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Anons with E-meter get unexpected result.

FinallyMe

Silver Meritorious Patron
Back to the OP for a second here, the message that I took from it was that some non-ensnared people FINALLY understood how "normal," "sane" people can be in need, and get caught up by something that offers hope. I'm sorry for the woman to whom it happened, but I am VERY glad that a few more people apparently saw how that happened, and now see that we're not all stupid, weak, gullible, or whatever their judgment may have been. Reading the post made me feel a lot better, actually - like maybe I'm not some non-thinking, easily led follower. Thanks for putting it up there, AnonKat.
 

AnonKat

Crusader
*kiss*

Back to the OP for a second here, the message that I took from it was that some non-ensnared people FINALLY understood how "normal," "sane" people can be in need, and get caught up by something that offers hope. I'm sorry for the woman to whom it happened, but I am VERY glad that a few more people apparently saw how that happened, and now see that we're not all stupid, weak, gullible, or whatever their judgment may have been. Reading the post made me feel a lot better, actually - like maybe I'm not some non-thinking, easily led follower. Thanks for putting it up there, AnonKat.

You are welcome. The Lady was uninformed and turned blindley devoted in a second. All it took is the swing of a needle.
 
You are welcome. The Lady was uninformed and turned blindley devoted in a second. All it took is the swing of a needle.

No. What did it was "finding her ruin". The needle movement is simply an indicator, one of many. The power to motivate, for good or ill, lies in rehabilitating "failed purposes" and unfulfilled intentions.


Mark A. Baker
 

Sharone Stainforth

Silver Meritorious Patron
When I was a little girl I believed that box, the e-meter could read my mind. That is brainwashing and it is also a very big lie. To teach children these extremely damaging lies is a fraud and invokes extreme fear.
 

AnonKat

Crusader
No. What did it was "finding her ruin". The needle movement is simply an indicator, one of many. The power to motivate, for good or ill, lies in rehabilitating "failed purposes" and unfulfilled intentions.


Mark A. Baker

HUMAN EMOTIONS ARE NOT "RUIN" and even the indication is NOT indicating she needs Scientology. Just Time to Grieve and time to give it a place.
 

uniquemand

Unbeliever
"Ruin" is just a way of stating that there is something (at least one thing, often many) that a person feels is destroying their serenity, their happiness, etc.

You could also use a word like "lodestone", where it infers all of your attention (or a majority of it) goes to that issue or person and it overwhelms you.

I've heard many people use similar terminology outside of Scientology. I disagree strongly with the process of sticking someone in a "ruin" as a sales technique. I find it abusive and unethical. However, if a person has such an issue and it's sitting right below the surface all the time, you could be doing them a favor by getting them to confront it and do something about it. It depends on how much "ego strength" the person has, and I don't believe that modern scientologists or many others have the sensitivity or tools to be aware of this with any degree of accuracy.

In the days of Science of Survival (51), the means of determining this was in the back of that book, I can't remember the name of the chart. However, right next to the "tone level" was listed the type of techniques that should be used to build the person's capability of confronting "charge" up. I believe this is a valid concept, even if much of Hubbard's explanation and theory were flawed.

If a person who is on the edge is pushed hard to dive into something extremely touchy or "charged", I do believe you can do damage to the person. "Ruin-finding" could do this, and shouldn't be used by people, I don't think, except in clinical environments, where the clinician is trained to recognize borderline personality disorder and other such indicators of low "ego-strength".

There is no need to hard-sell real help.
 

uniquemand

Unbeliever
Back to the OP for a second here, the message that I took from it was that some non-ensnared people FINALLY understood how "normal," "sane" people can be in need, and get caught up by something that offers hope. I'm sorry for the woman to whom it happened, but I am VERY glad that a few more people apparently saw how that happened, and now see that we're not all stupid, weak, gullible, or whatever their judgment may have been. Reading the post made me feel a lot better, actually - like maybe I'm not some non-thinking, easily led follower. Thanks for putting it up there, AnonKat.

A lot of people are under the mistaken impression that former Scientologists (or current Scientologists) are of necessity gullible or stupid. This is not the case. While I find it hard to believe that people in the modern world could be recruited, due to the availability of information about Scientology, now, this was not always the case. Additionally, Scientology is deceptive, manipulative, and highly compartmentalized, such that in the days when I joined, most of the things that trigger people's alerts were HIDDEN. On display were the shiney happy people, well-bound books, and ideas which might be highly unconventional, but which would require a lot of analysis (as is available here) to get a real bead on the subject quickly.

That said, there WERE certain things that should have been really big indicators of a problem (Hubbard's hatred of psychiatrists, focus on attempted abortions and such, in DMSMH made me very uncomfortable, though I was very interested in his presentation about tone levels, engrams, and the procedure of dianetics).

It is incumbent upon those of us who sold the subject to people, I believe, to now make it very clear what the dangers are, how the operation is run, and to steer people CLEAR of Scientology and Dianetics.

STEER CLEAR
 

Ted

Gold Meritorious Patron
"Ruin" is just a way of stating that there is something (at least one thing, often many) that a person feels is destroying their serenity, their happiness, etc.

You could also use a word like "lodestone", where it infers all of your attention (or a majority of it) goes to that issue or person and it overwhelms you.

I've heard many people use similar terminology outside of Scientology. I disagree strongly with the process of sticking someone in a "ruin" as a sales technique. I find it abusive and unethical. However, if a person has such an issue and it's sitting right below the surface all the time, you could be doing them a favor by getting them to confront it and do something about it. It depends on how much "ego strength" the person has, and I don't believe that modern scientologists or many others have the sensitivity or tools to be aware of this with any degree of accuracy.

In the days of Science of Survival (51), the means of determining this was in the back of that book, I can't remember the name of the chart. However, right next to the "tone level" was listed the type of techniques that should be used to build the person's capability of confronting "charge" up. I believe this is a valid concept, even if much of Hubbard's explanation and theory were flawed.

If a person who is on the edge is pushed hard to dive into something extremely touchy or "charged", I do believe you can do damage to the person. "Ruin-finding" could do this, and shouldn't be used by people, I don't think, except in clinical environments, where the clinician is trained to recognize borderline personality disorder and other such indicators of low "ego-strength".

There is no need to hard-sell real help.


We can certainly agree on that.
:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 

uniquemand

Unbeliever
I KNOW it is. That does not mean I won't stick up for human emotions.


Grieve is NEEDED to be happy. chew on that one.

Grief is also a process, AnonKat. While a lot of people (including Scientologists) have an idea that "low tone" emotions are a bad thing, it's actually being STUCK in such an emotion, or being UNABLE to experience such an emotion, that is the problem.

Of course grief is a natural emotion to feel after the loss of someone close to you. Even after a long time, most people will still be sobered when they recall the death of someone important to them, and that's fine. However, being unable to stop the grief weeks or months after such a loss, or being unable to grieve in the first place can be disabling. It's up to the individual to decide when intervention is appropriate, I feel, and not a C/S or Auditor, or a therapist in the wider world. When an individual feels that the grief is unending, and they can't get over it, and life can't be lived because of it, and they reach out for help with that, THIS is the time when intervention is appropriate.
 

SchwimmelPuckel

Genuine Meatball
Just saying the apparatus the E-meter isn't bogus, Just a bit old in its parts.
No argument.. An Ohm-meter works. It measures electrical resistance. Good thing too... Important for all our electrical devices to have been invented and made to work.

So, some dude figured to measure the resistance in a human body..

And then Hubbard had a brainfart.. That an Ohm meter measures the soul or mind... Well?

To be sure, a lie detector 'works' too.. It measures 'something'.. But I don't think we can conclude that someone is 'lying' by the output.

And I don't think Hubbard had any idea about what the E-Meter's needle motion means.

:duh:
 

uniquemand

Unbeliever
We cannot conclude that someone is lying by the output. However, we can conclude that their fight/flight reflex has been engaged, and that they feel some measure of stress related to whatever was being discussed (or thought about during the discussion) when the needle deflection occurred.

That's all the meter tells you. It doesn't tell you that you are lying, or that there's a traumatic incident there, or anything specific, other than that there has been an engagement of your fight/flight reflex/stress response.

That can be helpful, or it can be completely misleading, depending on how dumb the operator is.
 

AnonKat

Crusader
Science behind it.

Here you go:

http://www.iworx.com/LabExercises/lockedexercises/LockedGSRANL.pdf

gm_gsr.jpg


http://www.google.nl/#hl=nl&biw=100...aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=c701523b6772455

3885988750_f8551c68a6.jpg



No argument.. An Ohm-meter works. It measures electrical resistance. Good thing too... Important for all our electrical devices to have been invented and made to work.

So, some dude figured to measure the resistance in a human body..

And then Hubbard had a brainfart.. That an Ohm meter measures the soul or mind... Well?

To be sure, a lie detector 'works' too.. It measures 'something'.. But I don't think we can conclude that someone is 'lying' by the output.

And I don't think Hubbard had any idea about what the E-Meter's needle motion means.

:duh:
 

SchwimmelPuckel

Genuine Meatball
^^^ Like I said.. No argument. It's piece of well understood eletronic hardware. Hard to argue that it doesn't work, and I don't.

I argue that the whole bevildering psychotherapy that is Dianetcs & Scientology does not 'work'! - A lot of that is based on interpretations of needle fluctuations of the E-meter.

Going so far as 'diagnosing' people as Supressive Persons because an E-meter needle swung wildly. A needle behavior that probably was/is caused by a bad solder or loose connection in the E-mater's electrical circuits.

Yet, the confounded E-meter does measure 'something'.. I'm leaning towards Uniquemand's explanation above.

Incidently.. I learned to make my needle float when I needed it to. It took conciously relaxing and thinking of something nice and happy.. Well, I 'ran' postcoital relaxation, just like it was some 'incident' in a session. Made the needle float every damn time! - Even when I comtemplated throwing the examiner's desk in his lap.

:yes:
 
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