Tag Clear

One thing that works remarkably well in Scientology…

Geir Isene 46 Comments

… the suspension of shit.

Most people are able to curtail their issues if they are motivated to do so.

You can suppress your compulsions, suspend your anger, curtail your depression and put your mental anguish on hold… if you know there is a solution up the road. Just keep walking a bit further and it will get handled. Just a mile up the road. Across that Bridge. Over on the other side. A bit further. Almost there. Just hold on for a tad longer. Etc.

I have met scores of Scientologists who have had this going, and remarkably well – for years. They have this big issue in life that they want to have handled. And they believe Scientology can handle it. They start out on the Communication course, and while they get good gains on the exercises, that pressing issue is not gone. They do the Grades. Excellent gains, but the problem remains. They become Clear. Issue still there. They embark upon the OT levels. Cool gains, but that mental burden, while thoroughly covered by hope of some future resolution, is still there. Nagging.

the-long-winding-road-207526

This suspension of shit is a real gain in the person’s life. While it is indeed temporary, it is nevertheless real. The person’s life quality can be substantially increased for years. And that is one great thing that Scientology can do for people.

But for this to work, the person must believe that the issue can be solved by Scientology. And for the person to believe, the solution must be at least as complex as the problem he is facing. Brushing the problem off with “just don’t create it” or “learn to not give a flying fuck about it” just won’t cut it – if the person cherish his problem too much. He will need a complex, substantial and “real” solution. Something scientific looking, something complex like Scientology. With steps and levels and processes, procedures, frameworks, methodology and terminology and organizations and graphs and charts, expensive and exclusive, and with lots of neat looking marketing. Yeah, that should cut it.

It’s only when the person completes or quits Scientology – and still have that issue – that the bear wakes up from hibernation and charges ferociously back into his life. This is why some people experience a great loss when they quit Scientology or when they complete the Bridge (to “Total Freedom”).

The flip side of this coin is really that suspending the mental issue with hope of resolution is an abandonment of responsibility. Instead of taking full responsibility for the problem, he assigns the resolution over to “future Scientology”. And then he’s stuck with the issue even though it is suspended.

Hva er Scientologi?

Geir Isene 21 Comments

Også i år holdt jeg en forelesning ved Menighetsfakultetet ved UiO. En gruppe studenter skulle skrive artikler om Scientologi, og jeg ble invitert som en kilde for deres arbeide. Studentene hadde allerede besøkt Scientologikirken i Oslo. De stilte med åpent sinn og flere gode spørsmål. Det ble en to timers forelesning som dekket alle nivåene i Scientologi med detaljer fra hele “Broen til Total Frihet” – fra Diantetikk og engrammer til Purification Rundown, Clear, OT-nivåene, Xenu, eksorsisme og OT 8. De fikk høre min historie, om hvordan jeg kom inn i Scientologi og hvorfor jeg gikk ut. Flere andre viktige elementer ble dekket i løpet av de to timene. Du kan se hele forelesningen her:

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.