Scientology is all bad

[Gadfly]

I think I will keep my sensitivity knob at 11 on such matters, despite your encouragement to do otherwise.

 

[Claire Swazey]

Any way I can get a Kumbaya?

 

[Smilla]

Scientologists can't be wrong, and can't tell a lie, because what's true for them is true for them.

If you don't agree with them it is because you are a wog, and incapable of logical thought.

It is your BT's and bank they are talking to.

It's just the way they are and they can't help it.

 

[Claire Swazey]

Dunno 'bout that, Smilla. No one who's particularly party line about Scn has been posting here, though there certainly has been lots of disagreement.

I'm still hopin' for a Kumbaya myself.

Or, at the very least,

Thank you fahlettin me be mice elf agin

 

[Jquepublic]

Dunno 'bout that, Smilla. No one who's particularly party line about Scn has been posting here, though there certainly has been lots of disagreement.

I'm still hopin' for a Kumbaya myself.

Or, at the very least,

Thank you fahlettin me be mice elf agin

I was reading over the recent posts on this thread and realized something that was probably obvious all along to everyone else. Infinite said earlier something to the effect that KSW#1 is inseparable from the subject of Scientology, and he's right. Hubbard made it that way intentionally so that he could maintain complete control over his followers. Scientologists are NOT free to accept or reject anything that Hubbard wrote because of this policy. Doesn't matter that he wrote other things that intimate or imply that they can do so, KSW#1 is a senior policy, everything else subordinate to it. If people are cherry picking (and I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that) then why do they insist on calling themselves Scientologists? I just don't get it. It's a hated word, particularly here on this forum, with loads of negative associations. Why not ditch the word and continue with whatever practices they feel like continuing?

I understand that people have the right to call themselves whatever they choose. I've made that point myself. But I have to say, I think it's poor form to adopt a word that is known to generate a deservedly negative response in the audience. It's not opening oneself up to attack, it's soliciting attack.

I don't see that changing anytime soon. You might be waiting a long time for your kumbaya.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... KSW#1 is inseparable from the subject of Scientology, and he's right. ...

No.

Proof lies in the fact that the subject of scientology existed for many years prior to the development of KSW (Feb. 1965).

Ergo, by simple process of historical observation they are clearly separable.

KSW is essential for functioning of a church dominated by a centralized management structure under the control of the Sea Org. Note that it's issue date, Feb. 1965, is contemporaneous with the developement of the Sea Org. That is not coincidental. KSW is essential to the centralized control which hubbard implemented through the Sea Org.

But KSW is neither necessary, nor arguably beneficial, to the practice of the subject of scientology.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Jquepublic]

No.

Proof lies in the fact that the subject of scientology existed for many years prior to the development of KSW (Feb. 1965).

Ergo, by simple process of historical observation they are clearly separable.

KSW is essential for functioning of a church dominated by a centralized management structure under the control of the Sea Org. Note that it's issue date, Feb. 1965, is contemporaneous with the developement of the Sea Org. That is not coincidental. KSW is essential to the centralized control which hubbard implemented through the Sea Org.

But KSW is neither necessary, nor arguably beneficial, to the practice of the subject of scientology.


Mark A. Baker

Not according to the founder of Scientology. He didn't write in that policy that it only applies to things that post date its writing. KSW#1 is laid down with an atomic branding iron and applies to the subject in its entirety.

I applaud the breaking away from it in the field, but doing so DOES represent a flagrant departure from what Hubbard himself had to say on the subject.

What I am trying to express overall is that hanging onto the word Scientology, when you're making the choice to selectively use bits and pieces of the subject and dismiss with what you don't like, doesn't make sense. Why be so hung up on a word? I don't even have a word for what I believe. My philosophy is a happy hodgepodge from various areas, subjects and philosophies and my own experiences. I see no reason to call it anything other than my philosophy. I don't feel any sort of need to label myself or my beliefs. So I really don't understand, given the heavily charged nature of the word Scientology, why anyone would want to identify him or herself as such.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... I applaud the breaking away from it in the field, but doing so DOES represent a flagrant departure from what Hubbard himself had to say on the subject. ...

Of course. However, hubbard was himself frequently inconsistent and contradictory in his remarks. Taken together his collected writings on scientology generally do not form a coherent and rational body of work.

Accordingly it is absolutely necessary to depart from what hubbard has to say. It is simply not possible to base any sort of reasoned behavior on the sort of obvious irrationalities which hubbard routinely presents.

That is not an optional conclusion which may differ with an individual's preferred belief. Logical inconsistency necessarily results in a complete breakdown of coherence and reason. It is a demonstrable feature of logic that that is so.

Moreover, the fundamentals of scientology allow for exactly this sort of departure from the writ of hubbard by individual scientologists. This has been so since the inception of scientology. Note especially the following excerpted items from the original Code of a Scientologist.

Never compromise with your own reality.
...
Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.
...
Be true to your own goals.

Code of a Scientologist, 1954

These principles serve logically as built in escape clauses which the individual is free to assert as needed in order to disregard any particular idiocy, or collective idiocies, that might descend from above in the communal hierarchy. That is why hubbard later required an organization like the Sea Org to establish his own control and permit the creation of a cult of personality centered on his person. Too many individual scientologists relied more on their own judgement than on his directives, and had from the beginnings of the community of scientologists.

The only way for hubbard to assert greater control over the community of scientologists required that an organizational structure be created which would supplant the principles embodied in the Code with automatic obedience to the principle of 'command intention'.

The simple fact of this attempt illustrates the inherent separation between the subject of scientology, a subject dealing with questions of mind and spirit, and the cult of l. ron hubbard as manifested in the Sea Org and its related institutions.

Too many confuse the subject of scientology with that which hubbard claimed it to be in his writings. These are not identical. Hubbard's writings are at best a description of his views on what is at heart an evolving discipline addressing questions of the role of the mind & spirit.

Insistence that hubbard's collective views are identical with the subject of scientology, and must be so, is a fundamentally unsound one as it negates the obvious & observable distinctions between his stated views and the operating principles of the subject as well as the notable illogicalities, inconsistencies, contradictions, and irrationalities in hubbard's many statements.

Inconsistency is innately unreliable. Accordingly, hubbard is himself an unreliable source and a poor basis on which to rest an argument.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... What I am trying to express overall is that hanging onto the word Scientology, when you're making the choice to selectively use bits and pieces of the subject and dismiss with what you don't like, doesn't make sense. ...

Firstly, I'm not the one who is 'hung up' on the word. I have been labeled a scientologist by others far more frequently than I have asserted it.

I just don't run from the word as if denying any past affiliation with the church and the value of much of scientology tech will somehow cleanse me from a prior involvement. I haven't sinned and I don't feel a need to repent.

Moreover the 'bits & pieces' approach is consistent with the technical dictionaries definition, ergo the use is valid.


Mark A. Baker

 

[PirateAndBum]

Mark likes the word scientology. Ripping the subject away from Hubbard is difficult, especially since it is a picking and choosing from the great volume of his writings and spoken words. Sorting out what is & isn't logical.

I have to agree with JQP that it would better serve to coin a new name so as to obviate the continual need to differentiate between what most consider Scn to be and what little of it Mark considers worthy of the name.

I do understand the desire to strip from Hubbard the ownership of that word and attempt to make the subject into what it should have been in principal.

 

[Panda Termint]

I think it should be more than obvious to anyone who has read the stories and first-hand testimony here on ESMB that there have been many "scientologies" experienced by many different people.

People here post about the version of scientology they experienced and know.

Yes, you can bundle them all up and say that each is really the same scientology, except that they're not. They're part of the same thing but not the all of it.

 

[Jquepublic]

Of course. However, hubbard was himself frequently inconsistent and contradictory in his remarks. Taken together his collected writings on scientology generally do not form a coherent and rational body of work.

Accordingly it is absolutely necessary to depart from what hubbard has to say. It is simply not possible to base any sort of reasoned behavior on the sort of obvious irrationalities which hubbard routinely presents.

That is not an optional conclusion which may differ with an individual's preferred belief. Logical inconsistency necessarily results in a complete breakdown of coherence and reason. It is a demonstrable feature of logic that that is so.

Moreover, the fundamentals of scientology allow for exactly this sort of departure from the writ of hubbard by individual scientologists. This has been so since the inception of scientology. Note especially the following excerpted items from the original Code of a Scientologist.




These principles serve logically as built in escape clauses which the individual is free to assert as needed in order to disregard any particular idiocy, or collective idiocies, that might descend from above in the communal hierarchy. That is why hubbard later required an organization like the Sea Org to establish his own control and permit the creation of a cult of personality centered on his person. Too many individual scientologists relied more on their own judgement than on his directives, and had from the beginnings of the community of scientologists.

The only way for hubbard to assert greater control over the community of scientologists required that an organizational structure be created which would supplant the principles embodied in the Code with automatic obedience to the principle of 'command intention'.

The simple fact of this attempt illustrates the inherent separation between the subject of scientology, a subject dealing with questions of mind and spirit, and the cult of l. ron hubbard as manifested in the Sea Org and its related institutions.

Too many confuse the subject of scientology with that which hubbard claimed it to be in his writings. These are not identical. Hubbard's writings are at best a description of his views on what is at heart an evolving discipline addressing questions of the role of the mind & spirit.

Insistence that hubbard's collective views are identical with the subject of scientology, and must be so, is a fundamentally unsound one as it negates the obvious & observable distinctions between his stated views and the operating principles of the subject as well as the notable illogicalities, inconsistencies, contradictions, and irrationalities in hubbard's many statements.

Inconsistency is innately unreliable. Accordingly, hubbard is himself an unreliable source and a poor basis on which to rest an argument.


Mark A. Baker

I'm not trying to put you on the spot, though I am afraid that's what will result from this conversation.

The study of life and spirit is not exclusive to Scientology by any stretch of the mind. Many of the things which work in Scientology practices are in actual fact, NOT Scientology or Hubbard's own creations but come from other sources that are easy to identify. I have been trying to show that in some of my posts on this thread, and I've seen you say as much yourself.

It's not about distinguishing between subject and cult, IMO, as one gave birth to the other. You can argue that without the cult, the subject would have existed, but the opposite and more unequivocal side of that coin is that without the subject, no cult would have existed. I know there are things written by Hubbard that imply free choice in accepting or rejecting his words, but he effectively eradicated any such escape clause when he penned KSW#1. So, if you're diverging from Hubbard's path, incorporating ideas from other sources, then what you're doing really isn't Scientology as the man who "created" it defined it or ultimately intended it to be.

Since it is easy to divorce your own practices from the path laid out by Hubbard, and that's admittedly a more sane approach, and since the word itself is poisoned by the association with the toxic organization it fathered...why lay any claim to it at all? It's a word that will be blackened for years to come because of association with the cult, similarly to the swastika, once a good luck symbol, now forever a symbol of the Nazi party and the horrors of the Holocaust.

I honestly think the sanest approach of all would be to kick the term Scientology to the proverbial curb and get on with it.

 

[Jquepublic]

Firstly, I'm not the one who is 'hung up' on the word. I have been labeled a scientologist by others far more frequently than I have asserted it.

I just don't run from the word as if denying any past affiliation with the church and the value of much of scientology tech will somehow cleanse me from a prior involvement. I haven't sinned and I don't feel a need to repent.

Moreover the 'bits & pieces' approach is consistent with the technical dictionaries definition, ergo the use is valid.


Mark A. Baker

Ok. Thanks for clarifying.

FTR, the bits and pieces approach that I'm endorsing doesn't have a THING to do with the technical dictionary. I just see it as being far more liberating and conducive to freedom of thought.

 

[Jquepublic]

I think it should be more than obvious to anyone who has read the stories and first-hand testimony here on ESMB that there have been many "scientologies" experienced by many different people.

People here post about the version of scientology they experienced and know.

Yes, you can bundle them all up and say that each is really the same scientology, except that they're not. They're part of the same thing but not the all of it.

True, Panda - even discussing something that should be simple, such as the grade chart, is made complex for this reason. It's rather like the myth of the tower of Babel - everyone is speaking clearly but nobody understands what anyone else is saying.

I just think the word itself causes conflict here. Get rid of the word and maybe we could speak the same language occasionally.

 

[Bill]

True, Panda - even discussing something that should be simple, such as the grade chart, is made complex for this reason. It's rather like the myth of the tower of Babel - everyone is speaking clearly but nobody understands what anyone else is saying.

I just think the word itself causes conflict here. Get rid of the word and maybe we could speak the same language occasionally.

And this is exactly my problem with discussing Scientology with Mark. It is as if we were discussing cars but Mark has redefined "cars" as "bicycles". So when we talke about poor fuel economy Mark says "Cars don't use any gas!"

Sure, he has every right to redefine Scientology as "a subset of the original Scientology but with all the 'bad stuff' removed and other 'good' stuff added." That's fine. But that redefinition cannot be used in any discussion unless there are qualifiers to give it context -- which Mark always omits unless pressed. Hence his "That isn't Scientology!" responses when it very much is Scientology.

All we need for sanity to prevail in discussions with Mark is for a simple flag to signify we're talking about Hubbard's Scientology and Mark is talking about his personal and private Scientology. Those are two entirely different subjects and really don't belong in the same discussion at all.

Bill

 

[PirateAndBum]

And this is exactly my problem with discussing Scientology with Mark. It is as if we were discussing cars but Mark has redefined "cars" as "bicycles". So when we talke about poor fuel economy Mark says "Cars don't use any gas!"

Sure, he has every right to redefine Scientology as "a subset of the original Scientology but with all the 'bad stuff' removed and other 'good' stuff added." That's fine. But that redefinition cannot be used in any discussion unless there are qualifiers to give it context -- which Mark always omits unless pressed. Hence his "That isn't Scientology!" responses when it very much is Scientology.

All we need for sanity to prevail in discussions with Mark is for a simple flag to signify we're talking about Hubbard's Scientology and Mark is talking about his personal and private Scientology. Those are two entirely different subjects and really don't belong in the same discussion at all.

Bill

LOL, well Bill, you now know how to read Mark's posts. Just apply the Baker filter and all will be well. maybe...

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

And this is exactly my problem with discussing Scientology with Mark. It is as if we were discussing cars but Mark has redefined "cars" as "bicycles". So when we talke about poor fuel economy Mark says "Cars don't use any gas!"

Sure, he has every right to redefine Scientology as "a subset of the original Scientology but with all the 'bad stuff' removed and other 'good' stuff added." That's fine. But that redefinition cannot be used in any discussion unless there are qualifiers to give it context -- which Mark always omits unless pressed. Hence his "That isn't Scientology!" responses when it very much is Scientology.

All we need for sanity to prevail in discussions with Mark is for a simple flag to signify we're talking about Hubbard's Scientology and Mark is talking about his personal and private Scientology. Those are two entirely different subjects and really don't belong in the same discussion at all.

Bill

By the way, I am also a Scientologist.

I don't agree or use anything contained in the bad parts of Scientology inclusive of everything within the Books, Tapes, Bulletins, Policies, Flag Orders, Creeds, Codes and Advices.

However, in the tech, Ron often used pronouns such as "I, you, he, she, it, they, we, me, you, him, her and them" which I frequently apply in my own writing & speech with big wins.

 

[Veda]

LOL, well Bill, you now know how to read Mark's posts. Just apply the Baker filter and all will be well. maybe...

The people who are confused by this sort of thing are those newly leaving Scientology, or trying to leave. This is why it's necessary to explain what's happening - for their benefit, so as to reduce their confusion.

Deception is built in to Scientology. There have always been "many Scientologies." That's the way Hubbard planned it. Read his 'Manual on Dissemination of Material' of 1955. Each person or "public" is to be shown a selected few bits and pieces of Scientology and told "That's Scientology."

And if Scientology is cornered, and in a tight spot, it will hurriedly cherry pick certain PR quotes from Hubbard about love and understanding and how people should think for themselves, etc.; and if that doesn't mollify the "homo saps," then the next approach will be to explain that Scientology is so vast that it can't really be understood by anyone, or pinned down on anything.

It's the ultimate slippery thief who insists, with a smirk, after being caught, "Hey man, you can't prove it!"

Creepy.

Too bad for the thief, but Scientology has been decoded and is understood.

There is ONE Scientology.

All the tricks have been exposed, and are known to anyone interested - well, known to anyone except the Scientologists who are busy going



and to struggling nascent ex-Scientologists,

Which is why, as tedious as it sometimes is, it's necessary to explain what's happening.

 

[Panda Termint]

Well, I did say, "I think it should be more than obvious..."

 

[Jquepublic]

[video=youtube;vo9AH4vG2wA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9AH4vG2wA[/video]