ESMB and The Freezone - let's have it out!

[Ladybird]

Cat's Squirrel, I mean no disrespect, but it seems you don't know a whole lot about this scientology stuff. Maybe it would be a good idea to find out what it is all about before you defend it or pin your hopes for enlightenment on it.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about scientology, there are many people here who have studied scientology, and most of us have rejected it. It has been my observation that many of the people hanging on to the "tech" haven't really studied it. They just know "It works for ME!" "I had wins", etc...without even knowing or caring how those "wins" were created.

Here is what Hubbard meant by "blanketing". (It was one of his made up words.)

In _History of Man_, page 62, Hubbard wrote that "the blanketing
incident consists of throwing oneself as a thetan over another
thetan or over a mest body. Blanketing is done to obtain an
emotional impact or even to kill. It is strongest in sexual
incidents where the thetan throws two mest bodies together in
the sexual act in order to experience their emotions." -L. Ron Hubbard

 

[FinallyMe]

Freezoners

I kinda skipped over a lot of this thread because I have an opinion on whether to permit FZ'rs to advertise. Personally, every time, e.g., Terril starts in, my response is "Oh, shut up already." I've just started to skip over his posts because he is so predictable, same old advertisement every time. However, I prefer the idea that everyone gets to speak, and I love when the FZ'rs are told by the rest of us to knock it off. Self-governing, if you will, seems like a good idea to me.

 

[Dulloldfart]

Look up all the different "methods" of word clearing...there are 9.

My comments on them, based on experience up to 1996:

Method 1: Possibly useful in clearing up earlier-similars. Somewhere it got side-tracked into clearing up every m/u in the person's current lifetime, or something. The "EP" of "recovery of one's education" is BS. I didn't get much out of mine except the ability to do courses without star-rate checkouts, which was valuable to me.

Method 2: Ghastly stuff, that may pick up an occasional real m/u but is based on a false premise that if the meter reads while someone is reading something aloud then it read on an m/u.

Method 3: Very useful, very very useful when done properly. I've written several posts on the subject. Definitely my favourite method of debugging a student.

Method 4: Waste of time. Worse, as it teaches people that wordclearing sucks.

Method 5: as "spot-checking", it gets misused by using it to try and locate a student's "m/u" as if he only has one.

Method 6: Seems useful in theory, maybe, but not done very often except in the form of "Key word lists" on checksheets.

Method 7: Useful to some extent.

Method 8: Do they do that still? I sup'd a couple on it once and it took months full-time. Then I read that it should be done TWINNED, which would take years full-time in my estimation unless you used a child's dictionary throughout.

Method 9: Great as a punishment if you don't like someone! OK--go and M9 KSW.... Can be useful, but very labour-intensive, not so bad if you twin up students to W/C each other.

In bad hands, any of the above suck bigtime. In good hands, M3 is magical.

Paul

 

[Vinaire]

I kinda skipped over a lot of this thread because I have an opinion on whether to permit FZ'rs to advertise. Personally, every time, e.g., Terril starts in, my response is "Oh, shut up already." I've just started to skip over his posts because he is so predictable, same old advertisement every time. However, I prefer the idea that everyone gets to speak, and I love when the FZ'rs are told by the rest of us to knock it off. Self-governing, if you will, seems like a good idea to me.

Are you my sister or brother?

.

 

[Mick Wenlock]

Hubbard wrote a lot of contradictory stuff. Just as you are picking out some bits to bolster your argument, I used to ignore the bits in study tech I found harmful (in my opinion) when supervising. There is data in the study tapes about allowing a student power of choice over data, i.e. reject it if you wish. I would allow a student to reject something Hubbard said if he wanted to, providing he appeared to understand what it was he was rejecting. If you want to say but that violates KSW, go for it. It's too late to Comm Ev me for it.

I'll pass on the comm ev Paul but I am somewhat puzzled that you say that you used study tech not in the way Hubbard specified it was to be used - in which case, while I think you were smart why would you be defending "study tech" when you disagree with it?

This is simply an amplification of your point, which is not in my understanding of Study Tech. I could probably dig up a quote online about "power of choice" over data if you want. If I thought Study Tech demanded that the student agree with whatever Hubbard said I would hold it in utter contempt.

I'm kind of lost here - how many wins sessions after study did you have where people were roundly rejecting Hubbard's assertions?

Students don't necessarily need teachers. It depends how good the study materials they have are. Have you ever tried to learn a piece of Microsoft software using MS "help" files? (Rhetorical question!).

LOL - though I did teach myself to program RB5000 from their manual.

A couple of years back I did the European Computer Driving License and Advanced ECDL courses at Newcastle College. The courses basically consisted of self-study with a computer program and pack, the pack being say 75 lessons, each one on a small part of MS Word, or Excel, or Access, etc. There were staff there called tutors, who tried to help out the students who needed it, but who didn't teach the stuff. In my opinion, the study materials for those courses were GREAT. There were very few times I needed help from the staff. Trying to learn that stuff in a group setting with the teacher lecturing the students wouldn't have worked at all.

I see we are going to run aground on the shoals of definitions here. I presume the tutors were there, not to check for misus or spinniness or blow phenomena but to help you understand the materials?

But would I want to learn sky-diving from a pack like that? No.

Paul

well you would only get it wrong once.

Interesting that you pick skydiving - something I learned in the SO at Flag.

 

[Mick Wenlock]

why are you saying its a quote from me? It's not - t'was ladybird.

My comments on them, based on experience up to 1996:

Method 1: Possibly useful in clearing up earlier-similars. Somewhere it got side-tracked into clearing up every m/u in the person's current lifetime, or something. The "EP" of "recovery of one's education" is BS. I didn't get much out of mine except the ability to do courses without star-rate checkouts, which was valuable to me.

Method 2: Ghastly stuff, that may pick up an occasional real m/u but is based on a false premise that if the meter reads while someone is reading something aloud then it read on an m/u.

Method 3: Very useful, very very useful when done properly. I've written several posts on the subject. Definitely my favourite method of debugging a student.

Method 4: Waste of time. Worse, as it teaches people that wordclearing sucks.

Method 5: as "spot-checking", it gets misused by using it to try and locate a student's "m/u" as if he only has one.

Method 6: Seems useful in theory, maybe, but not done very often except in the form of "Key word lists" on checksheets.

Method 7: Useful to some extent.

Method 8: Do they do that still? I sup'd a couple on it once and it took months full-time. Then I read that it should be done TWINNED, which would take years full-time in my estimation unless you used a child's dictionary throughout.

Method 9: Great as a punishment if you don't like someone! OK--go and M9 KSW.... Can be useful, but very labour-intensive, not so bad if you twin up students to W/C each other.

In bad hands, any of the above suck bigtime. In good hands, M3 is magical.

Paul

 

[Dulloldfart]

why are you saying its a quote from me? It's not - t'was ladybird.

Sorry--don't know how that happened. I fixed it.

Paul

 

[Vinaire]

My comments on them, based on experience up to 1996:

Method 1: Possibly useful in clearing up earlier-similars. Somewhere it got side-tracked into clearing up every m/u in the person's current lifetime, or something. The "EP" of "recovery of one's education" is BS. I didn't get much out of mine except the ability to do courses without star-rate checkouts, which was valuable to me.

Method 2: Ghastly stuff, that may pick up an occasional real m/u but is based on a false premise that if the meter reads while someone is reading something aloud then it read on an m/u.

Method 3: Very useful, very very useful when done properly. I've written several posts on the subject. Definitely my favourite method of debugging a student.

Method 4: Waste of time. Worse, as it teaches people that wordclearing sucks.

Method 5: as "spot-checking", it gets misused by using it to try and locate a student's "m/u" as if he only has one.

Method 6: Seems useful in theory, maybe, but not done very often except in the form of "Key word lists" on checksheets.

Method 7: Useful to some extent.

Method 8: Do they do that still? I sup'd a couple on it once and it took months full-time. Then I read that it should be done TWINNED, which would take years full-time in my estimation unless you used a child's dictionary throughout.

Method 9: Great as a punishment if you don't like someone! OK--go and M9 KSW.... Can be useful, but very labour-intensive, not so bad if you twin up students to W/C each other.

In bad hands, any of the above suck bigtime. In good hands, M3 is magical.

Paul

I would agree.

I never thought I was really getting the MUs on "M4." Also, I could never find the idea of "F/N Everything" to be workable.

I find "M6" quite useful when tutoring Mathematics. It works because i understand the basics of mathematics very well.

"M3" basically is a very relaxed method and works because it is a relaxed method to bracket the area of confusion and narrowing it down to a misunderstood.

"M9" is useful when I know the MU is there in a certain area but hard to be spotted using "M3." I only use it in a small area after narrowing down to it with "M3."

.

 

[Dulloldfart]

I'll pass on the comm ev Paul but I am somewhat puzzled that you say that you used study tech not in the way Hubbard specified it was to be used - in which case, while I think you were smart why would you be defending "study tech" when you disagree with it?

We have different views of it. I see some bits of it as useful, and some as not. Just as with Scn generally--I find some bits useful and some not. I am not pro-Scn and I am not anti-Scn in such black and white terms.

I'm kind of lost here - how many wins sessions after study did you have where people were roundly rejecting Hubbard's assertions?

One, at Saint Hill, and it was thoroughly embarrassing. No student in his right mind would brag about how he disagreed with Hubbard and "got away with it" or something like that. The woman who gave that win was generally looked on as pretty crazy, by the way.

I see we are going to run aground on the shoals of definitions here. I presume the tutors were there, not to check for misus or spinniness or blow phenomena but to help you understand the materials?

Since they didn't know about those things, they didn't respond to them. They mostly worked with the students by trying to explain the materials in different words. Since the materials were very well written in the first place, and they didn't know about looking earlier, this met with mixed success. They also did necessary admin functions, but in terms of debugging students they generally sucked.

Interesting that you pick skydiving - something I learned in the SO at Flag.

Yeah? That's interesting. How did that come about?

Paul

 

[Cat's Squirrel]

Cat's Squirrel, I mean no disrespect, but it seems you don't know a whole lot about this scientology stuff. Maybe it would be a good idea to find out what it is all about before you defend it or pin your hopes for enlightenment on it.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have about scientology, there are many people here who have studied scientology, and most of us have rejected it. It has been my observation that many of the people hanging on to the "tech" haven't really studied it. They just know "It works for ME!" "I had wins", etc...without even knowing or caring how those "wins" were created.

Here is what Hubbard meant by "blanketing". (It was one of his made up words.)

I stay well clear of that book, I consider it VERY restimulative. It amazes me that the Church sell it freely at the same time as they tell people that reading the OT3 and NOTS materials can make them ill.

As for how much I know; people can and probably should judge that for themselves. I've got a good set of Ron's books passed on to me by my stepdad who was a long time scientologist, and some others I bought here and there (including some of Jon Atack's, who wrote "A Piece Of Blue Sky.") I've read a lot of it but not all. I've also read a good bit of freezone stuff (Pilot, Flemming Funch, Filbert's Excalibur, Ouran etc.). God bless the Internet.

I'm with Dulloldfart's comment here;

"We have different views of it. I see some bits of it as useful, and some as not. Just as with Scn generally--I find some bits useful and some not. I am not pro-Scn and I am not anti-Scn in such black and white terms."

I probably tend to cherrypick the bits I like, but that's what we all do. I've just admitted that I don't think much of The History of Man, but Christians are fond of quoting John 3:16, they're not so keen about quoting that line in Deuteronomy about how you can't enter the Lord's kingdom if your balls have been crushed, or the end of Psalm 137; God will be pleased if you dash Babylonian babies' heads against the rocks.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

I stay well clear of that book (History of Man), I consider it VERY restimulative.
<snip>
I probably tend to cherrypick the bits I like, but that's what we all do. I've just admitted that I don't think much of The History of Man, but Christians are fond of quoting John 3:16, they're not so keen about quoting that line in Deuteronomy about how you can't enter the Lord's kingdom if your balls have been crushed, or the end of Psalm 137; God will be pleased if you dash Babylonian babies' heads against the rocks.

You are exasperating cat! - Ok, discarding bad stuff and sift out the good. That's a thinking mans approach anyway... But that was most definatly NOT what Hubbard had in mind!

The man was poisonous! - So you will have to watch that you don't swallow some of the bad stuff that he hid in the spaghetti logic.

To answer something you mentioned earlier.. About the SP/PTS tech.. That's is where some of the venom is!

That piece of 'tech' is what drives scientologys hatred towards mankind and all his works. It is what 'justifies' creating a safe 'theta' environment, or in other words the siege mentality, bot physically and mentally. Isolating oneself by not reading news and ignoring any adverse opinion.

When on staff this works like an Orwellian nightmare. SP's can be anyone and everywhere. When some stat goes down the scilons go on the hunt for the SP. Should the stat crash coincide with someone new starting on staff he or she might get blamed for that crash. SP powers are as recognized as the OT ones.. So it's driven on stats, updstats are not the SP's, the downstats are. But there exist a policy (or bulletin) that explains that some SP's hide by being upstat!

Indeed Hubbard tells us that: 'The tonelevel of society can be raised by eliminating people below 2.0 on the tonescale'.

Now, what we need to realize is that SP's have a similar functionality for CoS as the Jews had for Nazism. A common enemy, who's to blame for everything and do not deserve to live. Thus the scilons become comrades in arms in the righteous war against the vile SP's.. Who can conveniently be anyone.

Even oneself.. And believe me, you are acutely aware of the fact as a staffmember.

So.. I don't know how that works when you never was on staff. And even studied those texts in the FZ whre there is no continous pushing the SP paranoia home... You get to think for youself with it I guess.

But this is the germ of the Gestapo like organization that is CofS. That's KSW and all the scripture about SP's and PTS.

(BTW.. History of Man is hysterically funny!)

 

[Terril park]

There are 4580 threads on ESMB. 70 of these are in "The Freezone" section and 104 in "Independant Field" section. Combined this is 3.8% of the total threads on ESMB. ESMB has been online for 539 days meaning there is an average of 8.5 new threads every day or 59 per week. Of these 59 new threads, an average of 2 are started in the combined FZ and IF sections.

I also looked at the top 100 posters to ESMB. I counted maybe 15 of those who I would consider "hardcore" FZers and none of them in the top 5 posters.

So the argument that ESMB is a Freezone board is statistically false.

I think this is a wonderful post and says why this forum is so successfull.

Very interesting analysis. I shall do one of this thread as a whole.

Another thought that occured to me is that FZers can be extremely "restimulative" (excuse the scientologese but I can't think of a better word).

We all lost our religion. For me at least it was devistating. I lost my profession, my philosophy on life, my understanding of the human condition, my friends, my social life and ultimately my marriage. I think most people experience similar losses when leaving Scientology.

So to have FZers still talk about "life with The Tech", can stir up a LOT of unresolved feelings & emotions. There are two sides to this coin.

Many in the FZ have had similar losses. In comparison mine were minimal.
I was always happy to go out, have a few beers and some fun. A dilletante of sorts. Was two stages for me, leaving staff, an auditor specially at my " beck and call" so's to speak [or vice versa ] to run sec checks ad infinitum. Some
guilt and I worked for a further 3 months without pay as atonement. Same pay as before really. And then leaving after my final weirdo auditing alledgedly a CCRD. I was still loyal, but had the loss of my bridge. I have some idea of how that is hurtfull. In all this I somehow never managed to recieve any horrific wrong indications. Apart from " not clear". However managed to bring the " best C/S ever ", at St. Hill, to realise the error of his/her ways.

I Never participated any more. Till I found the FZ.

As FZers, you need to understand how hurt and damaged exes are. They have read the data and come to a (sometimes) painful decision that Scientology is not for them. This DOES not mean that they are not feeling the loss of something major in their lives. They may also be feeling betrayed and used and conned. These are some pretty powerful emotions to have stirred up on a daily basis. FZers have made the decision to continue along a certain path and that is totally fine with me, but you must understand that flaunting that position on a board mainly filled with exes, is going to stir up a lot of stuff.

On the other hand, when us exes were Scientologists, we fought with all our might to be allowed that freedom. We WANTED to be Scientologists and resented anyone who told us we were mad. Now just because "we" changed our minds, doesn't mean that everyone else has to. Do you remember being a gung ho Scientologist? I do. I wanted to save everyone. I was as annoying as hell. So sometimes when you think a FZer is proselytizing and you want them to stop, maybe you are seeing a little of your old self in that person and you don't like it. I realise this is a generality and I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, it's just some thoughts I've had on the subject.

I think this last is for many the most difficult aspect to face. One of the big problems is stuff like the issue where LRH tells that those leaving the SO are degraded beings. ESMB clearly helps those who are lost and suffering. So
does the FZ. 90% of those that read here probably lurk. Still seems that 30-40 people a month come to the FZ. I've in travelling and back here in the UK not been able to post on ACT and ARS, for reasons known to Gods and techies. Some i guess arrive after being here.

This doesn't mean you need to be all sweet and agreeable. Hell no. But when you see a person who has just escaped the cult and are in a terrible state, the last thing you should be doing is advertising FZ services. The same goes the other way. If someone has just uncovered and resolved a huge problem in their lives with some processing, I think it's completely inapproriate to respond with "You're just a brainwashed cultie and it's not real and you are a moron".

The only advertising is my FZ success stories thread, and of course people don't have to read this.

I beleive the complaints are about the posts of freezoners on general threads. This comes down to freedom of speech.

You know everyone loves you.

Glad Alanzo does again

 

[Terril park]

Yes. It can get tiring going over the same points over and over again with freezoners.

But that's what we have BoldGirl and Pixie for!

They're fresh, and have lots and lots of energy to fight the battle.

We just need to arm them with all the tools they need. And they will arm others, etc., on down the line.

God help us

 

[Alanzo]

God help us

Way to go on mastering the quote function, Teril!!!

It was becoming quite the PR flap for the Freezone!

 

[Dulloldfart]

You are exasperating cat! - Ok, discarding bad stuff and sift out the good. That's a thinking mans approach anyway... But that was most definatly NOT what Hubbard had in mind!

The man was poisonous! - So you will have to watch that you don't swallow some of the bad stuff that he hid in the spaghetti logic.

When I started out in Scn I took Hubbard's stuff like anyone else's, seeing if it made sense and if so great, querying the stuff that looked weird, and so forth. After a bit I pretty much just swallowed it all whole as I couldn't see anything wrong with it. Ahem.

Now I pretty much try to do it on the basis of none of it is worth looking at unless I already know it is useful.

Paul

 

[Terril park]

Has CofS ceased fairgaming squirrels? - FZ that is.. I was just thinking that CofS would just lurve to have us doing their sordid work.

Well, it's one more reason that FZ is not correct target at this point.

I don't believe COS has attacked the FZ for around 18 months, and that was a very minor attack on one old meter man. Other than that nothing for years.
That was a local UK attack not OSA central. I know the person and he is probably a volunteer rather than staff, and it may have been on his own determination. OSA seem to have lost the capacity to attack FZerts, at least while anons are around.

 

[asagai]

I've done the Student Hat and I know a bit about this but I can't compete with Paul here.

Scn's emphasis on word clearing is an example of a sometimes workable datum carried to extremes. IMO it's used to cover up for the fact than modern CofS course sups often don't know the materials they're training the students on, so they have to parrot "What do your materials state?" when the student encounters a problem.

An addition to my list of questions to ask CofS staffers is this; if word clearing is so vital, why don't top students at school and university do it all the time?

No, that's not a modern CofS supervisor technique. It is pure LRH supervisor tech. I ran courserooms in the 70's and it was one of the standard handlings that LRH taught us. It is not a case of not-knowing the materials, it is supervisor tech to never explain or interpret the materials, but ask instead "What do your materials state?"

 

[Dulloldfart]

It is not a case of not-knowing the materials, it is supervisor tech to never explain or interpret the materials, but ask instead "What do your materials state?"

But it can be applied rotely when what the student has in front of him doesn't answer his question. I found it a lot quicker to find something that quickly answered his question and he would then happily get back to his course. I didn't give a fuck if it was exactly per the drill or not.

Of course, if the sup doesn't know the answer you can't do it like that.

Paul

 

[asagai]

I thought Hubbard ripped off study tech from the research of Charles Berner. Alan posted about that a couple of times. Hubbard didn't credit Berner for the work and in fact got rid of him soon afterwards.

Are you suggesting Berner's years of research were to this same end?

Paul

Hubbard took other people's research and perverted it towards his goal to make men his slaves. I would lay you odds-on that he took Berner's work and added his own mind-controlling twist to it.

It's what he did!

 

[Terril park]

I've done the Student Hat and I know a bit about this but I can't compete with Paul here.

Scn's emphasis on word clearing is an example of a sometimes workable datum carried to extremes. IMO it's used to cover up for the fact than modern CofS course sups often don't know the materials they're training the students on, so they have to parrot "What do your materials state?" when the student encounters a problem.

An addition to my list of questions to ask CofS staffers is this; if word clearing is so vital, why don't top students at school and university do it all the time?

They must have. Its not " copyrighted" by COS. You can't do a maths course at university without knowing the symbols. Maybe some lecturer told the meaning.

I too defer to Paul. He's had EXTENSIVE experience here, nearly two decades worth and has written more intelligently in the past than anyone else in the fz forums in this subject. I too am experienced and its my greatest skill.
I've never been in the position of having to M4 someone because they disagree with an issue. I never did M4. I did the nitty gritty hard work M3,7,9
and was unofficial word clearer to the course room.