Death by E-meter?

[secretiveoldfag]

The most common story is that they placed their faith in auditing but it didn't work. I haven't found a single case where OT/auditing cured cancer, though in one case remission coincided with solo nots, but the person died six months later anyway.

Certainly early detection and appropriate treatment can prolong life, and do so in the general population.

Fact remains that the average age of American cancer patients at diagnosis is 67 (National Cancer Institute) while the average age at death of Scientologists who die of cancer, where the age of death is known, is 47. The youngest was 25 and the oldest was 59.

The gap is difficult to explain in terms of stress, diet or smoking - all factors which also affect many individuals in the general population.

However we explain it, it seems that there is some specific factor operating within Scientology which is responsible for cancer starting much earlier among a large number of Scientologists. There is a Scientology pattern which is worth further investigation.

Once I get all the data published it ought to be easier to see the links, if any, with the amount of auditing the individuals got.

 

[Nicole]

E-meters operate on the same amount of power as a transistor radio. The theory is stupid. Give it up.

A transistor radio is made to hear music with distance. There are not running electrons through the body. This is a very BIG difference.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

In my own case holding the cans was hardly the issue. I had precious little auditing... Cancer in the colon (tumor sucessfully cut out and thrown away in 1984)

I knew a young man who died from some form of cancer about the same time. He was a former staffmember too.. He did believe that auditing could save him, but didn't have anymore money for all the auditing he felt he needed. (Or maybe the 'church' had denied him, being an illegal PC.. I don't know exactly..) - This was in Denmark, where you don't have to pay for expensive medical, we have that payed over the taxes.. So he was under regular medical treatment too. Though in the end that didn't help him either.

 

[Infinite]

How about a spiritual reason for the early deaths - Scientology simply sucks the life forces out of its adherents. Although unrelated to this topic, the following comment resonated for me:

Although church policy is very linear and fascist, it supports a machine that mills the human soul for esoteric purposes

 

[This is NOT OK !!!!]

The most common story is that they placed their faith in auditing but it didn't work. I haven't found a single case where OT/auditing cured cancer, though in one case remission coincided with solo nots, but the person died six months later anyway.

Certainly early detection and appropriate treatment can prolong life, and do so in the general population.

Fact remains that the average age of American cancer patients at diagnosis is 67 (National Cancer Institute) while the average age at death of Scientologists who die of cancer, where the age of death is known, is 47. The youngest was 25 and the oldest was 59.

The gap is difficult to explain in terms of stress, diet or smoking - all factors which also affect many individuals in the general population.

I'm having trouble seeing the "gap" you're talking about here.

Your "average" age for American cancer is the average of ALL Americans.

Your "average" for Scio cancer deaths is only the average of those 14 people. You would have to mix those 14 in with the age of death of ALL SCIOS WHO EVER LIVED to get a comparable.

There is a point however that your post reminds me of.

Scientology is not a free group, so social scientists are not able to study the membership in any detailed manner thorough enough to draw comparisons with society at large.

What MIGHT be possible would be to have a social scientist study US, the exes.

I would like that.

I would donate to fund that.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

I'm having trouble seeing the "gap" you're talking about here. <snip>

Those americans who died from cancer.. I would guess.. But your'e right about the 'sample group' of scientologists being too small. Nevertheless, the percentage should hold.

Yup.. Some real research into this would be desirable. It does look like something is there to find out.

 

[Nicole]

Yup.. Some real research into this would be desirable. It does look like something is there to find out.

This and to stay with the death. I wonder me always, that lots Scientologists made suicide or tried one. Imo that is more than in the "normal" population. What do you mean is the reason for it?

 

[Dulloldfart]

Yup.. Some real research into this would be desirable. It does look like something is there to find out.

Just think. Maybe the Life Insurance companies would then say, "Uh-oh . . . Scientologist . . . high-risk . . . sorry, your insurance premiums will be 35% higher now.

Paul

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

This and to stay with the death. I wonder me always, that lots Scientologists made suicide or tried one. Imo that is more than in the "normal" population. What do you mean is the reason for it?

Oh.. I am in no doubts about that at all! - Scientologists suiciding.. And BTW, I think they number well above avarage in that discipline too!

I have only to look at myself back then.. Spritual damage.. Hubbard's mindbending had me believe I was an SP with no right to existence. I was 'certain' that I had a very evil influence on everybody around me. I was bad company..

Blegh.. And why did I believe that shit?

Well, I didn't get 'case gain'.. Hubbard's wonderful mental technology explained why. - I was a 'downstat', as evidenced by my 'stats' in the GO.. Again Hubbard could explain that. - I wanted out of the GO, primarily because I'd become a father to 2 little boys and needed to make a sensible income to support my family.. Ah, but Hubbard had another explanation for those traitors who wants to leave. They'll get sick and die he said.

Scientology has no lack of 'explanations' that all means you are a total failure, SP, evil, Degraded Being or plain crazy. They are the 'Why' that the 'tech' don't work for you.

And when I got my cancer diagnosis, 4 years after I left staff, I was not surprised. I was an evil SP, a degraded being, whose body unsurprizingly failed him.

If you believe all that.. I should think it puts you in the mood for a suicide?

And in fact, I didn't really believe it. Yet it fucked me up inside my head anyway.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

Just think. Maybe the Life Insurance companies would then say, "Uh-oh . . . Scientologist . . . high-risk . . . sorry, your insurance premiums will be 35% higher now.

Paul

Indeed! - To think.. I could not get a life insurance because I flew gliders! - Well, I could, but the price they wanted was ludicrous.

In fact there isn't many deaths from flying gliders.. Without knowing the figures, I'd say that the risk is on a par with driving cars.

 

[Nicole]

Good that you are Exs and alive!

... and I feel sad about the poor victims!

 

[MrNobody]

About these suicides: AFAIK $cientologists believe in some sort of reincarnation, so the thought of just dropping the body and reboot life isn't that far off the mark, I'd say.

About the effects an E-meter does or doesn't have: I think Schwimmel is right - we don't have enough data. Thinking "electricity" and "body fluids" brings me the question "electrolysis"? I wonder what free Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms and molecules could do to one's body.

Oh, and...

<snip>
I wondered about my mouse. Is a current passing through my hand all the time I use it? I think we should be told.

No, there is no current passing through your hand all the time you use it. The electricity passing through your mouse has an electric field, though, which IMO is too weak and small to be of any significance.

OTOH, the electric field around those Power lines Sauerl mentioned, is strong enough to be responsible for some negative effects in living creatures - but even in this case, there's not enough data, AFAIK.

 

[Royal Prince Xenu]

I have been working for some time on a list of Scientologists who have died from cancer, suicide and other abnormal causes.

Out of a list of 100 cancer victims we know the age or approximate at death in fourteen cases. Add up and divide by 14 gives an average age at death of 47. In the US the median age of cancer patients at death ranges from 68 for black males to 80 for white females. The average for the whole population is 73 (National Cancer Institute). Thus Scientologists who die of cancer have lost, on average, 25 years of their lives.

This predeliction has been attributed to the gross neglect of the basic rules of health and hygiene within the cult, particularly within the Sea Org: poor diet, long hours, lack of sleep, and stress, combined with neglect of the condition after diagnosis. Both of these are probably important but they are not the only factors operating here. Cancer also starts much earlier in the Scientology community than outside. The median age of American cancer patients at diagnosis is 67. Scientologists who die of cancer on average die twenty years before their neighbors make their first visit to the oncologist.

So an unhealthy life-style and neglect cannot be the main factors. Even in the most deprived sectors of the American community the date of diagnosis is postponed by twenty years or more. We need to identify a factor that is specific to Scientologists and which might conceivably affect their health. Could this possibly be the E-meter?

Arnie Lerma suggested in 2006 that it was possible that the radiation effect of the E-meter, which sends a low current through the body and which maybe used over many hours, days and weeks, and from childhood onwards, is dangerous. Maybe this is true? If not, can anyone suggest any other specific factors operating within the cult that would explain the very early onset of cancer?

Arnie said: "There is an undisputably notable incidence of cancer amongst long time scientologists, especially OTs who hang onto the e-meter electrodes for hours a day, day after day, getting rid of Hubbard's hypnotically suggested body thetans."

The reason for the danger was minuted by the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments meeting on 15 March1995 in Washington DC. It included the following:

"The nature of this curve is such that if you decrease it (the exposure intensity) by 10, the risk per millirad goes up tenfold. If you go down another 10, the risk keeps going up, and therefore we have a strange situation that the weaker the radiation intensity is, the more deadly it is ... We now find that we have a situation where we have far greater health effects than we ever thought."
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=21381&start=0

A simplistic view of this process is that a ray shooting off deadly radiation on all sides does more damage when it travels more slowly.

Arnie could find no suitable control group "with such a long occupational exposure to direct current electricity", but we now have a sample of 14 Scientologists with a known history who can be compared with the average population. The result would obviously be improved if we had more information on age at death about the other 86 in the sample - the problems of a small sample are evident - but the 14 so far known have pulled the average so far down that the remaining 86 would need to average 77 years at death to bring the whole group into line with the general American population. There is not the slightest chance that this could happen.

It might be added that so far there are very few signs of asbestos-related cancer; Pamela Mallison is the clearest example.

I would agree that poor diet, squalid conditions, toxic air (all that smoking) would easily contribute to higher/younger cancer rates.

The E-meter only discharges a small and stable direct current through the body, and I personally don't believe that the device itself would contribute to ill-health.

 

[secretiveoldfag]

A report back from the coal face.

I spent what seemed to be a rather nice fine sunny day digging around on the Web and I now have a list of 31 named Scientologists who died of cancer at specified ages. So the sample has doubled.

And the average is now 49 instead of 47, which is pretty consistent.

I wonder if any other group in America, or in the world, has a similar profile.

The suicide rate is also fairly alarming but that is another matter.

 

[Lermanet_com]

Re the comparison between electricity and radiation

Nota Bene: Most of the damage done by ionizing radiation is not from the actual collisions, but from the transit of the particle leaving a trail of ionization - leaving a trail of electrical charge that causes ionization, creating free radicals and damaging whatever it passes near.

The electrically ionized path left in the wake of a high energy particle (gamma for example) is what makes trails visible in a cloud chamber.

The reason that radiation data was cited at all is due to the dearth of data available for low current direct current exposures - there just are not any exposure studies to compare with the E-meter - besides a study of telco line men who splice cables and get a little tickle of DC while doing the splices - AND there was an increased incident in cancer!

Pain relieving TENS units, due to the small DC pulse width, and low duty cycle provide perhaps only 5% of what one second of DC would provide... further, TENS units provide pulsing DC that reverses its voltage to avoid ionization problems. My rough calculations place the E-meter as similar to having ten or more TENS units running at the same time

Even the old electric therapies used in the 19th century avoided direct current as it became well known to be associated with cellular damage, and they soon switched to only using AC, back and forth, alternating current, for 'therapy"... NOT Direct Current http://www.lermanet.com/members/electrotherapy/

The argument about what path the current will take ( does it follow the nerves? or go shortest physical path, A to B ) is entirely voltage dependent. Higher voltages will jump across insulating structures in the body and go A to B... LOW voltages will confine themselves to existing conductive pathways. Google Bjorn Nordenstrom "Biologically Closed Electric Circuits - BCEC" - The first conductive path encountered when current is applied to skin is tactile nerves that go directly to the brain stem.

"Just how long would I have to run a small electric current through your body, while telling you things that you wanted to hear, before you became convinced that I held the secrets of the universe?"
http://www.lermanet.com/e-metershort.htm
http://www.lermanet.com/endorphin-emeter.htm

Here is a small collection of approximately 50 cites to support the hypothesis of electrically induced endorphins here:
http://www.lermanet.com/scientologylegal/endorphin.htm
Endorphins are the human body's morphine and bind to the same receptors, and may explain the apparent addiction to scientology some people have

 

[Zinjifar]

I've never seen any evidence that nerves are electrically conductive pathways, at least not any more so than any other body tissue. Their *function* is electrochemical.

The pathway for GSR is the skin layer, not the nerves. The *change* in conductivity is however triggered by the nerves.

Zinj

 

[Lermanet_com]

I've never seen any evidence that nerves are electrically conductive pathways, at least not any more so than any other body tissue. Their *function* is electrochemical.

The pathway for GSR is the skin layer, not the nerves. The *change* in conductivity is however triggered by the nerves.

Zinj

Well, if you have never 'seen' something, then it must not exist, case closed?
Try reading the links provided , skin is the best insulator the body has
The links provide a greater depth for those who desire more than a shallow understanding

 

[Mystic]

Death by E-meter? Naw naw. Death OF e-meter...along with the rest of its cult.

 

[Auditor's Toad]

Now that the e-meter is in question there has to be unquestionable scientific evidence put form and blind studies proven before it can be mentioned it "might" be harmful ?

Not to say it the wrong way, but is someone out of their fucking mind here?

Old ron was bat shit crazy, designed - or stole - unproven theory and subjected thousands of people to it as " standard tech". He made rules of management that failed. he made up ethics that failed. he made tech and states like 'clear' and 'ot' that failed.

Nothing was ever founded on anything but the imagination of the drug fueled mind of a madman......and now someone wants PROOF about the fucking meter?

Too funny for words!

 

[Zinjifar]

Well, given the situation, it'd be a good idea to substantiate claims that the e-meter causes 'cancer' and other ailments. My own pet peeve is Scientologists who think the emeter is linked to the brain electrically. Not only is that silly, it's not even good Scientology, which claims that the 'brain' is just a hunka meat.

All because somebody saw an 'after-school-special' where Cyril the Squirrel explained how nerves are 'like electric wires'.

Zinj