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Minuet #1 in G

Patron with Honors
What if the lawnmower worked for three weeks, then didnt work for a week, then worked ok for a few weeks, then blew up, but you found out it could have been something you did, or due to external influences, like someone got into your garage. Then it did cut the grass but the grass didnt stay cut, or it appeared that it might cut the grass eventually as it ran quite nicely, and other people who bought the mower said it worked, but you didnt actually have any grass for it to cut..
Perhaps this muddies the water somewhat. A shade of grey?
Of course this is an unfair example when applied to a lawnmower.
 

Zinjifar

Silver Meritorious Sponsor
Or, the mower cuts grass, but, only the special variety you buy from the lawnmower manufacturer, but, it's great at cutting off toes. And, it sneaks into your house while you sleep and maxes out your credit cards buying lawnmower accessories.

Zinj
 

Flintrock

New Member
To: Minuet

No shades of gray at all. If your lawnmower was able to cut grass, no matter how sporadically, then you would be able to show me a cut lawn. In one of those sporadic moments why don't you bust out those super powers and let others see them.

Well, you cannot because they are not.

Plus, per the black and white content of KSW 1, the results should be uniform and not subject to mitigation from all manner of incidental things. Scientology is a "powerful" technology after all. A little thief in the garage tinkering with some buttons ain't gonna hurt it.

Finally, your argument is irrelevant unless you are able to produce someone that can actually come forward and say, "Hey, I'm one of those that it actually worked for". There is no one out there that would have the gull to put their money where their mouth is. No one.
 

Hatshepsut

Crusader
To: Minuet

"Hey, I'm one of those that it actually worked for".

otgrass-1.png


Sorry, too many beers.
 

GoNuclear

Gold Meritorious Patron
A valid point

There's a great deal that Hubbard said that is complete bollocks. But some things in Scn are very useful, some things are slightly useful. It's not an all-or-nothing scene. Most people who have done them thoroughly will say they benefited from doing the lower grades; the same people might say the upper levels not so much. Personally I feel I benefited from doing OT II and OT III and feel the procedures are worth doing even though Hubbard's theory for them is utter twaddle. As I said, it's not black and white.

Paul

DOF,

In the final analysis Flintrock does have a valid point.

I read all of the posts here, including the lawnmower analogy. I don't see it quite as cut and dry as that, but, ultimately it comes down to does it work or not.

As I see it ... a valid comparison could be to a martial arts academy. There are some martial arts schools that are known as "belt mills" that turn out students who can go thru the motions but really don't know much, can't do much, and are liable to get their asses kicked in the real world inspite of having been awarded a black belt. Other martial arts academies have better reps ... their students routinely win tournaments, their students are respectful and want to be there all the time, belts are only awarded when there is genuine competence demonstrated in both knowledge and application, and, no matter how big an attacker is in the real world, if he is untrained, any of the students who are green belt or better will prevail. In Scientology, I'm sure that some orgs have a better reputation than others as well, and then there is the matter of freezone/independent/offshoot evolving to a somewhat different tech as opposed to Cof$. Now, setting aside the money aspect of Cof$, and setting aside some of the more rediculous claims that involve perfection (such as absolute perfect memory) or the EP claimed for OTVIII on the 70's grade chart, or even 100% perfection with respect to ANY aspect of OT ability ... A workable standard for OT would be this ... just like a blackbelt from the martial arts acadamy with the good rep, where belts are really really earned, competence is well demonstrated including in application, the school has an excellent rep for turning out students that are repspectful, students really WANT to spend time there, and even the greenbelts could kick the asses of anyone who is not trained ... an OT would be to the non OT as the black belt would be to the no-martial-arts training guy in the following areas ...

*memory, both short term and long term ... numbers, names, dates, quotes, significances, faces, other images, etc.
*intelligence ... ability to learn quickly, understand new concepts, etc.
*spotting other people's intentions regardless of their verbage
*ease of communicating, including the ability to simplify
*ability to spot sources and non sources for virtually anything
*ability to stay calm and effective regardless of circumstance, especially in
situations where the non Scien. is falling apart
*ability to spot trouble/problems before they happen and avoid them, especially in circumstances where the untrained/unprocessed would not
*ability to operate unencumbered by the bad habbits and stupid considerations that plague most people such as procrastination, a constant second guessing of one's self, internal Q&A, indecision, fear for no good cause, impulsiveness, lack of ability to focus, lack of ability to stay in present time when desired, etc.
*ability to have MEST easily ... finances, time, decent living quarters, and all your gadgets WORKING ... in otherwords, your TV works, your car works, your stereo system works, your records don't have scratches, your clothes are clean, pressed, and not stained, your toilets flush without constantly having to jiggle the handle or go into the tank to stop the gurgling, the water in your sinks stop when you want it to ... as opposed to being surrounded by cars with doors that don't function normally, cracked windows, lawns that need mowing, sinks that need washers, toilets that need fixing, piles of paper everywhere in your house, general sloppiness and disrepair, dirty fingernails, unbrushed teeth, uncombed hair, etc.
*ability to operate by postulates ... that is, you decide something, it happens. You may have to make it happen, but, if you decide it, you DO make it happen. Very often you make a decision, you mock up your EP, and the obstacles that would hinder the non OT seem to fly out of the way and/or are jumped over easily or are otherwise overpowered/easily handled.
*at least SOME extraordinary ability that is there consistently ... for instance, knowing the instant the phone rings or better yet, the instant prior to the ring who is calling and what the communication is, or, if a stranger, the nature of the communication ... bill collector, salesman, wrong number, call for someone else in the house, someone trying to find out where his or her son or daughter is, etc. Or another extraordinary ability would be to instantly spot medical conditions in others or to be able to heal instantly by touch. Or perhaps you could almost always put the intention into someone to instantly call you, or perhaps it could be instantly knowing if those close to you were in danger or distress, or it could be a combination of those and/or other extraordinary abilities that are too numerous to mention, all of which come under the broad catagories of being able to perceive and to postulate.

My question to you, Paul, aka DOF ... for all of your time spent training and being processed, both within Cof$ and freezone ... with that as the standard for OT, where OT is to non OT what the black belt from the good martial arts acadamy is to the untrained individual ... COULD YOU LEGITIMATELY CLAIM TO BE OT BY THAT STANDARD????????????? DO YOU KNOW OF ANYONE EITHER IN OR OUT OF Cof$/FREEZONE/INDEPENDENT FIELD WHO COULD LEGITIMATELY ATTEST TO OT BY THAT STANDARD?????????????????

My second question ... what is the point of OTIII as far as deriving freedom from overwhelm if the theory behind it (the Xenu story) is both bullshit and an overwhelming evaluation? I have posed the question before ... going with the LRH def. of a thetan ... no location in space except by consideration ... a BT would therefore be a being with some bits of his attention compulsively stuck on you or your body ... wouldn't it be of far greater significance where YOU have YOUR attention stuck, and couldn't the entire OTIII EP be achieved WITHOUT the Xenu story/overwhelming evaluation/LRH's case just by running various 4 flow processes on the subject of attention?

Pete
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
My question to you, Paul, aka DOF ... for all of your time spent training and being processed, both within Cof$ and freezone ... with that as the standard for OT, where OT is to non OT what the black belt from the good martial arts acadamy is to the untrained individual ... COULD YOU LEGITIMATELY CLAIM TO BE OT BY THAT STANDARD????????????? DO YOU KNOW OF ANYONE EITHER IN OR OUT OF Cof$/FREEZONE/INDEPENDENT FIELD WHO COULD LEGITIMATELY ATTEST TO OT BY THAT STANDARD?????????????????
Of course not. Those claims by Hubbard or CofS promo are part of the bollocks.

My second question ... what is the point of OTIII as far as deriving freedom from overwhelm if the theory behind it (the Xenu story) is both bullshit and an overwhelming evaluation? I have posed the question before ... going with the LRH def. of a thetan ... no location in space except by consideration ... a BT would therefore be a being with some bits of his attention compulsively stuck on you or your body ... wouldn't it be of far greater significance where YOU have YOUR attention stuck, and couldn't the entire OTIII EP be achieved WITHOUT the Xenu story/overwhelming evaluation/LRH's case just by running various 4 flow processes on the subject of attention?

Pete

What I have said many times was that in my experience most people who do OT III — who were well-trained on the procedure and as solo auditors, and also in good shape case-wise — found doing the procedure beneficial. This means that someone just reading it on the Internet and maybe picking up a meter to "give it a whirl" ain't gonna get dick out of it. In the early 80s at Saint Hill many "Dianetic Clear" public somehow got on to OT Levels without having had much auditing, in some cases maybe a dozen hours, and despite being as well-trained beforehand as the others they failed spectacularly on OT II and OT III. The common result was they thought it was all a rip-off, and I agreed with them as they HAD been ripped off.

Note what I am saying here. I am not saying that the EP of OT3 is valid. "Freedom from overwhelm" is basically a non-confidential PR way of saying "no BTs left". "No BTs left" is almost accurate as an EP, as the solo auditor will get to the point where he can't find any more, and will believe he has made it. Hubbard may even have believed it at the time he wrote the issue(s) giving that EP, although he certainly omitted to revise them when he found more BTs later, and as far as I know they are still in the current OT3 pack in the CofS.

I don't believe a "body thetan" is a complete spiritual being in the sense that you or I are. I think a "body thetan" is a bit of alien energy-consciousness trapped in the individual's energy field, rather like a small foreign body inside one's own body will register as alien to one's immune system. One registers these pieces as alien and not wholly one's own, which is how come they can read on a meter (if one is in good-enough case shape to register the "alien" signals, and well-trained in solo so that the noise from one's uncertainties and confusions won't drown out the signals one is looking for). By "alien" here I mean foreign, not extra-terrestrial, and one does not have to be unfriendly either.

Hubbard's ideas about thetans are not necessarily mine, although there may be some commonalities. I have no idea how to genuinely achieve freedom from overwhelm, and from his published works nor did Hubbard. To address the phenomena one addresses on OT III without all the Xenu malarkey, I would suggest a refinement of the "free solo processing" procedure, as covered on a recent thread (the procedure, not the refinement!). If you want to pilot some attention process, go for it, but I'm not going to discuss how useful it might or might not be using Hubbard's false ideas as a framework.

Paul
 

Veda

Sponsor
By your own description, OT 3 contains malarkey http://www.thefreedictionary.com/malarkey.

Wouldn't it be prudent to suspect that any apparent benefit from OT 3 would come with (psychological) "strings attached"?

Hubbard's ideas about thetans are not necessarily mine, although there may be some commonalities. I have no idea how to genuinely achieve freedom from overwhelm, and from his published works nor did Hubbard. To address the phenomena one addresses on OT III without all the Xenu malarkey, I would suggest a refinement of the "free solo processing" procedure, as covered on a recent thread (the procedure, not the refinement!). If you want to pilot some attention process, go for it, but I'm not going to discuss how useful it might or might not be using Hubbard's false ideas as a framework.

Paul

Of course, if that were done, it would no longer be OT 3.

Public Service Announcement: http://forum.exscn.net/showpost.php?p=77478&postcount=14
 

Flintrock

New Member
General: The continuing lawnmower gag is great!

Pete: Your post is very coherent and I see your argument, however I disagree with your position for a number of reasons.

Hubbard was very big on comparing the "Scientologist" or person who was fortunate enough to get Scientology applied to himself to this fictional moron that couldn't tie his shoes if his life depended on it.

The truth is that most people have a fairly high level of competence and the majority of the attributes you wrote about can be found in a large majority of the people. Most non-Scientologists are not wallowing in some trailer park, barely able to read and have a life that is a total mess in all aspects.
Plus, positive traits/talents are not uniform among people. Where one person may be well organized, the other may be great with people.

We don't expect that both people possess both traits and if they cannot, somehow they are lessor. Hubbard would have every person the exact same. What is the OCA if not a standard by which every Scientologist must measure himself? In fact, in order to be at the top of the OCA each person would have to answer the question, "Do you believe in prisons without bars?", the exact same way. What, I don't get to have a unique personal opinion?

I also disagree with using socio-economic position as a gauge on how "OT" someone is. It has been drummed into Scientologists that large incomes are somehow OT and if you happen to be a carpenter and like being a carpenter, no matter how good you are, you will not go free in the CofS. That carpenter would have to start a carpentry business or otherwise climb up the economic ladder.

Scientology doesn't make the able more able. It just gives an otherwise competent person false confidence or arrogance to act more boldly through a self-aggrandizing dogmatic framework. Then pushy annoying behavior becomes the awe-inspiring OT person's stock in trade. It's totally ridiculous.

The few supernatural traits you mentioned at the end of the list are really the ones that make or break Scientology. The traits before those are your own assessment of what OT is and DOF also seems inclined to redefine the entire subject to his own preferences. Problem is, once you start doing that, you are no longer discussing Scientology, but a broad based philosophical debate into the nature of metaphysics. Which I applaud by the way.

At that point Scientology has been reduced to fodder for discussion, but my point still stands and that is that Scientology has already defined OT and that definition is not demonstrable, therefore Scientology is invalid.
 
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