Zhongjianren
Patron with Honors
In find the following comments by Joe Pendleton to be interesting. I also find interesting the fact that Marty posted them.
For what little it may be worth, I'm starting to see confront and questioning -- albeit perhaps on a gradient scale.
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/heretics-and-the-scientology-inquisition/#comment-143406
For what little it may be worth, I'm starting to see confront and questioning -- albeit perhaps on a gradient scale.
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/heretics-and-the-scientology-inquisition/#comment-143406
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/heretics-and-the-scientology-inquisition/#comment-143417Joe Pendleton | August 19, 2011 at 10:48 pm | Reply
Sam, I always appreciate your comments even when I have a different point of view. My own viewpoint is that it is never one person putting all the rest of us at effect. It most definately IS :”us.” Every time we went into agreement and created the postulate that there is only one truth in the universe and that our own viewpoints are only cognitions off of THAT truth, we set the stage for the current authoritarian COS that we see now. Responsibility means the election of cause, and that electing is oneself. Certainly, YOU, Sam Domingo are taking responsibility with your communication and I admire and salute you for that. I’m just saying we (and I include myself) need to take responsibility for all the years in Scientology that we formed our postulates completely (turning on a dime on ANY subject) about everything JUST because Ron said it is true (without actual inspection). That, my friend, is a VERY bad habit to begin. It IS the road to becoming a “bot”. Check out your current Church of Scientology. The suppression in the Christian churches started with the Apostle Paul’s letters and the suppression in Islam started with Mohammed. THEY insisted on THEIR orthodoxy and so it went. Of course, folks can always go the Buddhist way. 99% of Buddhist’s just never study Buddhism at all, they just go to the temple, “make merit” and pray to Lord Buddha and they’re all quite content about being Buddhists and they don’t even concern themselvves with orthodoxy, heresy, punishments, etc and you know what? They seem happier than most folks in the world (I live in a Buddhist country by the way).
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/heretics-and-the-scientology-inquisition/#comment-143507Joe Pendleton | August 19, 2011 at 11:14 pm | Reply
There’s “early Ron” and you can quote his writings and lectures for years on the self-determinism of a being, the right to create one’s universe, the inherent nature of a being to postulate viewpoints and truths (Axion #2), etc etc etc and these are all quite beautiful and I never get tired of reading them over and over. They are my truths too and I feel better and happier as a being as a result of LRH’s work in this area of life. In evaluating Scientology as a complete religious activity, I do think you have to give equal attention to “middle Ron” and “late Ron” as well. Because by the mid 60s, when YOU were in Scientology, YOU did not have the right to have your own viewpoint on anything really. It took me almost 40 years to fully realize this. Even back in 1971, as we got each new PL or HCO B hot off the press at our org, we had a “new truth” every single week. And I’m not talking about only philosophic/spiritual truths. One day people can wear perfume and the next day, there is a new truth about perfume accepted by EVERYONE. One day you can drink Diet Coke and the next day, aspartame is a brain killer (not that I disagree with LRH on these points by the way. I don’t like artificial scents and don’t use aspartame myself. I’m just pointing out the robotic accepting of truths because of COMPLETE adherence to religious orthodoxy). One day a new CS Series issue comes out that tells the CS how to be completely unreasonable when handling auditor failures on metering (which I applied completely) and now you read in the big E meter book (2003 edition anyway) that the American Mark V didn’t FN (say what?) – so I guess it wasn’t all the auditor after all. As Groucho Marx once said in an old movie where he played a king talking to his people “Well, are you going to believe me or your own eyes?” It would NEVER have occurred to me to question the E-Meter being fucked, of course – LRH said it was perfect and always was truthful if your TRs and metering was in. I guess he was wrong. So he had to come up with a new meter. But we all know that THAT meter was perfectly workable, don’t we? Oh, excuse me, a new one came out after that edition, and THAT one was perfect. LRH said so. See, the point is, now that Ron has passed away, the folks need SOMEONE ELSE to tell them what to think and do. Miscavige’s BIG mistake (as far as his own survival as a leader goes) is that he went too far,in being an asshole. Had he just been NICER to his main men, there would be no Indie movement, because we Earth folks just LOVE to follow the leader, with the exceptions of the percentage of folks who always tend towards going their own way.So let’s celebrate “early Ron’s” writings about the sancity of invidual beingness and creativity of thought and postulate, but let’s not pretend that LRH himself held to this point of view throughout his life, because he obviously didn’t.
Joe Pendleton | August 20, 2011 at 3:32 am | Reply
Well, of course you know, Ingrid, that I agree with you and I agree with that quote COMPLETELY. Which is why it is so ironic that in Scientology we didn’t MUCH practice that. I’m not saying we NEVER did or anything like that. There are always enlightened people around. LRH says what you quoted, and yet there are a lot (a LOT – I did a re-study of SSII a few months ago) of policies REALLY stressing “non compliance to orders” and emphasizing how executives fail mainly in not getting their juniors to comply to orders. I’m not trying to be argumentative here, as I think we are fundamentally in agreement. And as we worked together when we were very young, we have similar experiences with the same people. My only point here (and I realize I may sound somewhat obsessed on occasion about this, which is why I try not to post too often) is that there are seeds to the current situation in the Church of Scientology. There are postulates, agreements, habits, viewpoints which were not formed in 2002, 1992, or 1982 that have resulted in the third dyamic the COS is today. And I think it is important that we know what those are, because they are postulates that seem to spring up all over the whole track. I am suprised that there sometimes seems to be only “two camps.” If one questions the truth or validity of anything LRH wrote, then it is perceived by some as some sort of an attack, wherein Ron and his writings need to be defended or praised. On the other side, you have someone like Jeff Hawkins, (whose website I loved, and many of whose ideas really struck a note with me) who has decided that because of some things he no longer agrees are true, there are no great fundamental truths of LRH’s to celebrate. I have reached the point in life where I can do both. I CAN disagree and decide there are things LRH wrote that I think are wrong and unworkable, and yet I live every day having successes due the ideas of LRH which ARE great truths for me….the ARC Triangle, the Tone Scale, the Theta-Mest theory, the fundamental nature of a being, the comm cycle, the absolute brilliance of processes and auditing procedure…and I could go on and on. I never mean to minimize those great achievements.