Tag Church of Scientology

Did Scientology have a positive impact on their lives?

Geir Isene 283 Comments

“I want to make a story about the successful people in Scientology. Those people who became truly successful as a result of Scientology.”

It was 2005 and I was having a coffee down town with an old school mate of mine that was now a journalist for the national broadcasting corporation of Norway. He looked expectingly at me while I was desperately trying to come up with such people.

I was rummaging my mind while thinking “Crap! I can’t find any 😦 Let me think… let – me – think – – – Damn!“, and then I said “Interesting angle. I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

My friend was serious. He wanted to balance the constant negative press by a surprising angle on Scientology where he would portray the really successful scientologists, of which he apparently thought there were quite a few. I couldn’t think of any in Norway. Or Scandinavia. Or any I personally knew anywhere in the world. Sure, there were some with average success here and there, but no one that stood out as remarkable. None.

I never got back to the guy. Until I left the church in 2009 and told him I had a story for him.

This question about the actual success of Scientology bugged me for quite a while. I wrote a blog post three years ago titled, “Where are the amazing people?“. And the usual discussion ensued including justifications of how that is not a relevant question or what one mean by “amazing” and other nitpicking points. But the main point remains: Scientology does not seem to produce anything out of the ordinary in terms of good life or skills or amazingness.

Today I sat down, took a good hard look at the people I have known in Scientology. I decided to make a list of people I have known well in Scientology and how Scientology has impacted their lives. The first 50 people that popped to my mind, only the people I have known for years and where I could clearly see how Scientology has affected them. They come from all walks of life – from house wives and business people to former drug users and average Joe. I put the names into three categories:

  1. Scientology had a positive impact on their lives
  2. Scientology had no significant positive or negative impact on their lives
  3. Scientology had a negative impact on their lives

I was somewhat surprised when I summarized the results.

Scientology-Impact-on-Life

I then looked at categories 1 and 3 to sift out those who had life-changing gains from Scientology and those who had life-ruining crashes from Scientology. The result was pretty grim.

Scientology-Impact-on-Life-Details

A couple of notes about the above:

  • Of those that have had awesome improvements in their lives, 80% came into Scientology with a life in ruins
  • Of those that had their lives ruined through Scientology, 86% had an average life when they got in

Almost all (90%) of the list of people have lived a somewhat sheltered life on the fringe of the Scientology empire here in the Land of Santa.

From my experience, if you become involved with the Church of Scientology, there are some statistics you should be aware of:

  • There is a 20% chance that Scientology will improve your life overall
  • There is a 64% chance that Scientology will negatively affect your life
  • The chance that Scientology will dramatically improve your life is 10%
  • The chance that Scientology will ruin your life is 14%
  • You a have 40% greater chance of having your life ruined than dramatically improved
  • If your life is not already in shambles, your chance of having your life ruined is much greater than having it greatly improved through Scientology

While I do not know how the statistics are for Scientology delivered outside the Church, I suspect it is better. Simply because one does not have the Nazi regime, the thought police and the incessant craving for your time and money. I would be interested in hearing your own honest statistics, both from people you know having gotten Scientology in the Church and independently.

Scientology End Phenomena

Geir Isene 84 Comments

Scientology offers a huge breadth of tools, processes and levels aimed at increasing a person’s awareness of himself and his environment.

For every process or level, there is an “End Phenomena” (EP) that defines what that action is supposed to achieve.

The person (“pc” = “pre-clear” = a person on his way up the levels to “Clear”) will exhibit some evidence that the EP has been reached. This is accompanied by some specific reactions on the “E-meter” (the device used to measure the body’s electrical resistance).

END PHENOMENA is defined as “those indicators in the pc and meter which show that a chain or process is ended”.(L. Ron Hubbard)

Most of the EPs in Scientology is fairly easy, subjective and “feel-good”. Others are more “hard core” and objectively verifiable.

These “objective EPs” can be rather tough to verify. Some are plain impossible. Still we see people attest to having achieved these impossible EPs every day – even though the person must know they cannot have achieved such a state. One may wonder why, and this is up for discussion here.

Let us take but a few examples.

PTS Rundown: The EP is a PC who is getting and keeping case gains and never again rollercoasters.

“Case gains” means positive progress in Scientology. “Rollercoaster” means to vacillate in mood, being happy, then sad, etc for no obvious reason. If the above EP was in fact true, it would have cured mankind of one of the most common mental ills forever by the use of that small Scientology action (perhaps 10-50 hours of auditing/processing).

Or how about the EP of “Grade 0, “Communications release”:

Ability to communicate freely with anyone on any subject.

Or how about the professional communications course (the Pro TRs, “TRs” = “Training Routines”):

The PRIMARY VALUABLE FINAL PRODUCT of TRs is:
A Professional auditor who with comm handling alone can keep a pc interested in his own case and willing to talk to the auditor.

The SECONDARY VALUABLE FINAL PRODUCT of TRs is:
A person with the session and social presence of a professional auditor and that presence can be summed up as a being who can handle anyone with communication alone and whose communication can stand up faultlessly to any session or social situation no matter how rough.

The END PHENOMENON of TRs is:
A being who knows he can achieve both of the above flawlessly and from here on out.

I invite here to a discussion of the validity of the above End Phenomena, other similar objective claims in Scientology, and of why people would attest to something that is impossible to honestly claim to have achieved.

Hope

Geir Isene 188 Comments

Why does the Scientology mindfuck go so deep?

I believe it is due to the hope that Scientology instills.

A person enters Scientology with a hope of achieving something. For himself or perhaps even for the world.

Scientology promises the person will attain that goal, because there is nothing Scientology cannot ultimately handle according to Hubbard.

With the help of Scientology, the person achieves some gains letting the person believe his goal can be reached with Scientology.

Some more gains are had in the direction of his goal. Hope that Scientology can ultimately deliver his goal is reinforced.

Even if Scientology has not delivered or even cannot deliver on its promise, the person still has a powerful hope that Scientology will deliver his goal, any goal.

This hope can make the person do almost anything to protect Scientology. He may lie, deceive, betray his family, steal, commit fraud or worse. Perhaps much worse.

His hope will make him blind to any fault in Scientology. His hope will make him resort to any and all mental tricks to avoid his hope being blunted. Because losing hope is perhaps the most painful of all.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. (Francis Bacon)

Interestingly, I notice that some of the most fanatical Scientologists I have met are the one’s with little training and/or auditing. Those who have not yet understood that Scientology habitually oversells and underdelivers.

BBC: How Scientology changed the Internet

Geir Isene 6 Comments

Interesting overview of the history of Scientology vs. the Internet over at BBC Technology.

The Internet may be the one factor in society where Scientology has had the biggest negative impact. The church is busy moving the arena of free speech into a tightly regulated and controlled venue, smacking of 1984.

Read the BBC article here.

The video that helped spark BBC’s interest:
Church of Scientology and their Internet war

Video on the Wikipedia ban:
Video: Scientology and Wikipedia (Internet war)

What are you doing about it?

Geir Isene 101 Comments

We’re not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn’t cute or something to do for lack of something better.

The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.

This is a deadly serious activity. And if we miss getting out of the trap now, we may never again have another chance.

Remember, this is our first chance to do so in all the endless trillions of years of the past. (L. Ron Hubbard, “Keeping Scientology Working”)

If you are a Scientologist in the Church of Scientology, you most probably see the above as true and believe that David Miscavige is doing all that he possibly can to lead the Church and save the universe. If this is the case, you have not seen or ignored the evidence that he is not delivering expansion for Scientology.

If you are an Independent Scientologist, you most probably see the above as true and believe that David Miscavige is the reason why Scientology is not saving the universe. If this is the case, then all that stands in the way of saving the universe is one single man. If you believe this, then you are obviously working day and night to get this one man removed as he is blocking the salvation for eternity for you, for your family, people you love, for mankind and every living organism in the entire universe. Because nothing could be more important in the whole universe than removing this sole block on the ultimate path to freedom. Then what the heck are you doing about it right now? This very minute? Why are you wasting our precious time reading this blog? You should get your ass in gear and ensure Miscavige is removed from power. Because that is more important than your day job, your hobbies, your immediate life.

If none of the two options above applies to you, then lean back, relax and enjoy the discussions.

Thanks Brendan for another interesting angle to the world of Scientology.

“Why don’t you focus on the GOOD in Scientology?”

Geir Isene 61 Comments

That is a question I have been asked several times the past year.

When I was in the Church of Scientology I never allowed myself to look at the negative aspects of Scientology. I did read a lot of criticism on the Net as I was working for OSA (the church’s KGB). But I was quick to dismiss, play down, justify or explain away any negative viewpoints on Scientology, Hubbard and even the church.

In 2007, when I started my two-year research that led to my official resignation, I allowed myself to take a good hard look at what was wrong with the church. But I still did not dare to really look at what could be wrong with the Scientology philosophy or with Hubbard.

After I left and started blogging in late 2009, I criticized openly the church, but defended the philosophy and dismissed criticism of Hubbard as “Argumentum ad Hominem” and “irrelevant”.

After blogging and discussing and allowing myself to freely look at every viewpoint on the church, Scientology and Hubbard, I stopped defending, justifying and dismissing criticism.

During the past year I have allowed myself to also take a good hard look at what is wrong with Scientology itself and with Hubbard. After not letting myself honestly look at these for almost 30 years, I had a lot of catching up to do. I can finally look at and criticize Scientology without any knee-jerk reaction prompting me to defend or explain away shit. I am freeing my viewpoint on the whole thing.

It is a process. I am as usual following what tickles my fancy. And these days I am looking closely at what the root causes of the detrimental sides of Scientology really is. And that is what I am posting. How long with that last? Who knows.

I blog not to teach or convert. I blog to free and evolve my own views on various things in life. I appreciate that people follow me on my path to be free of Scientology. I appreciate all the comments by all the participants on this blog. I read the comments, even when it gets really busy here with more than 100 comments per day. I may not answer all the questions that I should. Because I also have a life outside the blog. A life I enjoy immensely these days.

Scientology => Church of Scientology

Geir Isene 419 Comments

About a week after I left the Church of Scientology (2009-08-07), I started my first blog on Scientology with the title:

GI_stos

GI_mag

My purpose was to highlight my view that Scientology does not equal the Church of Scientology.

Since then, there has been an evolution in my viewpoint. After almost 4 years of blogging and hundreds of discussions on Scientology, several with more than a thousand exchanges with very intelligent and knowledgeable people, I can sum up my current view like this:

The Church of Scientology can be upbraided for not following Hubbard’s scripture or policy to the letter. There are deviations such as (warning – Scientology nomencaluter): Sec Checking during OT 7, the forming of the IAS as a fund raising organization (although Hubbard engaged in pure fundraising himself), fundraising for Ideal Orgs, implementing GAT perfection below Class 6/7/8 auditors, etc. But as a whole, I believe nowhere in history can we find an organization that has so diligently and perfectionistically implemented an ideology. From my experience, the Church of Scientology implements Hubbard’s text to an accuracy of at least 99.9%. Focusing on the deviations is nitpicking.

While it is fairly easy to find inconsistencies in Scientology, Hubbard was overall very consistent. Focusing on the inconsistencies is nitpicking.

It is also possible to nitpick as to what actually constitutes Scientology. But to quote Hubbard (Policy Letter, “Keeping Admin Working”):

Therefore, to keep Scientology working, all of Scientology, one must insist on standard tech and admin…

Obviously, a subject cannot be equal to a physical entity such as a church. The title of my early Scientology blog is nevertheless misleading.

I believe that the Church of Scientology is a natural result of Scientology as written and set up by L. Ron Hubbard.

The current church is at least 99.9% a product as founded and envisioned by Hubbard. David Miscavige is doing an admirable job as the leader of the church (more on that in an upcoming video).

This will not go down well with many Independent Scientologists who hold that Scientology is as close as one can get to a perfect way for freeing a person, a mind, a spirit. But even the most ardent defenders of Scientology must suspect there is something wrong in an ideology that gives birth to a church that habitually cons people and wrecks families.

The recent confirmation of the authenticity of an infamous Technical Bulletin by Hubbard where he says Christ was a pedophile and that Lucifer was actually the force of good and where Hubbard says he was Buddha and also Anti-Christ may shed some light on why the subject took a wrong turn.

Nitpicking is rampant on forums and blogs, like this one. But when I step back and look at the big picture, I see a natural and logical sequence of events where one man invents a philosophy and methodology of the mind and spirit, creates a church as a vehicle for its practice, dies and leaves it into the hands of people highly trained in his methodology and policy, and the church has thereafter tried to implement every single word of what he wrote. Sometimes the implementation is inaccurate or plain wrong, but by and large it is a damn good representation of what Hubbard wrote.

I should perhaps change the tagline of my original Scientology blog to:

Scientology => Church of Scientology

Meaning: “Scientology IMPLIES Church of Scientology“, or “Church of Scientology FOLLOWS LOGICALLY FROM Scientology”

But I will leave it as a trail showing where I was wrong and how my view has changed.

Video: Scientology and Wikipedia (Internet war)

Geir Isene 17 Comments

My first video on the Church of Scientology’s Internet war created a bit of a splash. The interview I did with J. Swift over at Karen De La Carriere’s lasted more than 45 minutes and will be cut to at least 10 videos. This second video, featured on Tone Ortega’s, covers the church’s situation in 2009 where they were banned from editing the Wikipedia pages on Scientology. I talk here about my proposed strategy on how they could mitigate the situation: