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Religion: Beliefs, facts and the Internet

Geir Isene 97 Comments

The Internet killed Scientology.

It is possible to make a closed belief system thrive and expand in the absence of open access to facts. North Korea as rather successful in its push. China less so, though they have been eager to control the flow of communication.

Religions have long been able to sell beliefs contrary to fact by relying on empathy or force, group pressure or by pushing belief in tools designed to solve personal problems. Scientology is no different. Except Scientology came very late to the show. And it got blasted by open access to facts, freedom of expression, of criticism and exchange of ideas. It got hit by the Internet before it really got off the ground. And I think it serves well as a micro-example of the fate of closed belief systems.

Beliefs tend to fuel discussions, facts tend to defuse it.

And as Scientology finds itself being defused by the Internet, so will other, larger religions. But since the large religions are more established with a longer history, they will take longer to fade by exposure to the Net. But they will fade.

Proven methods will rule, even very workable methods that are currently suppressed by the mainstream will thrive and expand.

Openness and free exchange of ideas and facts drives all kinds of changes. It decentralizes power. It upsets establishments. It makes for a faster-paced world where old, closed belief systems are challenged and eventually die. The big religions can look at what has happened to Scientology and predict their future.

How the Internet changed the game (from NPR):

Why this blog is suppressive

Geir Isene 511 Comments

In Scientology, suppression is defined as:

“A harmful intention or action against which one cannot fight back.”

A Suppressive Person (SP) is defined as:

“one that actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by suppressive acts.”

and

“A person with certain behavior characteristics and who suppresses other people in his vicinity and those other people when he suppresses them become PTS or Potential Trouble Sources.”

And as you can see, a person affected negatively by suppression is termed a Potential Trouble Source (PTS):

“it means someone connected to a person or group opposed to Scientology. It results in illness and roller-coaster and is the cause of illness and roller-coaster.”

and

“a person […] who “roller-coasters,” i.e., gets better, then worse. This occurs only when his connection to a suppressive person or group is unhandled and he must, in order to make his gains from Scientology permanent, receive processing intended to handle such.”

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So, working backward, a person that is involved in Scientology and experiences impermanent gains from it, is connected to a Suppressive person or group. This is somewhat peculiar to Scientology in that the gains are not really permanent, like with physical or other mental training. It’s not like you would expect a person to lose his ability to multiply, to do trigonometry or to ski if he were to be connected to someone opposing those activities in his life. Sure, he could lose motivation and momentum and drop out from his training, and then the skills would corrode. But to suddenly lose his ability to communicate or his ability to recognize the source of problems in life? A person who has audited out all his BTs and then becomes the target of suppression… does the BTs return? Now that is odd.

Could it be that the gains in Scientology actually comes from skillful application of the placebo effect? That the gains are to be had because one really belives one deserve them? And that deep inside we all carry the ability to change our lives if we really can muster the motivation and belief that we can? And that this motivation comes about only when we feel we deserve it?

Is Scientology gains dependent upon the person’s belief, conviction or “inner knowingness”? It would surely answer the conundrum of why one can so easily “lose gains” in Scientology.

Could it be that the scientific cloaking serves to enforce belief in its efficacy? Could the religious cloaking serve the same purpose to different target groups? The time spent surely would enforce one’s conviction that It Works. The same with all the money spent. How about the stringent management, the uniforms, the tough schedules, the bombast, the posh, celebrities and grand PR? And the guru worship? It really does seem like an impressive package that could make a believer out of most anyone. And if we do hold the powers to heal our mind and spirit, one could hardly blame the Scientology scheme for tricking the subjects into unleashing their inner powers.

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On this blog I challenge Scientology beliefs. I question everything myself, and I write about it as I go along. I challenge the practice, the philosophy, the gains, the OT levels, Clear and anything else that turns up as I turn every stone. Scientologists who read this may end up questioning their own beliefs and even lose some gains. And in that aspect, this blog can indeed be looked upon as suppressive. While blogging my Scientology journey has been a great process for me, a nagging doubt remains:

Is it right to challenge another’s belief with facts, if the belief they hold serves to make their life better?

It’s a complex question and I have many views on this. But I would like to hear what you think.

Merry Christmas

Geir Isene 165 Comments

Christmas is a nice time for reflection, for empathy and for nice hugs.

I would like to reflect upon the inspiration I get from all of you. I am so grateful for all your comments – the smart, the wacky, the creative, the logical and all the comments serving to warm the hearts of others. I enjoy your present and my life is richer from it. Just wanted to let you know that your participation here is highly appreciated.

Now, let’s get back to Christmas fun and coziness with our loved ones.

Hugs,

Geir

From my mothers' grave yeasterday

From my mothers’ grave yeasterday

Get to the bottom of it!

Geir Isene 132 Comments

The insistence on finding the WHY is pervasive. Psychoanalysis. Dianetics and Scientology. ITIL and Root Cause Analysis. The belief that one has to get to the bottom of a problem can be blinding. Because it is far from the only way to solve problems. Sometimes it is better to evade the problem, to find another path or to stop creating the problem altogether.

If you face a difficult situation or problem in life, do you need to find the cause of the problem to solve it? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. It depends. There is no ultimate answer to such a question. Maybe you need what you ultimately think you need in order to solve it.

If your car breaks down, smoke and fire erupting from the engine, do you need to find out why the engine broke down? Not if it is an old wreck of a car. It would be cheaper to buy a new one. And not if it is cheaper to replace the engine than spend much time investigating the source of the engine trouble. It all depends. On the business case. Maybe it was an omen that you should start get in shape by riding your bike more often.

The insistence that one must get to the bottom of it can create tunnel vision and lead to endless hours of therapy or auditing or figure-figure why it is this way or that way. At least sometimes it’s better to just give a fuck.

It’s the feeling

Geir Isene 40 Comments

In my talk at HP Norway, I covered my history as a calculator enthusiast. I got my first calculator (a TI-57) when I was 13 and my first HP calculator (HP-41CX) a few years later. I started collecting as an adult, and in 2008 eighty-nine of my ninety calculators got toasted when the building where we had our offices burned to the ground.

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A couple of months before the fire, the Norwegian national TV interviewed me and showed my collection. Lots of people saw it. Shortly after the fire, the TV host Petter Skjerven came back to do a “part 2” where he asked me how I felt after the fire. We were standing in the ruins when I told him I felt great.

A couple of weeks before the fire, I had a dream where I had all HP-calculators ever made in mint condition. That saddened me – because the game was over. You see, the point about collecting the calculators, apart from actually using them, is to COLLECT – not to HAVE. So, I had 8 years of fun behind me when the fire struck. And then I had at least 8 years of fun ahead. It felt great. After that second show, people started sending me their old calculators. And now I am almost beck where I was. Except my HP-01 is hard to replace. And my HP-37E had the lowest serial number recorded. Priceless. Oh well. I started to rebuild my collection, and I have calcs now that I never had before – like the gifts I got from HP after my talk; an HP-70, an HP-25C and an HP-10. All rare items.

One important personal point I touched upon in my talk was how I am driven by feelings. The feeling for the unknown, the feeling of learning something new, of discovery, of the vast sea of interesting knowledge, the thrill of learning Einstein’s theory of relativity before I got my first calculator, the excitement of making a self-modifying program on a TI-59 that I borrowed from a friend of mine. The joy of synthetic programming on an HP-41. And the nerve wrecking feeling of reading aloud when I was in high school. The thrill of girls, of the first job, of travelling abroad, of meeting with interesting and amazing people. The emotions, the fun. This is what drives me. And collecting old calculators rejuvenates many tingling, captivating and entrancing rushes. I love it.

This a big reason why I make music, artwork, meet and talk to new people, travel, read, play, point my telescope to the stars and live life as I do. I am a feeling-junky. This is also why I blog.

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Video: Kalkulatorentusiastene

Geir Isene 114 Comments

Det blir vanskelig å slå gårdsdagen. Dagen da julen ble overskygget. Dagen da kalkulatorentusiastene inntok HP-kontorene på Fornebu og fikk dele sin pussige glede over gamle klenodier som selv HP hadde parkert i sin dypeste kjeller.

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Tenke seg til – jeg ble invitert av HP til å holde foredrag om et av deres gamle hjertebarn; HP-kalkulatorene.

Det er videns kjent at jeg har en mental skavank, en særegen svakhet for gamle mattemaskiner fra 70- og 80-tallet produsert nettopp av Hewlett Packard. Og i går fikk jeg muligheten til uten bygsel å legge for en dag mine følelser for maskinene som for meg representerer et vindu inn i matematikken og vitenskapens verden. Sammen med min gode venn, Arne Helme, som deler mitt mentale avvik.

Det hele ble kronet med en julaften som lignet den jeg opplevde da jeg var 12 år og fikk mitt første teleskop. Harald Andersson hadde tatt turen ned i kjelleren og hentet ut en skokk pensjonerte kunstverk for å gi dem et bedre hjem. Hos Geir og Arne. Jeg fikk tolv kalkulatorer! Inkludert en HP-70!! Arne fikk tak i en HP-70 for noen år siden og misunnelsen har ikke stått stille siden. Og der var det jommen meg en HP-25C også. Og en flott HP-27. Og en HP.10 🙂 og en ubrukt HP-34C som jeg ga til Arne. Jeg har en slik fra før, men det hadde ikke han. Et lite ras av dokumentasjon og bøker fulgte med. Og en blomst og en vinflaske. Helt sykt. Snakk om julaften! Tusen takk til Julenissen som til daglig jobber som ingeniør i HP.

hp calculators

HP er en unik bedrift med en unik historie. Og nå som de har lansert en svært avansert kalkulator med touch-skjerm i farger og heftige matematiske funksjoner, er de på rett spor igjen. Mer om HP Prime i en senere bloggpost.

Hele opplevelsen ble tatt opp på video og lagt ut på Youtube. Popkorn. Snurr film:

Scientology pros and cons

Geir Isene 713 Comments

With all the oh-so-polarized discussions on Scientology rampant on the Net, I got the idea of balancing it off with this:

Anyone that wants to participate on the discussion on this very blog post must, as their opening comment, list their 5 main pros and 5 main cons regarding Scientology. Five real gems and five real disasters. Five good things and five bad. Unconditional good and unconditional bad. Not bad things that could be interpreted as good, or good stuff that could be taken to mean something bad. And no qualifiers such as “while Scientology is a complete and utter scam, there is one thing that could seem good…” or “while the core of Scientology is workable, there is one aspect that may be seen as flawed…”. Just simple statements that stand on their own; 5 real plus points and 5 real minus points. Let’s see if this can be done.

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To be fair, and to be allowed to participate in this discussion on my own blog, I’ll go first.

My five main positives about Scientology:

  • The communication drills: I have seen these do wonders in me and others to help the person be more open and clearer in his or her communication
  • The importance of helping a person really be Here and Now: Auditing that helps a person be more in Present Time is very valuable
  • The auditing principles of not invalidating or evaluating for the person is a real gem
  • The auditing processes that help a person sort out the dichotomies in life is something I have seen help people to be more harmonious and relaxed in life
  • The research into the nature of a being, the nature of the life force, the “theta” is something I have learned a lot from

My five main negatives about Scientology:

  • The notion that Scientology is The Only Way – that it is complete and consistent, that it represents a one-size-fits-all
  • The worshipping of the super-human, of Homo Novis, of OT powers and every aspect of personal power is despicable
  • The total absence of openness and transparency in research (or the lack thereof)
  • The branding/trademarking/copyrighting of Scientology and the attempt to compartment Scientology as “a body of knowledge” or something special instead of contributing knowledge freely to the mainstream human pool of knowledge
  • The focus on enemies, war, battle and the attacking of anything critical or tangential to Scientology (disconnection and the lack of love come under this heading)

Want to pitch in and discuss? Start by posting your 5+ and 5- aspects of Scientology 🙂

The Unclear path to Clear

Geir Isene 209 Comments

Before reading this blog post, please read up on my previous post on the Scientology subject of Clear – “Conclusion: There are no Clears”

Be warned that this blog post contains advanced Scientology stuff.

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I have recently done some further research into the State of Clear and its history. Let’s first recap some basics and then bridge over into a curious but fundamental inconsistency of Scientology:

  • In order for a problem to resolve or a “mental charge” to “blow”, one must get to the very basics, the root cause of it and then it will vanish.
  • An individual (a thetan) was originally almighty and Clear (no reactive mind)
  • At some point during at least the past 4 quadrillion years (as per the OT 3 material), the thetan started creating a reactive mind and became “unClear”
  • The very first traumatic incident (engram) holds the key to unlocking the reactive mind, and when inspected thoroughly through auditing, the individual can again become Clear
  • Individuals may become Clear on different levels of The Bridge to Total Freedom
  • Many go Clear on New Era Dianetics (NED), while those who do not will take the sure-fire way through the Clearing Course
  • The Clearing Course will handle the very basics that will unlock the person’s reactive mind and make him or her Clear
  • In the OT 3 material (“2nd note, point 8) we learn that the heavy traumatic incidents handled on the Clearing Course was in fact implanted as part of the OT3 incident administered by the late Xenu only 75 million years ago (referred to as Incident 2)
  • The chance for a thatan to have become unClear as late as during those few turbulent days 75 million years ago is much less than one in 4 billion
  • So why is the sure-fire way to Clearing a person handling some incident so extremely close to Present Time that there is virtually no chance that this incident could have been the cause for the individuals descent from Clear to starting mocking up his reactive mind?
  • Should we understand from this that every individual went unClear and started creating a reactive mind when Xenu got his fits?
  • Or should we understand that Xenu was so angelic that he skillfully administered an implant that when unlocked, it would unlock all earlier trauma until the beginning of time? Should we then praise Xenu?

I put this question forth to one of the wisest and highest trained Scientologists in history. And he could not sort out this interesting, perhaps disturbing inconsistency.

At the same time I have talked to many who have done the Clearing Course, and most have had great, even life-changing gains from doing that step on the Bridge. So clearly it does Something profound.

I believe Allan Watts got it right when he said:

Make the person do some sort of regimen that the person truly believe he will get great gains from and voilá.

Like!

Geir Isene 176 Comments

One of my current quests has born fruits. A couple of years ago, I got the idea that it should be possible to like anything. Yes, anything. But while it may perhaps be a distant, even unreachable goal, it has shown to be a worthwhile pursuit.

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I started out with the small, everyday things. Liking the noise from the neighbor. Liking my own irritation on a bad day. Liking others’ criticism of me. Liking nasty people. The cold. The failure on a job. Unpleasant food. The pain at the dentist’s. Practice makes perfect. Or at least approaching perfect. Because it seems an everlasting quest for liking anything. And the rewards are great 🙂

Life is brighter, more fun and there is a higher harmony. The alternative is less pleasing.

Just thing about it, is there any benefit in NOT liking stuff? You might as well like it, even enjoy it – and life will be brighter from it. Enjoy. Like!