The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Here is a link to an extremely interesting post, just posted on Tony Ortega's Underground Bunker regarding a 90 year old pianist, Mario Feninger, who was discussed on this thread several times back at the beginning of this thread.

Carmelo should probably be interested in this story. Basically, the 90 year old pianist was ordered to disconnect from his key pupil and and close friend. There is also some updating of another major player at the old Celebrity Centre, Milton Katselas. For those of you interested in CCLA in its early days, check out this link.

http://tonyortega.org/2013/02/26/sc...-music-lovers-this-one-will-break-your-heart/

Lakey

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: Obama. books to read, etc.

CB, it seems like you are reading the early pages of this thread from about 5 years ago. I reread what I wrote. I've learned a lot since then and much of what I learned is a result of reading ESMB, plus Tony Ortega's "Underground Bunker", Mike Rinder's blog and Karen's wealth of material.

Just think, I was a "young" lad of 69 when I arrived on ESMB and now have just turned 75. For many people, once they hit their mid 60's they don't change much and just walk through the rest of their life.

That's one thing about being an ex Scientologist. You know that you entered that group with the best of intentions, wanting to be helped and to give them your life in a return effort to help the "church". You meet many exceptional and well intended people and make lots of friends and a few enemies. You feel that you are growing as a being and are being helped and the "church's" incessant pleas for more and more money seem to make sense, well sort of.

As time goes by, injustices against you begin building up. You begin to resist going further in debt. An accumulation of events starts to accumulate and suddenly you realize that YOU HAVE BEEN HAD!!! One of the great Con Men of all the ages has sunk his teeth into you and bitten off a huge chunk of your life.

MAJOR FALL OUTS FROM REALIZING THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DUPED
First, many of the people who you thought were so special, were taken in even worse than you. You can see now that they are not, as a class, ultra special people, the upper one hundredth of one percent of Earth's best people as LRH told us in his writings and tapes. True, there were many fine and outstanding people present in Hubbard's movement but then you see the same types of people out there in society. The crowd that Hubbard attracted might have been a tad smarter, brighter and/or more spiritual but on the other side of the ledger, we were for the most part a more gullible group, ready to accept and believe strange things that Hubbard assured us were truths.

SCOUTING AS A VALID MODEL FOR A GROUP PROMOTING SELF HELP
I am looking at the Boy Scout movement which I was involved with for about 5 years as a kid and that movement was a much better model of what a group teaching self help skills should be. Most of the leaders were volunteers, helping out because they wanted to help boys and help build a better society. The tech was a valuable collection of skills and costs were extremely minimal.

PERSONAL GAIN FROM PARTICIPATING IN GROUP PANEL DISCUSSIONS ON ESMB.
For me, my greatest gain from participating on ESMB came from engaging in debates and exchanges of info with many hundreds of people of all types. In order to make your debate points concisely and effectively, one can be forced to understand his/her beliefs so well that they can defend attacks from others. By engaging in panel discussions, there seem to be 3 major benefits:
#1. Skills similar to legal writing skills learned by a lawyer have to be learned and learning these skills tend to make one smarter and a clearer thinker.
#2. You can expand your knowledge and learn things from others.
#3. Sometimes others may learn things from you.

ENDING CYCLE ON EX SCIENTOLOGY
I am losing interest in both Scientology and ex Scientology. I'm about ready to move on but I am not quite there yet.
Lakey

the "hear! hear!" was for the parting shot where you spoke fervently against sending the yew ess ay down the the primrose path of european socialism

point #1 is very important. i take a forensic standard to all rhetoric used to tar and feather "The Old Man". e.g. the admissions are much ballyhooed but what statute is there to name a charge to arraign him? five hundred years ago in the paypal states the author of such notes could be burned at the stake (after some... uhh... excruciatingly detailed confession) but our concept of jurisprudence has so deteriorated since then, scarcely any starch to it at all...

duped?

i wasn't...

there was a real and true magic to the path i tread into the subject. i'll tell again the "friends of fran's" tale if you like, the journey to new orleans, the raising of the white and gold. now i've introduced the infinite and godly consecration of the funds to finance the initial study...

auditing and training are a sacred spiritual discipline pursued by those who hear and respond to a calling lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Obama. books to read, etc.

the "hear! hear!" was for the parting shot where you spoke fervently against sending the yew ess ay down the the primrose path of european socialism

point #1 is very important. i take a forensic standard to all rhetoric used to tar and feather "The Old Man". e.g. the admissions are much ballyhooed but what statute is there to name a charge to arraign him? five hundred years ago in the paypal states the author of such notes could be burned at the stake (after some... uhh... excruciatingly detailed confession) but our concept of jurisprudence has so deteriorated since then, scarcely any starch to it at all...

duped?

i wasn't...

there was a real and true magic to the path i tread into the subject. i'll tell again the "friends of fran's" tale if you like, the journey to new orleans, the raising of the white and gold. now i've introduced the infinite and godly consecration of the funds to finance the initial study...

auditing and training are a sacred spiritual discipline pursued by those who hear and respond to a calling lakey

Good post CB. Well, if your weren't duped then you weren't duped. I, for one don't invalidate personal assertions made by others. Five years ago, I was in the same camp as you were. Like I say in my post which you responded to, ESMB has the power to produce change and to make some people see things clearer.

Maybe you weren't duped, I really don't know what services you took or supervised on others. Look at what people have been going through the last 12 years or so on the most advanced levels such as Solo NOTS. Hubbard's policy state's not to interfere with someone who is doing well in auditing. In spite of this, DM introduced 6 month Sec Checks for all people on Solo NOTS, even if they are sailing along with Very Good Indicators. Each Sec Check experience costs a person about $20,000, so when you go in twice a year, you are spending $40K a year doing Security Checking when you could be home running Solo NOTS on yourself plus managing your business. Add to this, the fact that Solo NOTS is taking people on the order of 7 to 10 years to complete. Everyone who is doing or has done that level has been duped. Ditto, for each person who has donated mega bucks over and over and gone into debt so as to fund the Super Power Building and the Ideal Orgs. Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars are gathered by promising parishioners that these funds are leading to a huge expansion in COS. Claims are made that because of these donations, COS has grown in the last year or two about 50 times as much as has grown in the previous 60 years. Worldwide membership is represented as 8 to 10 million when 30,000, down, from over 100,000, about 20 years ago is a more accurate statement of their size and the negative growth taking place.

LRH says, that there is no hidden data line and "If it isn't written it isn't true." Try and apply those data in COS and see what happens to you. You either toe the line or get offloaded. That is being duped.

When you complete OT 7 and OT 8, you are told that you will be some sort of Superman, capable of supernatural powers. You are supposed to achieve perfect body health in the early stages of the bridge and also handle your communication problem. Look at the people graduating from the top of the Bridge. As a group, they tend to be in poor health and no one has yet been produced who has any super powers. The person running the "church" never even had those levels run on him, even though he could have had it done for free while choosing any auditor or case supervisor he wished. He is senior to all these top OT's; they have done the levels and he hasn't but they have to do exactly what he tells them and they can't have an independent opinion of their own which disagrees with his opinion without getting into big trouble. All these high level OT's have been duped.

Well, CB, if you were never duped, I salute you but you should also salute me because I believe that I was duped. What's good for the goose is good for the gander,
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Einstein Quote is Analogous to the Human Condition

I watched a you tube video about Einstein last night. He made a statement which I found useful, as follows: "HOW DOES A FISH KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE WATER IN WHICH HE SWIMS?" Humans are many magnitudes above fish in perception and awareness but still the principle applies. We are born here on Earth, hardwired for basic survival, with senses which are analog in nature and with a complex mind which is able to sort out similarities and differences. There is no User's Manual given to us on how or why this Universe exists or how to be successful in it.

As soon as we become sentient, that is the game we are thrown into. We are afforded perks in the form of various pleasures such as eating and sex. Starting out as kids, we believe that our parents, or other adults smarter than them, know all the answers and that we will know them too when we get our schooling. It turns out that the answers are not really totally known by anyone. Nevertheless, our civilization has been able to glean immense amounts of knowledge about our Universe and a lot of it is available for us to learn from. What is more, each generation usually adds knowledge to what was previously known.

Even though we are playing a game maybe a million times more complex than that of a fish, the essentials of our game and a fish's game are quite similar, as Einstein stated.

Where did Einstein look when a problem had him stopped? He looked to music, primarily the music of two great master composers, W.A.Mozart and J.S. Bach. Einstein became a professional level violinist and he felt that the music of these two men paralleled the flows and rhythms of the physical universe. Youtube, has a video of Einstein playing violin pieces by both men. Here is the Mozart piece, a sonata for violin and piano:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQFmSnG5Ets

By hearing pieces such as this and Bach's concerto for 2 violins and orchestra, one can try and get a better feel for how our Universe is constructed, not by thinking about it head on but, using a football analogy, making a sneak run down the sidelines. This is an indirect method of knowing something or getting something done. In football, the runner along with several blockers can run right up the middle and try and overwhelm the defense or make a fake up the middle and then hand off to someone who makes some clever moves, goes around the defense and successfully makes it into the end zone untouched. Try it, you'll like it!!
Lakey

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: Obama. books to read, etc.

Good post CB. Well, if your weren't duped then you weren't duped. I, for one don't invalidate personal assertions made by others. Five years ago, I was in the same camp as you were. Like I say in my post which you responded to, ESMB has the power to produce change and to make some people see things clearer.

Maybe you weren't duped, I really don't know what services you took or supervised on others. Look at what people have been going through the last 12 years or so on the most advanced levels such as Solo NOTS. Hubbard's policy state's not to interfere with someone who is doing well in auditing. In spite of this, DM introduced 6 month Sec Checks for all people on Solo NOTS, even if they are sailing along with Very Good Indicators. Each Sec Check experience costs a person about $20,000, so when you go in twice a year, you are spending $40K a year doing Security Checking when you could be home running Solo NOTS on yourself plus managing your business. Add to this, the fact that Solo NOTS is taking people on the order of 7 to 10 years to complete. Everyone who is doing or has done that level has been duped. Ditto, for each person who has donated mega bucks over and over and gone into debt so as to fund the Super Power Building and the Ideal Orgs. Tens and hundreds of millions of dollars are gathered by promising parishioners that these funds are leading to a huge expansion in COS. Claims are made that because of these donations, COS has grown in the last year or two about 50 times as much as has grown in the previous 60 years. Worldwide membership is represented as 8 to 10 million when 30,000, down, from over 100,000, about 20 years ago is a more accurate statement of their size and the negative growth taking place.

LRH says, that there is no hidden data line and "If it isn't written it isn't true." Try and apply those data in COS and see what happens to you. You either toe the line or get offloaded. That is being duped.

When you complete OT 7 and OT 8, you are told that you will be some sort of Superman, capable of supernatural powers. You are supposed to achieve perfect body health in the early stages of the bridge and also handle your communication problem. Look at the people graduating from the top of the Bridge. As a group, they tend to be in poor health and no one has yet been produced who has any super powers. The person running the "church" never even had those levels run on him, even though he could have had it done for free while choosing any auditor or case supervisor he wished. He is senior to all these top OT's; they have done the levels and he hasn't but they have to do exactly what he tells them and they can't have an independent opinion of their own which disagrees with his opinion without getting into big trouble. All these high level OT's have been duped.

Well, CB, if you were never duped, I salute you but you should also salute me because I believe that I was duped. What's good for the goose is good for the gander,
Lakey

miss cabbage has screwed the whole thing to hell and gone lakey. and ron wasn't rebecca of sunnybrook farm either...

i made serious preparation. i got much from deropp's "the master game"; it was truly my student hat course for engaging an effort in creative psychology. his "seven syndromes" inoculated me against pitfalls which other CoS students commonly fall into. plus, before i started the comm course i spent two days at the san francisco public library hitting the stacks for everything i could find back to 1953 and so even before i began i knew much many never find out until they get to esmb. and i took to heart the wisdom of scripture nor would i abandon the constitution and especially the bill of rights. i declined to think of those outside our sphere as "wogs" (though i might describe unconscious, mechanical, incompetent or reactive speech or conduct as "woggy"). i did not accept "history of man" as literal truth but recognized ron's poetic liscence as being in good order. i maintained my personal integrity and my capacity for critical thought and i am also well grounded in scientific method; i did not accept red on white as Truth but as working theory

which i did and do find to be eminently workable

sufficiently workable that, for exquisitely unbelievable example, it enabled me from kirkland washington at the end of august 2007 to commandeer six live nukes from minot afb. that happened, you can google it. no i can't prove i did it. i didn't think what i did would actually pull live nukes off the rack but three weeks later i got a hell of a kick out of it when the story broke...


hee, hee...

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Obama. books to read, etc.

miss cabbage has screwed the whole thing to hell and gone lakey. and ron wasn't rebecca of sunnybrook farm either...

i made serious preparation. i got much from deropp's "the master game"; it was truly my student hat course for engaging an effort in creative psychology. his "seven syndromes" inoculated me against pitfalls which other CoS students commonly fall into. plus, before i started the comm course i spent two days at the san francisco public library hitting the stacks for everything i could find back to 1953 and so even before i began i knew much many never find out until they get to esmb. and i took to heart the wisdom of scripture nor would i abandon the constitution and especially the bill of rights. i declined to think of those outside our sphere as "wogs" (though i might describe unconscious, mechanical, incompetent or reactive speech or conduct as "woggy"). i did not accept "history of man" as literal truth but recognized ron's poetic liscence as being in good order. i maintained my personal integrity and my capacity for critical thought and i am also well grounded in scientific method; i did not accept red on white as Truth but as working theory

which i did and do find to be eminently workable

sufficiently workable that, for exquisitely unbelievable example, it enabled me from kirkland washington at the end of august 2007 to commandeer six live nukes from minot afb. that happened, you can google it. no i can't prove i did it. i didn't think what i did would actually pull live nukes off the rack but three weeks later i got a hell of a kick out of it when the story broke...


hee, hee...

Thanks, COB, I personally have observed workability in many of the lower level processes and techniques, This has been observed on three separate flow lines. In the early 70's it was others auditing me and me auditing others. In recent years it has been observing Purple Haze auditing others as well as a few hours of Purple Haze auditing me. Purple however does not use only Scientology tech put also uses some other techniques.

The Techniques which I felt were workable on the various flows mentioned above are:
Objective Processing
ARC Straightwire
Life Repair
NED (New Era Dianetics)
The Grades 0 - IV
Grade V (Power and Power Plus(
Expanded Dianetics

All of those worked for me, both receiving and running others on them. Going higher, I am neutral on OTI, it is not a major action, neutral on OT II, don't think OT III is worth doing and then with NOTS, I loved receiving it at the time I received a lot of it, in the 1990's). In all fairness, I thought it was working like a charm at the time. However, looking at it from my perspective of today, I am not so sure that I made any major stable wins with it. Also, I now question the goal it set for itself and the length of time required to do it. I really don't see that doing what the level claims needs to be done, to have a huge resurgence of beingness and to enable various super powers to occur, is the right road to pursue so as to attain those things.

The level CLEAR made more sense when it became routine for that to happen on NED dianetics. The revised End Phenomena was "a happy and healthy human being." Many people going CLEAR on Dianetics did achieve that stated gain. It's really a shame that Hubbard chose to overstate the gains attained by going CLEAR in earlier years.

On NOTS, I feel like it should be a set up for more advanced levels to take off from. I have not done OT VIII so I am not qualified to comment on it. Even so, there does not appear to be unanimous rave successes from those who have attained OT VIII and that would indicate that it also, like NOTS, would be a set up level for a next step but it appears that there is no further tech forthcoming. Getting back to NOTS, I believe in spiritual team mates who are allies who help guide people throughout their lives. In NOTS, I found that some of these were contacted during a NOTS session and they ended up being run out. I like my spiritual team mates and want to keep them but NOTS tends to eliminate them.

I give Hubbard credit for putting together all those level which I say are good. I do believe he overstated some of the abilities gained in some instances. Unfortunately for him, his tendency to overstate the gains to be attained on Clear and the OT Levels really has hurt the reputation and growth of C of S. The gains that can be made going Clwar on Dianetics seem to be worthwhile, for the time and money invested to achieve them. IMHO, overstating potential gains of processes really hurt the growth of Hubbard's empire.
Lakey

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: Obama. books to read, etc.

Thanks, COB, I personally have observed workability in many of the lower level processes and techniques, This has been observed on three separate flow lines. In the early 70's it was others auditing me and me auditing others. In recent years it has been observing Purple Haze auditing others as well as a few hours of Purple Haze auditing me. Purple however does not use only Scientology tech put also uses some other techniques.

The Techniques which I felt were workable on the various flows mentioned above are:
Objective Processing
ARC Straightwire
Life Repair
NED (New Era Dianetics)
The Grades 0 - IV
Grade V (Power and Power Plus(
Expanded Dianetics

All of those worked for me, both receiving and running others on them. Going higher, I am neutral on OTI, it is not a major action, neutral on OT II, don't think OT III is worth doing and then with NOTS, I loved receiving it at the time I received a lot of it, in the 1990's). In all fairness, I thought it was working like a charm at the time. However, looking at it from my perspective of today, I am not so sure that I made any major stable wins with it. Also, I now question the goal it set for itself and the length of time required to do it. I really don't see that doing what the level claims needs to be done, to have a huge resurgence of beingness and to enable various super powers to occur, is the right road to pursue so as to attain those things.

The level CLEAR made more sense when it became routine for that to happen on NED dianetics. The revised End Phenomena was "a happy and healthy human being." Many people going CLEAR on Dianetics did achieve that stated gain. It's really a shame that Hubbard chose to overstate the gains attained by going CLEAR in earlier years.

On NOTS, I feel like it should be a set up for more advanced levels to take off from. I have not done OT VIII so I am not qualified to comment on it. Even so, there does not appear to be unanimous rave successes from those who have attained OT VIII and that would indicate that it also, like NOTS, would be a set up level for a next step but it appears that there is no further tech forthcoming. Getting back to NOTS, I believe in spiritual team mates who are allies who help guide people throughout their lives. In NOTS, I found that some of these were contacted during a NOTS session and they ended up being run out. I like my spiritual team mates and want to keep them but NOTS tends to eliminate them.

I give Hubbard credit for putting together all those level which I say are good. I do believe he overstated some of the abilities gained in some instances. Unfortunately for him, his tendency to overstate the gains to be attained on Clear and the OT Levels really has hurt the reputation and growth of C of S. The gains that can be made going Clwar on Dianetics seem to be worthwhile, for the time and money invested to achieve them. IMHO, overstating potential gains of processes really hurt the growth of Hubbard's empire.
Lakey

yeah...

that list looks good to me

i was only at CLIV org level though while i was in san francisco i picked up on a bunch of shsbc material. SF was pretty hip and cool in the early seventies. i lived in chinatown, north beach actually in the dante hotel over the condor lounge which featured the legendary carol doda, the original silicon valley while i took the comm course which totally rearranged my OCA. used to breakfast on a pair of 15 cent pork buns walking up stockton to get to the org at 414 mason then we used to go out and watch the mime robert shields before he became famous performing in union square. i moved into the the three flat co-op on pierce street and took the student hat and started dianetics at the celebrity center in a gorgeous edwardian townhouse on california street. finished dianetics at mason street and my first PC was eldon braun who wound up declared, fair-gamed and dead - horse, fukkin', shiite; ain't no way to treat a sufi boy's PC - and split for back east. in fukkin' power baby; i've hitched across the continent several times and in '72 i made it to bahhstin in 4 and 1/2 days beating my 1968 best of six days.

mystic on tour to the fine cambridge mission run by the superb bobby ford sucked me up in his slipstream and got me on staff at fcdc

you must have known greg wilhere on the apollo. i married his sistah in '73

we split in june of '74 and baby i came out of there like shot from a gun and off we went to tackle the big apple. i picked up on cabdriving and quickly discovered the task had a delightfully high randomity factor which afforded an intriguing opportunity to investigate "OT" phenomena and abilities

wow...

1975 was a very, very, very, very strange year

one thing i can mention about it was that my first conscious to goose the stats in pro sports; i was juicin' the boston red sox who proceeded to lose what many to this day consider the greatest world series ever played which rendered the iconic image of carlton fisk waving his game six twelfth inning walkoff dinger fair...

that fukkin' horsehide was flying on wings i sprouted man...

not that i got much pleasure out of it. i was being worked over by the shrinks in the VA hospital in bedford mass

o well...

no good deed will go unpunished

and after the second psychiatric stomping was inflicted on me in 1980 (life ain't easy for a boy named sue) i decamped back to boston and bobby ford came through and just simple 2WC pretty much undid the bulk of the damage the shrinks had done to me.

 

[cakemaker]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Lakey, There's a story about life that I find rings a few bells and thought you may like. It goes like this,

The Sultan Who Became an Exile (from Tales of the Dervishes - Idries Shah)

A Sultan of Egypt, it is related, called a conference of learned men, and very soon - as is usually the case - a dispute arose. The subject was the Night Journey of the Prophet Mohammed. It is said that on that occasion the Prophet was taken from his bed up into the celes­tial spheres. During this period he saw paradise and hell, conferred with God ninety thousand times, had many other experiences — and was returned to his room while his bed was yet warm. A pot of water which had been overturned by the flight and spilled was still not empty when the Prophet returned.

Some held that this was possible, by a different measurement of time. The Sultan claimed that it was impossible.
The sages said that all things were possible to divine power. This did not satisfy the king.

The news of this conflict came at length to the Sufi sheikh Shahabudin, who immediately presented himself at Court. The Sultan showed due humility to the teacher, who said: ‘I intend to proceed without further delay to my demonstration: for know now that both the interpretations of the problem are incorrect, and that there are demonstrable factors which can account for traditions without the need to resort to crude speculation or insipid and un­informed “logicality”.’

There were four windows in the audience-chamber. The sheikh ordered one to be opened. The Sultan looked out of it. On a moun­tain beyond he saw an invading army, a myriad, bearing down on the palace. He was terribly afraid.
‘Pray forget it: for it is nothing', said the sheikh.
He shut the window and opened it again. This time there was not a soul to be seen.

When he opened another of the windows, the city outside was seen to be consumed by flames. The Sultan cried out in alarm.
'Do not distress yourself, Sultan, for it is nothing', said the sheikh. When he had closed and again opened the window, there was no fire to be seen.

The third window being opened revealed a flood approaching the palace. Then, again, there was no flood.

When the fourth window was opened, instead of the customary desert, a garden of paradise was revealed —and then, by the shutting of the window, the scene vanished as before.

Now the sheikh ordered a vessel of water to be brought, and the Sultan to put his head into it for a moment. As soon as he had done so, the Sultan found himself alone on a deserted seashore, a place which he did not know.

At this magic spell of the treacherous sheikh he was transported with fury, and vowed vengeance.

Soon he met some woodcutters who asked him who he was. Unable to explain his true state, he told them that he was ship­wrecked. They gave him some clothes, and he walked to a town where a blacksmith, seeing him aimlessly wandering, asked him who he was. 'A shipwrecked merchant, dependent upon the charity of woodcutters, now with no resources,’ answered the Sultan.

The man then told him about a custom of that country. All newcomers could ask the first woman who left the bath-house to marry him, and she would be obliged to do so. He went to the bath, and saw a beautiful maiden leaving. He asked her if she was married already: and she was, so he had to ask the next, an ugly one. And the next. The fourth was really exquisite. She said that she was not married, but pushed past him, affronted by his miserable appearance and dress.

Suddenly a man stood before him and said: 'I have been sent to find a bedraggled man here. Please follow me.'
The Sultan followed the servant, and was shown into a wonder­ful house in one of whose sumptuous apartments he sat for hours. Finally four beautiful and gorgeously attired women came in, preceding a fifth, even more beautiful. She the Sultan recognized as the last woman whom he had approached at the bath-house.

She welcomed him and explained that she had hurried home to prepare for his coming, and that her hauteur was only one of the customs of the country, practised by all women in the street.
Then followed a magnificent meal. Wonderful robes were brought and given to the Sultan, while delicate music was played.

The Sultan stayed seven years with his new wife: until they had squandered all her patrimony. Then the woman told him that he must now provide for her and their seven sons.

Recalling his first friend in the city, the Sultan returned to the blacksmith for counsel. Since the Sultan had no trade or training, he was advised to go to the marketplace and offer his services as a porter.
In one day he earned, through carrying a terrible load, only one- tenth of the money which was needed for the food of the family.

The following day the Sultan made his way to the seashore again, where he found the very spot from which he had emerged seven long years before. Deciding to say his prayers, he started to wash in the water: when he suddenly and dramatically found him­self back at the palace, with the vessel of water, the sheikh and his courtiers.

‘Seven years of exile, evil man !' roared the Sultan. ‘Seven years, a family and having to be a porter! Have you no fear of God, the Almighty, for this deed?'
‘But it is only a moment', said the Sufi master, ‘since you put your head into this water.'
His courtiers bore out this statement.

The Sultan could not possibly bring himself to believe a word of this. He started to give the order for the beheading of the sheikh.

Perceiving by inner sense that this was to happen, the sheikh exer­cised the capacity called Ilm el-Ghaibat: The Science of Absence. This caused him to be instantly and corporeally transported to Damas­cus, many days' distance away.
From here he wrote a letter to the king:
‘Seven years passed for you, as you will now have discovered, during an instant of your head in the water. This happens through the exercise of certain faculties, and carries no special significance except that it is illustrative of what can happen. Was not the bed warm, was not the water-jar empty in the tradition?

‘It is not whether a thing has happened or not which is the im­portant element. It is possible for anything to happen. What is, however, important, is the significance of the happening. In your case, there was no significance. In the case of the Prophet, there was significance in the happening.'

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

coooooooooooooooooooool...

 

[Gizmo]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

One of the things I happen to notice is some people seem to pontificate on their praises of this, that, or the other scientology process or set of processes & yet at the same time the person singing the praises says they left scientology. I wonder if it so damn good how come they left it ?

{ It also seems to me that I once read where Hubbard hisself said something to the effect of : The past is psychotic, the present is neurotic, & the future is sane.

Given that, I've come wonder why auditing concentrated so heavily on & in the past. Can any of the supporters of scientology style auditing ( aka guided imagery ) help me understand why if the past is psychotic ( per Hubbard hisself ) then why Hubbard hisself wanted to guide his followers there for so many hundreds of hours of 'processing'.

Particularly when to get rid of something unwanted all a person has to do is change their mine - and even Hubbard hisself allows that is possible. Was what he insisted others do really 'help' to them or was it all just money motivated for him ? }

Anyway, I've come to believe ( and what the hey, a belief is a merely a thought that keeps getting thought ! ) that words don't teach. The clarity of ones own example is the way to show others. I guess I got tired of reading scientology & now I've gotten tired of reading about scientology.

The ribs of that old dead horse called scientology have now started to have the glint from being hit by sunlight. May it not rest in peace !

I'll check back in sometime next year.

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

One of the things I happen to notice is some people seem to pontificate on their praises of this, that, or the other scientology process or set of processes & yet at the same time the person singing the praises says they left scientology. I wonder if it so damn good how come they left it ?

{ It also seems to me that I once read where Hubbard hisself said something to the effect of : The past is psychotic, the present is neurotic, & the future is sane.

Given that, I've come wonder why auditing concentrated so heavily on & in the past. Can any of the supporters of scientology style auditing ( aka guided imagery ) help me understand why if the past is psychotic ( per Hubbard hisself ) then why Hubbard hisself wanted to guide his followers there for so many hundreds of hours of 'processing'.

Particularly when to get rid of something unwanted all a person has to do is change their mine - and even Hubbard hisself allows that is possible. Was what he insisted others do really 'help' to them or was it all just money motivated for him ? }

Anyway, I've come to believe ( and what the hey, a belief is a merely a thought that keeps getting thought ! ) that words don't teach. The clarity of ones own example is the way to show others. I guess I got tired of reading scientology & now I've gotten tired of reading about scientology.

The ribs of that old dead horse called scientology have now started to have the glint from being hit by sunlight. May it not rest in peace !

I'll check back in sometime next year.

i left because i got a low tolerance for tyranny and bullshit on the one hand and on the other because it had worked so damn well i was no longer a total lameass dweeb and i wanted shorter work hours and more pay

but...

the real actual critical factor making a separation inevitable is i wanted to toke up...

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

i left because i got a low tolerance for tyranny and bullshit on the one hand and on the other because it had worked so damn well i was no longer a total lameass dweeb and i wanted shorter work hours and more pay

but...

the real actual critical factor making a separation inevitable is i wanted to toke up...

CB, it is easy to understand your first point about a low tolerance for tyranny and bullshit but on your second reason, if something worked good for you and empowered you, wouldn't you want to stay with it, help yourself more, help others and help the guy responsible for helping you? Just asking.

BTW, I just got back from 4 days in Las Vegas. The highlight was seeing the Terry Fator Show. That man is a unique and great entertainer. His imitations of famous singers singing is almost as good as the original singers, both male and female and he does it while being a ventriloiquist, barely moving his lips. Here's one illustrating how he handles a female voice such as Cher's plus he also imitates Sonny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoNG5_XXEvg

His is a link to one of his performances doing Elivs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxnR2PT5kO4

How about a Ray Orbison imitation, virtually as good as Orbision himself could have done!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVRDvR7pjN4

Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: New Oost from Mama

This post came in from Mama while I was in Vegas:

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/19/371647099/norads-santa-tracker-began-with-a-typo-and-a-good-sport

Lakey - for Mama

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: New Post from Mama

Here is another post from Mama, sent over on Dec 24th:

Back in the 60s and 70s things were simple, choices were black and white,.

I woke up, made love, went for a run, ate breakfast, drank coffee, listened to the radio, planned my day's work,.... came home to loving arms, shared a meal, read, gardened, maybe did work on my house or a tractor, did billing, played with my dog, watched Johnny on TV, made love, went to sleep

And did it again the next day.

Today nothing is black and white

Everything from coffee at breakfast is a multi choice, multi dimensional chess match played in my mind with consequences to the farmers growing the beans, water purity, while reading writing e mails checking world news of every little war, disease, earthquake, politician while blaring rock n roll while planning a day with a business manager partner who is already overloaded with 50 e mails of tenants venders or owners wanting something, combined with she is also a mother a grandmother with health and eating choices gotta go to the gym swim eat less wheat

And all of that ^^^ is before we have been awake five minutes.

The youth of today don't have it any easier.

No one in Silicon Valley wakes up to Tom Sawyer's Hannibel, Missouri

I'm addicted to speed. Not the drug, amphetamine, but that of particles and energy flowing 90 miles per hour choosing gates of opportunity and necessity on the fly

It's another day

Christmas was a simpler time once back in the Stone Age. Now it's just another set of added complexity to an already overbooked work week.

At least it's California and it will be 70 degrees and sunny the day before Christmas. Got lots to do.

Time to get moving.

Lakey for Mama

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

CB, it is easy to understand your first point about a low tolerance for tyranny and bullshit but on your second reason, if something worked good for you and empowered you, wouldn't you want to stay with it, help yourself more, help others and help the guy responsible for helping you? Just asking.

BTW, I just got back from 4 days in Las Vegas. The highlight was seeing the Terry Fator Show. That man is a unique and great entertainer. His imitations of famous singers singing is almost as good as the original singers, both male and female and he does it while being a ventriloiquist, barely moving his lips. Here's one illustrating how he handles a female voice such as Cher's plus he also imitates Sonny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoNG5_XXEvg

His is a link to one of his performances doing Elivs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxnR2PT5kO4

How about a Ray Orbison imitation, virtually as good as Orbision himself could have done!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVRDvR7pjN4

Lakey

i did want to stay with it lakey and i have. and for thirty years i stayed loosely in comm with the org and i'd stop in at fcdc or san fran or seattle or boston and i'd get some 2wc going until someone would appear with the palpable mockup of a harness and muzzle in one hand and a leash and cattle prod in the other and turned the conversation into 1wc

i do 1wc on active duty in the american armed forces and in certain emergency conditions lakey

other than that i'm freewheelin'

but i do stay with the creed and the code (which Co$ frequently does not) and my actions in life are well informed by my training and experience as an auditor. and although as a pc i'm just an arc straightrazor release, i do appear to manifest significant "OT" manifestation; man, bahhstin and san fran are my two towns. in this gnu century the red sox and giants have each won three crowns, no other town has more than one. and boston went 86 years without a championship and the san francisco giants had never won any. nope. cannot PROVE any cause/effect relationship. but i am working on my trickiest trick shot yet. looks good. we'll see...

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: Thanks, Panda

Thank you for letting me know that and for your sage advice. I've had 3 Idenics sessions with Mike Goldstein and they have been helpful in allowing me to let go of such hateful thoughts. Idenics insists that one view such incidents as what happened between me and Sandy from the viewpoint of the person I was in 1973 when those incidents happened. Idenics theory feels that actual erasure or giving up a justified hate can better be eradicated by the "pc" {so to spead} assuming the viewpoint of who he or she was then rather than from a present time viewpoint. I have found that this works well for me so far.

Applying this to Sandy, hearing of her death does not bring me any joy and seems to be more of a loss. The best I could have hoped for from her was that before she died she realized that she had wronged me and probably many others like me and that she did some personal form of ammends and or contrition by herself before passing on.

News of her death came to me in present time so from present time, I would absolve her for her attempts to degrade me and show her that she failed in that regard because I hold her no animous and continued to grow in spite of her cruelty to me. I would send her spirit best wishes for a speedy return to a new life, and would ask her to ponder what she did to me and why she did it and critique those actions and just make sure that in her mind, she was fully attempting to do the most good the greatest number. If she really believed that to be the case, I would let her go in peace but if she realized that what she did by debasing me was not proper behavior for that time then to atone for it in a manner of her chosing before coming back again.
Lakey

sandy...

my erstwhile sister-in-law. i only met her twice and she didn't speak to me. but what about greg?

did you get to know greg on the apollo? i think his success in the organization came in large part by falling into the hands of a cunning bitch

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

i did want to stay with it lakey and i have. and for thirty years i stayed loosely in comm with the org and i'd stop in at fcdc or san fran or seattle or boston and i'd get some 2wc going until someone would appear with the palpable mockup of a harness and muzzle in one hand and a leash and cattle prod in the other and turned the conversation into 1wc

i do 1wc on active duty in the american armed forces and in certain emergency conditions lakey

other than that i'm freewheelin'

but i do stay with the creed and the code (which Co$ frequently does not) and my actions in life are well informed by my training and experience as an auditor. and although as a pc i'm just an arc straightrazor release, i do appear to manifest significant "OT" manifestation; man, bahhstin and san fran are my two towns. in this gnu century the red sox and giants have each won three crowns, no other town has more than one. and boston went 86 years without a championship and the san francisco giants had never won any. nope. cannot PROVE any cause/effect relationship. but i am working on my trickiest trick shot yet. looks good. we'll see...

Thanks for the explanation CB. I really understand how you handled the return flow back to COS and I think you were very consistent and wise in how you handled them. One thing about you claiming to be capable of manifesting OT 'powers', I believe that virtually everyone has some ability to do that. Look at Terry Fador the Ventriloquist and singer, his performances are definitely a display of some very OT abilities; in fact they are so OT that no one in COS can do what he does..

Working in the construction field for 37 years, I could not help but notice that many of the tradesmen who did work on my jobs were extremely gifted in doing their trade or trades. Carpenters, brick masons, tile men, stucco men, even drywall installers often demonstrated extreme competence in the execution of their trades.

As an 18 year old, my Dad had me digging ditches back when he was building public jobs such as additions to schools and community colleges. One time, I was told to dig a ditch. At the time, I was young and thin, only about 170 lbs. I worked hard on digging a ditch for over an hour and it was slow and not going anywhere. Despite being 18, I started to tire and wanted to give up the project. I thought to myself, "I'm studying calculus and physics at Fullerton College, why should I take a loss digging a stupid ditch!" That was my attitude AND THEN A LIFE CHANGING EVENT OCCURRED. One of the Union Laborers came over during his break to give me a hand.

He had no formal education. I appreciated his help but was doubtful that he could teach me anything. First, he asked me to dig a little so he could see what I was doing. I did that and then he spoke up and I got the surprise of my 18 year old life. He told me that I was doing it all wrong! He said that I was digging in the center of the hole, trying to go deeper. I piped up, "What's wrong with that, what else can anyone do but dig in the middle. The laborer said that there were many things wrong with that approach. First of all, any dirt I dug out had no place to go, so each time, I had to lift it to the top of the hole and throw it on the ground next to the whole. He then explained that the proper technique was to stab the shovel into the sides of the hole. Further more, if you stab the hole at certain places, a lot of dirt from above will break off from its own weight because there was no longer any dirt underneath it to support it.

The idea was that if you dig hard into the center of the hole, it gets harder and harder as you go along and the distance you have to go to get the dirt out of the hole gets bigger and bigger. If you cut into the sides of the hole, and remove the dirt, you don't have to lift as high to remove the crumbling dirt from the sides and your cuts will remove support from the areas above them so the sides will cave in due to their own weight.

The laborer got into the hole himself and started digging this way and in about 5 minutes he enlarged the hole by an amount that took me 30 minutes to do. I was amazed. I told him he was awesome but I doubted if I was capable of doing it his way. He said it would be no problem for me. I got in the hole and started duplicating what he did. To my surprise I was nearly as good at getting results as he was!

I thanked him profusely and with respect. Standing there digging a ditch, I learned two life lessons. One, was the tech of digging a hole in the ground but the other piece of knowledge was more important than that. It was a lesson that even for digging a ditch with a shovel, there was a proper technique and this bit of knowledge could be used in innumerable applications and also, just because a man was doing manual labor and I was in college, that did not mean that he was stupid or that there were not things which I could learn from him! This was a very important life lesson and it all happened because a Union Laborer on one of my Dad's jobs saw me digging a ditch the wrong way and decided to come over and show me the proper way to do it.!

Sorry, I got carried away with my anecdote but my point is that most people have one or more specialty areas where they exhibit what Hubbard called OT abilities. Every now and then, someone comes along who exhibits such abilities in many areas and there we get our Leonardo Da Vinci's and our Ben Franklin's, guys who are pretty damn good, or OT if you prefer, in many areas.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: Thanks, Panda

sandy...

my erstwhile sister-in-law. i only met her twice and she didn't speak to me. but what about greg?

did you get to know greg on the apollo? i think his success in the organization came in large part by falling into the hands of a cunning bitch

CB, I never met Greg Wilhere. Sandy Wilhere was your sister-in-law?! What a coincidence. Yep, I hated that woman for about 48 years, also hated Maria Starkey, the Personnel Officer and wife of Norman Starkey and also hated Sue Anderson, Sandy's Senior in the Flag Bureaux.

All 3 were Corporate shills for LRH, doing whatever crimes he suggested they do in a misbegotten effort to save the Universe. Whatever they did, they always felt that they were doing the most good for the most number of dynamics so they could trash any decent person who came into their area if he didn't measure up to their creepy standards!

When you look at their behavior from a prism of 40 years later, you can see the inconsistencies and flaws in what they were doing and also in what LRH was doing. Really, it boils down to selectively implementing certain of LRH's policies while ignoring many other of LRH's policies. Meanwhile, LRH himself, almost never followed the policies which he set down for others to follow. What one ended up with, operating an organization in this manner, was exactly what one would expect if he/she analyzed the situation from a detached point of view either beforehand or afterwards.

You had a cowed crew, slaving away at 80 to 100 hours, 7 days a week with almost no pay or return flow of any kind, except for getting to study more LRH policy which, for the most part, would not be allowed to be implemented on the Apollo. The Apollo and its crew were disliked by port authorities and were always suspected of being something other than what they claimed to be which was an International Business Company, OTC, which was training business executives for profit. Port authorities often suspected them of being CIA and the Apollo had a history of being kicked out of nearly every port at which they docked. Why wouldn't they not be kicked out? The Apollo crew did not respect the inhabitants of every port they docked in nor did they respect their host country and its officials. All were thought of as "Wogs", extremely abberated with no real knowledge of any of the fundamentals of life. When you dock somewhere with such preconceived attitudes your tenure will likely be of limited duration and so it always was.

POLICIES THE ROBOTS FOLLOWED:
#1 - Don't be reasonable, be tough
#2 - Judge only by stats
#3 - Don't be afraid to hurt someone for a just cause.
#4 - Don't be "Theedie Weedie" by being kind to people, be tough and effective and ensure that you get your product.
#5 - The 4th Dynamic trumps all other Dynamics combined.

POLICIES THE ROBOTS DID NOT FOLLOW:
#1 - Making up a full written Hat Write up, Items A to J, for your post.
#2 - Demanding a full Hat Write Up be given you before assuming a post.
#3 - Using the ARC Triangle, the Tone Scale and other tools claimed to make life more pleasant.
#4 - Dismissing all Dynamics except the 4th as being valid areas in an S.O. member's life and not recognizing that if one or more dynamics are out, that will pull down the 4th Dynamic as well.

Hubbard wanted elite S.O. to be fully devoted to his cause. You see groups like this exist on Earth from time to time such as the Nazi SS or even now, with ISIS. The US Marines might be considered such a group when they are in combat. With the Nazi SS and with ISIS, however, I believe that each soldier treats his comrades with comraderie. They believe in each other, like each other and treat one another with respect. They reserve their vicious hostilities for use only against their enemies and not their own members.

With Hubbard's Sea Org, to a large degree, there was not comeraderie within the rank and file members. When new members came in, they were not embraced as part of a brotherhood. Instead, they were regarded with suspicion and were often expected of being a plant or being their only to cause screw ups. I know that there were cliques of veteran Sea Org members who were buddies with one another and covered each others backs but I believe that it was very difficult to crack those groups and be accepted by them. At least, that is what I experienced when I was there. I assumed the entire group would be a Brotherhood of the elite members and that was definitely not the case.
Lakey

 

[lkwdblds]

Re: New Post from Mama

From Mama with love:

WINTER IN THE SUN
Ian Fleming’s Jamaica

By DAVID G. ALLAN
“THE first law for a secret agent is to get his geography right,” Ian Fleming wrote in “The Man With the Golden Gun.” And so it is for anyone following the trail of the man who created the world’s most famous secret agent through his adopted island of Jamaica, a journey that starts near Kingston on the tiny spit of beach called the Palisadoes that connects the city to Norman Manley International Airport.

Most of the traffic heads into the capital, but if you steer westward, snaking around the contours of dunes on the poorly paved street toward the peninsula’s dead end, you’ll find Morgan’s Harbour Hotel in Port Royal.

Only five miles from the airport, you are already deep into Ian Fleming’s Jamaica.

Fleming, the British intelligence officer turned newspaper man turned spy novelist born 100 years ago this year, spent winters on his Caribbean getaway for almost two decades. The airport and the Palisadoes both feature in James Bond novels; the hotel is where Bond chose to lay his head in “Golden Gun.” It was on Jamaica that Fleming wrote more than a dozen novels and short stories featuring Agent 007. Of these once best-selling volumes of action pulp, “Dr. No,” “Live and Let Die,” “The Man With the Golden Gun” and the short story “Octopussy” are largely or partly set in Jamaica, and the films based on the first two were also shot there.

The island was Fleming’s retreat, artist colony and passion, and he repeatedly sent Bond, an incarnation of Walter Mitty-esque wish fulfillment, on assignment there. The legendary spy experienced the island as Fleming did — beautiful and underdeveloped with enough exoticism, history and potential for danger to justify it as a backdrop for postwar espionage adventure.

Fleming’s Jamaica is a Venn diagram of three overlapping spheres: the author’s actual Jamaica of the 1950s and early ’60s (when the island was a British colony rapidly becoming a hot spot for the rich and famous); the semi-fictional Jamaica as seen through James Bond; and Jamaica as a location for the 007 film franchise.

While the rural interior of the country has changed little in the last 50 years, the huge, buffet-to-beach inclusive resorts and a blighted downtown Kingston, once high on the jet-setters’ dance cards, would now discourage Fleming. He lived in Jamaica when you could get there by banana boat, and he described Negril on the west coast as a “five-mile crescent of unbroken, soft, white gold sand, fringed for all its dazzling length with leaning palm trees.”

In 1947 Fleming wrote a portrait of his adopted home in Horizon magazine, influential enough to fuel a postwar tourist boomlet among well-heeled

Lakey fpr Mama

 

[Commander Birdsong]

Re: The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

Thanks for the explanation CB. I really understand how you handled the return flow back to COS and I think you were very consistent and wise in how you handled them. One thing about you claiming to be capable of manifesting OT 'powers', I believe that virtually everyone has some ability to do that. Look at Terry Fador the Ventriloquist and singer, his performances are definitely a display of some very OT abilities; in fact they are so OT that no one in COS can do what he does..

Working in the construction field for 37 years, I could not help but notice that many of the tradesmen who did work on my jobs were extremely gifted in doing their trade or trades. Carpenters, brick masons, tile men, stucco men, even drywall installers often demonstrated extreme competence in the execution of their trades.

As an 18 year old, my Dad had me digging ditches back when he was building public jobs such as additions to schools and community colleges. One time, I was told to dig a ditch. At the time, I was young and thin, only about 170 lbs. I worked hard on digging a ditch for over an hour and it was slow and not going anywhere. Despite being 18, I started to tire and wanted to give up the project. I thought to myself, "I'm studying calculus and physics at Fullerton College, why should I take a loss digging a stupid ditch!" That was my attitude AND THEN A LIFE CHANGING EVENT OCCURRED. One of the Union Laborers came over during his break to give me a hand.

He had no formal education. I appreciated his help but was doubtful that he could teach me anything. First, he asked me to dig a little so he could see what I was doing. I did that and then he spoke up and I got the surprise of my 18 year old life. He told me that I was doing it all wrong! He said that I was digging in the center of the hole, trying to go deeper. I piped up, "What's wrong with that, what else can anyone do but dig in the middle. The laborer said that there were many things wrong with that approach. First of all, any dirt I dug out had no place to go, so each time, I had to lift it to the top of the hole and throw it on the ground next to the whole. He then explained that the proper technique was to stab the shovel into the sides of the hole. Further more, if you stab the hole at certain places, a lot of dirt from above will break off from its own weight because there was no longer any dirt underneath it to support it.

The idea was that if you dig hard into the center of the hole, it gets harder and harder as you go along and the distance you have to go to get the dirt out of the hole gets bigger and bigger. If you cut into the sides of the hole, and remove the dirt, you don't have to lift as high to remove the crumbling dirt from the sides and your cuts will remove support from the areas above them so the sides will cave in due to their own weight.

The laborer got into the hole himself and started digging this way and in about 5 minutes he enlarged the hole by an amount that took me 30 minutes to do. I was amazed. I told him he was awesome but I doubted if I was capable of doing it his way. He said it would be no problem for me. I got in the hole and started duplicating what he did. To my surprise I was nearly as good at getting results as he was!

I thanked him profusely and with respect. Standing there digging a ditch, I learned two life lessons. One, was the tech of digging a hole in the ground but the other piece of knowledge was more important than that. It was a lesson that even for digging a ditch with a shovel, there was a proper technique and this bit of knowledge could be used in innumerable applications and also, just because a man was doing manual labor and I was in college, that did not mean that he was stupid or that there were not things which I could learn from him! This was a very important life lesson and it all happened because a Union Laborer on one of my Dad's jobs saw me digging a ditch the wrong way and decided to come over and show me the proper way to do it.!

Sorry, I got carried away with my anecdote but my point is that most people have one or more specialty areas where they exhibit what Hubbard called OT abilities. Every now and then, someone comes along who exhibits such abilities in many areas and there we get our Leonardo Da Vinci's and our Ben Franklin's, guys who are pretty damn good, or OT if you prefer, in many areas.
Lakey

cooooooooooooooooooool...

before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water
after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water

i don't know if it's most people, but it's many and they are noticeable even if quiet and the capacity for noticing is on the threshold of "OT" of itself