Category Scientology

The critic’s problem

Geir Isene 66 Comments

What very few critics of Scientology (or any other betterment activity) realize is that they are undermining another’s purpose.

When a person enters Scientology or any of the thousands of self-betterment activities in the world, that person has an underlying purpose for some kind of improvement. It can be anything from handling a problem to improving a situation. This purpose can be so strong as to blind him from any negative effects of the path or method he now trusts.

And then a critic enters.

Whenever you criticizes another’s beliefs, you attack this underlying purpose of improvement. You corrode his trust in something good. The method may be mad according to you, but his underlying purpose of improvement is almost always good. You may not realize this, but this is usually why the believer reacts so violently to your criticism – often with stupid justifications or “logic”.

The solution should always be to present a better method for the person to realize his underlying purpose. But alas, this is so much harder and requires so much more responsibility on your part. It is far easier to slash away with harsh criticism than to help the other find a better way.

What belief can do

Geir Isene 32 Comments

Belief can make you stupid.

When you believe something strongly, when you firmly hold an opinion, you can end up spending your intelligence on justifying or explaining away facts that are contrary to your belief. Your intelligence and power of reasoning could be better spend on constructive efforts like fixing the flaws in your beliefs or creating something new.

We see this in politics every day – trying to justify one’s own position instead of keeping the eye on the ball, the result… a better society.

Marty Rathbun’s latest latest blog post is an excellent example of a guy justifying his beliefs. Mike Rinder’s comment inspired me to write this post here. Scientologists become experts in justifications as they are told to believe that the subject is The Only Way to salvation. When cracks become visible – they start justifying why the cracks are not there or why they are there for a greater reason. After years of studying the subject, they become extremely skillful in this. This may be the reason why Scientology is and should remain a religion. It is a belief system. It could move into the category of science, but not without inflicting severe pain in its justifiers.

Science is the practice of doing away with one’s beliefs and replacing them with knowledge.

Beliefs are healthy and important when they serve as motivation toward a goal. Beliefs are great for urging to action, but a substitute when used to explain what is.

Scientology and workability – my conclusion

Geir Isene 118 Comments

After almost 1000 comments on the post “Scientology – does it work?“, I came to this conclusion:

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.”

Feel free to ask

Geir Isene 545 Comments

q

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.

Scientology – does it work?

Geir Isene 1,519 Comments

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Does Scientology benefit society?
    Insignificant. It’s irrelevant to the world at large – from its inception to present time.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.)“.

My Scientology enigma

Geir Isene 480 Comments

I am faced with an enigma. Would you help me solve it?

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

OT 8 – follow-up

Geir Isene 1,345 Comments

This is a follow-up to my previous post, “OT 8”

Imagine this:

You have a problem in life. To you it is a big issue that you really would like to get handled.

You come across the Church of Scientology, where they promise you a better life, spiritual freedom and a permanent fix to your problem.

You embark upon a journey up through many levels of counseling – called The Bridge to Total Freedom.

You finish level after level. Your communication improves, you get more self-confident, become more spiritually aware, other areas of your life improves.

Your main issue in life, however seems to be a tough one to handle. But you push on as you are told that some next level will handle it.

All the way to the top you go. To OT 8. Each level has its own specific end result. On OT 8, it is:

“I now know who I am not, and am interested in finding out who I am”

And that is the end of the road. You don’t get to know who you are, what you are or anything positive. You get to know who you aren’t – and you are interested in finding out who you are. That’s it.

Although I got great gains from doing OT 8 myself, partly because I have a different take on the rationale behind the upper levels in Scientology. But imagine getting to the end of the road, still possibly having major issues you’d like to have handled. I would imagine some people could get quite confused, spinny, mad or feel fucked over by such a brush-off end result. Parked out in nowhere and asked to contribute their lives to get the next level released – at the whim of the Church’s management. All the while being demanded to uphold a perfect facade of a happy opinion leader to the rest of the foot soldiers. A perfect exterior, interior in shambles.

I am not saying this is how the majority of OT 8s feel after completing the level. I didn’t, and I know others who have justified the level in a satisfactory way. But I know of several that have had some serious issues and even contemplating suicide after reaching such a spiritual dead end hostage situation – where you get the next fix only if you give your heart and soul to a greedy management. Mad much? You bet.

Letting anyone halt at the end result of OT 8 is cruel. If anything, the church should have waited with the release of OT 8 until they had the rest of “finding out who you are” canned. It’s like doing a surgical operation half-way and leave the patient.

If you were in such a situation, would you do everything the church asked of you in the hope of a new level released? Or would you revolt? Or what?

Update: Maria commented that the EP of OT 8 is in fact that the person completing the level is now interested in doing the Enemy condition.

Harmony

Geir Isene 69 Comments

I used to feel most harmonious alone. Away from the intentions of others to change me, shape me or nudge my ways just the slightest in some direction. Away from explicit of unspoken criticism, silent treatments or looks of disapproval.

I have since a long time now felt great alone. Total harmony, no issues, no unwanted (by me) thoughts or behavior. Great bliss.

alone

I am a rebel, yes. But with a cause. Not conforming to certain norms or set behaviors. Not using the fork correctly, talking to the right people at the right times or utilizing the appropriate phrases at conservative social gatherings. All true. But in turning the table, I wouldn’t care. It didn’t matter to me if people were conforming, if they were socially odd or spent too much time playing Lego with the kids instead of talking to the right people at the wedding party.

Very seldom did I feel that I could be myself fully. Nowhere was this more true than in the Church of Scientology. One step out of the party-line, and it was straight into an interrogation interview with the Ethics Officer. And as I progressed up through the upper spiritual levels of Scientology (the OT levels), the demands for conformity grew beyond that of the old East Germany, the DDR.

I got fed up of the frowning or disapprovals. I quit the church. I got new friends. And tolerance became a most wanted quality in people I spend time with.

As I write this, there are a few people that I feel I can be completely free, myself and in harmony around and with. These are the people that when I am with them, I feel on par with being alone. Brendan and Anette are such remarkable people of tolerance. Grand and generous.

I will continue to seek out the grand and generous – an ongoing quest.

Would you like to share the qualities you seek in others?

A bunch of rules for happy living

Geir Isene 146 Comments
  1. Get up in the morning
  2. if you feel like it.
  3. Get enough sleep.
  4. Sleep with the right person.
  5. Eat
  6. drink
  7. but not too much of either.
  8. Don’t get drunk all the time.
  9. Play
  10. but not only with yourself.
  11. Laugh your ass off
  12. often
  13. Go bat-shit crazy
  14. now and then
  15. or often.
  16. Challenge the status quo.
  17. Challenge yourself.
  18. Drop the arrogance.
  19. Care.
  20. Get enough sex
  21. but not all the time.
  22. Eat chocolate.
  23. Get a telescope.
  24. Get an HP-41 calculator.
  25. Play with it.
  26. Listen to music.
  27. Get carried away.
  28. Exercise your free will.
  29. Be a rebel.
  30. Make trouble.
  31. Avoid permanent damage.
  32. Swim naked.
  33. Tumble in the snow.
  34. Tell wild fairy tales to the kids.
  35. Lose yourself in their games.
  36. Cry during movies.
  37. Love
  38. lots.
  39. Feel
  40. a lot.
  41. And disregard rules.
  42. Make your own understanding of Life, the Universe and Everything

Why is it important to some that Scientology doesn’t work?

Geir Isene 344 Comments

Having waded through some 1100 comments on my OT 8 blog post over at ESMB, a question rose to mind:

Why is it so important to some that Scientology must not be seen to work?

Some seem hell-bent on proving that there cannot, must not be any shred of workability to the subject. Some goes quite nuts when another tells about gains they got from Scientology. As I happen to have gotten lots of gains from my 25 years of active involvement, I seem to tick off a few stuck records. Funny that.