death by auditing

[MrNobody]

from http://antidianetics.wordpress.com/

Auditing is the secret technique at the heart of Scientology, the evil technique designed by L. Ron Hubbard which gave him mastery over his followers. Auditing is at the heart of all the damage done by Scientology. Those it affects are seldom aware of the fact that their minds are no longer their own. The normal person suffers from dreams and nightmares but knows as soon as he or she wakes up that the experience was not real, even when it was very realistic. But when he is subjected to auditing the dreamer never wakes up. He will open his eyes but he is never returned to the real world. He can easily be persuaded that his imaginary memories are real, that they belong to previous lives (and in a nice circular exploitation, that they are evidence for previous lives), that they are a real element in the person’s memory and not merely dreams or inventions. To the extent that such fantasies or hallucinations become embedded in the person’s conscious memory they replace his own memories and mechanisms.

Read the whole blog post here:
http://antidianetics.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/death-by-auditing/

 

[uniquemand]

It's bullshit. I did a good deal of auditing, and never surrendered my mind, my perceptions, or my ability to view reality.

Now, certainly there is a lot of brainwashing that goes on in scientology, but it's not in the auditing room, IMO. It's groupthink. Reinforced by security checks, yes, but auditing, in general, doesn't cause people to become brainwashed. It's subjugation of your will to KSW and becoming "on-source" that is brainwashing.

 

[Infinite]

Its difficult to isolate specific bits and pieces and state that they are the "heart" of the brainwashing. Its the whole schemozzle. Real blame lies with the dark forces that drove LRH to pour evil into the world.

 

[MrNobody]

Well, personally I think it's a lot of things combined that make the brainwashing, and Auditing is one of 'em. Groupthink and peer pressure contribute to the brainwashing too.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

 

[Stat]

It's bullshit. I did a good deal of auditing, and never surrendered my mind, my perceptions, or my ability to view reality.

Now, certainly there is a lot of brainwashing that goes on in scientology, but it's not in the auditing room, IMO. It's groupthink. Reinforced by security checks, yes, but auditing, in general, doesn't cause people to become brainwashed. It's subjugation of your will to KSW and becoming "on-source" that is brainwashing.

I agree.

True auditing, separated from religion and its politics, is just a form of counseling, that can definitely help one. I know, because I was part of it long enough. Both as a pc and especially an auditor. When I say auditing though, I only imply rudiments, lower Bridge and its rundowns. I have no farther experience. Just Book One, Grades, Rundowns and NED. Some of the Grade's contents I thought was kind of stupid, MU's or not. Most of it is rather cool though. But what really matters, I think, is seeing a being in front of you, caring about him/her, wanting them to do well/better, listening... They probably will feel better just by realizing that you are their real friend, if you really are.
And that you love him or her the way they are. And that's auditing.

 

[Nicole]

The Anderson Report, an official inquiry conducted for the state of Victoria, Australia, found that auditing involved a form of "authoritative" or "command" hypnosis, in which the hypnotist assumes "positive authoritative control" over the patient. "It is the firm conclusion of this Board that most scientology and dianetic techniques are those of authoritative hypnosis and as such are dangerous. ... the scientific evidence which the Board heard from several expert witnesses of the highest repute ... which was virtually unchallenged - leads to the inescapable conclusion that it is only in name that there is any difference between authoritative hypnosis and most of the techniques of scientology. Many scientology techniques are in fact hypnotic techniques, and Hubbard has not changed their nature by changing their names."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditing_(Scientology)

The exercises that are aimed at the experience of so-called "exteriorization" ("OT" state)
are especially problematic. The occurrence of this phenomenon – which has been
thoroughly researched by the human sciences – during certain meditation exercises, is used
by Hubbard to buttress his dualistic paranormal body-soul theory. He stated that the spirit,
postulated as a field of energy ("Thetan") can leave the "human machine." The alleged proof
of this is a specific jump in the E-meter's needle ("Theta bop"). These exercises cause many
customers to experience psychological peculiarities ranging all the way to mental distress
that can be construed as illness. This leads to a desire for more training that resembles
addiction and customers will go to any length (even financial) to get it.
In its final report, the Investigative Commission confirmed that for people with a weaker
constitution, auditing can lead to severe mental illnesses and even to suicidal tendencies.
The Commission criticized the aggressive hard-sell methods used to induce customers to
purchase these very costly trainings.

http://www.stmi.bayern.de/imperia/m...fassungsschutz/scientology/system_so_engl.pdf

A Scientology auditing session uses two recognised methods of inducing a hypnotic trance. One of these methods is neuro-linguistics programming or NLP, a language-based hypnotic induction technique. It depends on certain trigger words. Scientology is replete with jargon, which serves the double purpose of allowing communication only with other Scientologists and the much more sinister purpose of supplying him with many unique trigger words such as Clear, Process, the Tech, Training, Routine. During his previous ‘training’, which may begin as young as six, these words have been implanted. The second mechanism is visual imagery. The purpose of hypnotic induction is to gain control of the subject’s mind, to replace his real personality with an imaginary personality controlled by Scientology.

http://antidianetics.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/auditing-is-hypnotic-mind-contr/


I can also offer German quotes which explains, that Auditing is a form of Hypnosis.

Well, personally I think it's a lot of things combined that make the brainwashing, and Auditing is one of 'em. Groupthink and peer pressure contribute to the brainwashing too.

Of course, that's just my opinion

I am having the same opinion.

 

[uniquemand]

I have to disagree, again. While I would agree that the training and staff experience are efforts to turn people into drones, the auditing doesn't actually do that. I would agree that after auditing sessions, people are probably more suggestible, and this is exploited to get them to sign up for more services.

In one sense, I would agree that auditing is hypnotic, and that is that there is a heavy focus in auditor training on learning to control the attention of the person being audited. This is a textbook definition of hypnosis, and yet, it also applies to an author writing a book, a director of a movie, or ANY therapy, really. Without controlling the person's attention, none of those things "work". A movie which doesn't capture and direct your attention is a failure. A therapist who cannot gain and control your attention, IMO, is a failure of a therapist. In auditing, a person's personality is not replaced. Instead, they inspect their own personality. It might change, but not in a fashion which is predictable, or towards some plastic personality. Instead, it unearth's what was there, already, but typically repressed.

There are, of course, exceptions to this. Objectives are easy to abuse, and can easily be highly hypnotic, where the WHOLE point is to get the person comfortable with being controlled by another person. Where the focus is on getting them in contact with present physical reality, I don't think it's hypnotic, but when the focus is on domination, which it often is, then I would agree, it's hypnotic.

Auditing truly is a two-edged sword. It can be used to help people discover what's holding them back and release them, and then again, it can be used to dominate them. Clearly, Hubbard and his Church often use it for the express purpose of overwhelming their clients, and extracting maximum cash from them, and when that's gone, maximum labor and new recruits, while offering only as much, in terms of "wins" as the client demands to keep going.

I think that the Church should be dismantled. I think Scientology practitioners should have to be supervised by mental health authorities in the countries that they operate. The religious cloaking that prevents this needs to be stripped away. After all, hypnotists are certainly operating in nearly every country of the world. Hypnosis gets a bad name mostly when people are attempting to abuse and dominate others.

 

[AnonKat]

John McMaster

http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/mcmaster.htm

McMaster stated in an interview: "I was so excited about the function of auditing ($cientology counseling) that I was willing to overlook Hubbard's faults - . That was up to a point of course, the final point being my realization that his intentions were entirely self-serving. I saw that he was in it for the money and personal power, and his actual intentions were not as stated. The basic function of auditing is a wonderful thing, but Hubbard perverted it."

 

[Out-Ethics]

Auditing by itself is okay and I can see benefits that one could get from it. In any type of therapy there is nothing wrong when used ethically to get a person to look at themselves and then as a result decide how they want to be. This is probably why Scientology has had success because the lower bridge tends to address this. Perhaps auditing may be a light form of hypnosis but I certainly don't see the results of that alone making a person suggestible to going up the bridge. What I do see is that Scientology as a whole is a mind-control or brainwashing entity but this came in later as Hubbard used techniques such as sec checking, SP declares, fair game, lower conditions, KSW etc etc etc because he was convincing people that he had the only game in town.

I agree with Uniquemand that the Church should be dismantled because it is evil and they do very destructive acts towards it's own members and anyone who opposes them. It is not a Church deserving reform as they had long since gone over to the dark side. As far as FZers or Indies go I have no problem with them provided that people can come and go as they please.

 

[Voltaire's Child]

I had a lot of auditing. I liked it. It covered things like how I felt about various areas of my life. Nothing wrong with that. Not saying that there aren't other methodologies out there just as good, but there was nothing evil about my auditing.

Just sayin'.

 

[He-man]

I think the real danger of auditing isn't the process itself, its the promise that goes with it that it will help you with whatever you have a problem with, thinking of pre-OT levels here.

The idea that auditing can help you, put in a mentally unstable persons mind, where it doesn't help, can be real dangerous.
Add to that the fact that scientologists are taught to distrust anyone coming from the real experts on the field.

I don't think it's a good idea to take one thing out of the big picture of scientology and try to measure if it's good or bad. It has to be looked at as a whole.

Is auditing evil? Who cares? Scientology is abusive. Isn't that enough?
Does it matter if auditing has helped people? Not really if you ask me. It has played its part in destroying so many peoples life that it doesn't really matter to me.

At the end of the day, auditing is just a tool. The important thing to look at is how people use that tool.

 

[Nicole]

Auditing is one gear wheel.

The Auditing that is describe in the OP and at antidianetics is from Norbert Porthoff, he wrotes in his book "Im Labyrinth der Scientology" very good how the Scientology system works. His end of the Drama was the RPF and he blow from there.

But Auditing is a form of Hypnosis and in CO$ hands it is a very big risk and for people that are for example psychologically disturbed could it be a big risk.

Imo because it is a form of hypnosis it could help, persons feel good and they like it. Norbert Potthoff liked it too, I remember he wrote he felt relaxed after his "Death Auditing".
Auditing makes "addicted" and it makes depend on CO$.

It is a big gear and a dangerous gear in the "Scientology Trap"!

 

[MrNobody]

I think the real danger of auditing isn't the process itself, its the promise that goes with it that it will help you with whatever you have a problem with, thinking of pre-OT levels here.

The idea that auditing can help you, put in a mentally unstable persons mind, where it doesn't help, can be real dangerous.
Add to that the fact that scientologists are taught to distrust anyone coming from the real experts on the field.

I don't think it's a good idea to take one thing out of the big picture of scientology and try to measure if it's good or bad. It has to be looked at as a whole.

Is auditing evil? Who cares? Scientology is abusive. Isn't that enough?
Does it matter if auditing has helped people? Not really if you ask me. It has played its part in destroying so many peoples life that it doesn't really matter to me.

At the end of the day, auditing is just a tool. The important thing to look at is how people use that tool.

I disagree. In my opinion, the process itself is dangerous, in that it makes people dig deeper into their own minds, than sanity permits. So in a desperate search for the requested answer, the mind comes up with all kinds of pseudo-explanations, made up from a pile of random informational snippets it has in store. Result: Stories from past lives, life on other planets, having been the REAL father of Jesus, and whatnot. All this leads to a... well... not-so-sane brain, IMO, although it (the brain) might still work reasonably well in everyday situations.

EDIT

Here's another interesting article from that blog: Defence against Manipulation

http://antidianetics.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/defence-against-manipulation/

 

[AnonyMary]

from http://antidianetics.wordpress.com

Read the whole blog post here:
http://antidianetics.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/death-by-auditing/

He's writing about his experience as a Dianetics Book 1 pc. Who is to say that the session didn't go that way? If it did, then I can certainly understand why he feels theway he does about Dianetics.

Book 1 auditing is the most dangerous and apt to be 'squirreled' because it's dependent on the presumption that the person auditing you knows what he or she is doing. People are co-audited under minimal supervision if any and there is no c/sing. Once a person is trained, they can go out and audit whoever they want. The book tells them so.

I knew of a woman who went psychotic on Book 1- stuck in something and unable to get out. After knowing about this, it as clear to me that it could happen to anyone.

 

[Arthur Dent]

It's bullshit. I did a good deal of auditing, and never surrendered my mind, my perceptions, or my ability to view reality.

Now, certainly there is a lot of brainwashing that goes on in scientology, but it's not in the auditing room, IMO. It's groupthink. Reinforced by security checks, yes, but auditing, in general, doesn't cause people to become brainwashed. It's subjugation of your will to KSW and becoming "on-source" that is brainwashing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditing_(Scientology)

Bingo. Little to none unless misused by the auditor or not understood by the recipient. And that can happen. And, of course it does happen in sec. checks, abuse of power, c/s'ing for someone other than the preclear, etc. Yes it happens. But in regular, routine, run of the mill grade chart auditing I have seen little of it. KSW is most certainly brainwashing. Often the reg line brainwashes. Maybe not back in the day when people genuinely cared abut another's progress or cared much more than now. Now it's all about the money...
Peer pressure, events, the pressure to "contribute," the "dressing down" by execs who received that treatment themselves, the screaming and yelling, etc.....all brainwashing.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

Auditing conditions, makes you believe, that what you seem to 'recall' in session is real.. Ie.. Past lives.. A plethora of nifty hubbardian 'mind mechanisms' like 'facximlie one', 'demon cirquits' and 'identities'.

This could be.. whatever.. But since you likely 'believe' in auditing, Hubbard and Dianetics when you are in a 'session., you probably also 'believe' that your mind cannot be trusted.. There's all that crap in there. Engrams and Implants..

This makes you VERY suggestible!

So in that sense there IS hypnosis going on. Or brainwashing.. Auditing prepares you for all the other crap that was mentioned..

 

[Nicole]

Auditing conditions, makes you believe, that what you seem to 'recall' in session is real.. Ie.. Past lives.. A plethora of nifty hubbardian 'mind mechanisms' like 'facximlie one', 'demon cirquits' and 'identities'.

This could be.. whatever.. But since you likely 'believe' in auditing, Hubbard and Dianetics when you are in a 'session., you probably also 'believe' that your mind cannot be trusted.. There's all that crap in there. Engrams and Implants..

This makes you VERY suggestible!

So in that sense there IS hypnosis going on. Or brainwashing.. Auditing prepares you for all the other crap that was mentioned..

I am thinking about a child that got audited. That child could recall and remember lots of "imaginary" previous lives. Later after the family left Co$, that child had big fear, because of the "previous lives".That child could go nowhere alone. Even to school. It couldn't sleep with 12 years alone in a room. It needed a therapy and it had to go to a Psychologist.


Auditing is damaging, especially for a childs soul and mind.

 

[uniquemand]

yeah, well, while that's a popular thing to say, there's no real proof of that, just as there is no proof that it generates a state called Clear.

it comes down to anecdote, and most of the anecdotes I know of show that it's of good value to the individual, though it is exploited by the organization

 

[The Clam]

Auditing is the carrot that leads you into the dark maze of the cult. Ethics is the tool that is used to condition you to stay. Observation and evaluation are the tools to set you free.

 

[uniquemand]

carrots are good for you