questions, and to ensure you are not left without an answer, I propose you ask any questions you may have to me as comments to this blog post.
Just add your question as a comment here and I will get back to you with an answer. Ask anything – from my views on life, IT, Scientology, my favorite HP calculator, music, art, preferences in any part of life or whatever else you may have on your mind. Do not hold back. I am not shy.
This post is not an arena for long discussions – or I may again miss some questions buried in long threads. Interesting topics may instead earn separate blog posts.
If you can raed tihs qiukcly tehn it maens taht our bairns are atuo tnued to dceihper isneatd of jsut lokonig. Pssoibly ntaures way to hlep us racet wehn dnaegr is iimmnent. My piont bieng, if it is idneed pssoilbe to jsut look? Myabe we are biult to atuo raect?
Eg. 2+2=
My brain shouts 4.
Is it possible for adults to only see “2+2=” and not answer it?
I could add that I think I would read this just the same without a brain 😉 But the point remains the same.
I stepped back, took a couple of breaths and then a good hard look… at the thousands of discussions on Scientology I have witnessed during the last three decades. Some in person, most online. I have come to the conclusion that discussing the content of Scientology, the processes, the policies, the cosmology, Hubbard’s life and possible intentions, Xenu, the rationale behind Dianetics, the E-meter and the rest of it is pretty useless. It is only really worthwhile to look at the actual results produced. The results is the key – the only aspect really worthy of discussion.
So, it really only boils down to: “Does it work?”
Does it work for you? Does it work for Average Joe? Does it work for the society? What are the actual results produced by the church? What are the actual results produced by the individuals and groups applying it? Is it beneficial? And does it produce the advertised results? What in Scientology works? What does not?
I believe there are different answers to each of these questions. I will list some of my conclusions here:
Did Scientology work for me?
Yes. Everything I did in the church gave me valuable results. The service I did outside of the church (L 11) was fantastic.
Did Scientology work for my friends?
About 50%. Some of my friends had excellent gains from their auditing and training, others had little, no or even negative results. Some crashed. In this category I have little experience with friends doing Scientology in the independent field.
Does it work for Average Joe?
Well… something like 95% of the people that get into Scientology bounce off like a tennis ball off a wall.
Does Scientology benefit society?
Insignificant. It’s irrelevant to the world at large – from its inception to present time.
Does auditing work?
To a large extent: Yes. Almost all the people I know that have gotten Scientology counseling inside or outside of the church are very happy with the gains they have gotten. They do however tend to worry more about their own issues after having started getting Scientology auditing – they tend to introspect more.
Does Scientology training work?
Usually. The training is lacking the component of an instructor that help bring the material to life. Thus, the training tends to be more “dry” than other comparable training in society.
Does Hubbard’s administrative technology work?
No. It’s a disaster. This is the single most dominant factor why people shun Scientology and why people leave it in droves – despite the gains that can be had through auditing and training. In this body of knowledge you find horrendous policies on how to handle enemies, policies on disconnection, volumes of details resulting in over-bureacuracy, micromanagement and stripping of employees creativity, etc. It’s perfect for creating and managing an organization of robots. I suspect that a group delivering Scientology auditing and training without the Admin Tech as a yoke would do quite well and get a large percentage of happy clients.
Does Scientology produce the advertised results?
As a whole: No. There are no OTs produced as advertised by Hubbard. Neither are there any Clears by the original definition in Diantecs. But certain training courses and auditing levels does produce the advertised results most of the time.
These are my current conclusions, subject to future revisions.
Update: With more than 1500 comments on this blog post – I hope to carry the discussions over to a new blog post, titled “Scientology – does it work? (cont.)“.
I am faced with an enigma. Would you help me solve it?
I have been involved in Scientology since 1984. I did all the available spiritual levels delivered by the Church – up and including OT 8. And I have gotten personal gains from every level, every service. I left the Church in 2009 for reasons well known, but my personal experiences in Scientology has been very beneficial. I have personally witnessed many people having gotten personal gains from Scientology.
When I sit back and look at the products or results produced through Scientology, I see a lousy scene. I see an over-representation of struggling or even failing people, and of outlandish people with wild conspiracy theories. And this is regardless of Scientology practiced in the Church or outside. I fail to see Scientology produce OTs as defined by L. Ron Hubbard. I cannot see Scientology produce better-than-average lives.
This is the conundrum – I cannot reconcile 1 and 2 above. I have for years tried to explain or justify why this is not so – or why it is so. I have attempted explanations such as “people are not using Scientology proper”, “they fail to understand and apply the technology or policies involved”, “people are just out-ethics or PTS“, “Scientology are under suppression by the government”, etc, etc. But none of these actually explain the lousy scene that is obvious to my eyes and ears.
While I have many thoughts on this, I will leave the floor open for discussion and see what conclusions we can arrive at.
There is one noticeable area of my life where I am weak. This is the area where I get most easily hurt, where I tackle situations irrationally and where I shed the most tears. I have added to my two quests to become better at handling these situations – because they hurt me and because they hurt others when I handle them badly.
I am weak in handling threats or actual damage to the relations I have with the people I love. Specifically; My relation to my sons, to Anette and to Brendan. Whenever something threatens these relationships, I really feel it in my guts. This is my most prominent “button” in life – the area in most need of betterment. This is where I need to learn to not give a fuck, where I need to take more responsibility, where I need to get my key back to my own emotions.
Your thoughts are welcome. I am a work in progress.
I have coached several hundred people in all walks of life. From executives of international companies and housewives to artists, top athletes and business people of widely different trades.
I have used many different tools and methods to help others. And the coaching has almost uniformly resulted in great success. But it is only recently that I managed to distill the reasons for success into two simple keys:
Remain mentally fully present and uncover what the person really needs and wants. Find the goal of the coaching from the person, and not from your own assumptions or preconceived ideas.
Help the person to not give a fuck.
That’s it.
Sure, there are perhaps many different aspects of life the person needs to tackle. But from my experience, a person’s inability to handle a situation is always linked to the person’s own tension, stress or drama. He simply cannot let go of being uptight about the problem. The problem is never that serious, and the less serious the person thinks the problem is, the better equipped he is in handling it. Usually, the person knows how to handle the situation, he only needs to let go of the up-tightness, simmer down and do what he knows is right. Sometimes the person needs some new knowledge – then I help him get that. But as long as the person remains uptight and serious, he won’t be of much use to himself.
And the best way to help the person not give a fuck is to get him to start doing something about the problem he is facing. Not to indulge in mental exercises, visualizings, meditations or other indirect attempts. A gradual tackling of the actual situation will help him see that the mountain is not unsurmountable. Get him to clean out the garage, talk to his wife, quit the job he hates, whatever. Tackle the main problem, not anything else. No beating around the bush. This will ease the tension. And he will relax. Finally, he will be on top of the situation, any situation. Be there for him. All the way.
From 1987 till 1990, Stein Halvorsen and I ran the legendary Norwegian weekly radio show “Midnight Magic”. Interactive radio featuring role-playing on the air. After 22 years off the air, we did a comeback just before X-Mas on Pål Hverven‘s radio show “Magic Beat“.
Pål was a big fan of Midnight Magic – both the role-playing and the music we played on the show – Italo Disco, Depeche Mode, SpaceSynth as well as the regular crop of hits. Five years ago, Pål started his own music radio show – the Magic Beat where he mostly plays SpacSynth. An oasis among the run-of-the-mill airings.
SpaceSynth, greatly inspired by Jean Michel Jarre and similar artists, was born in the mid-80’s and served by Koto, Laserdance and their ilk. Around the start of our show, Koto came out with one of my old-time favorites, Dragon’s Legend:
During our comeback a month ago, I rediscovered SpaceSynth – and much to my delight, I discovered that there has been a renaissance of the genre. Lots of new artists such as Galaxion and Resource X had entered the scene – and the scene is more active than ever. And so I have spent the past few weeks listening to tracks like this:
this:
and this:
and even Laserdance is delivering new music:
It’s a Renaissance! Oh Joy!
And without further ado, here’s the Midnight Magic comeback:
You can also get it streamed from Radio Nova (click on the program dated 21.12.2012). I am sure the world didn’t go under because everyone was anticipating our comeback.
It may mark the start of a renaissance for our program. We’ll see if Pål can come up with some time slots for Midnight Magic. If it happens, I will let the readers of this blog know. Perhaps we can do a couple of programs in English as well.
Geir Isene - uncut 