The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But
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Hatshepsut
Crusader
Great find! In color too. 
You gotta do a lot of browsing to keep coming up with these nice tidbits. 
You gotta do a lot of browsing to keep coming up with these nice tidbits.
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Great find! In color too.
I have very hard working spiritual teammates.
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
from the NY Times
September 30, 2010
Foreclosures Slow as Document Flaws Emerge
By DAVID STREITFELD
The foreclosure machinery that has forced millions of Americans out of their homes is beginning to seize up as some lenders and their lawyers are accused of cutting corners in their pursuit of rapid home repossessions.
Evictions are expected to slow sharply, housing analysts said, as state and national law enforcement officials shine a light on questionable foreclosure methods revealed by two of the country’s biggest home lenders in the last two weeks.
Even lenders with no known problems are expected to approach defaulting homeowners more cautiously and look more aggressively for resolutions short of outright eviction.
Despite the turmoil, some economists said the breakdown could ultimately lay the groundwork for a real estate recovery.
Stricken neighborhoods across the country, for example, could benefit. One big factor undermining home sales is fear of a large number of foreclosed homes coming to the market. If the foreclosures are delayed or never happen, housing prices might find a floor.
“Maybe this is like shock therapy,” said the economist Karl E. Case. “Maybe this will actually get the lenders to the table and encourage them to work out deals that are to the benefit of everybody.”
While such a happy ending is possible, the near term is more likely to produce paralysis and confusion.
As more defaulting homeowners become aware of the lenders’ problems, they are expected to hire lawyers and challenge the proceedings against them. And if completed foreclosures were not properly done, families who bought the troubled homes could be vulnerable to claims by the former owners.
Apparently alarmed about such a possibility, one of the major title insurance companies, Old Republic National Title, has sent a bulletin to agents saying that “until further notice” it would not insure title to properties foreclosed upon by GMAC Mortgage, the country’s fourth-largest home lender and one of the two big lenders at the center of the current controversy.
GMAC declined to comment, and Old Republic representatives did not return calls.
GMAC has acknowledged legal missteps in processing mortgages, and JPMorgan Chase has acknowledged the possibility of missteps, and both have suspended all foreclosures in the 23 states where they need a court’s approval. That’s 56,000 in the case of Chase alone; GMAC declined to provide a number.
Attorneys general in half a dozen states are demanding action or opening investigations. The Treasury Department said Thursday it was asking regulators to look into “these troubling developments.”
“We’re seeing a fundamental breakdown in the system, because no one cared that much about getting things right,” said Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat of Florida, who unsuccessfully asked the Florida Supreme Court to halt all foreclosures in that state.
Wall Street was examining the impact the disclosures could have on the lenders. Moody’s Investors Service has placed the servicer ratings of GMAC and Chase on review for possible downgrade.
The federal government has been the majority owner of GMAC since supplying $17 billion to prevent the lender’s failure during the financial crisis.
Other lenders said Thursday that their foreclosure filings, including the crucial affidavits, had been properly done.
A Citigroup spokesman said the lender required “annual training for our foreclosure employees on the proper execution of affidavits, including having personal knowledge of the information in the affidavit.”
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said “the affidavits we sign are accurate.” A spokesman for Bank of America, Rick Simon, said, “We do not have anything to tell you at this time.”
GMAC and Chase are in trouble because, overwhelmed with foreclosures, they tried to process them as quickly and cheaply as possible, defense lawyers say. The companies say they are reviewing their procedures to take care of any violations.
The missteps stemmed from the affidavits the lenders file as they seek a quick or summary judgment in thousands of foreclosure cases. The affidavits state certain facts about the case, including the amount owed, which the signer indicates he has personal knowledge of. Without the affidavit, the lender would have to prove the facts at trial.
In depositions taken by lawyers for homeowners, executives at GMAC and Chase said they or their teams signed 10,000 or more affidavits and related documents a month. That did not give them time to review the cases.
Defense lawyers say the disclosures are symptomatic of the carelessness, if not outright fraud, that lenders have been exhibiting for years in their rush to file cases. Many necessary documents have disappeared, with defense lawyers saying the lenders often do not even have standing to foreclose.
In a number of pending cases in Florida, defense lawyers there said, GMAC has already withdrawn affidavits. The lawyers said they would try to have the cases thrown out for possible fraud, although they acknowledged that might be difficult.
GMAC said it would refile the affidavits. Chase said it had not withdrawn any affidavits.
“The way the plaintiffs’ lawyers have handled this has corrupted our legal system,” said Thomas Cox, a Maine lawyer whose deposition of a GMAC executive in June helped prompt the current disclosures. “They tried to manufacture foreclosures the way you’d manufacture cars, on an assembly line. It can’t be done that way.”
Mr. Cox is representing pro bono a rural woman who is in foreclosure on a $82,000 mortgage. The plaintiff in the case is Fannie Mae, the mortgage holding company that failed during the financial crisis and is now under government conservatorship. GMAC serviced the loan for Fannie Mae.
This week, the judge in the case set aside his summary judgment in favor of Fannie when he read Mr. Cox’s deposition of a GMAC executive, Jeffrey Stephan, who said he never reviewed the file he had signed. The case will now go to trial.
“I don’t think they are going to give up easily,” said Mr. Cox.
As the foreclosure crisis has deepened, the length of time borrowers spend waiting for the end has lengthened.
In January 2009 the time between the owner’s first missed payment and eviction was 319 days, according to LPS Applied Analytics. By August it was 478 days.
Since spring, the data firm says, the lenders have been trying to clear their backlog. They have stepped up the rate at which they put defaulting owners into the formal foreclosure process. In August, they started 283,000 foreclosures, up from 220,000 in April.
Now, as the lenders are pressed to examine more closely their filings, those foreclosure starts are likely to fall, prolonging the owner’s time in limbo. Many borrowers use this period, when they are living in their home but not paying for it, to try and get their financial house back in order.
September 30, 2010
Foreclosures Slow as Document Flaws Emerge
By DAVID STREITFELD
The foreclosure machinery that has forced millions of Americans out of their homes is beginning to seize up as some lenders and their lawyers are accused of cutting corners in their pursuit of rapid home repossessions.
Evictions are expected to slow sharply, housing analysts said, as state and national law enforcement officials shine a light on questionable foreclosure methods revealed by two of the country’s biggest home lenders in the last two weeks.
Even lenders with no known problems are expected to approach defaulting homeowners more cautiously and look more aggressively for resolutions short of outright eviction.
Despite the turmoil, some economists said the breakdown could ultimately lay the groundwork for a real estate recovery.
Stricken neighborhoods across the country, for example, could benefit. One big factor undermining home sales is fear of a large number of foreclosed homes coming to the market. If the foreclosures are delayed or never happen, housing prices might find a floor.
“Maybe this is like shock therapy,” said the economist Karl E. Case. “Maybe this will actually get the lenders to the table and encourage them to work out deals that are to the benefit of everybody.”
While such a happy ending is possible, the near term is more likely to produce paralysis and confusion.
As more defaulting homeowners become aware of the lenders’ problems, they are expected to hire lawyers and challenge the proceedings against them. And if completed foreclosures were not properly done, families who bought the troubled homes could be vulnerable to claims by the former owners.
Apparently alarmed about such a possibility, one of the major title insurance companies, Old Republic National Title, has sent a bulletin to agents saying that “until further notice” it would not insure title to properties foreclosed upon by GMAC Mortgage, the country’s fourth-largest home lender and one of the two big lenders at the center of the current controversy.
GMAC declined to comment, and Old Republic representatives did not return calls.
GMAC has acknowledged legal missteps in processing mortgages, and JPMorgan Chase has acknowledged the possibility of missteps, and both have suspended all foreclosures in the 23 states where they need a court’s approval. That’s 56,000 in the case of Chase alone; GMAC declined to provide a number.
Attorneys general in half a dozen states are demanding action or opening investigations. The Treasury Department said Thursday it was asking regulators to look into “these troubling developments.”
“We’re seeing a fundamental breakdown in the system, because no one cared that much about getting things right,” said Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat of Florida, who unsuccessfully asked the Florida Supreme Court to halt all foreclosures in that state.
Wall Street was examining the impact the disclosures could have on the lenders. Moody’s Investors Service has placed the servicer ratings of GMAC and Chase on review for possible downgrade.
The federal government has been the majority owner of GMAC since supplying $17 billion to prevent the lender’s failure during the financial crisis.
Other lenders said Thursday that their foreclosure filings, including the crucial affidavits, had been properly done.
A Citigroup spokesman said the lender required “annual training for our foreclosure employees on the proper execution of affidavits, including having personal knowledge of the information in the affidavit.”
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman said “the affidavits we sign are accurate.” A spokesman for Bank of America, Rick Simon, said, “We do not have anything to tell you at this time.”
GMAC and Chase are in trouble because, overwhelmed with foreclosures, they tried to process them as quickly and cheaply as possible, defense lawyers say. The companies say they are reviewing their procedures to take care of any violations.
The missteps stemmed from the affidavits the lenders file as they seek a quick or summary judgment in thousands of foreclosure cases. The affidavits state certain facts about the case, including the amount owed, which the signer indicates he has personal knowledge of. Without the affidavit, the lender would have to prove the facts at trial.
In depositions taken by lawyers for homeowners, executives at GMAC and Chase said they or their teams signed 10,000 or more affidavits and related documents a month. That did not give them time to review the cases.
Defense lawyers say the disclosures are symptomatic of the carelessness, if not outright fraud, that lenders have been exhibiting for years in their rush to file cases. Many necessary documents have disappeared, with defense lawyers saying the lenders often do not even have standing to foreclose.
In a number of pending cases in Florida, defense lawyers there said, GMAC has already withdrawn affidavits. The lawyers said they would try to have the cases thrown out for possible fraud, although they acknowledged that might be difficult.
GMAC said it would refile the affidavits. Chase said it had not withdrawn any affidavits.
“The way the plaintiffs’ lawyers have handled this has corrupted our legal system,” said Thomas Cox, a Maine lawyer whose deposition of a GMAC executive in June helped prompt the current disclosures. “They tried to manufacture foreclosures the way you’d manufacture cars, on an assembly line. It can’t be done that way.”
Mr. Cox is representing pro bono a rural woman who is in foreclosure on a $82,000 mortgage. The plaintiff in the case is Fannie Mae, the mortgage holding company that failed during the financial crisis and is now under government conservatorship. GMAC serviced the loan for Fannie Mae.
This week, the judge in the case set aside his summary judgment in favor of Fannie when he read Mr. Cox’s deposition of a GMAC executive, Jeffrey Stephan, who said he never reviewed the file he had signed. The case will now go to trial.
“I don’t think they are going to give up easily,” said Mr. Cox.
As the foreclosure crisis has deepened, the length of time borrowers spend waiting for the end has lengthened.
In January 2009 the time between the owner’s first missed payment and eviction was 319 days, according to LPS Applied Analytics. By August it was 478 days.
Since spring, the data firm says, the lenders have been trying to clear their backlog. They have stepped up the rate at which they put defaulting owners into the formal foreclosure process. In August, they started 283,000 foreclosures, up from 220,000 in April.
Now, as the lenders are pressed to examine more closely their filings, those foreclosure starts are likely to fall, prolonging the owner’s time in limbo. Many borrowers use this period, when they are living in their home but not paying for it, to try and get their financial house back in order.
lkwdblds
Crusader
A window into time with motion and color no less!
This is like a time warp! Sharp color home movies taken in 1939 relating to the movie Gone With the Wind. It is very special to me because that was the year of my birth into this life. Having a good sharp color film camera shooting moving pictures must have been total cutting edge technology in that time. The public at large did not have that technology available to them for several more years.
Lakey
This is like a time warp! Sharp color home movies taken in 1939 relating to the movie Gone With the Wind. It is very special to me because that was the year of my birth into this life. Having a good sharp color film camera shooting moving pictures must have been total cutting edge technology in that time. The public at large did not have that technology available to them for several more years.
Lakey
lkwdblds
Crusader
Message from Johnny The Magic Thetan
I emailed Johnny today asking him if he planned on posting any more on ESMB. He answered that he would be posting more with us but that right now he is backlogged with many projects and will post more when he gets his back log cleaned up.
I do have some good pictures of our party but it has been several months since I learned how to get the pictures from the camera into the computer and then onto ESMB. I had the technique down fairly well about 6 months ago and now cannot remember what to do. I made a detailed step by step write up but I have not been able to find it in my files. Tomorrow I am going to be busy but maybe I can tackle posting the pictures on Sunday.
Oh yes, my divorce from Evy is now finalized, the papers from the court arrived in the mail and as of Sept. 28, 2010, I have been single. Evy and I went out to dinner to celebrate. We are doing a house refi and then I will buy my own condo and move out of here, probably moving to Seal Beach.
I toasted Evy to 29 plus years of marriage and raising two fine kids and then toasted her again to being good friends the rest of our lives. We were both very upbeat and happy about it.
I could write a book about the marriage, the ups and the downs and the final dissolution. Basically, we did not marry for love but for other reasons. The early years of the marriage were great and when the kids came our lives revolved totally around them. Being a parent was the most enjoyable and meaningful hat which I have worn in this lifetime. When the children are being raised, there is a purpose being manifested and never a dull moment. The marriage was held together by the kids and our need to raise them. Before 10 years were up, the marriage was basically going off the rails but we stayed together another 20 years. There was no love but we were bound economcally and with the children. Evy started wanting out in 1993 and went to law school to become an attorney so she could support herself. I knew this and backed her up all the way.
Somewhere in the last 5 or 6 years, we started to see the merits of the other person, the tenacity and stick to it ness and the basic honesty and integrity of the other person. Finally, at this late time, a sort of love started to grow between us. It was too late to save the marriage. With the kids grown and through college, there was no longer the cement to hold a marriange together and we both longed for greener pastures, especially her because she is 13 1/2 years younger than me. After we both agreed to break up and she started dating others, the love which started to grow between us had a further growth spurt. She saw that I was a better catch then all the guys she was meeting on the internet. I began to help her in selecting her potential mates. It was now a Brother / Sister type of love. Finally, she found someone whom she really liked.
In our new role as confidants to one another, we at last had love between us but it was of the Brother / Sister type and not the romantic type. It became clear that we would always be friends from here on out and we both needed one another in our lives, only not as spouses. We decided to have a non adversarial settlement which we both wrote up. I felt that she was entitled to more of the goods such as the paintings and furnishings in the house and she wanted to keep the house. I am really not big on having a lot of material objects. She is the woman, she worked harder raising the kids and is much younger and so I wanted her to have most of the material goods. I insisted on enough so that I had security and a nice roof over my head. My mind and my abilities are still very strong as is my body and I am still capable of earning an income and so, with my social security income and all the powers and skills which I have at my disposal, we will soon separate and live apart. I just want enough security to not have to worry about whether my basic needs will not be met. If I have that, then I am set up and good to go.
Lakey
I emailed Johnny today asking him if he planned on posting any more on ESMB. He answered that he would be posting more with us but that right now he is backlogged with many projects and will post more when he gets his back log cleaned up.
I do have some good pictures of our party but it has been several months since I learned how to get the pictures from the camera into the computer and then onto ESMB. I had the technique down fairly well about 6 months ago and now cannot remember what to do. I made a detailed step by step write up but I have not been able to find it in my files. Tomorrow I am going to be busy but maybe I can tackle posting the pictures on Sunday.
Oh yes, my divorce from Evy is now finalized, the papers from the court arrived in the mail and as of Sept. 28, 2010, I have been single. Evy and I went out to dinner to celebrate. We are doing a house refi and then I will buy my own condo and move out of here, probably moving to Seal Beach.
I toasted Evy to 29 plus years of marriage and raising two fine kids and then toasted her again to being good friends the rest of our lives. We were both very upbeat and happy about it.
I could write a book about the marriage, the ups and the downs and the final dissolution. Basically, we did not marry for love but for other reasons. The early years of the marriage were great and when the kids came our lives revolved totally around them. Being a parent was the most enjoyable and meaningful hat which I have worn in this lifetime. When the children are being raised, there is a purpose being manifested and never a dull moment. The marriage was held together by the kids and our need to raise them. Before 10 years were up, the marriage was basically going off the rails but we stayed together another 20 years. There was no love but we were bound economcally and with the children. Evy started wanting out in 1993 and went to law school to become an attorney so she could support herself. I knew this and backed her up all the way.
Somewhere in the last 5 or 6 years, we started to see the merits of the other person, the tenacity and stick to it ness and the basic honesty and integrity of the other person. Finally, at this late time, a sort of love started to grow between us. It was too late to save the marriage. With the kids grown and through college, there was no longer the cement to hold a marriange together and we both longed for greener pastures, especially her because she is 13 1/2 years younger than me. After we both agreed to break up and she started dating others, the love which started to grow between us had a further growth spurt. She saw that I was a better catch then all the guys she was meeting on the internet. I began to help her in selecting her potential mates. It was now a Brother / Sister type of love. Finally, she found someone whom she really liked.
In our new role as confidants to one another, we at last had love between us but it was of the Brother / Sister type and not the romantic type. It became clear that we would always be friends from here on out and we both needed one another in our lives, only not as spouses. We decided to have a non adversarial settlement which we both wrote up. I felt that she was entitled to more of the goods such as the paintings and furnishings in the house and she wanted to keep the house. I am really not big on having a lot of material objects. She is the woman, she worked harder raising the kids and is much younger and so I wanted her to have most of the material goods. I insisted on enough so that I had security and a nice roof over my head. My mind and my abilities are still very strong as is my body and I am still capable of earning an income and so, with my social security income and all the powers and skills which I have at my disposal, we will soon separate and live apart. I just want enough security to not have to worry about whether my basic needs will not be met. If I have that, then I am set up and good to go.
Lakey
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
SweetnessandLight
Crusader
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
LOL!!! It's cause Carmelo remembers how to PLAY! They LOVE that!
that was super insightful. thank you for that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwylRRh9DMM&feature=related
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Paging VEDA!
I have in my hands a screenplay in perfect screenplay format ( I've read a hundred or more professionally) by LRH copyright 1977, titled "Revolt in the Stars."
I haven't read it yet.
Do you know anything about this?
I have in my hands a screenplay in perfect screenplay format ( I've read a hundred or more professionally) by LRH copyright 1977, titled "Revolt in the Stars."
I haven't read it yet.
Do you know anything about this?
Last edited:
It was meant to be a movie which would restim people into the OT-3 incident and which Scio would then audit out. I don't know if LRH atually wrote the screenplay or if someone else did it for him. The story was his at least.
This was all done when he was all hot on movies - there was a story at the time that the director of Buterflies are Free had been at Flag for services and that LRH had "advised" on how it should be done. That's when he wrote this screenplay.
This was all done when he was all hot on movies - there was a story at the time that the director of Buterflies are Free had been at Flag for services and that LRH had "advised" on how it should be done. That's when he wrote this screenplay.
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
Hatshepsut
Crusader
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
If you haven't been following David Stokes' (Ensifer) blog, I highly recommend it. It is well written. It is refreshing.
I say it is refreshing because this is how I remember my early scientology experience. Yes, it was hard work. Yes, we had to deal with some bullshit from upper management -- but not all that much. We were going some place. We were having fun.
I particularly enjoyed this blog spot from 3 August, 2010, blog.ensifer.com
Give me than hand.
Thank you.
There was a point in my early teens where I absolutely fucking hated those words. And not just those specific ones either. Here’s a few other choice samples of phrases I hated -
Follow them and contribute to their motion.
What is it’s weight?
Look at that wall.
If I had been anything but a skinny little 110 pound hoodlum I probably would have slapped Ron Cook upside the head. He was tasked with auditing me on Objectives. Let me tell you… it was endless. Grueling. Maddening. Grindingly insufferable and punishingly horrid. I’d sooner have stuck my leg in a tree shredder just to see what came out the other side. I’d rather have checked into a Honduran dentistry college for multiple root canals… sans anesthesia.
I sometimes wonder what my auditor was thinking? He was maybe 30, a nice guy, was learning to audit and lo and behold! My mother handed me over to him and said, “Have at it. Send me a card when you get there.” He took it like a man. Always kept good TR’s in and I eventually decided that the tiny little upward lift at the corners of his mouth wasn’t a smirk. Probably some sort of genetic anomaly or something. He always had that itty-bitty smile, even when his wife Betty was giving him the stink-eye for whatever real or imagined transgression he was guilty of committing.
Ron Cook was great guy. I owe him a lot. He was Old School and not the type to complain when he had to grind out literally hundreds of hours on PC’s like me in order to be a qualified auditor.
[image]
That's me and Ron Cook. Look! He actually allowed me to run objectives on him. Such courage.
So what got me in an Objectives state of mind? Several things actually. One was a post I read the other day on one of the ex-Scn blog s about how all these higher-ups got ordered to run objectives and do some Hard TR’s or something. At the risk of appearing to agree with anything Miscavige does (including sucking my oxygen into his lungs) I will say that the post and some of the comments seemed like whining to me. What’s the problem? You guys are tough aren’t you? Most of you are some sort of OT-Something-Or-The-Other. Can’t handle a little control can you?
Which brings up one of the other reasons Objectives have been floating around in my head space. Control. It may shock some of you… considering my age… but I am the single dad of a 7 year old boy. Control is an issue. A big one. I haven’t audited anyone for many, many years but this kid is going to get some Objectives. That’s for sure.
And the final thing? The Karate Kid.
Not the Ralph Macchio version. The newer one with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. I took my little boy Wyatt to see it the other night and he was entranced. In the grocery store afterward he was doing one clumsy karate kick after another… in his flip-flops. He’s mentioned it every day since then. The kid has no clue. He thinks doing stuff that’s hard is easy. I should have whipped out my cell phone and taken a video of him. Then, when he’s grown up I can show it to him and say, “See? That’s what a dork looks like.”
[image]
You can not control me! I am chaos! Pure, unadulterated randomness!
Let me repeat … he thinks doing stuff that’s hard is easy. That’s the typical childish attitude. And, like most children, he’ll stop when it gets hard. Unless his desire overcomes the resistance inherent in doing hard stuff. I’m not here to lecture anyone on Scientology tech but this is my blog so I’ll just bloviate a little on the subject of control, objectives and why I am not particularly negative about people at all levels of awareness getting a little 8C run on them.
For starters, when I was a young teen I was out of control. Literally. In this modern era I would have been diagnosed as ADD or something starting with hyper- . I couldn’t shut my yap in school. I was always trying to kiss the girls. I was a smart-mouth who got beat up frequently because of my inability to shut up. I ran away from home in El Paso, taking a long Greyhound ride to Dallas and upset my mother’s well-ordered life as a professional Scientologist. I got arrested for smoking cigarettes, shoplifting a 45 record and being drunk in public. On that last… remember… I grew up in Texas in the 50′s and 60′s. So it’s not like I was one of the rare teens who thought drinking was cool.
When I studied I got A’s. Except I rarely studied. I read books like most kids eat popcorn but I couldn’t focus long enough to finish a homework assignment. My father, the most patient man in the history of planet Earth, bore it all with no complaint. I suppose he understood that the only way he could control me would be to chain me up. So he provided a roof, meals and a small amount of money for clothes.
But Dolores, my mother, she had something for me. She knew that if I could be drawn into the concept of learning how to control my environment that I might subject myself to accepting that I needed to be controlled first, as the primary step towards being in control. And that’s Objectives.
How many minutes or hours of Objective auditing does a person need? If you have a cognition and then an f/n does that mean you’re done? You’re now in total control? Is there an End Phenomena to control? Isn’t that like asking if there’s an EP to Confront. Or any of the TR’s. Okay, there’s an EP. I agree. But at the same time there is life it’s own self out there and you batter away at it while it hammers back at you. Control is not some sort of finished product where, once you float the needle while holding an asparagus can you have all of it that’s available. There are degrees.
So back to The Karate Kid. Instead of the old oriental guy having the kid do “wax on, wax off” the modern version has the old oriental guy making the kid take his coat off, drop it on the ground and then hang it on a peg. Same deal. Objectives. The “lesson”… as you probably already know… is that the way to better control is through better control. The student is made to do repetitive motions until whatever underlying resistance or manifestations rise up and are blown. Then he’s made to continue again and again and again and again until all the little mini cognitions and attempts to fool the Examiner are eclipsed by a real and meaningful change in attitude.
Usually that change is accompanied by Good Indicators that are palpable, visceral and infectious. If a meter is handy I suppose there would be an f/n as well. Not that it matters. No need for a meter when something is obvious. Even dense people recognize real GIs.
From my perspective, as an auditor and former Mission Holder, the world for an auditor who has had the opportunity to co-audit tons of Objectives is a far more rich world than that of the PC who is often on a time and money budget and so doesn’t really have the opportunity to get past that first wide f/n and cognition that indicates he or she is complete and it’s time to move on.
Here’s something to think about…
For anyone who did the actual Clearing Course instead of had some ‘clear cog’ – and immediately became Org Property – you might recall that Hubbard was very clear in the materials that auditing the bank to a point of destim (or erasure) was like “digging a ditch”. He meant it. He meant for us on the course to grind that stuff out. And we did. Day in and day out, one hand sweating and one hand writing down reads. Hubbard wanted each person to have a very specific huge cognition. Not a feel good moment. He demanded that a clear cognite that they were “mocking it all up”.
Okay. Fine.
If the cognition that you’re merely mocking it all up means you’re Clear, then why are many Clears and OT’s such pissy, bitchy, PTS little pussies? Aren’t they free of a reactive mind? Well, yeah, sort of. In the same sense that someone who has a single intensive of objectives, cognites and then f/n’s is now totally in control of themselves.
A partial reason for this weird phenomena, that of OT’s dramatizing as much case as the people they’re supposed to be better than, probably lies in the paradigm shift I mentioned in this blog in the ‘About’ heading. Nobody digs any ditches anymore. Or at least the right ditches. Roughly 10 years after I finished the Clearing Course the new Scientology was suddenly all about clearing the planet. I’ve already mentioned what a bunch of horseshit I think that is.
Clearing an entire planet the old way does present some issues. Like, say, convincing 6 or 7 billion people to subject themselves to several hundred hours of auditing, weeks and months of intense training, then going to a distant place and grinding away for a few hundred more hours until they eventually realize the only case they actually have is the one they believe they have. That’s an insanely stupid idea. But hmmm… what if people just kinda-sorta accidentally went clear along the way? You know, like while doing a Dianetic co-audit or maybe while being bull-baited on the Comm Course. That would certainly speed things up. Now instead of an insanely stupid idea we have one that is merely stupid.
Seems to me what this really comes down to is deciding what you got into Scientology for in the first place. And perhaps what it is you expect to extract from the tech. If you honestly believe that the planet is going to become clear then good on ya! /cue Twilight Zone theme/ If you, like me, want this stuff because it will make you stronger and gives you the tools and strength to be more powerful, more calm and an asset to those you care about… then what’s the rush? I never felt like I was in a particular hurry to win, I just knew that I would win and get my money’s worth if I understood that I was digging a ditch and building an experiential track and base of self-awareness that would serve me in tough times and hard situations.
So my mother gave me what I needed. A shovel and a guy to show me how to use it. That’s a powerful chunk of love. And when I think about my little boy it’s almost embarrassing how much of that same love I have for him. I absolutely do not want him shortchanged and used as a tool for some psychotic and ridiculously hazy goal of a megalomaniac and his troop of zombies. At the same time, if anyone ought to have the same opportunities I was given by my mother, her fellow Scientologists and men of endless patience like Ron Cook and my dad, then my little boy is my choice for the prize. I plan to ruin him forever for the CofS by seeing to it he knows how to dig a proper ditch.
Another thing I want. I wouldn’t mind it if someday Wyatt heard the phrase “give me that hand” and thought to himself – I absolutely fucking hate those words.
I say it is refreshing because this is how I remember my early scientology experience. Yes, it was hard work. Yes, we had to deal with some bullshit from upper management -- but not all that much. We were going some place. We were having fun.
I particularly enjoyed this blog spot from 3 August, 2010, blog.ensifer.com
Give me than hand.
Thank you.
There was a point in my early teens where I absolutely fucking hated those words. And not just those specific ones either. Here’s a few other choice samples of phrases I hated -
Follow them and contribute to their motion.
What is it’s weight?
Look at that wall.
If I had been anything but a skinny little 110 pound hoodlum I probably would have slapped Ron Cook upside the head. He was tasked with auditing me on Objectives. Let me tell you… it was endless. Grueling. Maddening. Grindingly insufferable and punishingly horrid. I’d sooner have stuck my leg in a tree shredder just to see what came out the other side. I’d rather have checked into a Honduran dentistry college for multiple root canals… sans anesthesia.
I sometimes wonder what my auditor was thinking? He was maybe 30, a nice guy, was learning to audit and lo and behold! My mother handed me over to him and said, “Have at it. Send me a card when you get there.” He took it like a man. Always kept good TR’s in and I eventually decided that the tiny little upward lift at the corners of his mouth wasn’t a smirk. Probably some sort of genetic anomaly or something. He always had that itty-bitty smile, even when his wife Betty was giving him the stink-eye for whatever real or imagined transgression he was guilty of committing.
Ron Cook was great guy. I owe him a lot. He was Old School and not the type to complain when he had to grind out literally hundreds of hours on PC’s like me in order to be a qualified auditor.
[image]
That's me and Ron Cook. Look! He actually allowed me to run objectives on him. Such courage.
So what got me in an Objectives state of mind? Several things actually. One was a post I read the other day on one of the ex-Scn blog s about how all these higher-ups got ordered to run objectives and do some Hard TR’s or something. At the risk of appearing to agree with anything Miscavige does (including sucking my oxygen into his lungs) I will say that the post and some of the comments seemed like whining to me. What’s the problem? You guys are tough aren’t you? Most of you are some sort of OT-Something-Or-The-Other. Can’t handle a little control can you?
Which brings up one of the other reasons Objectives have been floating around in my head space. Control. It may shock some of you… considering my age… but I am the single dad of a 7 year old boy. Control is an issue. A big one. I haven’t audited anyone for many, many years but this kid is going to get some Objectives. That’s for sure.
And the final thing? The Karate Kid.
Not the Ralph Macchio version. The newer one with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. I took my little boy Wyatt to see it the other night and he was entranced. In the grocery store afterward he was doing one clumsy karate kick after another… in his flip-flops. He’s mentioned it every day since then. The kid has no clue. He thinks doing stuff that’s hard is easy. I should have whipped out my cell phone and taken a video of him. Then, when he’s grown up I can show it to him and say, “See? That’s what a dork looks like.”
[image]
You can not control me! I am chaos! Pure, unadulterated randomness!
Let me repeat … he thinks doing stuff that’s hard is easy. That’s the typical childish attitude. And, like most children, he’ll stop when it gets hard. Unless his desire overcomes the resistance inherent in doing hard stuff. I’m not here to lecture anyone on Scientology tech but this is my blog so I’ll just bloviate a little on the subject of control, objectives and why I am not particularly negative about people at all levels of awareness getting a little 8C run on them.
For starters, when I was a young teen I was out of control. Literally. In this modern era I would have been diagnosed as ADD or something starting with hyper- . I couldn’t shut my yap in school. I was always trying to kiss the girls. I was a smart-mouth who got beat up frequently because of my inability to shut up. I ran away from home in El Paso, taking a long Greyhound ride to Dallas and upset my mother’s well-ordered life as a professional Scientologist. I got arrested for smoking cigarettes, shoplifting a 45 record and being drunk in public. On that last… remember… I grew up in Texas in the 50′s and 60′s. So it’s not like I was one of the rare teens who thought drinking was cool.
When I studied I got A’s. Except I rarely studied. I read books like most kids eat popcorn but I couldn’t focus long enough to finish a homework assignment. My father, the most patient man in the history of planet Earth, bore it all with no complaint. I suppose he understood that the only way he could control me would be to chain me up. So he provided a roof, meals and a small amount of money for clothes.
But Dolores, my mother, she had something for me. She knew that if I could be drawn into the concept of learning how to control my environment that I might subject myself to accepting that I needed to be controlled first, as the primary step towards being in control. And that’s Objectives.
How many minutes or hours of Objective auditing does a person need? If you have a cognition and then an f/n does that mean you’re done? You’re now in total control? Is there an End Phenomena to control? Isn’t that like asking if there’s an EP to Confront. Or any of the TR’s. Okay, there’s an EP. I agree. But at the same time there is life it’s own self out there and you batter away at it while it hammers back at you. Control is not some sort of finished product where, once you float the needle while holding an asparagus can you have all of it that’s available. There are degrees.
So back to The Karate Kid. Instead of the old oriental guy having the kid do “wax on, wax off” the modern version has the old oriental guy making the kid take his coat off, drop it on the ground and then hang it on a peg. Same deal. Objectives. The “lesson”… as you probably already know… is that the way to better control is through better control. The student is made to do repetitive motions until whatever underlying resistance or manifestations rise up and are blown. Then he’s made to continue again and again and again and again until all the little mini cognitions and attempts to fool the Examiner are eclipsed by a real and meaningful change in attitude.
Usually that change is accompanied by Good Indicators that are palpable, visceral and infectious. If a meter is handy I suppose there would be an f/n as well. Not that it matters. No need for a meter when something is obvious. Even dense people recognize real GIs.
From my perspective, as an auditor and former Mission Holder, the world for an auditor who has had the opportunity to co-audit tons of Objectives is a far more rich world than that of the PC who is often on a time and money budget and so doesn’t really have the opportunity to get past that first wide f/n and cognition that indicates he or she is complete and it’s time to move on.
Here’s something to think about…
For anyone who did the actual Clearing Course instead of had some ‘clear cog’ – and immediately became Org Property – you might recall that Hubbard was very clear in the materials that auditing the bank to a point of destim (or erasure) was like “digging a ditch”. He meant it. He meant for us on the course to grind that stuff out. And we did. Day in and day out, one hand sweating and one hand writing down reads. Hubbard wanted each person to have a very specific huge cognition. Not a feel good moment. He demanded that a clear cognite that they were “mocking it all up”.
Okay. Fine.
If the cognition that you’re merely mocking it all up means you’re Clear, then why are many Clears and OT’s such pissy, bitchy, PTS little pussies? Aren’t they free of a reactive mind? Well, yeah, sort of. In the same sense that someone who has a single intensive of objectives, cognites and then f/n’s is now totally in control of themselves.
A partial reason for this weird phenomena, that of OT’s dramatizing as much case as the people they’re supposed to be better than, probably lies in the paradigm shift I mentioned in this blog in the ‘About’ heading. Nobody digs any ditches anymore. Or at least the right ditches. Roughly 10 years after I finished the Clearing Course the new Scientology was suddenly all about clearing the planet. I’ve already mentioned what a bunch of horseshit I think that is.
Clearing an entire planet the old way does present some issues. Like, say, convincing 6 or 7 billion people to subject themselves to several hundred hours of auditing, weeks and months of intense training, then going to a distant place and grinding away for a few hundred more hours until they eventually realize the only case they actually have is the one they believe they have. That’s an insanely stupid idea. But hmmm… what if people just kinda-sorta accidentally went clear along the way? You know, like while doing a Dianetic co-audit or maybe while being bull-baited on the Comm Course. That would certainly speed things up. Now instead of an insanely stupid idea we have one that is merely stupid.
Seems to me what this really comes down to is deciding what you got into Scientology for in the first place. And perhaps what it is you expect to extract from the tech. If you honestly believe that the planet is going to become clear then good on ya! /cue Twilight Zone theme/ If you, like me, want this stuff because it will make you stronger and gives you the tools and strength to be more powerful, more calm and an asset to those you care about… then what’s the rush? I never felt like I was in a particular hurry to win, I just knew that I would win and get my money’s worth if I understood that I was digging a ditch and building an experiential track and base of self-awareness that would serve me in tough times and hard situations.
So my mother gave me what I needed. A shovel and a guy to show me how to use it. That’s a powerful chunk of love. And when I think about my little boy it’s almost embarrassing how much of that same love I have for him. I absolutely do not want him shortchanged and used as a tool for some psychotic and ridiculously hazy goal of a megalomaniac and his troop of zombies. At the same time, if anyone ought to have the same opportunities I was given by my mother, her fellow Scientologists and men of endless patience like Ron Cook and my dad, then my little boy is my choice for the prize. I plan to ruin him forever for the CofS by seeing to it he knows how to dig a proper ditch.
Another thing I want. I wouldn’t mind it if someday Wyatt heard the phrase “give me that hand” and thought to himself – I absolutely fucking hate those words.
RogerB
Crusader
Brilliant post, Ted. And fun to read. I enjoyed those "turns of phrases" you used along the way.
I'm absolutely, very much with you on the issue of the value of a good dose of Objectives . . . and yes, it is ditch digging, but with a wonderful outcome when done right.
Folks here on ESMB have often questioned the value and mechanism of the workings of Objectives . . . . but the magic of them, regardless of any issues to do with "having to be controlled before you can control (which proposition is not necessarily true in my view), is that the end result of properly conducted Objectives is that the Being comes to an EP of the certainty of his/her ability to start, continue/change and stop/cease any action at choice.
And that is a colossal certainty, power, ability and level of living mastery to have . . . . you knowingly doing what you're doing when you're doing it; and you doing it on your own pure, masterfully expressed volition.
By the way, the Ron Cook you spoke of; was he an Aussie? We had one in Melbourne when I was on staff there on the early '60's. A good man.
Rog
I'm absolutely, very much with you on the issue of the value of a good dose of Objectives . . . and yes, it is ditch digging, but with a wonderful outcome when done right.
Folks here on ESMB have often questioned the value and mechanism of the workings of Objectives . . . . but the magic of them, regardless of any issues to do with "having to be controlled before you can control (which proposition is not necessarily true in my view), is that the end result of properly conducted Objectives is that the Being comes to an EP of the certainty of his/her ability to start, continue/change and stop/cease any action at choice.
And that is a colossal certainty, power, ability and level of living mastery to have . . . . you knowingly doing what you're doing when you're doing it; and you doing it on your own pure, masterfully expressed volition.
By the way, the Ron Cook you spoke of; was he an Aussie? We had one in Melbourne when I was on staff there on the early '60's. A good man.
Rog
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Clarification
Good morning Roger,
I thought I was clear in that the writing was not mine. It was that of David Stokes. He posts as "Ensifer." Here is his blog: blog.ensifer.com
My only contribution is an agreement that the earlier days of scientology were different than the later days and I agree with the value of objectives run many hours.
I suppose it is time I posted a mug shot so we don't get confused about who I am. The one I have looks like someone caught me while I was contemplating a fart. It will have to do for now.
Good morning Roger,
I thought I was clear in that the writing was not mine. It was that of David Stokes. He posts as "Ensifer." Here is his blog: blog.ensifer.com
My only contribution is an agreement that the earlier days of scientology were different than the later days and I agree with the value of objectives run many hours.
I suppose it is time I posted a mug shot so we don't get confused about who I am. The one I have looks like someone caught me while I was contemplating a fart. It will have to do for now.
EP - Ethics Particle
Gold Meritorious Patron
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Yeah, Ted - ya look like ya got one cheek lifted slightly off the pew, about to loose one of those "church-house creepers"!
EP
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