Claire Swazey
Spokeshole, fence sitter
I've chimed in and even started some threads here and there with discussions about what's wrong with the organization; been doing that a long time. I sometimes do criticize Hubbard and the subject, talk about the FZ (and not always in favor of...) And sometimes I discuss problems with the actual belief system.
But I really don't think I do that as often. And it's something that's personal. By "personal" I don't mean something that I wouldn't share, or that people shouldn't ask me about. It's not like my debit card number, my medical history, or whatever. I mean that it's something each person has their own take on, it's subjective. That doesn't make it incorrect- we just have our own way of looking at things and also there are things that matter more to person A than to person B. And so it goes.
This has been a bit more on my mind than usual, lately. And I would like to open up the thread by naming a couple flaws I see with the Scn philosophy that I think set people up for failure and problems.
One is that in Scn, you're told you're better than people who aren't into it. At first, it seems to be more about becoming better. Ok, I thought- I could really get into that idea. Self improvement. Spiritual growth. Yowza. Homo Novis- I thought, hey, why not?
But then it seemed like we were to believe we were already better than others. Hubbard talks about that in a lot of places. Scn'ists are just plain better. So here's how it kinda confused and upset me:
Every time I made a number of mistakes
Every time I didn't seem too competent
Every time I felt like my "buttons" were being pushed
I felt like a failure. This wasn't what I was supposed to be, given past auditing, courses, etc. I was like, ok, so if this is Clear/OT, then why are the descriptions the way they are?
What helped was seeing that others who'd had just simply oodles of auditing and training had either the same issues or were much worse off. It helped because I could then see that the problem was the promises made, that these states in reality (not the cert you get. I'm talking about really being there.) were either unobtainable in Scn or at the very least, were not obtained by those who had attested to them- which means the EPs of the processes either were unrealized or were, once obtained, EPs that did not confer the state of "Free of XYZ" or whatever the thing was.
But I saw people acting like they were better. Then they weren't better. And they weren't acting like, ok, I'm doing better, I'm a bit happier. No, they thought they were superior. They were told they were superior. But they weren't superior.
Also, I think a Buddhist might point out that if you want to be superior to others, that alone will hold you back. They'd have some pithy things to say about ego and all of that.
I have been thinking of this for a couple weeks then come to find out that a church member's kid (I won't name names) had to go to juvenile hall. So where's that superiority? It's a Scn family. If they were really anywhere near what they've been told they were, spiritually and mentally, nobody'd ever wind up in the criminal justice system.
I know this is obvious. And I did know it before but it seems to be resonating with me more in the past couple weeks.
God, I can remember attesting to Clear, then getting upset with someone at the office being a bit critical of me and wondering how the hell that computes? You know what I did then, right? Yeah. I followed in the footsteps of just about every Scn'ist before me. I cast about for an excuse.
Another problem with the subject is that it encourages you to be immersed in it. Again, nothing that you guys don't already know. But I was reading about Tom Cruise and his compound and how it's Scn 24/7. From what I hear from someone who used to work for him in the 90s, it wasn't like that in the beginning. Well, Cruise isn't the only one who immerses himself thus. (though few others can afford a freaking compound!). Scn'ists do that a lot. If they don't, they are called panty waist dilettantes. Even public do it. There are a million different stories about it. We all know.
The problem with it is that it's not healthy. It wouldn't be healthy even if there weren't all those abuses and problems, though there certainly are many of those. But my point here is it's not healthy to immerse oneself in a religion, or philosophy because, of course, other areas of life get either neglected or made to fit in with that worldview. I believe this causes a person to not see those other situations for what they are. I would say the same re an immersion in an elder religion, too. Though there're probably more problems with this one.
I admire the monks and anchorites who devote themselves to the divine. But even though they aren't Scn'ists, they probably also are riding for a fall because it's an unbalanced thing. But I think most of us would say it's worse when you do it with Scn.
This is probably why I got away from the label thing a couple years ago.
I guess here I'm not so much examining ideas as I am examining mindsets. I think examining ideas would be like, ok, let's look at the Tone scale, let's look at the communication formula, let's look at the C/S Series. Nothing wrong with that, either, of course.
But I really don't think I do that as often. And it's something that's personal. By "personal" I don't mean something that I wouldn't share, or that people shouldn't ask me about. It's not like my debit card number, my medical history, or whatever. I mean that it's something each person has their own take on, it's subjective. That doesn't make it incorrect- we just have our own way of looking at things and also there are things that matter more to person A than to person B. And so it goes.
This has been a bit more on my mind than usual, lately. And I would like to open up the thread by naming a couple flaws I see with the Scn philosophy that I think set people up for failure and problems.
One is that in Scn, you're told you're better than people who aren't into it. At first, it seems to be more about becoming better. Ok, I thought- I could really get into that idea. Self improvement. Spiritual growth. Yowza. Homo Novis- I thought, hey, why not?
But then it seemed like we were to believe we were already better than others. Hubbard talks about that in a lot of places. Scn'ists are just plain better. So here's how it kinda confused and upset me:
Every time I made a number of mistakes
Every time I didn't seem too competent
Every time I felt like my "buttons" were being pushed
I felt like a failure. This wasn't what I was supposed to be, given past auditing, courses, etc. I was like, ok, so if this is Clear/OT, then why are the descriptions the way they are?
What helped was seeing that others who'd had just simply oodles of auditing and training had either the same issues or were much worse off. It helped because I could then see that the problem was the promises made, that these states in reality (not the cert you get. I'm talking about really being there.) were either unobtainable in Scn or at the very least, were not obtained by those who had attested to them- which means the EPs of the processes either were unrealized or were, once obtained, EPs that did not confer the state of "Free of XYZ" or whatever the thing was.
But I saw people acting like they were better. Then they weren't better. And they weren't acting like, ok, I'm doing better, I'm a bit happier. No, they thought they were superior. They were told they were superior. But they weren't superior.
Also, I think a Buddhist might point out that if you want to be superior to others, that alone will hold you back. They'd have some pithy things to say about ego and all of that.
I have been thinking of this for a couple weeks then come to find out that a church member's kid (I won't name names) had to go to juvenile hall. So where's that superiority? It's a Scn family. If they were really anywhere near what they've been told they were, spiritually and mentally, nobody'd ever wind up in the criminal justice system.
I know this is obvious. And I did know it before but it seems to be resonating with me more in the past couple weeks.
God, I can remember attesting to Clear, then getting upset with someone at the office being a bit critical of me and wondering how the hell that computes? You know what I did then, right? Yeah. I followed in the footsteps of just about every Scn'ist before me. I cast about for an excuse.
Another problem with the subject is that it encourages you to be immersed in it. Again, nothing that you guys don't already know. But I was reading about Tom Cruise and his compound and how it's Scn 24/7. From what I hear from someone who used to work for him in the 90s, it wasn't like that in the beginning. Well, Cruise isn't the only one who immerses himself thus. (though few others can afford a freaking compound!). Scn'ists do that a lot. If they don't, they are called panty waist dilettantes. Even public do it. There are a million different stories about it. We all know.
The problem with it is that it's not healthy. It wouldn't be healthy even if there weren't all those abuses and problems, though there certainly are many of those. But my point here is it's not healthy to immerse oneself in a religion, or philosophy because, of course, other areas of life get either neglected or made to fit in with that worldview. I believe this causes a person to not see those other situations for what they are. I would say the same re an immersion in an elder religion, too. Though there're probably more problems with this one.
I admire the monks and anchorites who devote themselves to the divine. But even though they aren't Scn'ists, they probably also are riding for a fall because it's an unbalanced thing. But I think most of us would say it's worse when you do it with Scn.
This is probably why I got away from the label thing a couple years ago.
I guess here I'm not so much examining ideas as I am examining mindsets. I think examining ideas would be like, ok, let's look at the Tone scale, let's look at the communication formula, let's look at the C/S Series. Nothing wrong with that, either, of course.