A First Question…

[eldritch cuckoo]

Oh, maybe I used the wrong word. If you affect one corner, the other corners get affected too. So, theoretically, if you strengthened a corner, the other gets stronger and the reverse would hold true. That is what we were are taught but what if there is more to it?

Let's say a person loves chocolate and, so, consumes a lot. Then the affinity for chocolate grows and the person would consume nothing else. Then, as a result, the person begins to have health problems but the person is so much into chocolate that he will not abandon his love for it, even at the risk of the person's life. Would you say that the affinity of that person to chocolate expanded so much that he lost his ability to communicate and that the person lost track of reality?

It might sound silly, I mean using chocolate, but isn't that what happens to extremists that wind up being the enemies of everyone else around them? If I become the enemy of my brother because he adds milk and strawberries to his chocolate, might it be that I lost something because of my affinity to chocolate?

Just saying but it takes me beyond my search.

The "tech" is all contradictory in itself and the unusual connotations and meanings added to words are thoroughly sinister. Hubbard might have been less of an "evil genius" than basically a sloppish thinker and self-obsessed crackpot, but he certainly knew that confusion makes people exhausted, unnerved, and suggestible - and that was a pretty good incentive for him to "let go" from time to time, ever again, and just make up some impressive sounding shit.
The experience of so many people shows that only dissecting his stuff while assuming Hubbard was a mean, sociopathic asshat who strived for nothing than mentally enslaving and reshaping all people, wondrously, leads to something - precisely, to some plausible theories about seduction, confusion, hypnosis, coercion, and mind control.
Oh yeah, he did "research" and "development", at last some. He meticulously added and implemented to his "tech" whatever twists and twitches and tools he considered gave him more control, confused people even more efficient and and put them into a suggestible state, so that even more of his sociopathic "ethics" (and personality) could be imprinted on people. This, while adding coercion and peer pressure and threats and "sunk cost bias" and promises of super powers to the mix. There was no other reason for anything he ever did, than POWER.

Before you waste any more time making sense of Hubbard's essentially unworldly ARC & KRC triangles, read Mockingbird's dissection of the ARC & KRC triangles. Makes much sense to me. It was, as everything else in Scientology, all just an instrument of causing confusion, enslavement, reprogramming and control.


Dissecting Hubbard's gobbledegook while taking it serious, in the way of assuming he wrote basically honest and as a kind of (if but somewhat confused) spiritual leader or philosopher, leads to exactly nothing than your own confusion. Because sorry, people found out it's all just based on an enormous fallacy that renders all the subsequent conclusions useless, and that is that Hubbard was an "innovative thinker", a "genius", that he had, despicable lifestyle aside, some "really good ideas". Wrong. He was no genius, not even an evil one. He was just a fucking self-obserbed crackpot who liked to make up stuff. You have to let go of that thought that he really made up something magically useful (while being utterly despicable IRL) and didn't just here and there implement stolen details, like (back then!) outdated forms of therapy, or mantras from Crowley, that type of "free yourself" formulas. That's the cheese in the trap, no more, and the deeper one crawls into the trap, the lesser cheese one will find, and then, bang.
This subliminally friendly to neutral picture Hubbard is a leftover of your cult think, and face it, you're still stuck in it, no matter what you've read meanwhile. After all, these negative informations about Hubbard appeared strangely distant and abstract to you, right? I don't want answers to this because it's really just assumptions (and everybody should know that), but I suppose you either didn't read as much negative stuff about Hubbard as you claimed, or you just "scanned" the pages, kinda not wanting to look. Exactly this would be a sign that you're still entrapped to some degree. READ IT AGAIN. Dare to face the inevitable conclusions, the most likely theories about his actual motivations, his personal motives, the real reason FOR EACH BIT OF THE "TECH".

The "tech" and the fact that Hubbard was an egoistical, schizophrenic "meanie" can and should NOT be separated, as what he intended with it wasn't JUST to sell some books, and to form a loose circle of people using that "tech" on each other. If Scientology would have stayed on that stage of organization, with Hubbard "just" sitting in its center fat and lazy, making up stuff and having others to test its efficiency or truthfulness while not really commenting on it or terrorizing and abusing anybody (or telling them to do that to each other), as esoterics gurus use to do, THEN it would have made some sense if some people, who got something out of his work, said "oh well he is a meanie and a drunkard and really very narcissistic, but I think he had some good ideas, and I think he had a dream and that was to help people, and that this is the main goal of his work, - maybe aside from selling books and lectures".
It wouldn't have made Hubbard's methods one bit more scientific, or his results one bit more impressive, but it would have represented less of a contradiction than what one has to face if looking at Co$, in all its abysmal horror, and then looking at the "tech", and then looking at Co$ again - at whichever stage of its history.
What happened with Dianetics and Scientology, inevitably, showed Hubbard's true intentions, his real plans, his true desires and goals. Every bit that was added to the "tech" and all that gross redefinitions of "ethics" showed just what he really was after. It (soon) became a strict, controlling, terroristic organization, in which, ideally, everybody was a brainwashed, obedient slave, dissociated from reality and their feelings, an utterly helpless puppet, unable even to think of rebellion. Dare to deprogram yourself of your delusions, making use of the facts and explanations that are already out there.


Another example, one that works with many exes. Rhetorical questions, again. I don't want answers here, it suffices if you give them to yourself. What's your opinion about psychiatric drugs, or ECT, or psychotherapy, hmm? "Mostly bullshit" or "not quite effective" or "they don't really know about the mind and are just guessing around" would be the best guess probably, along with some vague statement about Hubbard's "basically so much more innovative approach". And that's so far from the truth it's just gross - it means to take the ramblings of a crackpot over actual science because they sound more GRANDIOSE, and because the crackpot and guru understands exactly one thing: how to make auspicious PROMISES - when all that shit really should be SUSPICIOUS to anybody.
Now, in 2015, many ex Scientologists still have an opinion about psychology and psychiatry that is 1) stuck at the stage of the 1960s or whenever they got into the cult, because that's the last time they looked at that theme open-minded, 2) soaked with cult indoctrinated prejudices and phobias.


One doesn't have to remember these details consciously to believe in them very much. They have been programmed, deeply. They have become HABITS.
Actually, to remember the cult as a source of a specific information or opinion (in the form of Hubbard lectures or Scientologist friends or a casual remark by some staffer) opens the door to deprogramming oneself.

So, try to remember the actual sources of your informations, your opinions, your biases, your assumptions, your HABITS. Is it from the cult, or from the outside world? And is it really up to date? Hasn't science maybe made some progress meanwhile? Havn't they found some other psychiatric drugs meanwhile besides of Valium and Haldol, isn't ECT conducted under narcosis, and isn't Freud considered basically a kook and of historical interest only, amongst serious psychotherapists? Was Hubbard even up to date, or didn't he just become an "enemy" of psychiatry even decades earlier, and, based on his own bad education and arrogance, basically made up stuff? And so on...

People can be very much "out", truly just using what works for them after a while (cold "confront" in certain situations where a truly harassing or aggressive adversary is not worthy of fair treatment, for example), while they are on some levels still be entrapped in the cult think even after decades because they got no new informations on some topics meanwhile, no matter for how long they are out. In your case I indeed recommend very much to get at least a textbook about psychology or psychotherapy (because of your interest, not because of a need for therapy I mean), and probably look at some philosophic stuff as well, whatever pleases you, but I'd strongly recommend not just to jump to other pseudosciences, as you now strive very much to do, with desperately seeking out Dianetics "offsprings", or whatever sounds similarly crackpot-ish. If that feels cozy and familiar and nice to you and sufficiently "promising", it's just the WRONG thing to do! FUCK THIS SHIT!


There are some things called PSEUDOscience and it's called PSEUDOscience for a reason. It's based on nothing. It's based on wild assumptions. It's all based on adventurous, wild, free-wheeling, uncontrolled, "impressive", kooky thoughts, and in most cases the people who are following them do believe in their pipe dreams at last to some degree but just as much they want to sell their books or lectures, so there is a fucking STRONG incentive just to spin tales, to make up bullshit, if it's only appealing to certain people, drawing people towards it, to buy books, lectures, pseudo-psychotherapy, ultimately, and salvation. IT'S A TRAP. These people are obsessed with their own grandiosity, and whether it is part of that grandiose picture to be a savior, it's still all just a product of megalomania and narcissism, the whole body of work, and that mere hypnotic IDEA of altruism, of being helpful, doesn't make their theories and the "tech" of these loonies ONE BIT MORE WORKABLE. It's all just pipe dreams and, if it's a real cult, it's also about power and control for the cult leader.

Instead, stick with REAL science, whichever one; and you'll see, soon, how much sense it all makes, and how easy understanding and making conclusions for oneself based on facts and theories and experiments really is, what the essential tools and rules of scientific thinking are, and that, wondrously, other than with the ever-so-vague pseudoscience crap, these conclusions will often be the same than other people (laymen and experts) made.
That's the difference. You get that wonderful "aha" effect when dealing with real science, you consider something and then read how others came to the same conclusions. That but does NOT happen with crackpot pseudoscience, because in these cases always only the guru/author/blogger knows the theory, and it can't really be explained, because, uh, it's so sublime and wonderful, or, yeah, they really have the nerve to call it all a BUSINESS SECRET. Fuck Idenics & Dianetics & Landmark & all other offsprings of that toxic lunativ egoistical well Hubbard and his fellow crackpots, FUCK them.

Anyone can buy a textbook on psychotherapy and after a while understand what's it all about, and why it works, and why sometimes not, and where there are still insecurities, or why the therapist and the patient often have to "try things", because we haven't yet found out enough to determine who really needs what kind of therapy, and the experts speculate all the time how these therapies and their "tools" possibly can be improved. That's a GLARING contrast to "technologies" that come with a ready set of "tools" and "100% workability" and "95% success rate", and the ever so "workable" excuse "if it doesn't work, that's because it has been applied wrongly, or because the person is a hidden "suppressive"/"black magician"/"witch""...

With crackpot pseudoscience, it's always "ohh look at my gorgeous theory it's so wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wouldn't it be sooo great if it's true ... let's see what suggestive fallacious bullshit clues we can find that it's true (and aliens built it), if only I could believe...".
With science it's "ohh look at these clues, there might be a correlation, let's make the experiment, that's so interesting, interesting, interesting ... and frankly I've no fucking clue what will be the outcome of that experiment, but here we go anyways".
That's a difference.
You won't find the second kind of stuff in any of these PSEUDOsciences. That's why it's PSEUDOscience. Someone loves a theory. Someone wants to dream, to fantasize, to believe. Someone is obsessed by an idea, but it's not the idea of a possibility, and as such essentially a question, it's but very much THE ANSWER. The kooks think they already have the ANSWER, or maybe all of them. Someone wants to make money off it, literally A LIVING, and tries to make other people to believe in it, usually for a profit.
And if people criticize it, if they just ask for proof, if they ask for verification, for real success rates and for the actual methods and the theories and the fucking MATHS behind it all, the kooks don't try to explain, no, they instantly get BITCHY. And why? Yeah, guess! BUTT-HURT, what else! Because their pet pipedream is "attacked", when really just people want to verify it with scientific tools. And they really have NOTHING but their pipedream, no real theories, no evidence, no methodology, no means of verification. It's all just a big, fancy, exciting, adventurous, megalomaniacal, very provitable DREAM. Fucking kooks are fucking schizophrenics, and often enough fucking GREEDY.


I wish you good luck on your journey but ONLY if you try out REAL SCIENCE, which for you is, for now, equal to TEXTBOOK SCIENCE, because sorry, you have not much of a clue and at this point no right to be adventurous and to feel like having all the answers, or even knowing which QUESTIONS to ask, nor are you already wielding all the necessary "tools". That's crackpot thinking. It's a fantasy. The first step is still to know you know nothing. Touch no "ologies" whatsoever if it's not something teached on universities, that's a pretty simple formula, and if you make that your guideline you'll waste less time with dysfunctional pipedreams. If you really have no clue what's SCIENCE and what NOT, just look up in Wikipedia whether something is considered a PSEUDOscience or not, before you waste your time with it. Don't just favor another soothingly "promising sounding" pseudoscience crap.
Hint, if it's promising sounding, it's PSEUDOscience. And it will lead you nowhere.
Another hint, try "popular science" stuff if you're insecure about which theme interests you. It can be a waste of time, it's a distraction but at last not misleading.

I strongly suggest to really begin a theme with an introductory textbook, because they often have a general section about "theory of science", e.g. scientific "tools" and the scientific approach. A specialized textbook, in that way, might be "unreadable", when lacking too much of the vocabulary and general understanding. (I once bought a book about a medical theme I was vaguely interested in, only to discover it was practically unreadable for me as it really was written for people who are already doctors. Bugger. 50€! I recommend to look into the books if you have the opportunity.)
I can make recommendations per PM, I just won't bother with a list (complete with Amazon links etc) here and now. (To make it short, the names of the textbooks can be a tad confusing. Basically they are identified by their authors. Psychology student 1: "So WTF, the name of that book is "Psychology"? I get 400 Amazon results for that." Student 2: "Yeah, the Zimbardo.") Also, these books are expensive and should be bought second-hand.

I also do not recommend to read the philosophers and demagogues all too soon, ancients aside. Many of them are more methodical and honest than the modern (often money and fame obsessed) "kooks", but apparently what many of them did is just nothing than to revel in pipe dreams about existence and the nature of God and (yes, I'm sarcastical - somewhat) drinking lots of absinth. Many of them in the end contributed very little to the theory of science as we know it today, and just took each other's fallacies and prejudices and christian thinking, meticulously shaping them into more elaborate fallacies and more scienc-y sounding theological arguments, or maybe here and there removing a fallacy. It's a sort of science, yeah, but they often were pretty blase or terribly devout which is why I call them so useless and unworldly in the end. A student of philosophy knows to recite and to meticulously compare them all, and the relations between them. Which is also a sort of science, and follows scientific rules, but also is incredibly useless. For anything and all and especially one's life.
I have a slightly better opinion about ... surprise ... Nietzsche. I found him very readable, and not at all unworldly. Along with Machiavelli.

 

[Free Being Me]

I guess you never did a word clearing course, so here is one definition of psychology (there are many out there but they coincide):

1. psychology definition. The science dealing with mental phenomena and processes. Psychologists study emotions, perception, intelligence, consciousness, and the relationship between these phenomena and processes and the work of the glands and muscles
3. It's a science that deals with mental phenomena, isn't that what dianetics did? It studies and works with emotions, perception, intelligence, consciousness and so on, so, I would say that dianetics is very much psychology.

The key word is science. Psychology is a behavioral science using the scientific method, dianetics is cultist pseudo-science at best, written in a few days by hubbard for the express purpose of bilking people out of their money. Primarily dianetics is based on abreactive hypno-therapy with a heavy perverted emphasis on inducing hypnotics, which was abandoned for the most part by psychology because it was deemed ineffectual and harmful.

Now psychology focuses on many therapeutic applications, one being Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which is used for a variety of patient-used application tools for PTSD, depression, panic & anxiety attacks, phobias, etc. Not so oddly enough, hubbard's cult induces the very mental illnesses it falsely claims to cure. BTW, a psychology therapist doesn't "feed" answers to a patient. You've been watching too many cult dead agent films on mental health. LOL.

Just because you transpose the definition of psychology from a quick google search onto dianetics doesn't make cultist woo "science."

2. Now, how about the existence of engrams, the reactive mind and so on? Psychology has the unconscious mind, the conscious mind, the ego, the id, they have patients and, to keep things short, they work with the experiences of their patients, their identities and so on. I would say that they work with the same things that dianetics work with. The main difference being that they tend to sugest solutions to their patients, while in the original dianetics the auditor was not suppose to do anything other than to guide their pc and listen.
   
   My comm course did not turn me into something else. It just showed me, to keep it short, how to control my reactions and how to talk to people. What tried to change me into something else were the policy letters, Hubbards philosophy and so on but that's a theme for a new question. Here I'm just trying to figure out what the hook, line and sinker was, so that I can heal any ill effects from my experience, if any.

Sorry I could not separate my comments from the definition. Tried but it just would not work before this point but I think that my point is clear.

I applaud your desire to examine the cultist mind fuck. Ever hear of critical thinking? Starting off with the assumption dianetics is a scientific psychology isn't it. The comm course inhibits a person's emotions because you don't learn about healthy emotional maturity, the scientologist through hubbard stifles them. It's the first layer of cultist control a scientologist does to themselves.

 

[Free Being Me]

Yes, the sun is shinning and all that but can you see any sense in what I'm saying? Could it be a manifestation of an MU, or am I applying what I learned?

Another example, let's say a person gains affinity towards a certain philosophy. His communication and reality with that particular philosophy goes up. The higher it goes the more real that philosophy seems to the person but, at the same time, other related philosophies lose sense. They are no longer real and there's no affinity for them. As the affinity grows, the person loses track of any other way of thinking and, as the affinity grows, a time will come when the person does not believe anything else. So, the person's affinity to the particular philosophy has "widened" but his reality, communication and affinity with anything else went over the side.

You see, I'm not questioning the ARC triangle at this time. I'm just expanding, or at least trying to expand my understanding of it.

Using hubbard's scientology to understand scientology is a paradoxical cultist Mobius loop with circular subjective noncritical thinking commonly known as a hamster wheel.

BTW, watch Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

 

[Phoenix8]

For me the "hook" was being around other kids in scientology in the free-nanny brigade. Then of course my parents who were on staff.

Later, I started doing courses and joined staff at age 9 or 10.

Shortly after I was recruited to the sea org at age 11 to "get ethics in on the planet" and "safeguard the tech."

If prefer not to go into too much detail because I still have family in scn and don't want to disconnect from them.

Edit to add: I was in hook, line and sinker in my early tweens. Or with no formal education except a GED I obtained for $500 that took me 8 hours to obtain when I was 12. I left at age 15.

 

[jibaro]

The "tech" is all contradictory in itself and the unusual connotations and meanings added to words are thoroughly sinister. Hubbard might have been less of an "evil genius" than basically a sloppish thinker and self-obsessed crackpot, but he certainly knew that confusion makes people exhausted, unnerved, and suggestible - and that was a pretty good incentive for him to "let go" from time to time, ever again, and just make up some impressive sounding shit.
The experience of so many people shows that only dissecting his stuff while assuming Hubbard was a mean, sociopathic asshat who strived for nothing than mentally enslaving and reshaping all people, wondrously, leads to something - precisely, to some plausible theories about seduction, confusion, hypnosis, coercion, and mind control.
Oh yeah, he did "research" and "development", at last some. He meticulously added and implemented to his "tech" whatever twists and twitches and tools he considered gave him more control, confused people even more efficient and and put them into a suggestible state, so that even more of his sociopathic "ethics" (and personality) could be imprinted on people. This, while adding coercion and peer pressure and threats and "sunk cost bias" and promises of super powers to the mix. There was no other reason for anything he ever did, than POWER.

Before you waste any more time making sense of Hubbard's essentially unworldly ARC & KRC triangles, read Mockingbird's dissection of the ARC & KRC triangles. Makes much sense to me. It was, as everything else in Scientology, all just an instrument of causing confusion, enslavement, reprogramming and control.


Dissecting Hubbard's gobbledegook while taking it serious, in the way of assuming he wrote basically honest and as a kind of (if but somewhat confused) spiritual leader or philosopher, leads to exactly nothing than your own confusion. Because sorry, people found out it's all just based on an enormous fallacy that renders all the subsequent conclusions useless, and that is that Hubbard was an "innovative thinker", a "genius", that he had, despicable lifestyle aside, some "really good ideas". Wrong. He was no genius, not even an evil one. He was just a fucking self-obserbed crackpot who liked to make up stuff. You have to let go of that thought that he really made up something magically useful (while being utterly despicable IRL) and didn't just here and there implement stolen details, like (back then!) outdated forms of therapy, or mantras from Crowley, that type of "free yourself" formulas. That's the cheese in the trap, no more, and the deeper one crawls into the trap, the lesser cheese one will find, and then, bang.
This subliminally friendly to neutral picture Hubbard is a leftover of your cult think, and face it, you're still stuck in it, no matter what you've read meanwhile. After all, these negative informations about Hubbard appeared strangely distant and abstract to you, right? I don't want answers to this because it's really just assumptions (and everybody should know that), but I suppose you either didn't read as much negative stuff about Hubbard as you claimed, or you just "scanned" the pages, kinda not wanting to look. Exactly this would be a sign that you're still entrapped to some degree. READ IT AGAIN. Dare to face the inevitable conclusions, the most likely theories about his actual motivations, his personal motives, the real reason FOR EACH BIT OF THE "TECH".

The "tech" and the fact that Hubbard was an egoistical, schizophrenic "meanie" can and should NOT be separated, as what he intended with it wasn't JUST to sell some books, and to form a loose circle of people using that "tech" on each other. If Scientology would have stayed on that stage of organization, with Hubbard "just" sitting in its center fat and lazy, making up stuff and having others to test its efficiency or truthfulness while not really commenting on it or terrorizing and abusing anybody (or telling them to do that to each other), as esoterics gurus use to do, THEN it would have made some sense if some people, who got something out of his work, said "oh well he is a meanie and a drunkard and really very narcissistic, but I think he had some good ideas, and I think he had a dream and that was to help people, and that this is the main goal of his work, - maybe aside from selling books and lectures".
It wouldn't have made Hubbard's methods one bit more scientific, or his results one bit more impressive, but it would have represented less of a contradiction than what one has to face if looking at Co$, in all its abysmal horror, and then looking at the "tech", and then looking at Co$ again - at whichever stage of its history.
What happened with Dianetics and Scientology, inevitably, showed Hubbard's true intentions, his real plans, his true desires and goals. Every bit that was added to the "tech" and all that gross redefinitions of "ethics" showed just what he really was after. It (soon) became a strict, controlling, terroristic organization, in which, ideally, everybody was a brainwashed, obedient slave, dissociated from reality and their feelings, an utterly helpless puppet, unable even to think of rebellion. Dare to deprogram yourself of your delusions, making use of the facts and explanations that are already out there.


Another example, one that works with many exes. Rhetorical questions, again. I don't want answers here, it suffices if you give them to yourself. What's your opinion about psychiatric drugs, or ECT, or psychotherapy, hmm? "Mostly bullshit" or "not quite effective" or "they don't really know about the mind and are just guessing around" would be the best guess probably, along with some vague statement about Hubbard's "basically so much more innovative approach". And that's so far from the truth it's just gross - it means to take the ramblings of a crackpot over actual science because they sound more GRANDIOSE, and because the crackpot and guru understands exactly one thing: how to make auspicious PROMISES - when all that shit really should be SUSPICIOUS to anybody.
Now, in 2015, many ex Scientologists still have an opinion about psychology and psychiatry that is 1) stuck at the stage of the 1960s or whenever they got into the cult, because that's the last time they looked at that theme open-minded, 2) soaked with cult indoctrinated prejudices and phobias.


One doesn't have to remember these details consciously to believe in them very much. They have been programmed, deeply. They have become HABITS.
Actually, to remember the cult as a source of a specific information or opinion (in the form of Hubbard lectures or Scientologist friends or a casual remark by some staffer) opens the door to deprogramming oneself.

So, try to remember the actual sources of your informations, your opinions, your biases, your assumptions, your HABITS. Is it from the cult, or from the outside world? And is it really up to date? Hasn't science maybe made some progress meanwhile? Havn't they found some other psychiatric drugs meanwhile besides of Valium and Haldol, isn't ECT conducted under narcosis, and isn't Freud considered basically a kook and of historical interest only, amongst serious psychotherapists? Was Hubbard even up to date, or didn't he just become an "enemy" of psychiatry even decades earlier, and, based on his own bad education and arrogance, basically made up stuff? And so on...

People can be very much "out", truly just using what works for them after a while (cold "confront" in certain situations where a truly harassing or aggressive adversary is not worthy of fair treatment, for example), while they are on some levels still be entrapped in the cult think even after decades because they got no new informations on some topics meanwhile, no matter for how long they are out. In your case I indeed recommend very much to get at least a textbook about psychology or psychotherapy (because of your interest, not because of a need for therapy I mean), and probably look at some philosophic stuff as well, whatever pleases you, but I'd strongly recommend not just to jump to other pseudosciences, as you now strive very much to do, with desperately seeking out Dianetics "offsprings", or whatever sounds similarly crackpot-ish. If that feels cozy and familiar and nice to you and sufficiently "promising", it's just the WRONG thing to do! FUCK THIS SHIT!


There are some things called PSEUDOscience and it's called PSEUDOscience for a reason. It's based on nothing. It's based on wild assumptions. It's all based on adventurous, wild, free-wheeling, uncontrolled, "impressive", kooky thoughts, and in most cases the people who are following them do believe in their pipe dreams at last to some degree but just as much they want to sell their books or lectures, so there is a fucking STRONG incentive just to spin tales, to make up bullshit, if it's only appealing to certain people, drawing people towards it, to buy books, lectures, pseudo-psychotherapy, ultimately, and salvation. IT'S A TRAP. These people are obsessed with their own grandiosity, and whether it is part of that grandiose picture to be a savior, it's still all just a product of megalomania and narcissism, the whole body of work, and that mere hypnotic IDEA of altruism, of being helpful, doesn't make their theories and the "tech" of these loonies ONE BIT MORE WORKABLE. It's all just pipe dreams and, if it's a real cult, it's also about power and control for the cult leader.

Instead, stick with REAL science, whichever one; and you'll see, soon, how much sense it all makes, and how easy understanding and making conclusions for oneself based on facts and theories and experiments really is, what the essential tools and rules of scientific thinking are, and that, wondrously, other than with the ever-so-vague pseudoscience crap, these conclusions will often be the same than other people (laymen and experts) made.
That's the difference. You get that wonderful "aha" effect when dealing with real science, you consider something and then read how others came to the same conclusions. That but does NOT happen with crackpot pseudoscience, because in these cases always only the guru/author/blogger knows the theory, and it can't really be explained, because, uh, it's so sublime and wonderful, or, yeah, they really have the nerve to call it all a BUSINESS SECRET. Fuck Idenics & Dianetics & Landmark & all other offsprings of that toxic lunativ egoistical well Hubbard and his fellow crackpots, FUCK them.

Anyone can buy a textbook on psychotherapy and after a while understand what's it all about, and why it works, and why sometimes not, and where there are still insecurities, or why the therapist and the patient often have to "try things", because we haven't yet found out enough to determine who really needs what kind of therapy, and the experts speculate all the time how these therapies and their "tools" possibly can be improved. That's a GLARING contrast to "technologies" that come with a ready set of "tools" and "100% workability" and "95% success rate", and the ever so "workable" excuse "if it doesn't work, that's because it has been applied wrongly, or because the person is a hidden "suppressive"/"black magician"/"witch""...

With crackpot pseudoscience, it's always "ohh look at my gorgeous theory it's so wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wouldn't it be sooo great if it's true ... let's see what suggestive fallacious bullshit clues we can find that it's true (and aliens built it), if only I could believe...".
With science it's "ohh look at these clues, there might be a correlation, let's make the experiment, that's so interesting, interesting, interesting ... and frankly I've no fucking clue what will be the outcome of that experiment, but here we go anyways".
That's a difference.
You won't find the second kind of stuff in any of these PSEUDOsciences. That's why it's PSEUDOscience. Someone loves a theory. Someone wants to dream, to fantasize, to believe. Someone is obsessed by an idea, but it's not the idea of a possibility, and as such essentially a question, it's but very much THE ANSWER. The kooks think they already have the ANSWER, or maybe all of them. Someone wants to make money off it, literally A LIVING, and tries to make other people to believe in it, usually for a profit.
And if people criticize it, if they just ask for proof, if they ask for verification, for real success rates and for the actual methods and the theories and the fucking MATHS behind it all, the kooks don't try to explain, no, they instantly get BITCHY. And why? Yeah, guess! BUTT-HURT, what else! Because their pet pipedream is "attacked", when really just people want to verify it with scientific tools. And they really have NOTHING but their pipedream, no real theories, no evidence, no methodology, no means of verification. It's all just a big, fancy, exciting, adventurous, megalomaniacal, very provitable DREAM. Fucking kooks are fucking schizophrenics, and often enough fucking GREEDY.


I wish you good luck on your journey but ONLY if you try out REAL SCIENCE, which for you is, for now, equal to TEXTBOOK SCIENCE, because sorry, you have not much of a clue and at this point no right to be adventurous and to feel like having all the answers, or even knowing which QUESTIONS to ask, nor are you already wielding all the necessary "tools". That's crackpot thinking. It's a fantasy. The first step is still to know you know nothing. Touch no "ologies" whatsoever if it's not something teached on universities, that's a pretty simple formula, and if you make that your guideline you'll waste less time with dysfunctional pipedreams. If you really have no clue what's SCIENCE and what NOT, just look up in Wikipedia whether something is considered a PSEUDOscience or not, before you waste your time with it. Don't just favor another soothingly "promising sounding" pseudoscience crap.
Hint, if it's promising sounding, it's PSEUDOscience. And it will lead you nowhere.
Another hint, try "popular science" stuff if you're insecure about which theme interests you. It can be a waste of time, it's a distraction but at last not misleading.

I strongly suggest to really begin a theme with an introductory textbook, because they often have a general section about "theory of science", e.g. scientific "tools" and the scientific approach. A specialized textbook, in that way, might be "unreadable", when lacking too much of the vocabulary and general understanding. (I once bought a book about a medical theme I was vaguely interested in, only to discover it was practically unreadable for me as it really was written for people who are already doctors. Bugger. 50€! I recommend to look into the books if you have the opportunity.)
I can make recommendations per PM, I just won't bother with a list (complete with Amazon links etc) here and now. (To make it short, the names of the textbooks can be a tad confusing. Basically they are identified by their authors. Psychology student 1: "So WTF, the name of that book is "Psychology"? I get 400 Amazon results for that." Student 2: "Yeah, the Zimbardo.") Also, these books are expensive and should be bought second-hand.

I also do not recommend to read the philosophers and demagogues all too soon, ancients aside. Many of them are more methodical and honest than the modern (often money and fame obsessed) "kooks", but apparently what many of them did is just nothing than to revel in pipe dreams about existence and the nature of God and (yes, I'm sarcastical - somewhat) drinking lots of absinth. Many of them in the end contributed very little to the theory of science as we know it today, and just took each other's fallacies and prejudices and christian thinking, meticulously shaping them into more elaborate fallacies and more scienc-y sounding theological arguments, or maybe here and there removing a fallacy. It's a sort of science, yeah, but they often were pretty blase or terribly devout which is why I call them so useless and unworldly in the end. A student of philosophy knows to recite and to meticulously compare them all, and the relations between them. Which is also a sort of science, and follows scientific rules, but also is incredibly useless. For anything and all and especially one's life.
I have a slightly better opinion about ... surprise ... Nietzsche. I found him very readable, and not at all unworldly. Along with Machiavelli.

Wow. I'm sorry to say that I started to have a couple of drinks before I found your comment. Bad juju, that is because I will have to read it again to get the full gist of it. I find it very interesting and very useful. I hope you don't think I'm joking because I'm not.

Now, I can't fully answer your comment right now, maybe I wont be able to address it correctly in the near future either, because I'm a little tipsy at the moment. Sorry about that.

About science, there was a time that I wanted to be a scientist. I went into it full force. The first lesson I received in college was about how science was controlled by economical interests and how "scientists" interpreted the results of their studies to satisfied the needs of their bosses, true pseudoscience at it's best. That is what is dominating our world right now. Science bends under the will of the mighty buck.

I also learned that sometimes the biggest developments could come from an unknown person working in his basement. Science is a wonderful thing and you never know where the next step in our development is coming from. A fool, or what most people think is a fool, could crack our next step.

Hubbard might have been what ever he was but he had genius in him. He did things differently and got results. Because he did, or someone he stepped on did, his dianetics grew into something else. Abreaction became dianetics, dianetics became TIR and so on. It was not a waste of time.

Science is knowledge and anything that feed our knowledge is good, even if the source seems questionable.

I don't like Hubbard. If there is such a thing as other lives, he has betrayed me many times. Even so, there is no denying his genius and if he is the embodiment of Lucifer, I don't care. He is still my brother in some way.

Did he abuse his knowledge? Well, maybe he did but not everything that he did was bad. Some of it was productive. What I wish I could do is to keep the good and dismantle the bad.

Sorry again, maybe I did have one too many drinks but, still, I feel very good about it.

 

[jibaro]

The key word is science. Psychology is a behavioral science using the scientific method, dianetics is cultist pseudo-science at best, written in a few days by hubbard for the express purpose of bilking people out of their money. Primarily dianetics is based on abreactive hypno-therapy with a heavy perverted emphasis on inducing hypnotics, which was abandoned for the most part by psychology because it was deemed ineffectual and harmful.

Now psychology focuses on many therapeutic applications, one being Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which is used for a variety of patient-used application tools for PTSD, depression, panic & anxiety attacks, phobias, etc. Not so oddly enough, hubbard's cult induces the very mental illnesses it falsely claims to cure. BTW, a psychology therapist doesn't "feed" answers to a patient. You've been watching too many cult dead agent films on mental health. LOL.

Just because you transpose the definition of psychology from a quick google search onto dianetics doesn't make cultist woo "science."




I applaud your desire to examine the cultist mind fuck. Ever hear of critical thinking? Starting off with the assumption dianetics is a scientific psychology isn't it. The comm course inhibits a person's emotions because you don't learn about healthy emotional maturity, the scientologist through hubbard stifles them. It's the first layer of cultist control a scientologist does to themselves.

Christ all mighty, I get the interesting ones when I decide to go out ethics and have a few supresive drinks. I suppose I shouldn't complain, no one held my nose while pouring my drinks down my throat.

Do you really believe Hubbard developed dianetics on his own? Do you think he created scientology without the input of some extremely creative people?

There were other people involved in all of that. He wasn't the only one, even if he didn't give credit to the other guys.

Any how, was the definition I provided faulty in any way? If it was, why are there therapies out there that came after dianetics that resemble dianetics? I mean, there's TIR and it's very much the same as dianetics. It just has a different name.

By the way, before learning about dianetics I had a need for psychological help. During those times, the psychologists didn't listen to me. They knew all the answers. So, my opinion is not based on what Hubbard claimed but on what I have lived.

Even so, I find your contribution helpful and my decision to study psychology is becoming more solid.

 

[jibaro]

The key word is science. Psychology is a behavioral science using the scientific method, dianetics is cultist pseudo-science at best, written in a few days by hubbard for the express purpose of bilking people out of their money. Primarily dianetics is based on abreactive hypno-therapy with a heavy perverted emphasis on inducing hypnotics, which was abandoned for the most part by psychology because it was deemed ineffectual and harmful.

Now psychology focuses on many therapeutic applications, one being Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) which is used for a variety of patient-used application tools for PTSD, depression, panic & anxiety attacks, phobias, etc. Not so oddly enough, hubbard's cult induces the very mental illnesses it falsely claims to cure. BTW, a psychology therapist doesn't "feed" answers to a patient. You've been watching too many cult dead agent films on mental health. LOL.

Just because you transpose the definition of psychology from a quick google search onto dianetics doesn't make cultist woo "science."




I applaud your desire to examine the cultist mind fuck. Ever hear of critical thinking? Starting off with the assumption dianetics is a scientific psychology isn't it. The comm course inhibits a person's emotions because you don't learn about healthy emotional maturity, the scientologist through hubbard stifles them. It's the first layer of cultist control a scientologist does to themselves.

I hope I'm wrong but I find this is a repetition of the last post.

 

[jibaro]

Using hubbard's scientology to understand scientology is a paradoxical cultist Mobius loop with circular subjective noncritical thinking commonly known as a hamster wheel.

BTW, watch Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief.

I don't think so. When one wants to understand something, One has to analyse it. To analyze it properly and understand the conclusions drawn from it one has to submerge oneself into the waters that created the opinion. That is the only way to reach a valid opinion on a subject. Otherwise the person creating the opinion is just trying to imprint his opinion on everyone else.

 

[jibaro]

For me the "hook" was being around other kids in scientology in the free-nanny brigade. Then of course my parents who were on staff.

Later, I started doing courses and joined staff at age 9 or 10.

Shortly after I was recruited to the sea org at age 11 to "get ethics in on the planet" and "safeguard the tech."

If prefer not to go into too much detail because I still have family in scn and don't want to disconnect from them.

Edit to add: I was in hook, line and sinker in my early tweens. Or with no formal education except a GED I obtained for $500 that took me 8 hours to obtain when I was 12. I left at age 15.

You got in because of family and later, because you believed in the saving the world theory. I get it, if I understood you correctly.

Your story, if nothing else, would turn me away from scientology. Anything that would destroy a family is bad. I had a brother who was a criminal. He was dangerous but he was my brother. I would have done anything to save him but I would not have abandoned him without paying a hefty price. Betrayal is a heavy load and, if I had abandoned him, I would have betrayed him. I loved him them and I love him now. I wish I could have saved his life.

 

[Kemist]

I guess you never did a word clearing course, so here is one definition of psychology (there are many out there but they coincide):

1. psychology definition. The science dealing with mental phenomena and processes. Psychologists study emotions, perception, intelligence, consciousness, and the relationship between these phenomena and processes and the work of the glands and muscles
2. It's a science that deals with mental phenomena, isn't that what dianetics did? It studies and works with emotions, perception, intelligence, consciousness and so on, so, I would say that dianetics is very much psychology.

There are more than simple definitions to science (and to everything really). Dianetics is not science because it does not follow the scientific method. The scientific method is at the heart of all sciences, whether they be quantitative like physics or chemistry or more qualitative, like social sciences or history. The implementation may differ somewhat in qualitative fields, but it is there.

Another thing is that a science does not belong to a single individual, and it is not fixed (even if the basic science textbooks one studies in high school might give that impression). It is fluid as new conclusions and theories are made to explain new observations. Dianetics does not follow that pattern. Hubbard alone states what is true and what "works", based on "data" he never discloses. If it does not work, it's your fault (even if "what's true is what's true for you" - an idiotic, vapid way of stating that one subscribes to solipsism). The theory is never reexamined, and only Hubbard ever does "research".

1. Now, how about the existence of engrams, the reactive mind and so on? Psychology has the unconscious mind, the conscious mind, the ego, the id, they have patients and, to keep things short, they work with the experiences of their patients, their identities and so on. I would say that they work with the same things that dianetics work with. The main difference being that they tend to sugest solutions to their patients, while in the original dianetics the auditor was not suppose to do anything other than to guide their pc and listen.

The problem with that is that engrams are very specific things, and those things don't exist. Attempts at reproducing them failed, because that's simply not how a human brain works and deals with trauma. Abreactive therapy, on which dianetics is based, was rightfully abandonned because it just did not work for its purported use. People aren't traumatized because they can't remember a traumatic event, they're traumatized because they remember too much. Often, it's minute coincidental details of the incident (a smell, a sound), normally forgotten in a less tense situation, which will induce flashbacks or panic attacks. This is coherent with the fact that trauma is something we need to avoid, and therefore forgetting about it would make no sense from an evolutionary point of view.

Modern psychology is a lot more complex than freudian subconscious/subconscious mind ever was. In fact I had to read many expert reports by psychologists, psychiatrists and neuropsychologists in my old job, and I have never, ever encountered these terms in any of them. I do not think any mental health professional even takes Freud seriously anymore. Psychiatry and psychology are quite tighly integrated with other sciences and fields of medicine nowadays.

 

[Kemist]

I don't think so. When one wants to understand something, One has to analyse it. To analyze it properly and understand the conclusions drawn from it one has to submerge oneself into the waters that created the opinion. That is the only way to reach a valid opinion on a subject. Otherwise the person creating the opinion is just trying to imprint his opinion on everyone else.

That does not make sense.

I can't submerge myself in a chemical reaction, but I can watch it from outside and learn things about it. That it gives off heat is a clue. The kinds of product it gives me, and their yield, give me an idea as to what happens that I cannot see. From these things I can formulate an hypothesis about its mechanism and predict the outcome of other similar reactions. That's not an "opinion". That's an hypothesis that will be falsified if my prediction fails. Other people can also test it if they so choose.

Similarly, we can all see what scientology produces and analyze it to draw our own conclusions and make predictions to test those conclusions. We can see certain patterns and methods in it which are similar to those of other coercitive groups. No need to adopt its ideas or language to see that there are no clears or OTs as Hubbard described them, or to witness how its critics are treated.

In coarser words, one does not need to eat shit to suspect that it tastes bad. Everyone can smell it.

The philosophy of solipsism that Hubbard tries to imprint on his followers hinders that process. Since you are encouraged not to believe anything that's not "true for you", you close your eyes to what the experience of others is. But reality is not what people agree on. Even if we all agree that the moon is made of green cheese, it'll still be a piece of rock in orbit around earth. That's not a matter of opinion, and no one needs to travel to the moon and live there to know it.

 

[jibaro]

[/LIST]

There are more than simple definitions to science (and to everything really). Dianetics is not science because it does not follow the scientific method. The scientific method is at the heart of all sciences, whether they be quantitative like physics or chemistry or more qualitative, like social sciences or history. The implementation may differ somewhat in qualitative fields, but it is there.

Another thing is that a science does not belong to a single individual, and it is not fixed (even if the basic science textbooks one studies in high school might give that impression). It is fluid as new conclusions and theories are made to explain new observations. Dianetics does not follow that pattern. Hubbard alone states what is true and what "works", based on "data" he never discloses. If it does not work, it's your fault (even if "what's true is what's true for you" - an idiotic, vapid way of stating that one subscribes to solipsism). The theory is never reexamined, and only Hubbard ever does "research".



The problem with that is that engrams are very specific things, and those things don't exist. Attempts at reproducing them failed, because that's simply not how a human brain works and deals with trauma. Abreactive therapy, on which dianetics is based, was rightfully abandonned because it just did not work for its purported use. People aren't traumatized because they can't remember a traumatic event, they're traumatized because they remember too much. Often, it's minute coincidental details of the incident (a smell, a sound), normally forgotten in a less tense situation, which will induce flashbacks or panic attacks. This is coherent with the fact that trauma is something we need to avoid, and therefore forgetting about it would make no sense from an evolutionary point of view.

Modern psychology is a lot more complex than freudian subconscious/subconscious mind ever was. In fact I had to read many expert reports by psychologists, psychiatrists and neuropsychologists in my old job, and I have never, ever encountered these terms in any of them. I do not think any mental health professional even takes Freud seriously anymore. Psychiatry and psychology are quite tighly integrated with other sciences and fields of medicine nowadays.

The scientific method, well, that's a very mysterious thing. One has to wonder if it has anything humane about it.

Now. dianetics might be strange in its way but there are variations of it in psychology. There is a reason for that. Perhaps it's because it works.

You know, reality is not the same for everything. What is valid for physics might not be valid for chemistry or for biology. Imagine how different it could be for something like psychology.

 

[jibaro]

That does not make sense.

I can't submerge myself in a chemical reaction, but I can watch it from outside and learn things about it. That it gives off heat is a clue. The kinds of product it gives me, and their yield, give me an idea as to what happens that I cannot see. From these things I can formulate an hypothesis about its mechanism and predict the outcome of other similar reactions. That's not an "opinion". That's an hypothesis that will be falsified if my prediction fails. Other people can also test it if they so choose.

Similarly, we can all see what scientology produces and analyze it to draw our own conclusions and make predictions to test those conclusions. We can see certain patterns and methods in it which are similar to those of other coercitive groups. No need to adopt its ideas or language to see that there are no clears or OTs as Hubbard described them, or to witness how its critics are treated.

In coarser words, one does not need to eat shit to suspect that it tastes bad. Everyone can smell it.

The philosophy of solipsism that Hubbard tries to imprint on his followers hinders that process. Since you are encouraged not to believe anything that's not "true for you", you close your eyes to what the experience of others is. But reality is not what people agree on. Even if we all agree that the moon is made of green cheese, it'll still be a piece of rock in orbit around earth. That's not a matter of opinion, and no one needs to travel to the moon and live there to know it.

Is a chemical reaction the same as a psychological reaction? Is one thing as simple as the other?

Note that I'm not talking about scientology. I'm mostly talking about dianetics. One thing is not the same as the other. Even so, we are human. We are not things. Our reactions are not the same as a chemical reaction.

 

[eldritch cuckoo]

Wow. I'm sorry to say that I started to have a couple of drinks before I found your comment. Bad juju, that is because I will have to read it again to get the full gist of it. I find it very interesting and very useful. I hope you don't think I'm joking because I'm not.

Now, I can't fully answer your comment right now, maybe I wont be able to address it correctly in the near future either, because I'm a little tipsy at the moment. Sorry about that.

About science, there was a time that I wanted to be a scientist. I went into it full force. The first lesson I received in college was about how science was controlled by economical interests and how "scientists" interpreted the results of their studies to satisfied the needs of their bosses, true pseudoscience at it's best. That is what is dominating our world right now. Science bends under the will of the mighty buck.

I also learned that sometimes the biggest developments could come from an unknown person working in his basement. Science is a wonderful thing and you never know where the next step in our development is coming from. A fool, or what most people think is a fool, could crack our next step.

Hubbard might have been what ever he was but he had genius in him. He did things differently and got results. Because he did, or someone he stepped on did, his dianetics grew into something else. Abreaction became dianetics, dianetics became TIR and so on. It was not a waste of time.

Science is knowledge and anything that feed our knowledge is good, even if the source seems questionable.

I don't like Hubbard. If there is such a thing as other lives, he has betrayed me many times. Even so, there is no denying his genius and if he is the embodiment of Lucifer, I don't care. He is still my brother in some way.

Did he abuse his knowledge? Well, maybe he did but not everything that he did was bad. Some of it was productive. What I wish I could do is to keep the good and dismantle the bad.

Sorry again, maybe I did have one too many drinks but, still, I feel very good about it.

Drop the hollow acks that save (and keep) you from addressing anybody's points ever, thank you.
I don't give a shit about them. You might as well click "disagree", or freely state that your gut feeling at the moment tells you as much, without adding any arguments or what goes for them in a cult, I would actually prefer that. It would be more human.
Begin to read. If I would be a decent person, I would add, preferably when you're sober. But I'm not, I'm actually working on some mean stuff again after an involuntary pause, and so I'll freely share the very much crackpot-ish (although actually researched to some degree, for example in the 1970s) idea that a small dose of a drug actually might help you to face inconvenient truths, because as so often, the cult deprogramming is about emotions, rather than about understanding, albeit to hone your critical thinking skills a bit would not be bad. Apparently, you already have the facts. Orrr...? Although another drug might impede analytical abilities to a lesser degree than alcohol... Okay, let's not go there...

I don't understand yours, and other's, deep "appreciation" for Hubbard. That's really some sort of heartbreaking delusion. To me, it's just something dark and ugly. It is disturbing and outlandish. It looks like Stockholm syndrome, or beaten women who take sides with their douchebags. That order of magnitude of "outlandish". That's not much of an argument, really, but it at last tells you where I - and many other people - stand, regarding Hubbard. (I'm a never-in, btw., and don't have friends or family in the cult, so it's not really a personal thing for me to happily watch Co$ crumble, although strangely satisfying. Maybe it's that: all crackpots (and by the way also all conspiracy theorists, and essentially all pseudoscience kooks who have something to sell) also are bullies, they always show that attitude when their pet pipedreams are questioned, and well, I fucking hate bullies.)
Actually I don't understand anybody's appreciation and love for any crackpot or charismatic clown, especially not if they've been ripped off, or abused, severely, by just that person or somebody following their "advice". I suppose it's some sort of ego salvage mission. "I really really deeply fell for that guy's stuff, so either I was a total fool or ... that guy wasn't SOOO bad, after all. I could try to see the good in it..."
But what the truth is none of that? What if there are other choices, and if they're not that bad at all? What if you don't even know which questions to ask?
What if you were NOT silly, or gullible, and the crackpot was just very good with entrapping people? What if to join a space cult that promises super powers and transcendency was a very much "in" and "reasonable" thing to do, decades ago? What if it were your best friends or family, people you trusted unconditionally, who lured you in? What if you were basically homeless when joing staff? What if that lady who "analyzed" that personality test just nailed down your "ruin" with uncanny accuracy? What if in that slight trance state after that "communication course" everything the registrar said made just so much sense? ...
Where do we end when following that train of thoughts, and going from one extreme, the cult apologization - "Hubbard is my bro, he ain't all evil" - to another, - "goddamn, this evil motherfucker"? --- What's next? "I'm gullible. I entered a cult. Conclusion, gullible people enter cults." Really?
A feeling of guilt may be an inevitable stage when unraveling the mind control, but it is not the end, it is just a step. There are evil, narcissistic, sociopathic people, who do evil stuff deliberately, and who even have a talent of making other people to do evil stuff without really being aware of it. Evil stuff like fooling and exploiting, abusing people. Your intelligence could have been higher than that person's intelligence, or your ability to recognize lies could have been better, or your education could have been better, and other comparisons of that kind could be made. Still, one person can be the more talented deceiver, and especially this is true, temporally true, if the other person is in some sort of need.
You have been fooled. You don't have to like or respect the one who has fooled you. His ability to fool you, to entrap you, at a certain point in time, his strategic advantages, his sinister readiness to exploit you and others, tells little about your intelligence or intellect, or credulity. He wasn't the superior thinker, he was just the superior liar. He had just an advantage, one, a very specific one.
You needed something. You expected something. And then he managed to convince you, temporarily, that you actually got it, or that you WOULD get it, eventually...
Have another drink. Or whatever else...

Again, drop the acks. Do it for yourself - you deserve better than that.

 

[Free Being Me]

The scientific method, well, that's a very mysterious thing. One has to wonder if it has anything humane about it.

Now. dianetics might be strange in its way but there are variations of it in psychology. There is a reason for that. Perhaps it's because it works.

You know, reality is not the same for everything. What is valid for physics might not be valid for chemistry or for biology. Imagine how different it could be for something like psychology.

You really believe what your posting? Tom_Booth, is that you?

 

[mawena]

The scientific method, well, that's a very mysterious thing. One has to wonder if it has anything humane about it.

Now. dianetics might be strange in its way but there are variations of it in psychology. There is a reason for that. Perhaps it's because it works.

You know, reality is not the same for everything. What is valid for physics might not be valid for chemistry or for biology. Imagine how different it could be for something like psychology.

You really believe what your posting? Tom_Booth, is that you?

I didn't want to say anything but since when is the scientific method a mystery? It has a pretty thick wiki page on it....

 

[George Layton]

The scientific method, well, that's a very mysterious thing. One has to wonder if it has anything humane about it.

Now. dianetics might be strange in its way but there are variations of it in psychology. There is a reason for that. Perhaps it's because it works.

You know, reality is not the same for everything. What is valid for physics might not be valid for chemistry or for biology. Imagine how different it could be for something like psychology.

Read up on physics, chemistry, biology and psychology. hubbard didn't put much time into the study of any of those fields before he put dianetics together.
If you truly want to form your own opinions make a broad and dedicated study of your topic.

 

[Free Being Me]

The scientific method, well, that's a very mysterious thing. One has to wonder if it has anything humane about it.

Now. dianetics might be strange in its way but there are variations of it in psychology. There is a reason for that. Perhaps it's because it works.

You know, reality is not the same for everything. What is valid for physics might not be valid for chemistry or for biology. Imagine how different it could be for something like psychology.

You really believe what your posting? Tom_Booth, is that you?

I didn't want to say anything but since when is the scientific method a mystery? It has a pretty thick wiki page on it....

This is like having a conversation with a peasant from the Dark Ages and about as illuminating. Cue in the earth is flat, bloodletting will rid one of evil humors, and lightning is an ill omen.

 

[Phoenix8]

Drop the hollow acks that save (and keep) you from addressing anybody's points ever, thank you.
I don't give a shit about them. You might as well click "disagree", or freely state that your gut feeling at the moment tells you as much, without adding any arguments or what goes for them in a cult, I would actually prefer that. It would be more human.
Begin to read. If I would be a decent person, I would add, preferably when you're sober. But I'm not, I'm actually working on some mean stuff again after an involuntary pause, and so I'll freely share the very much crackpot-ish (although actually researched to some degree, for example in the 1970s) idea that a small dose of a drug actually might help you to face inconvenient truths, because as so often, the cult deprogramming is about emotions, rather than about understanding, albeit to hone your critical thinking skills a bit would not be bad. Apparently, you already have the facts. Orrr...? Although another drug might impede analytical abilities to a lesser degree than alcohol... Okay, let's not go there...

I don't understand yours, and other's, deep "appreciation" for Hubbard. That's really some sort of heartbreaking delusion. To me, it's just something dark and ugly. It is disturbing and outlandish. It looks like Stockholm syndrome, or beaten women who take sides with their douchebags. That order of magnitude of "outlandish". That's not much of an argument, really, but it at last tells you where I - and many other people - stand, regarding Hubbard. (I'm a never-in, btw., and don't have friends or family in the cult, so it's not really a personal thing for me to happily watch Co$ crumble, although strangely satisfying. Maybe it's that: all crackpots (and by the way also all conspiracy theorists, and essentially all pseudoscience kooks who have something to sell) also are bullies, they always show that attitude when their pet pipedreams are questioned, and well, I fucking hate bullies.)
Actually I don't understand anybody's appreciation and love for any crackpot or charismatic clown, especially not if they've been ripped off, or abused, severely, by just that person or somebody following their "advice". I suppose it's some sort of ego salvage mission. "I really really deeply fell for that guy's stuff, so either I was a total fool or ... that guy wasn't SOOO bad, after all. I could try to see the good in it..."
But what the truth is none of that? What if there are other choices, and if they're not that bad at all? What if you don't even know which questions to ask?
What if you were NOT silly, or gullible, and the crackpot was just very good with entrapping people? What if to join a space cult that promises super powers and transcendency was a very much "in" and "reasonable" thing to do, decades ago? What if it were your best friends or family, people you trusted unconditionally, who lured you in? What if you were basically homeless when joing staff? What if that lady who "analyzed" that personality test just nailed down your "ruin" with uncanny accuracy? What if in that slight trance state after that "communication course" everything the registrar said made just so much sense? ...
Where do we end when following that train of thoughts, and going from one extreme, the cult apologization - "Hubbard is my bro, he ain't all evil" - to another, - "goddamn, this evil motherfucker"? --- What's next? "I'm gullible. I entered a cult. Conclusion, gullible people enter cults." Really?
A feeling of guilt may be an inevitable stage when unraveling the mind control, but it is not the end, it is just a step. There are evil, narcissistic, sociopathic people, who do evil stuff deliberately, and who even have a talent of making other people to do evil stuff without really being aware of it. Evil stuff like fooling and exploiting, abusing people. Your intelligence could have been higher than that person's intelligence, or your ability to recognize lies could have been better, or your education could have been better, and other comparisons of that kind could be made. Still, one person can be the more talented deceiver, and especially this is true, temporally true, if the other person is in some sort of need.
You have been fooled. You don't have to like or respect the one who has fooled you. His ability to fool you, to entrap you, at a certain point in time, his strategic advantages, his sinister readiness to exploit you and others, tells little about your intelligence or intellect, or credulity. He wasn't the superior thinker, he was just the superior liar. He had just an advantage, one, a very specific one.
You needed something. You expected something. And then he managed to convince you, temporarily, that you actually got it, or that you WOULD get it, eventually...
Have another drink. Or whatever else...

Again, drop the acks. Do it for yourself - you deserve better than that.

Damn. Peach, brother!

I'll drink to that lol

 

[Phoenix8]

I think the horse is beaten to death on this one, folks.

Only logic and accurately analyzing fact vs. fiction will help this one. Only jibaro can do that.

I've said this before OP on another one of your threads: it is so much easier to be on the outside and see LRHs theories for what they really are. As opposed to being on the inside immersed in the theories and axioms that Hubbard lures his readers in with. I wish you the best in steping outside your "safety zone" and really try to understand facts versus fiction.