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The Clear Contradiction

George Layton

Silver Meritorious Patron
Those of us here (very few) who lived through this time period and who were on staff and auditing people through their supposed
"Clear Checks" at this time all knew that there was something wrong with what was going on. But we gave LRH the benefit of the doubt and carried on with it, even though we knew in our hearts that many guys we were declaring clear were still totally not-clear.

It was only much later that the reason for this insanity came out: One of Hubbard's own statistics was always "number of Clears made" and his stats had been heavily downtrending for quite a few years. This was of course TOTALLY unacceptable to him and so with a wave of the hand he realised it was not that no Clears were being made but that we were all too thick to realise that we had indeed been making thousands and thousands of them of them and were not recognising the power of the tech!

Voila! Hubbard's stats were
UP in a big way.

And that is all there was to that.

On the other hand, there most certainly is a state which can be achieved through Scientology - I have written about this before on this board - which is life-changing for the person and which they describe as being Clear. What that state is exactly I don't know but I have seen it too often to doubt its reality.

So while the definitions for it may vary the fact of it remains very very real.


The state is a state of MIND.
 

George Layton

Silver Meritorious Patron
If one wants to discuss Scientology and how auditing works and so on that one must must must as a first step get off the idea that the scientific method is the be-all and end-all of universal reasoning.

There are two (or three) distinctly different methods in use among people and they are mutually repellent towards each other. Neither one allows the other any validity at all.

One method is derived from the cycle of action in a time-stream (i.e. DO in the Be, Do, Have sequence) and is the basis of all "logical, rational, scientific" reasoning.

The other is derived from a full understanding of Havingness and is thus obviously derived therefrom. It is neither time-bound nor sequential. It is associative, metaphorical, intuitive. One knows by directly knowing, and not by finding out about.

For people - (present company here, ahem) - who are thoroughly indoctrinated into the western scientific panjandram - the ability to grant any consideration to this method of thought stands at NIL on any scale of abilities.


So if you are able to see beyond that then discussion is possible.

It is possible to convince oneself that believing something is intuitive or direct knowledge while still all along the mind is deceiving you. It is like the old saying, "You can't get there from here."
 

Lermanet_com

Gold Meritorious Patron
There is one problem with this Arnie.

I read the book Dianetics, and I called the org saying I wanted to go clear.And I scheduled an appointment for a free diaenetics auditing sessions, which I got.

Point being I was not audited before I read the book Dianetics.

I was persuaded by reading that book, and somehow was persuaded to go "clear"

Books make booms, especially when you charge a lot. Unknown to me at the time.


The books "work"...by themselves...

First he told you what an exceptionally cool dude he was and how out of this world wonderful he was..
Then he dead agented, depopularized, DEMONIZED your prior sources of knowledge
then he explained (persuaded) that you had something called THE REACTIVE MIND and it was the root of all evils in your life...
Ohh, and also called it YOUR BANK.
Then he explained, persuaded, rhetoricalized (heh) that you could get get RID OF IT and achieve a state called CLEAR,
where you would feel WONDERFUL....
 

eldritch cuckoo

brainslugged reptilian
Oh, I see. It's a contest between logic and magical thinking!


:yes: Absolutely, it is!

Over the time I've noticed that persons with a creative/associative/schizoide streak, including me, seem to have some instinctive grasp of what this "mode" is. For others, I'll (again) recommend the novel written by Aleister Crowley, "Moonchild". If you like the genre, - it is an entertaining and humorous novel and a dense, and intense, display of "magical thinking" - which was, from what I understand, indeed his original intention. I don't read fantasy (which is no validation, just habit up to now), but despite that there is so much good stuff out there I suppose one would be hard pressed to find any novel about magic(k) and magicians which tells so much about magical thinking - yet I'm sure there are some ingenious "constructs" out there. (Feel free to point them out to me, so I finally know what to buy. :) )

Oh and regarding cults in general: there are the great Sith novels from the Star Wars universe... Sith masters who systematically torture and "brainwash" their apprentices, first luring them in and then abusing them physically and mentally, using charisma and confusion technique, detachment, pathos, envy, and whatnot... This is good reading... :omg: :coolwink: :clap:
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
How's that fantasy world workin' out for ya? LOL

Logic serves me pretty well.... most of the time.
 

RogerB

Crusader
Veda writes:

"The poor Scientologists. It's not easy being a Scientologist and being at the mercy of the whims of "Source.""

Oh you is unkind, Veda!
:bigcry::roflmao::hysterical:

I suffered that shit . . . in fact, I've actually lost count of the ways "I went clear" . . . I actually did all those things that "do it to you." :melodramatic: :ohmy: Err, and most troublesome was the "Own Goals Clear" deal :duh: :nervous:

On another note of the charms of this thread . . . good God! is it now three years since we experienced the joys of Debbie C's email???

Christ, the older I get the faster it seems to happen with the years appearing to be either shorter or going by faster!! :nervous: :ohmy:
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
How's that fantasy world workin' out for ya? LOL

Logic serves me pretty well.... most of the time.

Well, logic plus observation of the physical world to establish boundary conditions and initial premises. Pure logic is a good way to come to the wrong conclusion with confidence.
 

Dulloldfart

Squirrel Extraordinaire
Christ, the older I get the faster it seems to happen with the years appearing to be either shorter or going by faster!! :nervous: :ohmy:

Years ago I noticed this happening. I figured that one possible reason was that as one ages, and settles into routines, there is less and less happening in one's life that is NEW. If one drifts along on automatic then no time is being perceived at all, and so at the end of the day it seems to have whizzed by as "nothing has happened."

Solution? Do NEW stuff every day. Experience the wonder of the world like a child, where there is a wealth of new experience every day!

Of course, I don't do this personally, and am resigned to the years getting shorter and shorter. As in:

Dust to dust,
Ashes to ashes,
Into the void
The old fart dashes.

:)

Paul
 

WildKat

Gold Meritorious Patron
Years ago I noticed this happening. I figured that one possible reason was that as one ages, and settles into routines, there is less and less happening in one's life that is NEW. If one drifts along on automatic then no time is being perceived at all, and so at the end of the day it seems to have whizzed by as "nothing has happened."

Solution? Do NEW stuff every day. Experience the wonder of the world like a child, where there is a wealth of new experience every day!

Of course, I don't do this personally, and am resigned to the years getting shorter and shorter. As in:

Dust to dust,
Ashes to ashes,
Into the void
The old fart dashes.

:)

Paul

I love that! Thanks. It's posts like yours that keep me coming back to ESMB.
 

RogerB

Crusader
Years ago I noticed this happening. I figured that one possible reason was that as one ages, and settles into routines, there is less and less happening in one's life that is NEW. If one drifts along on automatic then no time is being perceived at all, and so at the end of the day it seems to have whizzed by as "nothing has happened."

Solution? Do NEW stuff every day. Experience the wonder of the world like a child, where there is a wealth of new experience every day!

Of course, I don't do this personally, and am resigned to the years getting shorter and shorter. As in:
Dust to dust,
Ashes to ashes,
Into the void
The old fart dashes.

:)

Paul

You is wickeder than Veda . . . :melodramatic:

As in, as things shrink, I'm headed for dotsville?? :unsure:

Rog :nervous:
 

Leon-2

Patron Meritorious
Well well well.

I seem to have ruffled a few feathers again.

Please note - I have not knocked the value of logical scientific thought in any way. I fully support it as a method of arriving at good answers and workable technologies. All I've suggested is that is you look at what people are actually doing then you will observe that they also indulge in this other method of just "twigging" on the answer, or "zubbing" it, as some say. Most people fall on their arses doing this but some do seem to be very "lucky" and come up with amazing insights and results. It is a very unreliable thing to base your life on but it exists. People do it all the time. Whether it is right or wrong is beside the point - it is common practice as a method of "getting answers" among many many people. Which horse to bet on, who to marry, which book to read, telling jokes, dancing and "getting into the swing" of it, the list is endless.

I knew a hard-boiled university prof years ago whose field of Science (microbiology) took her all over the world lecturing t conferences and whatever in Europe and the USA. I once ask her to explain in plain language to me how she had come about a particular discipline over that she had made years before - the one which really set her up as a noted researcher etc. So she told me about it, how she battled and battled with the problem she had and was totally frustrated in cracking it. One night she was in her study and, she said, she just mentally gave up trying to figure this thing out. Just gave up. And so she asked a piece of borehole core (i.e. a chunk of rock that had been drilled out of the earth) what its story was. Actually got into telepathic comm with the rock. And it opened up and told her the answers she needed. It utterly amazed her. She tested the answers in practice later and they all proved to be exactly as they should. Then, knowing the answer, she was able to fill in the gaps with "research results" and presented the results and got all the cum laudes and accolades etc that were her due.

I expressed my astonishment at this and she said that since then she herself has been amazed at how common this sort of thing is in Scientific circles. Researchers will never admit it, or only seldom do, but it is well entrenched among them all.

Think of Kekule and how he unraveled the carbon atom. Think of Einstein riding on a beam of light to see what it did. Think of the many others all over the place who had "insights" and just "knew" where to look for the answers.

Yes, it is a poorly developed method of thinking - I agree to that - but it IS a method of thinking.



And - surprise surprise - there is also an entire system of physics that follows on from it. But I wont go into that now.
 

Udarnik

Gold Meritorious Patron
New experiences make time slow down, if you want to slow time down, break out of your routines:

Here is the key to slowing down the pace of life (at least psychologically): As much as possible, take advantage of new and unique experiences. When we go to the same places and do the same things, we don't make distinct memories and time seems to fly by. Zimbardo and Boyd suggest focusing on positive (rather than negative) past memories, trying to live more in the present, and holding a positive perception of the future - envisioning a future full of hope and optimism. In other words, use time wisely.

There is some good evidence that it's the younger folks who have an issue with their time perception:

While subjects in both age groups reported a good memory for all twelve events, young adults were more likely to underestimate age of the event. Furthermore, these individuals replicated Wittmann and Lehnhoff’s findings that while both age groups perceived short periods of time (i.e. hours, weeks, months) similarly, older adults reported that the last 10 years passed more quickly than young adults.
 
New experiences make time slow down, if you want to slow time down, break out of your routines:



There is some good evidence that it's the younger folks who have an issue with their time perception:

To younger people, a decade is a long time and they do not have a history of having 'moved through' several of them, so relative to their overall time lived, a decade is a 'big piece'.
For older people who have 'lived through' several decades a decade is a 'smaller piece' of the overall life lived so far so it could affect their idea of how fast time seems to be 'moving' or to have 'moved'.
 

Ho Tai

Patron Meritorious
Please note - I have not knocked the value of logical scientific thought in any way. I fully support it as a method of arriving at good answers and workable technologies.
The buzzphrase, "workable technologies". I listened to the tapes in which "workable" was defined over and over again as apparently working for a handful, then two handfuls, etc. of people. I understand that you are not saying that Hubbard applied the scientific method, but I do think that you are using the term "workable technology" to bridge the gap between real science and charlatanism that "makes sense" if people don't bother to use their minds.

Think of Einstein riding on a beam of light to see what it did. Think of the many others all over the place who had "insights" and just "knew" where to look for the answers.
Einstein used his 'beam of light' thought experiment as the starting point to developing a solid theory that could be explained precisely in the language of mathematics, and which theory could explain things previously unexplainable and predict things that hadn't even been thought of. Some others have "insights" that lead them to "know" where to look for answers, and just stop there and rely on the gullible to trust their "answers". One might even put LRH in that category.

Yes, it is a poorly developed method of thinking - I agree to that - but it IS a method of thinking.
The meaning of your sentence depends strongly on how you define "method". I know people whose method of thinking about politics seems to involve watching Fox News and integrating the remarks they hear into their understanding of politics. There is no original thought involved, but at some level their minds are involved in the integration process. Would you allow this as a method of thinking?
 

mockingbird

Silver Meritorious Patron
Um , Leon I do not have any positive statements about telepathy with rocks ...but as to Einstein using a non scientific method...Um , I believe what you are talking about is his thought experiments and I think we have a different idea on what they are a part of.
He ( and I ) classify them as a part of critical thinking and scientific method .
And we are part of the majority who explore this issue in my opinion .

Here are some simple links on the subject : http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/
http://www.beep.ac.uk/content/281.0.html
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/06/16/aaup-session-centers-engaging-pedagogical-technique


In fact here is quote from one of the above sites :A thought experiment is an exercise in critical thinking End quote
And another quote :Dating back to ancient Greece, thought experiments are imaginary scenarios explored to create new knowledge


And critical thinking is a part of scientific methodology
I have quotes to support that as well :the scientific method is a formalization of critical thinking
from http://www.sdbonline.org/sites/archive/SDBEduca/dany_adams/critical_thinking.html

And also : Scientists often run thought experiments — usually so they can be more efficient (to waste less of their valuable time and resources), but also occasionally for systems that cannot be physically observed — by asking "if we do this, what might happen and what would we learn?"
From :http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/scientific-method.htm

And :The scientific method is one application of critical thinking. -true From : http://quizlet.com/23624331/scientific-analysis-and-explanations-flash-cards/

And The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. source Wikipedia.


Also from Wikipedia :
Thought experiments have been used in philosophy (especially ethics), physics, and other fields (such as cognitive psychology, history, political science, economics, social psychology, law, organizational studies, marketing, and epidemiology). In law, the synonym "hypothetical" is frequently used for such experiments.
Regardless of their intended goal, all thought experiments display a patterned way of thinking that is designed to allow us to explain, predict and control events in a better and more productive way.

And perhaps to the heart of the matter :

Scientists tend to use thought experiments in the form of imaginary, "proxy" experiments which they conduct prior to a real, "physical" experiment (Ernst Mach always argued that these gedankenexperiments were "a necessary precondition for physical experiment"). In these cases, the result of the "proxy" experiment will often be so clear that there will be no need to conduct a physical experiment at all.


Scientists also use thought experiments when particular physical experiments are impossible to conduct (Carl Gustav Hempel labeled these sorts of experiment "theoretical experiments-in-imagination"), such as Einstein's thought experiment of chasing a light beam, leading to Special Relativity. This is a unique use of a scientific thought experiment, in that it was never carried out, but led to a successful theory, proven by other empirical means. End quote.



So , the method scientists and I use are in fact called thought experiments and are a part of critical thinking and the scientific method.
Now , I do not use the same standards and full methodology as real academic and having lots of other resources scientists ( I am not a properly educated...anything ) but the point is they are a bona fide recognized longstanding part of critical thinking and scientific method .

I generally look at my Scientology experience and coordinate info from other fields , often by thought experiments of " if idea X from blah , blah school of hypnosis/persuasion is true and idea Y from a theory or part of psychology is true then phenomenon Z that I think may or may not have occured but was percievd to occur in Scientology and also described in way Q by Hubbard may in fact be - ? "

Then as I learn more and more on how methods build/interact and phenomena accompany triggering events and emotional , meantal and behavioral changes in individuals and pairs and groups and the surrounding individuals and groups etc. I form hypothesis ( like a real scientist ).

I then check things like sequences , duration , changes lessening or accompanying effects and many , many more factors and clues I now consider so routine as to often see a cluster of phenomena as often going together and having a sequence and predictability.


But in this is the thought experiment and going if this and then that what would I get ?

So , Leon if you could very clearly describe these other methods of knowledge I would be interested.

Simply put from my limited experience and everything I have read on how ideas are developed I believe both imagination and the critical factor play a role .

So I cannot fathom a body of knowledge without both .
Even if I just know or imagine knowledge it must past tests to remain acceptable or be passed on .
Those tests are part of scientific method even if other parts are not used , or used and not acknowledged as such .

So , I have no clue what this other method you are talking about is .
Good thinking .
 

Leon-2

Patron Meritorious
Yeah, look, all over the place one can come across things one doesn't understand. And truly, there is often no real need for one to understand them at all. They can comfortably be left by the wayside.

Your bolstering arguments above are all noted and I have no disagreement with them. The example I gave of the lady who communicated with a rock was also followed up with scientific support for her proposals, so all is fine.

The issue is not about whether acceptable proof for the theory can be found afterwards, the issue is where did the telepathic communication come from in the first place. At best one could come up with theories and fabricated explanations for it but none of these would be "provable" either. So where does that leave us? Nowhere. Just with the fact that under some circumstances valid data can be obtained by unorthodox means. And I am proposing that those "unorthodox means" are in fact a valid method of thinking which is almost totally atrophied in most of us - due perhaps in part to the brainwashing we receive in our upbringing - but which can be developed further in all of us.


I have to go. More later.
 

Leon-2

Patron Meritorious
I'm back


By focusing on the follow-up stage of what the guys do after their insight you effectively (or not) sideline the very part that is important here.

The atrophied ability I refer to is, I believe, inherent in all of us as a natural part of our make-up. It derives from a part of the universe that is structured into it. It is one we don't much understand but which needs development.

the workability of Scientology auditing is found though, in exactly that part. Dianetic "reverie" is nothing other than the same state that Kekule was in when he twigged on the carbon - not the atom, I think it was a molecule with carbon dominant. Hubs used this ability in people and with it got the results he wanted - alleviation of the condition. So OK, he never did the follow-up stage of finding some sort of corresponding sequential measurable what-nots to have someone peer-review. Saw no need for it.

But just as day-dreaming on a bus proved effective and just as being in comm with a rock proved effective and riding on a light-beam roved effective so, under the right conditions, auditing is effective. Equally. If someone wants to develop a scientific protocol to demonstrate it is that way then so be it. Or if they fail to achieve that then so be it as well. So f*ing what?

The fact that the methods can and do achieve results is something I have seen too often to doubt. Not in every case by any means, but often enough to be acceptable. An occasionally miraculously so. Fantastically so. Arnie will call it hypnotic induction. That's fine by me. Call it what you like.

Enough.
 

Leon-2

Patron Meritorious
Put it another way: If that lady talking to a rock had developed a product based on the insights received while talking to the rock, and the product proved to be clearly more effective than anything else on the market, does the absence of "scientific proof" invalidate the product?

I think not.
 

Ho Tai

Patron Meritorious
Put it another way: If that lady talking to a rock had developed a product based on the insights received while talking to the rock, and the product proved to be clearly more effective than anything else on the market, does the absence of "scientific proof" invalidate the product?

I think not.
If someone developed a product that she knew was inherently worthless, but through clever marketing managed to make it successful as a result of the placebo effect, does the absence of scientific proof invalidate the product? I think so.

You might argue that the workability of the product is all that matters, that from the customer's point of view he was better off with the product than without it. But the effectiveness is based in a lie.

If I marry someone because I want their money, but from their end they feel love toward me, does that make it an effective relationship from their end? Maybe so, until I have the money I want and leave.

The more I think about this the more I am wondering....
 

I told you I was trouble

Suspended animation
Put it another way: If that lady talking to a rock had developed a product based on the insights received while talking to the rock, and the product proved to be clearly more effective than anything else on the market, does the absence of "scientific proof" invalidate the product?

I think not.


As long as no actual harm is done to anyone I'd have to agree with you. The problem is "harm" doesn't always show up immediately ... it's a never ending circle.

Also, many things that do have a scientific background are later found to have harmed, some severely (thalidomide when used for morning sickness comes to mind).

Every week it seems something is being promoted as beneficial and the week after it's apparently going to kill you, it just seems to depend on who's selling, who's buying and who could potentially be sued ...

:)
 
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