The system is broken… or the system is broken
Given that the tech is working, the system must be broken.
This is a conclusion that stems from talking to several Scientologist in the past week.
Let me do a simple logical breakdown of this statement:
I am an OT VIII. I have gone through all the hoops, the confessionals, the checks and exams with the very thorough quality assurance system that is used within the church. I have been deemed squeaky clean as I have passed all checkpoints up the Bridge to Total Freedom.
I have had tremendous gains along the way.
Still I am here telling the world that the system is broken. I tell about human rights abuses, lies and manipulations in the system known as the Church of Scientology.
So, either I am right about the system being broken, or I am wrong about the system being broken. If the latter is true and the church is busy discrediting me, it must be because the church thinks we have an OT VIII that has gone off the rails. If that is the case, then the system with all the checkpoints up the Bridge is broken.
Either way, the system is broken.
This logical breakdown could be represented in a simple WOIM list:
[?The tech is working as intended]; OR:
Geir is right about the system is being broken
The system is broken
Geir is wrong about the system being broken
He is an OT VIII having been thoroughly checked by the system
The system is broken
This is the logical conundrum that Scientologists I talk to are facing and struggling with. Many are inventing reasons why I could possibly say bad things about the church – like I couldn’t really have achieved OT VIII or I must have evil intentions or anything that could make the logical conundrum go away.
Obviously there is another option – that Geir is simply wrong – and one could leave it at that. I leave it to the reader to amend the WOIM list to accommodate for this third option. In this case I believe the system would be borken 😉
Edit (based on a good comment by “As-is”): When I say “the system is broken”, it is analogous to “the car is broken”. I make no claims about the design being wrong in this post, only the the practice in the church (referred to here as “the system”).
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Geir Isene: Straight talk on Scientology 
Another logical option would be that your assumption is false, i.e. the tech itself is not working.
Obviously. But you are now attacking the assumption, which is beside the point of my post.
My point is the WOIM list is still valid in its logical breakdown, adding my little borken-option at the end.
Could also be the system is something that is being actively broken, but works when operated correctly, as per the instructions of the system.
Could also be the system isn’t being used and a new system has been set up and used in place of the old system, but is still in the name of the old system. Thus giving the illusion that the system is broken, when there are now two seperate systems being used. One that is broken. One that isn’t.
Good catch.
I was thinking of the system as “the system that is in use today”, i.e. the church’s practice. An analogy is a statement that “the car is broken” – it does not usually infer that the design was wrong.
The system itself has been altered in a large degree.
When David Miscavige came into power he did SP-declare 99 % of the top management in charge. Those people were all appointed by LRH. Does this mean LRH was not able to recognize SPs ? or is David Miscavige the SP ? After that he altered the tech, course materials, HCOBs, HCOPLs, and OT-levels and he invented new Tech and courses like Golden Age of Tech/Knowledge and much more. Please compare old Books with new books, major changes can be found. Even the definition of the Second Dynamic and Clear has been altered. The same with the red and green volumes, the new one are full of alterations – there are even no indications about that and what has been altered. The OT-Levels – as nowadays applied in the Church – are not complete in comparison with the old original versions.
The remedy is quite simple, just go back the original material and apply the original Tech. This is done outside of the Co$ – for more than 20 year. There are alternatives!
Hey Geir, not sure if you have seen this or hear about it yet but it looks like Miscavige is going turning up the pressure for people to go up the bridge.
You have have heard from a few already that got the e-mails but I wanted to pass this along in case you had not heard of this yet.
[quote]The latest development in Miscavige’s search for suppressives and disaffected scientologists in his “church” is to threaten those not actively going up the Bridge with being declared suppressive by way of a Comm Ev (Committee of Evidence; an advanced Hubbard extortion tool under the false title of “Scientology justice”).
Recently, some OTVII “prospects” (OTVIs, stalled OTVIIs, and OTVIIIs that need to re-do OTVII) have been ordered to get on the OTVII level “or else” they will be bludgeoned with more “scientology justice procedures” than they need or deserve.[/quote]
More at link
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/981790-post1/
Dear Geir,
As trained OT VIIIs, at the top of the Bridge, where every Scientologist aspires to be/become, we are the example, that standard, the bar.
We are the product that every staff and SO member is working towards. An OT VIII that is a valuable contributor to society and wears his/her hat as a Scientologist, as expressed in the “Hat of a Scientologist” course, as written and check-sheeted by LRH. (This, BTW, is a course that has completely fallen through the cracks where LRH clearly states the hat of a Scientologist. There is NO mention of OTCs, IAS, “contributing something for nothing” and “other fish to fry” as is the fashion these days. [I consider staff members leaving their post to reg for the IAS “other fish to fry”, an illegal action per LRH policy.])
The system is very broken. After going up the Bridge and recovering much ability, horsepower, happiness and self determined energy, one arrives to find an environment of force and “do this or else”! Whereas LRH has stated on numerous occasions, in many different ways (and especially in the Basics courses that are so being pushed!), that what works is ARC and not force, this has become an environment of force, a system of force. I am concerned to see so many SO and staff members seeing this way as the normal operating basis! As older SO members leave, or have been illegally declared, what is created more each day is this broken and twisted system that could not be further from the actual aims of Scientology and LRH’s intentions.
I came into Scientology aware of the suffering of my fellow beings and feeling helpless about it. I regained an ability to know I could do something about it, thanks to Scientology and my application of it in a standard way. And now that I have arrived at this point I see there is no structure for me to fulfill my dreams—instead there is harassment, invalidation, evaluation with intent to nullify and rampant human rights abuses. It is like you wake up to find you took the road to hell when you thought you had taken the road to freedom.
The tech works when applied in a standard way and creates an environment where one truly can thrive. It does not work within a broken system and it is quite futile to try to make it so.
Dear Geir,
I think this is an important point that you bring up. In fact, it’s the precise one that I have considered many times since breaking my allegiance to the current church management. It’s a Catch-22, either I am OTVlll and am exercising my hard earned self determinism and personal integrity (Truth Revealed and all that), seeing the outpoints, contradictions, force, unnecessary threats, staff abuses, squirelling of tech and admin and am not afraid of voicing my objections despite the personal danger it has invited, or I am the overused “failed case” which only points to church failures to apply “standard” tech to me despite the Golden Age of Tech and all the other “corrected tech” applications. Either way, as you say, the system is broke.
As more and more force is used on OTVlls and Vllls to get them to comply to whatever “emergency-of-the-day” is created by Miscavage, just that many more OTs will begin to realize how much they are being controlled and used. And once they find out that there is no one in upper management who cares about what’s going on, that reports go unheeded, etc, they will come around. More importantly, they will start to look behind the scene as to where all of the insanity is originating from..that’s when it all becomes clear.
Congratulations! You have reached conclusions, and published them broadly, that have been common knowledge for many years in the Freezone – but you have the stature and the opportunity to spread them within the church.
As one who left the CoS ballistically mid OT VII about twenty years ago, I welcome you to the group of those who see the merits, but also the flaws, in the whole thing.
Hang in there, you are making a difference!
New sad article from the Guardian. Long read but worth it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/29/scientology-france-legal
Thank You for having the strength, honesty, integrity, and fortitude to apply your doubt formula and bring it to the full light of day. Your solution ends the fighting and opens the world to examine Ron’s works, his virtues, his faults, his life – both the good and the not so good, after all, he was and perhaps is … human. The insanity exercised on both sides can stop and heal.
The information system has been closed for a long time. Force and Power are diametrically opposed. Force closes it. Power opens it.
Hey good stuff…keep up the good work! 🙂
Hey good stuff…keep up the good work! 🙂
Excellent site, keep up the good work
Excellent site, keep up the good work
This blog rocks! I gotta say, that I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read…
-Bill-Bartmann