Scientology, Ron Hubbard and Hypnosis

[Gib]

Just my two cents.

Everything Dianetics and Scientology....processing wise was pre-loaded with a road map.

The Dianetic Auditor would explain exactly the mental gymnastics that he/she wanted you to do, prior to asking you to do it....

Even some of the Commands on the Grades were "I'm going to ask you to do something, and when I do....you will do it..." sort of thing.

Even, OT3....one had to be told what to do first, prior to doing it.

All this pre-loading of these activities is making a groove or mental impression...

That is kinda a hypnosis.

well said Leland.

I think, hypnosis is getting agreement, and that's what Hubbard did, just try to get agreement. And those that didn't agree were labeled PTS and/or SP. Those that were PTS and couldn't be handled to agree, why then labeled SP. Those that ere handled, why they then agreed.

Here is a refernce:

https://hypnosistrainingacademy.com/4-covert-agreement-tactics-to-set-a-yes-mood-in-hypnosis/

"If you can’t get your subject to agree with you, hypnosis doesn’t happen… period!"

But, I'd call hypnosis rhetoric, the art of persuasion, or getting agreement.

Hubbard's ARC triangle of ARC= Understanding, Hubbard said communication was the most important point. But, in actuality, Hubbard tried to get everybody to agree. The R part of the ARC triangle, or reality = agreement.

And if you didn't agree or change your mind, then PTS to handle, and if no handle then SP.

Hubbard's public books that are supposed to be sold to the public, dianetics, a new slant on life, problems of work, etc, are all rhetoric to persuade, or get agreement. This could also be called PR and Marketing, to get agreement.

No agreement = no persuasion or hypnosis.

 

[mockingbird]

Just my two cents.

Everything Dianetics and Scientology....processing wise was pre-loaded with a road map.

The Dianetic Auditor would explain exactly the mental gymnastics that he/she wanted you to do, prior to asking you to do it....

Even some of the Commands on the Grades were "I'm going to ask you to do something, and when I do....you will do it..." sort of thing.

Even, OT3....one had to be told what to do first, prior to doing it.

All this pre-loading of these activities is making a groove or mental impression...

That is kinda a hypnosis.

You are hitting it on the head. In Scientology materials the answers and incidents are suggested repeatedly. The questions are repetitive as are the lists and the physical actions and the mocking up of flows and on and on. Hubbard used intense focus on certain ideas and repetition to suggest the answers before the questions are asked.

 

[mockingbird]

well said Leland.

I think, hypnosis is getting agreement, and that's what Hubbard did, just try to get agreement. And those that didn't agree were labeled PTS and/or SP. Those that were PTS and couldn't be handled to agree, why then labeled SP. Those that ere handled, why they then agreed.

Here is a refernce:

https://hypnosistrainingacademy.com/4-covert-agreement-tactics-to-set-a-yes-mood-in-hypnosis/

"If you can’t get your subject to agree with you, hypnosis doesn’t happen… period!"

But, I'd call hypnosis rhetoric, the art of persuasion, or getting agreement.

Hubbard's ARC triangle of ARC= Understanding, Hubbard said communication was the most important point. But, in actuality, Hubbard tried to get everybody to agree. The R part of the ARC triangle, or reality = agreement.

And if you didn't agree or change your mind, then PTS to handle, and if no handle then SP.

Hubbard's public books that are supposed to be sold to the public, dianetics, a new slant on life, problems of work, etc, are all rhetoric to persuade, or get agreement. This could also be called PR and Marketing, to get agreement.

No agreement = no persuasion or hypnosis.

Hubbard certainly used every trick he could find to persuade so it all falls under the big heading rhetoric. Part of it includes trying to use trance states, ecstasy as a trance state, heightened anxiety, confusion (aka contradiction aka paradox) repetition, attention fixation, mimicry, and his beloved altitude to persuade via hypnosis as he understood it. Where exactly rhetoric and hypnosis are different is a very fine point. It could be debated endlessly but I think of rhetoric as the bigger subject with hypnosis as the smaller one within it.

 

[Gib]

You are hitting it on the head. In Scientology materials the answers and incidents are suggested repeatedly. The questions are repetitive as are the lists and the physical actions and the mocking up of flows and on and on. Hubbard used intense focus on certain ideas and repetition to suggest the answers before the questions are asked.

but if we first go back to the dianetics book, Hubbard suggested any two people could go clear by applying the procedures in the book. People agreed they could, yes it's powers of suggestion or maybe writing persuasively?

 

[Gib]

Hubbard certainly used every trick he could find to persuade so it all falls under the big heading rhetoric. Part of it includes trying to use trance states, ecstasy as a trance state, heightened anxiety, confusion (aka contradiction aka paradox) repetition, attention fixation, mimicry, and his beloved altitude to persuade via hypnosis as he understood it. Where exactly rhetoric and hypnosis are different is a very fine point. It could be debated endlessly but I think of rhetoric as the bigger subject with hypnosis as the smaller one within it.

I don't look at my involvement as a trance state of mind. Once I disagreed, and once I really realized there were no clears or OT's, I was done.

 

[programmer_guy]

So, when I had college classes in software design (engineering) with class lectures on how to think about it THEN went in front of an old computer monitor to type commands, at the monitor interface, I was in a hypnotic state of mind? Was I in a trance?

The content of some posts that are in this thread, almost anything would qualify as hypnotic.

 

[pineapple]

On the other hand, hypnotist George Estabrooks mentions a post-hypnotic suggestion he installed that was still working 30 years later! He'd conditioned the subject to yell, "The British are coming! The British are coming!" in response to a certain trigger and it still worked after all that time. (Don't remember where I read this. If I can find it I'll post it.)

I said I'd post the reference for the above if I could find it. It's a bit different than I remembered: the post-hypnotic suggestion lasted a mere 20 years, not 30. For the sake of accuracy, here it is.

From "Hypnotism" by George Estabrooks, page 89:

"The writer recently ran across a case where the posthypnotic suggestion seemed to be fairly strong after 20 years.

"During the First World War he [the writer] was interested in the study of hypnotism and was far more inclined to go in for 'stunts' in those early days. He had a favorite trick with one subject. He would say, 'Watch the front.' Whereupon the subject would stand up and shout 'Call out the guard. Here comes Paul Revere.'

"It happened that later the operator met the subject and in the course of the conversation suddenly said, 'Watch the front.' The subject looked puzzled, then said, 'Call out the guard. Paul Revere is coming.' Then he looked even more puzzled and said, 'I wonder why I said that.'"

 

[Xenu Xenu Xenu]

 

[Clay Pigeon]

Holy crap Birdy! Do you understand anything I've written? I never said the Null Hypothesis was "proof of the non-existence of 'Clears' and 'OTs'"! You claim you are a "scientist" yet don't understand the most basic principles of science?

What I SAID was that a Null Hypothesis DOESN'T NEED PROOF. That's the default.

Anything other than the Null Hypothesis DOES need proof, which is what you are completely lacking.

To your question:

That isn't a scientific question so why do you think scientific principles apply? It is a matter of faith and belief which is subjective. You can't scientifically test "I like the color blue". Your question is nonsense. You might need to study basic scientific principles before we can continue this conversation.

No Bill.

Anything other than a null hypothesis doesn't need proof. I do not need to prove anything to anyone to use what I learned as an auditor to improve my fellows lives nor do I need to prove my postulates and 2wc on a "7th dynamic level" were a significant factor in 6 Super Bowl victories by my beloved Patriots and 4 WS wins by my even more beloved Olde Towne Team in this young century...

And again, I am competent and able to create and cause effects using purely scientific principles and methods.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

Empirical meaning observation, okay. Conclusion meaning decision reached after something has occurred. So you observed something and decided it meant something.

Sometimes the observation is correct but the conclusion is faulty and sometimes the observation is not unbiased, so the observer assumes that the observed phenomena fit a preexisting reality, whether that reality actually exists or not. So, what is observed is through a lens of bias and prejudice.

True dat.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

Just my two cents.

Everything Dianetics and Scientology....processing wise was pre-loaded with a road map.

The Dianetic Auditor would explain exactly the mental gymnastics that he/she wanted you to do, prior to asking you to do it....

Even some of the Commands on the Grades were "I'm going to ask you to do something, and when I do....you will do it..." sort of thing.

Even, OT3....one had to be told what to do first, prior to doing it.

All this pre-loading of these activities is making a groove or mental impression...

That is kinda a hypnosis.

Yes...

And this was an issue with me; the "preloading" the placebo effect.

Thus one of my favorite anecdotes and a personal benchmark incident occurred when Billy Martin and I were visiting his pal Steve S. and I was in the living room with Steve's wife. I mentioned I was studying Scientology of which she had never heard. W/O any preloading I ran "The Infinite Space" process (a 50's group process) and when done she opened her eyes and said "I had ECT a few years ago and ever since my head has felt stuffed up. Now it feels clean."

This doesn't disprove effects resulting from "preloading" etc. but it does demonstrate significant effects can occur w/o such.

 

[Bill]

No Bill.

Anything other than a null hypothesis doesn't need proof. I do not need to prove anything to anyone to use what I learned as an auditor to improve my fellows lives nor do I need to prove my postulates and 2wc on a "7th dynamic level" were a significant factor in 6 Super Bowl victories by my beloved Patriots and 4 WS wins by my even more beloved Olde Towne Team in this young century...

And again, I am competent and able to create and cause effects using purely scientific principles and methods.

In other words, to convince us that Hubbard's "tech" is good, and get our agreement, all you have to do is believe.

Got it!

EDIT: Yes, that IS exactly how Scientology "works". That ISN'T how the real world works.

 

[mockingbird]

Yes...

And this was an issue with me; the "preloading" the placebo effect.

Thus one of my favorite anecdotes and a personal benchmark incident occurred when Billy Martin and I were visiting his pal Steve S. and I was in the living room with Steve's wife. I mentioned I was studying Scientology of which she had never heard. W/O any preloading I ran "The Infinite Space" process (a 50's group process) and when done she opened her eyes and said "I had ECT a few years ago and ever since my head has felt stuffed up. Now it feels clean."

This doesn't disprove effects resulting from "preloading" etc. but it does demonstrate significant effects can occur w/o such.

We have to be very careful about anecdotal evidence. If you want to prove almost anything you can find anecdotes that support it.

People who drank all kinds of things feel better but to validate it with scientific evidence and high standards is another matter entirely.

 

[Bill]

That weird off-topic side trip with Birdy points out another aspect of Hubbard's persuasion technique.

Hubbard's big thing about "OT" was "postulates". In Hubbard's make-believe world, "postulates" are senior to everything ... but only IF you are really, really good at "postulating" really, really hard.

If you don't get "OT" you are not "postulating" hard enough! "Postulate harder!"

And, in my opinion, that can work like self hypnosis. I see Birdy as a good example of this carried to the extreme.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

In other words, to convince us that Hubbard's "tech" is good, and get our agreement, all you have to do is believe.

Got it!

EDIT: Yes, that IS how Scientology "works". That ISN'T how the real world works.

You are responsible for what you believe Bill

I'm not here to convert anyone. I enjoy debate and I converse here with the perspective which includes the audience and I am grateful for fierce contention especially as I agree with much of it whereas Co$ SUXXXX!!!

 

[Clay Pigeon]

That weird off-topic side trip with Birdy points out another aspect of Hubbard's persuasion technique.

Hubbard's big thing about "OT" was "postulates". In Hubbard's make-believe world, "postulates" are senior to everything ... but only IF you are really, really good at "postulating" really, really hard.

If you don't get "OT" you are not "postulating" hard enough! "Postulate harder!"

And, in my opinion, that can work like self hypnosis. I see Birdy as a good example of this carried to the extreme.

I may have slipped into self hypnosis back in 1975

Or I may have been hypnotized

I certainly had an intense experience of debilitating abnormal psychological state

But...

I'm not hypnotized now, I'm just getting sleepy, very sleepy...

 

[I told you I was trouble]

I remember seeing 'OT's' swanning around with supercilious smirks of 'knowingness' plastered across their faces 'postulating' their lives while others were working their arses off in the real world ... apparently they were oblivious to the fact that they were living in a bubble of hallucinatory cause.



Many of them lost everything they had while many of the workers are now sitting back and enjoying life.

 

[Gib]

Hubbard certainly used every trick he could find to persuade so it all falls under the big heading rhetoric. Part of it includes trying to use trance states, ecstasy as a trance state, heightened anxiety, confusion (aka contradiction aka paradox) repetition, attention fixation, mimicry, and his beloved altitude to persuade via hypnosis as he understood it. Where exactly rhetoric and hypnosis are different is a very fine point. It could be debated endlessly but I think of rhetoric as the bigger subject with hypnosis as the smaller one within it.

I know what you say'in.

I actually think a lot of new age stuff is actually a offshoot of rhetoric, it's finer points, whether one has a PHD as a title or not. One can make a living doing that. For example, somebody who charges for writing a resume for one to find a new job, it's actually ethos, pathos and logos.

One could say the whole bridge to total freedom, all the steps from being a wog, to reading a book or listening to a lecture about dianetics and or scientology, why one is slowing given a power of suggestion, or persuasion. For each step on the bridge is supposedly to enhance one's abilities, hey that's OT like, LOL.

What could go wrong, sounds great.

Final analysis, nobody ever went clear with perfect recall or any other abilities on the bridge to total freedom. Nor are there any OT's.

 

[Clay Pigeon]

I know what you say'in.

I actually think a lot of new age stuff is actually a offshoot of rhetoric, it's finer points, whether one has a PHD as a title or not. One can make a living doing that. For example, somebody who charges for writing a resume for one to find a new job, it's actually ethos, pathos and logos.

One could say the whole bridge to total freedom, all the steps from being a wog, to reading a book or listening to a lecture about dianetics and or scientology, why one is slowing given a power of suggestion, or persuasion. For each step on the bridge is supposedly to enhance one's abilities, hey that's OT like, LOL.

What could go wrong, sounds great.

Final analysis, nobody ever went clear with perfect recall or any other abilities on the bridge to total freedom. Nor are there any OT's.

So tell me Gibby...

How about Christianity?

Would you say that too is all rhetoric? empty and ultimately meaningless?

There's a tough question for you; if you say "yes" you'll be agreeing with Hubbard and if you say "no" you'd be agreeing with me

 

[Gib]

So tell me Gibby...

How about Christianity?

Would you say that too is all rhetoric? empty and ultimately meaningless?

There's a tough question for you; if you say "yes" you'll be agreeing with Hubbard and if you say "no" you'd be agreeing with me

it's not a tough question.

You actually don't understand the purpose of rhetoric, and it's 3 means of persuasion. It's 3 means of persuasions are to convey the truth thru ethos, pathos and logos.

Rhetoric came before Christianity, look at the timeline:

http://www.english.hawaii.edu/criticalink/archive/aristotle/times.html

The question becomes did Christianity use rhetoric to tell the truth?

Did Hubbard tell the truth?