Rmack, the idea that we created reality by agreement was never new with Hubbard. He got it from the ancients in India or wherever, and he said so himself.
I'm fully aware of that. I've studied a lot of occultism, West and East. He sure as hell made it his own by framing it in specialized jargon, though.
The"agreements" you make with other people in this present state of reality is only the tiniest shadow of a whim of a hint of the original agreements that you did subscribe to and participate in fully at the time the universe was created. Again, this is not Hubbard's invented idea. It has been around a long time..
Anyone who was in for any significant amount of time, and studied enough was aware of this dogma. I just don't believe it.
What Hubbard did point out - and as far as I know this originated with himself - is that the apparent solidity and unresponsiveness of matter to your decisions at present is entirely due to the fact that you have been overwhelmed by it so often and so thoroughly that you, I, and all of us, are in complete apathy on the subject of doing something about the state of reality, and that (just in theory, mind you) this state can be changed by taking more and ever increasingly more responsibility for the fact of your own apathy on the subject.
Now, what I have written here above is just plain ordinary basic Scientology that we, in my Org, (well, not mine, but the Org where I was) expected every common or garden Scientologist to know these things. And they did.
The reason for this doctrine was to deny the existence, or at least the authority, of God. Just as the theory of evolution tries to explain the existence of the universe and all life as basically just happening by itself through largely unknown physical processes without any need for a Creator, this doctrine says we all created ourselves and later, the universe, also eliminating any need for God.
Evolution (cosmic evolution, which is one of several types) says 'first there was nothing, and then for no reason, it exploded.' This doctrine says 'first we were nothing, and then somehow, we decided to be something'.
How we could do that when we didn't exist yet isn't explained.
Which makes me wonder why so many people on this board don't know it. What were you doing when you were involved in the CofS? Did you study the materials? read the books, listen to the lectures, do the training that was offered? You know - do what a Scio is supposed to do.
Perhaps we know it, but just don't buy it anymore. Why would anyone trust this guys teachings once they found out what kind of a man he really was? And even if you think that doesn't matter, look at the RESULTS! Not the feel-good-about-yourself you could get from selling Amway, but the long term results of those who made the top of the bridge.
Or did you just pay money and wait for a ride to OT? Or - even worse - join the Sea Org and run around chasing butterflies with your time?
Luckily for me, I didn't have anywhere near the money it would take to go up the bridge at the time (auditing was about $400 bucks an hour in the late seventies, early eighties) so I joined the S.O. believing the total lie that my bridge was 'awarded'.
That worked out for me, also. I saw the fruit of the upper levels in the clears and OT's I met (including my first wife) and figured out that something was very, very, very wrong, so I just left after a year and a half. I won't say blow; they can blow me.
