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TRs and The Ganzfeld Effect

TomKat

Patron Meritorious
I understand what you are saying and it's true. Most ex's have agreed that there are "nuggets" of ... "useful" stuff in Hubbard's crap. As you said, we wouldn't have stayed in as long as we did if there weren't.

Where I disagree with you, and other "independent" and fringe Scientologists is on the importance of these "nuggets". "Independent" Scientologists and fringe adherents like you believe that the "good nuggets" make Scientology and Hubbard important, valuable and historic. Some call Hubbard a "genius" and believe that these "nuggets" absolve Hubbard of all his evil actions.

Here is the bottom line: If these "nuggets" had any significant value we would see them being acknowledged and used in the real world. It has been 68 years for these "nuggets" to have leaked out and have proven themselves in the real world. Independents have been advocating this. The information and "tech" has been available. Individuals and groups have spun off from mainline Scientology to promote their various "nugget" beliefs.

68 years of using and pushing these "nuggets" to the real world and ... <crickets>.

It isn't my opinion or any ex's that is keeping the real world from using these "nuggets". It is because, in the real world, these "nuggets" have no value.

So, yes, you are a believer. You believe in things without actual, real world, evidence of their applicability and value.
Like I said, some people are all in or all out. From true believer to true disbeliever. Those are the people who ruined scientology. Those are the David Miscaviges.

I don't need to poll scientific consensus to know what is true or valuable for me. And there are all kinds of scientology ideas out there in the new age, without attribution of course. You've never heard of Eckhart Tolle? Werner Erhardt? Shakti Gawain? I paid a lot more attention decades ago, but I'm often hearing people express ideas that came right out of Scn. And even the popular term "hot button" comes right out of Scn, for God's sake.
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Like I said, some people are all in or all out. From true believer to true disbeliever. Those are the people who ruined scientology. Those are the David Miscaviges.

I don't need to poll scientific consensus to know what is true or valuable for me. And there are all kinds of scientology ideas out there in the new age, without attribution of course. You've never heard of Eckhart Tolle? Werner Erhardt? Shakti Gawain? I paid a lot more attention decades ago, but I'm often hearing people express ideas that came right out of Scn. And even the popular term "hot button" comes right out of Scn, for God's sake.
Whatever you want to believe is fine. Your belief is backed up with exactly the same hard, scientific evidence that mine is -- i.e. absolutely nothing.

(Of course, the total lack of hard, scientific evidence was pretty much my point)
 
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Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
For me it was never about belief. I judged the ideas on their usefulness. I didn't spend a lot of money. I did the auditor training to Class IV and lived my life, testing Scn ideas and coming up with my own based on those ideas. When I realized LRH was the mysterious SP everyone was always looking for, it wasn't difficult for me to leave.
Coooooool...

Yeah...

They told me it wasn't faith based but to try it.

And I did and got results. I was active three years and came out much more confident and able than when I went in

Hubbard is a strange guy and I can entertain the thought he might be fit to be named SP

But...

I ain't gonna nail him with it
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
Like I said, some people are all in or all out. From true believer to true disbeliever. Those are the people who ruined scientology. Those are the David Miscaviges.

I don't need to poll scientific consensus to know what is true or valuable for me. And there are all kinds of scientology ideas out there in the new age, without attribution of course. You've never heard of Eckhart Tolle? Werner Erhardt? Shakti Gawain? I paid a lot more attention decades ago, but I'm often hearing people express ideas that came right out of Scn. And even the popular term "hot button" comes right out of Scn, for God's sake.
The nattering nabobs of negativism ain't gonna go along with the origination but...

"L. Ron Hubbard is arguably the most influential philosopher of The Twentieth Century."
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Flagitious?

What is this?

A delicious flag?

I don't think his flag is very tasty at all...
flagitious (flə-jĭshˈəs)
adj. Characterized by extremely brutal or cruel crimes; vicious.
adj. Infamous; scandalous

Fits Hubbard rather well.
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
flagitious (flə-jĭshˈəs)
adj. Characterized by extremely brutal or cruel crimes; vicious.
adj. Infamous; scandalous

Fits Hubbard rather well.
Thank you for the vocabulary lesson.

however...

POPPYROT!!!

Extremely brutal or cruel crimes?

The chain locker and overboarding are extremely brutal and cruel crimes?

Hitler's Death Camps.

Mao's "cultural revolution"

Stalin's Gulag

Jeffrey Dahmer

Torquemada

There's a quick list of a few flagitious folk.

Chain lockering caused no known injuries.

Overboarding caused a few scrapes and one broken collarbone
 

pineapple

Silver Meritorious Patron
Thank you for the vocabulary lesson.

however...

POPPYROT!!!

Extremely brutal or cruel crimes?

The chain locker and overboarding are extremely brutal and cruel crimes?

Hitler's Death Camps.

Mao's "cultural revolution"

Stalin's Gulag

Jeffrey Dahmer

Torquemada

There's a quick list of a few flagitious folk.

Chain lockering caused no known injuries.

Overboarding caused a few scrapes and one broken collarbone
According to David Mayo:

He could be capable of incredible cruelty. On the ship there was an old man on the Royal Scotman who he made push a peanut round the decks with his nose. He had to get down on his hands and knees, he had to go round the deck, quite a long distance in a race with one or two others also in trouble. The first one back got let off and the last one got a double penalty. It was really tough on this old guy, Charlie Reisdorf. The surface of the deck was very rough wood, prone to splinter, so after pushing peanuts with their noses, they all had raw, bleeding noses, leaving a trail of blood behind them. I not only saw it but the entire crew of the ship was mustered - a mandatory attendance - we were required to watch this punishment, to make an example of it for the rest of us. Reisdorf was in his late 50s probably. His two daughters were messengers, they were 11 or 12 at time and his wife was there also. It was hard to say which was worse to watch: this old guy with a bleeding nose or his wife and kids sobbing and crying at being forced to watch this. Hubbard was standing there calling the shots, yelling, "Faster, Faster!". It was indignity, degradation and breaking a person's will, and making people watch. It was disgusting.
They used to have people locked in the chain locker, including small children. It was very dangerous because if the anchor started to slip and start running out, it would turn a body into pulp in no time at all. I saw children locked up in the chain locker.
He had a birthday party on March 13 1968; there was a woman who he ordered locked in the chain locker. During the party he had her brought out. She was filthy, covered with dirt and rust, and had not been allowed to wash or change clothes - she had been in there a week. She was pretty dirty - he brought her out to the party, he said he was giving her a reprieve and permitting her to come to the party, as if that was a nice gesture. She still wasn't allowed to wash or change, so she was brought to the party and had to stay and later she was returned [to the locker]. He said he was giving her a reprieve but it was just flaunting her degradation. It had looked like things were lightening up a little, people thought maybe things were getting better, then this happened and people were shocked and it gave us a sinister chill. She was in a dress.
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/interviews/mayo.htm

Wouldn't you call that cruel and brutal CP? It's downright sadistic. Because it's not as bad as Hitler or Stalin that makes it okay, in your book?
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Thank you for the vocabulary lesson.

however...

POPPYROT!!!

Extremely brutal or cruel crimes?

The chain locker and overboarding are extremely brutal and cruel crimes?

Hitler's Death Camps.

Mao's "cultural revolution"

Stalin's Gulag

Jeffrey Dahmer

Torquemada

There's a quick list of a few flagitious folk.

Chain lockering caused no known injuries.

Overboarding caused a few scrapes and one broken collarbone
I'm sorry that you are so deluded by Hubbard and Scientology that you think you must excuse, ignore, justify and make nothing of the very real and horrible abuses that Hubbard inflicted on his followers. I know you won't stop so don't bother responding with even more absurd justifications.

He really was a monster. Your desperate defense of Hubbard simply doesn't change that. It makes you look like a brainwashed robot -- and I know you're not that. Just accept it.

You may certainly believe that his "miraculous" and "wonderful" "discoveries" absolve him of all his horrible actions -- fine. But at least realize that he was a monster.
 

TomKat

Patron Meritorious
He really was a monster. Your desperate defense of Hubbard simply doesn't change that. It makes you look like a brainwashed robot -- and I know you're not that. Just accept it.

You may certainly believe that his "miraculous" and "wonderful" "discoveries" absolve him of all his horrible actions -- fine. But at least realize that he was a monster.
I'd call him a tyrant, not a monster. Tyranny is normal for an artist, and LRH was an artist. Artists are at least slightly mad and seek to implement their vision, which in a leadership context is a disaster. Hitler was also an artist (and monster). I suspect people like Mick Jagger or John Lennon were equally tyrannical in their own ways. And don't forget Phil Spector. Never vote for an artist, he just might kill you in pursuit of perfection. Kind of brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.
 

Cat's Squirrel

Gold Meritorious Patron
I'd call him a tyrant, not a monster. Tyranny is normal for an artist, and LRH was an artist. Artists are at least slightly mad and seek to implement their vision, which in a leadership context is a disaster. Hitler was also an artist (and monster). I suspect people like Mick Jagger or John Lennon were equally tyrannical in their own ways. And don't forget Phil Spector. Never vote for an artist, he just might kill you in pursuit of perfection. Kind of brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.
That's interesting, I've never seen that connection made before especially with LRH.

One person I can think of who fitted that mold was Steve Jobs. Undoubtedly an artist, quite likely a genius but tyrannical in the way he drove his staff to try and implement his vision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
 
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TheOriginalBigBlue

Gold Meritorious Patron
Dear Emma,

I really liked the idea of this thread addressing the Ganzfeld effect in TRs. I think it is very important that people try to step back and honestly ask themselves if what they experienced was a physiological phenomena that can be explained in non-Scientology terms or is it a partial exteriorization as promoted by Scientology?

Getting TRed out is one of the Church's biggest hooks. Without this subjective experience at the very beginning of the Bridge I think most people would reject or distance themselves from Scientology on an objective basis much sooner. I have achieved this effect many times and although the state is euphoric and notable, I was never able to achieve what I would now characterize as exterior. I never experienced any level of remote viewing that was provable nor have I ever seen where this was factually demonstrable with anyone else. The Church explains this away by saying you have to go further up the Bridge to achieve full perceptics exteriorization and so people continue in pursuit of that ability, but again, I have never known where this was proven to be actually possible.

I find the Ganzfeld Effect to be fleeting but it can be argued that it might have some benefits associated with meditation or a hypnotic effect that makes people at least momentarily suggestible. I think it is important to have a rational discussion about it's benefits vs negative effects and how long these last. If an idea is adopted during a Ganzfeld state, that idea can have a long lasting and very serious effect on a person's life long after the Ganzfeld is gone because they continue to use the idea to govern their behavior and decision making processes, possibly for the rest of their life.

Somewhere this thread got seriously derailed and trashed up. This seems to have deteriorated into something more like a grudge match thread or an endless going back and forth over how there are a few bits of cheese that make the trap so worth while.

I would understand if you don't, as it would be a lot of work, but can all of that be put somewhere else so this thread remains valuable to someone who is focused on the original subject?

Sincerely,

TOBB
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
According to David Mayo:


https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/miller/interviews/mayo.htm

Wouldn't you call that cruel and brutal CP? It's downright sadistic. Because it's not as bad as Hitler or Stalin that makes it okay, in your book?
Actually the story about the middle-aged woman has always been something that particularly grates my ass

No...

It doesn't make it OK in my book

But...

My gradient scales are not calibrated to the standards of suburban middle America. The things that happened on the Apollo occur in the third phase of Hubbard's Magnum Opus where he takes an elite group outside modern Jurisdiction to form a PARAMILITARY formation; the Sea Org. As such it is proper to calibrate gradient scales in military standards. These things cited by Mayo as cruel and brutal are harsh, very harsh but I refer you to Jack Webb in the 1957 film "The D.I." and the immensely charming R. Lee Ermey in the Kubrick masterwork "Full Metal Jacket"

CONTEXT!!!

Context, context, context.

There's little charge against Hubbard in terms of cruelty and brutality from 1950 to 1968 and as most of that comes from Nibs who must be thought an unreliable source I don't think he was guilty of much. I'm not crazy about the presence of children when he's forming a paramilitary formation...

but...

the cat was breaking new ground; go ahead Ron; do your thing and we'll hash things over.

So...

The verdict stands and the bench commends the intelligence and humanity of those filing the appeals as well as the fervor of those who come up short on intelligence
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
I'm sorry that you are so deluded by Hubbard and Scientology that you think you must excuse, ignore, justify and make nothing of the very real and horrible abuses that Hubbard inflicted on his followers. I know you won't stop so don't bother responding with even more absurd justifications.

He really was a monster. Your desperate defense of Hubbard simply doesn't change that. It makes you look like a brainwashed robot -- and I know you're not that. Just accept it.

You may certainly believe that his "miraculous" and "wonderful" "discoveries" absolve him of all his horrible actions -- fine. But at least realize that he was a monster.
Again, I recognize very stringent harshness Bill.

Do you follow what I have just said about context?

And no way, here at the front lines of the North American Monster Defense Force we have a motto we live by:

"Wake us up when the killin' starts" and y'all best have at least a handful of corpses 'cause y'all's supposed to handle the diddlysquat stuff on yer own
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
I'd call him a tyrant, not a monster. Tyranny is normal for an artist, and LRH was an artist. Artists are at least slightly mad and seek to implement their vision, which in a leadership context is a disaster. Hitler was also an artist (and monster). I suspect people like Mick Jagger or John Lennon were equally tyrannical in their own ways. And don't forget Phil Spector. Never vote for an artist, he just might kill you in pursuit of perfection. Kind of brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway.
Nice to see some variety in the participants TK

LRH was certainly an autocrat

What is the measure of a tyrant?

Personally I'd tailor the randy old goat for the adjective, tyrannical rather than the noun
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
My gradient scales are not calibrated to the standards of suburban middle America. The things that happened on the Apollo occur in the third phase of Hubbard's Magnum Opus where he takes an elite group outside modern Jurisdiction to form a PARAMILITARY formation; the Sea Org. As such it is proper to calibrate gradient scales in military standards. These things cited by Mayo as cruel and brutal are harsh, very harsh but I refer you to Jack Webb in the 1957 film "The D.I." and the immensely charming R. Lee Ermey in the Kubrick masterwork "Full Metal Jacket"
CONTEXT!!!
Context, context, context.
Are you out of your friggen mind? This is a civilian, purportedly a person of "higher consciousness", head of an alleged religion bringing a "world without insanity, without criminals and without war, ..." -- and he shouldn't be judged as that -- but as a warlord?????? :omg::faceslap::duh::nooo:

No. He should be, must be, judged by the creed he claimed to be his guiding ethic -- which he claimed was superior to "human principles". His actions are worse because he claimed to be better.
 

Clay Pigeon

Gold Meritorious Patron
Are you out of your friggen mind? This is a civilian, purportedly a person of "higher consciousness", head of an alleged religion bringing a "world without insanity, without criminals and without war, ..." -- and he shouldn't be judged as that -- but as a warlord?????? :omg::faceslap::duh::nooo:

No. He should be, must be, judged by the creed he claimed to be his guiding ethic -- which he claimed was superior to "human principles". His actions are worse because he claimed to be better.
Yes...

He was a civilian and the Sea Org is not a military formation

The Sea Org is a PARAmilitary formation and he was it's Commodore

And...

As one should be aware...

Teachers of "higher consciousness" in ALL traditions, christian, buddhist, sufi, whatever are frequently known for imposing harsh conditions and staggering tasks on their chelas

Hmmm...

"Warlord"

I don't recall seeing anyone refer to LRH as a warlord before

Always a pleasure to read lively vocabulary Bill
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Yes...

He was a civilian and the Sea Org is not a military formation

The Sea Org is a PARAmilitary formation and he was it's Commodore

And...

As one should be aware...

Teachers of "higher consciousness" in ALL traditions, christian, buddhist, sufi, whatever are frequently known for imposing harsh conditions and staggering tasks on their chelas

Hmmm...

"Warlord"

I don't recall seeing anyone refer to LRH as a warlord before

Always a pleasure to read lively vocabulary Bill
Your excuses for Hubbard's insanity get more and more creative. He was a very bad person.
 
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