Category Scientology

Transcend Exchange

Geir Isene 421 Comments

exchange

Noun:

  1. An act of giving one thing and receiving another (esp. of the same type or value) in return.

transcend

Verb:

  1. Be or go beyond the range or limits of (something abstract, typically a conceptual field or division).
  2. Surpass (a person or an achievement).

L. Ron Hubbard stresses the concept of exchange in many of his policy letters. In the policy letter from 1982 titled, “Exchange, Org Income and Staff Pay”, he delineates cllearly his take on four levels of exchange:

First consider a group which takes in money but does not deliver anything in exchange. This is called rip-off. It is the “exchange” condition of robbers, tax men, governments and other criminal elements.

Second is the condition of partial exchange. The group takes in orders or money for goods and then delivers part of it or a corrupted version of what was ordered. This is called short-changing or “running into debt” in that more and more is owed, in service or goods, by the group.

The third condition is the exchange known, legally and in business practice, as “fair exchange.” One takes in orders and money and delivers exactly what has been ordered. Most successful businesses and activities work on the basis of “fair exchange.”

The fourth condition of exchange is not common but could be called exchange in abundance. Here one does not give two for one or free service but gives something more valuable than money was received for. Example: The group has diamonds for sale; an average diamond is ordered; the group delivers a blue-white diamond above average. Also it delivers it promptly and with courtesy.

While this sounds well and good, it has dawned on me lately that there is something missing. Perhaps the most important level is missing – a level dear to my heart. I would see it as a level above all these four:

The transcending of exchange. It’s the level of not caring about echange, of “giving without thought of reward”, of “practical karma theory”, of give-give-give. This flies in the face of standard operating Scientology where you are taught “to get your exchange in” and to ensure “others get their exchange in”, where flows need to be balanced, where one only gives with thought of, or even demand for, reward.

Fuck that. Just give. I belive that is the core of life.

Talk on Scientology – summary

Geir Isene 222 Comments

A few days ago I posted about the talk I was about to do on Scientology in Trondheim.

The talk was yesterday, and here’s a short summary.

I didn’t know much about the context, and I decided to not prepare my talk other than being generally inspired by the comments to the previous blog post.

I was pleasantly surprised. With the student society, their 100 year old building, the main event hall build like a circus, the atmosphere, the people. They wanted a different take on Scientology – a more open and un-slanted approach than what is usually presented in the media. The girl that first suggested that I should come to the event, Astrid Trondal, is an interesting person -very direct and no fuss. The rest of the directors of the student society – very pleasant, open and focused on creating quality events.

And then I got to meet professor Asbjørn Dyrendal. Asbjørn is very knowledgeable in areas of new religious movements and conspiracy cultures. He gave me interesting relations between Scientology and other movements with various similarities.

Asbjørn Dyrendal

As the event was in the main hall of the student’s society building, the formality was strict. Asbjørn started with a 20 minute introduction to Scientology. It was pretty spot-on and laid the foundation for my talk, also 20 minutes. I dispensed with some of the formalities by requesting that instead of talking from behind the formal stand, I could use the floor and wave my hands an walk/jump around as I wish. There was probably more than 150 students attending, and from the response it seems they enjoyed the talk 🙂

The main hall before the attendants filled the seats.

I basically told my story into, in and out of Scientology. My main message was that even though I had seen much craziness over the years, my positive gains from Scientology out-weighed it by a large factor… that I had spent lots of money on Scientology, and that I would spend it all again, or even the double amount to get the same gains.

After a cool artist break (improvisation theater), it was time for the audience to ask questions to Asbjørn and myself.

Very intelligent questions, different angles, covering many areas of Scientology – from my shift in viewpoint over the years, what is good and what is bad about Scientology and the Church, Scientology and bloated PR, the apparent expansion but factual contraction, how Scientology is viewed in different countries and the various levels of Scientology. When one of the attendees asked if the South Park episode on Xenu reflected what parishioners get to learn on OT 3, I answered that yes, it’s pretty accurate. I didn’t hold back or soften anything or beat around the bush. It was straight talk on Scientology. I returned their intellectual honesty with the same.

I was asked if people would get the same gains from other practices. I answered that I don’t know as I haven’t done other practices covering the same types of gains. I also made a point that I cannot vouch for any scientific accuracy of Scientology. I can only vouch for what Scientology has done for me. I didn’t defend Scientology, nor did I attack it. But I did tell them that they should avoid the church. If they wanted to look into Scientology themselves, they should look outside the Church of Scientology.

It was fun, good laughs, inspiring. A great audience. We ended the evening off in the nice student bar with interesting discussions about Scientology, new religious movements, copyrights, patents and free information.

Update: Pic from the event:

Talk on Scientology

Geir Isene 109 Comments

On Saturday 28th (in two days) I will hold a talk at a seminar arranged by one of the larger student societies in Norway.

I will take the opportunity to ask for your opinions about what I should cover – subjects and angles. And as usual, I will not let the opportunity pass to ask the smartest people I know – the readers of this blog. Obviously, I do as I feel like, but you may have some ideas that could make for inspiration.

Short notice… but: shoot.

Assumption

Geir Isene 856 Comments

Religions, therapeutic practices or ideologies often base their methodologies on an assumption about what you want to achieve.

In Judaism, Christianity and Islam the goal would be to serve God and to have a union with God and to reach Paradise. Nirvana can be seen as a goal of Buddhism, whereas Hinduism promotes four goals. Various branches of psychology serve to work toward less irrationality, less mental suffering or even more obedience. Yoga attempts to let the person become aware of her deepest nature. In Scientology, your goal is to reach total freedom. Other ideology goals can be harmony, enlightenment, awareness, knowledge (as with science) or peace or love.

Promoters of a methodology often assumes that you want the goal they want. To a Scientologist disseminating Scientology, it is obvious that you want spiritual freedom, or at the very least that you are determined to increase your potential for survival. To some promoters of harmony, it is obvious that the path lies with “looking” to attain knowledge, to others the path is obviously “tolerance” or to yet another it could be “you already know, so just know”.

The point I am getting at is that such assumptions can be dangerous. An assumption about what the person wants can lead him astray from himself. An assumption about what is “obviously” the best path to a goal that he truly wants can lead him into missed opportunities or even into the woods. Assumptions are the hallmark of failures.

What is often missing, is the assessment of what the person himself really, truly wants. And no matter how convinced the therapist, friend or random-person-wanting-to-help is about the “obvious” goal, it may be completely wrong. Or if the person’s goal aligns with a certain methodology’s goal, that path may still be the wrong path for that person.

Perhaps this could form the basis for an interesting discussion.

Inside Geir’s head while on OT 7, part 2

Geir Isene 376 Comments

This post is a follow-up to “From inside Geir’s head while on OT 7“

Disclaimer: The following is an excerpt from my thinking while doing OT 7 – the second highest level of spiritual counseling in Scientology. This was sometime during 2003. Parts of it differs from my current thinking. This is simply an attempt to give an insight into the mind of one person doing the biggest level of spiritual enhancement within Scientology – a level that took me 3,5 years with an average of 4 auditing sessions per day.

That must be the third guy just this morning… Yes, yes, we all know the drill. Carefully close the door behind me, not rushing it, be proper, take care of the security. OK, I was less than 2 meters inside the door when it closed behind me. Is the guy OK with that? He smiles. Not noting anything on his clipboard. Phew. No visit to the Ethics Officer this morning. But, three guys just this morning checking the security gate into the Solo NOTs area? Three students having had their run-in with ethics and making amends by standing inside the gate checking if any of the other students are security-sloppy – just this morning?

Ah… but uf curz! It’s Thursday morning! That explains it – it’s the Thursday 2pm completion race. Ha! Flag is really pumping for production this week.

I’m glad I never had to do any amends like that – checking people passing the gate, checking if all student briefcases inside the gate has both combination locks secured, checking for any other out security like pieces of paper with hints of confidential material lying around. I only had one mishap, and that was on Solo 2, where I left the room for just one second with a piece of paper left on the desk. But that piece of paper didn’t really have any confidential material on it. But hey, I’m still OK with being slapped with a Condition of Danger for that – after all, Solo 2 was all about training a Solo auditor to take the big step onto the OT levels. So, training for the needed high security was quite OK.

Alright, waiting. Waiting, waiting, waaaaiting… Where’s the Supervisor? Ah, there she comes. Hey guys, let Linda through. Looking stern as usual. I’m glad I know to shut my mouth, be nice and follow suit. Into the course room we go. Yep, past the second security door. Into the atmosphere… calm, almost serene. Really nice course room. And there’s Håkan, the friendliest course Sup. Yeah, I’ll stand over there while he does the Roll Call.

“Geir?”

“Right here!”

Snap and pop. Roll Call done, time to get the packs out. Cuing. And hurry now, the pack is unmounted and I only have a minute or so to plug the cord from the pack into a socket in one of the tables before the alarm goes off. And that would be a ton of shit hitting every fan in the house.

What if had taken my cell phone into the course room and taken photos of the confidential material. Hush! Get that thought out right away. But what IF? What if the church went crashing and no one could get hold of the material to audit themselves? A sort of rescue mission for spiritual freedom. Heck, what am I thinking? Any more nonsense like this and it will show up on the e-meter. On the Security Check every six months, they even ask about my intentions regarding keeping the confidentiality of the materials, and having out-security thoughts like this is smelling of danger – of long visits to the Ethics Officer, Court of Ethics, Committee of Evidence and whatnot. Maybe even getting barred from completing the OT levels. Forever. That would be worse than someone pulling the trigger with the barrel squarely aimed at my head. At least then I would come back and carry on with a new body. Being barred from doing the OT levels would mean no possible spiritual progress – a farewell to spiritual freedom. It would be the perpetual prison forever. Shrug! No, gotta stay in line here. Stay focused. Stay the course.

My stints as an OSA operative did show me that there is plenty of material on the Net. But it’s thwarted, altered, some are mush-mashed into weird shit. And nowhere did I see the holy grail of Solo NOTs – the correction list. And without that, I would have been left in the ditch during my first six months of solo auditing the level. And without the whole setup at Flag, with its course room, the Golden Age of Tech drills, the cramming officers, Qualifications division… and the e-meter refurbishing… what would we do. No, I simply have to support the church, even with all the craziness going on. It’s the only way.

From inside Geir’s head while on OT 7

Geir Isene 216 Comments

(An ordinary day while I was solo auditing [doing spiritual counseling on myself] on the second highest spiritual level in Scientology.)

Crap. I just may have forgot to turn the knob. Or did I do it? No… no I didn’t… I think. Shit. Gotta call Katrine and tell her to turn it a few times. I don’t want to know if I left the safe unlocked. Cause if I did, there will be havoc on my next Refresher at Flag. Another Intensive of Sec Checking worth some USD 7500. And they will find out. No way to hide the truth. If I did mess up and leave the safe open, and the auditor asks that question about “out security”, the e-meter will pick it up. And the auditor will dig and dig and dig until I cough up my blunder. My crime. After all, I have the most secret of secrets in my safe back at home. The OT 7 materials. I can’t even imagine what would happen to a person not at this level on the Bridge getting his hands on those materials. I mean, the correction list contains every secret on this level. It was a close call when that Indian security guard at the airport demanded I unlocked my briefcase so that he could inspect it. He actually took out some of the material and looked it over. Thank God he didn’t actually read it. No, no. Got to fend the thoughts off. Can’t think about the procedures, the content of the material outside of session. Frak, back to focus. Call Katrine.

Hi, it’s me. You need to go down to the safe and turn the knob a few times. Don’t ask. Need to be 100% sure about the security. … You done? OK, thanks. Love you, bye.

Ah, that felt good. But did I leave it unlocked? Did I go “out security”? Thankfully I will never know. She didn’t check to see if it was open. Nobody will know. Not Flag, not me, not Katrine. But what if she DID check to see if it was open? Maybe unintentionally? Maybe she moved the door a tiny bit and discovered it to be open. Would she have noticed? Would she tell me? I should call her and ask… But if I don’t, then I won’t know if she knew. But that thought of doubt may just show up on the e-meter when I go to Flag. Maybe I should take it up in my next solo session… Just run it out as a rudiment. But heck, then my Case Supervisor will know and then the Director of Processing and then the Ethics Officer. Fuck. I got to forget it. It’s probably not important. It probably was locked after all. I’m sure I turned the knob when I put the material into the safe. I must have. Or?

Focus, man! The road. Cars. Nice Porche. Wonder what model… See – I am forgetting already. Damn, thought of it again. Car, car, car… Will I get my 4 sessions today? I need two more to reach that target. Yeah, I get off at 16:00, be home at 17:00, go straight into a session after grabbing a bite. Session lasts 10-15 minutes. End of at approximately 17:30. Chill and eat some more. Take a bunch of vitamines and back into session around 18:30. End the last session at 19:00 max. Get kids to bed and head for the bed myself – at around 20:30. Have to be at sleep by 21:00 to get up at 5 in the morning to get my two morning sessions. Yeah, I should be able to get four every day this week. Nothing to distract from my main quest.

Wonder when I’ll be done. I’ve been on for less than a year by now. Probably takes me two or three years more to finish The Level. Ah, that will be soooo damn good. I should be able to get an average of four sessions per day. Hell that’s 1450 sessions per year. And if I complete the level in four years, that will be more than five thousand sessions total. That’s a lot of auditing. And with the wins and gains I’m having, I’ll be freakin’ Superman before I’m done. I’ve never felt this awake, this potent, this on top of life before.

Except for this security thing. Crap, that thought again. Was it really locked? Yeah, it must have been…

Selling A World In Trouble

Geir Isene 35 Comments

I pity those who are busy selling A World In Trouble. There are doomsday peddlers in many corners of society. We find the media busy pushing bad news and we find organizations such as the Church of Scientology (CoS) busy profiting from just that.

When I was in the CoS I was constantly reminded of how bad off our society was. There was war, famine, natural catastrophes, psychiatry trying to enslave the general population, drugs on the street, the “international bankers”, the human insanities, the, the, the. The works. It was bad – bad – bad. And that’s why the pressure was on to donate more money, and time. All your resources. The World needed salvaging, and plenty of it.

“But wait a minute!”, I sometime allowed myself to think. Is it really that bad?

It wasn’t until today that I came across a clear overview of what shape the world is actually in. Thanks Brendan for sending the link.

You just got to see this video. It’s a real eye opener:

It is ironic that the CoS actually needs one of their avowed enemies, the media, to cook up enough pressure of badness to make people “see” how much they need to donate – immediately. I find this mildly amusing.

Perhaps the Kool Aid drinkers should start supporting the forward progress of Man rather than trying to sell a fantastically progressing world on the idea that it is all very gloomy.

Understanding Miscavige

Geir Isene 608 Comments

David Miscavige is the leader of the Church of Scientology. There is much effort spent demonizing, paint him pitch black and to point him out as the only reason why the church is in serious trouble. As far as I have seen, and I have read most of the pro and con sites on the Net, no one tries to actually understand Miscavige. So I will make an attempt to highlight a possible reason why he acts as he does.

Scientology promotes the states of Clear and OT. But no one has reached the state of Clear as originally defined by the church founder L. Ron Hubbard. And Scientology has yet to produce a stable OT.

As the leader of the Church of Scientology, Miscavige is charged with the responsibility of delivering good on these promised results. He is also charged with the responsibility of following to the letter and to the dot any and all scriptures by Hubbard. He is faced with the impossible task of ensuring a fixed process producing a fixed result.

Seeing that the results are not consistently produced (and far from it), he naturally gets frustrated. He enforces the process in order to fix the result. Seeing that the results are still not coming off the assembly line, he fixes the process further. And further. And further. All the while getting more and more frustrated. And it doesn’t take a genius to understand this frustration. Frustration leads to anger, to shouting, to slapping, to imprisoning the idiots who cannot get the process right. And he starts to enforce his own ways. Make up his own policies and rig his own processes. But alas, a fixed process still doesn’t produce a fixed result.

He probably never heard of Gödel or General Systems Theory. Had he only learned to empower people instead of the process. To assign responsibility and really help those people thrive, be creative and produce the result. But to do that, he would have to violate the sacred scriptures of Hubbard. To achieve a certain result, one needs a flexible process and flexible tools. One would need to bend or break the rules more often than one would think. Scientology is dealing in people, not the manufacturing of cars. The input (people) are uncertain, or even random – while the input to the car plant is rather set. That is why one can have a very rigid process producing cars while such a process will have the opposite effect when dealing with people as input. Witness the current state of the Church.

People (and Scientologists in particular) are prone to stigmatizing, painting the world black-and-white and swiftly calling people good (social) and evil (anti-social or Suppressive Persons). This is hardly an effort to truly understand one’s fellow man. Rather, it is mental laziness to toss stuff quickly into the white or the black bin.

I believe a situation to be more easily handled if one tries to understand it. And if the situation is a one man show, understanding the man would make it easier to handle the whole.