The Scientology Forum passes the 10000 mark

With more than 10000 posts after its inception 4 months ago, scnforum.org has established itself as a unique place on the Internet.

It is one of the very few places where people can freely discuss Scientology in a balanced environment free from trolling, mud-throwing and exposure to upper level confidential material.

The posts are of high quality – thought provoking and sometimes mind boggling – from detailed discussions on the e-meter, auditing tech, Scientology basics and wins from outside the church to discussions of the CST vaults, current church management and the current scene within the church and to discussions on logic, theta, reincarnation and subjective versus objective truth.

I take my hat off to the contributors. They have shown that it is possible to co-create a high quality forum for discussion on Scientology – something the current church will never approve of as they are firmly opposed to such free speech.

Thank you all, and a personal thanks to the moderators who have made my life easier.

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Announcing: OSLO May 16

OSLO: Operation Scientology Lineup, Oslo

I hereby announce a Scientology round table conference in Oslo on the 16th of May 2010.

The purpose of the conference is to see if we could make a plan for Scientology’s future. Independents and freezoners alike would be invited to a day of talks and to forge strategies to handle the current scene.

There will be no speeches and no set agenda except for the above. Each participant covers his or her cost (travel, room & board). No entrance fees (I will cover the conference space at a suitable hotel).

The following day, on the 17th of May you can witness the Norwegian national holiday – a spectacle worth seeing.

If you are interested in a day of fun, meeting highly trained independent practitioners, OTs, former executives of the church and others interested in putting Scientology straight, simply drop me an e-mail: g@isene.com

You may ask for your attendance to be anonymous up until the conference day.

An epiphany about you

Yesterday I had an enlightening talk with a good friend. He told me about an epiphany ha has had lately. It dawned on me that he may have spotted something very fundamental. Hence this blog post. Here goes:

It should be all about YOU

It should be about how you can reach your goals and dreams. How you can be a better father. Or mother. How you can be better in your profession, a better friend and reach your potentials. It should be about YOUR personal integrity, honesty and goodness of heart. It should be all about YOU.

What should?

Scientology.

What is more important, the hammer or the house? The tool or the product?

Scientology is a tool to help you build a better life for yourself. It is only the tool. It’s the hammer. Your life is the house.

As long as the tool remains the tool and not the subject of worship, the focus will remain on building the house. But when the focus is on the hammer, the house will suffer.

Scientology has become a subject of worship. The parishioners are there for Scientology rather than Scientology being there for the people.

Scientology should never ascend to a fetish. Neither should L. Ron Hubbard. Worshiping Hubbard is akin to worshiping the maker of hammers, and that is even further from focusing on building houses.

This I believe embodies the problem in Scientology today. It may have been the problem since the early days but the worship of Scientology has been increasing over the years. Is this the WHY for the cult-label?

Let’s get the focus back to YOU.

I think Jason Beghe hit the nail on the head with this one.

Comments and discussions

Book release: Six months in the open

I have just compiled my first six months of blogging into a book titled “Six months in the open”. I have added new background information giving the reader an insight into why some articles were written and bits and pieces not covered before.

It’s a short walk over to my home page, http://www.isene.com to grab yourself a PDF copy of the book. The book is free. No strings attached.

LRH and the tech (from scnforum.org)

After a long discussion on L. Ron Hubbard, one of the main contributors on The Scientology Forum, Vinaire sums it up quite intelligently:

How does it matter what LRH is or was?

Does the Law of Gravity depend on Newton’s character?

Does the Theory of Relativity would change depending on how Einstein is perceived?

The truth is that knowledge stands by itself. Knowledge is not belief that it is affected by a belief in the person who announced it. Most of us were attracted toward Scientology by its promise of clearing up our confusions, and NOT by the personality of Hubbard.

Attempts to tie the knowledge in Scientology to the identity of Hubbard, tells me the following:

(1) That person is trying to put a value to the knowledge in Scientology by evaluating the identity of Hubbard.

(2) That person lacks a datum of comparable magnitude to directly evaluate the knowledge in Scientology.

(3) That person got hurt, or did not get what he wanted from Scientology, and is looking for somebody to blame.

(4) That person is still confused, even after all that “Scientology” and feels betrayed.

(5) That person is still trying to handle what he thought Scientology would handle for him.

(6) Underlying this brilliant display of “critical thinking” lies a confusion, which, this “critical thinking” is unable to handle.

(7) THINKING, by itself, resolves nothing. Brilliant thinking only tells you where to look. It is LOOKING that ultimately resolves the confusion.

(8 ) “Failure” in THINKING comes from unwillingness to LOOK.

(9) People who are engaging in counter-arguments here are also failing to LOOK.

(10) LOOKING is senior to “critical thinking” any day of the year.

L. Ron Hubbard on disconnection

As the Church of Scientology has just released the Advanced Clinical Course lectures on CDs, we find some very interesting data on disconnection. I bring you these fair use quotes from a lecture called “Attitude and Conduct of Scientology” (4th London ACC, 3rd November 1955) straight from LRH:

“…the arduous lesson along this line is that no-communication lists, revocation/suspension of certificates, court action of any kind whatsoever within the realm of Scientology and so forth, is not only – not only difficult to do but does not work. That’s just the end of it. It just doesn’t work.It’s for the sea gulls. That might work in Gestetner Limited or Westinghouse, but it does not work in Scientology. Got that?”

“It’s because they are people of good intention. And by saying that these people are not fit to associate with us anymore, we have told a lie of magnitude. This is not true. It’s never true. You got it?”

“Our inability to understand the actions of other Scientologists has a very fascinating barrier. The limitation on our understanding is simply this: we say they have bad intentions, and that is a lie. Got it?”

“So the whole situation is liable to enturbulate around that postulated bad intention. That’s what enturbulates the situation. That makes a lie. “The situation then becomes unsolvable. Because we’ve entered a changing factor called a lie into it.”

“The most valuable asset we have, actually, is our ability to understand, to do the right thing, to be kind, to be decent.”

“Well, I hate to unsettle a very stable datum, if it does unsettle it. But the only way anything ever does resolve is by letting your own kind heart reach through. That’s the only way it ever does solve. “And it never solves by being tough.”

“What do we really have of value in the organizations of Scientology? The only thing we have of value, actually, is Scientology, an understanding of life, increasing ability to communicate, a good concept and grip on reality and the ability to like guys. That’s all you got.”

“And there’s only one more thing that we could know that would make us all feel very, very relaxed about the whole thing. There isn’t a person anywhere in Scientology who has bad intentions for Scientologists or their fellow man. And that point all by itself is very well worth thinking about the next time some trouble arises in your vicinity, because that is the truth. And if you handle a situation with that in mind, you will solve the situation.”

Discussions on this at The Scientology Forum.

The ultimate betrayal

What would be the ultimate betrayal?

It would be asking a person for his most wanted improvement, promising you will help him and then break your promise. It would be asking for a person’s “ruin” (that which is the most detrimental to his life), give him utter certainty that you can fix it and then not deliver.

As you ask for the person’s greatest wish for improvement, you run the risk of the greatest upset if you do not follow through. It’s not like promising to fix his car and then walk away or telling him you will help him understand Norwegian and then ditching him. It’s taking what he really, really wants fixed and then fail him. This would be the ultimate betrayal.

I believe this is what causes the intense emotions we so often see in ex-scientologists. It touches, or rips apart, the thread of dreams, of hope and of trust. Because the Church of Scientology so often does not deliver.

It boils down to over selling and bad expectation management.

The problem may stem from the Policy Letter entitled “Dissemination Drill” where L. Ron Hubbard states: “Once a person is aware of the ruin, you bring to understanding that Scientology can handle the condition found […] This is done by simply stating that Scientology can, or by using data to show how it can“. The key to any successful expectation management is the second part of that last sentence. One would expect a person that wants his worst ruin handled that he would like to have plenty of data on how it will be handled. One would expect him to want details on how it will be fixed and how long it will take. Lots of details and less glossy PR. And it is really dangerous to promise any cure in the first place as that can easily institute what Hubbard calls a “hidden standard”. Def.: “A hidden standard is a problem a person thinks must be solved before auditing can be seen to work” (Auditing is Scientology therapy).

The usual scene is that a person is indeed given a hidden standard by a promise that Scientology will cure his ruin. And if auditing or training does not work as fast as the person expects it to, he will feel betrayed, often massively so.

It is not that Scientology will not make a person more able. It is that a blanket promise of improvements will set the person up for a loss. Maybe the worst of all losses.

My own ruin was fairly easy to handle with Scientology communications training and auditing. I was a shy nerd, unable to pick up any girls. Scientology effectively fixed that. After that initial big improvement, I tended to not have any expectations of superpower gains or that my life would be a cloud 9 experience. I was in it for the adventure and I had a “wait and see what is next”-attitude. And I had plenty of much bigger gains than getting rid of my shyness as I progressed up the Scientology levels. I had few hidden standards or unhandled expectations (I had one that was given to me early on). Since I could experience my gains without having to measure them up against a problem that was a “yard stick” comparison for auditing workability, I did very well as a Scientologist. I consider myself lucky given the “out tech” practiced by the church. I highly recommend the Scientology technology – and for those new to Scientology, a service called “Life Repair” really does wonders. However, I do not recommend getting the service in the church.

But if your ruin is more elusive or the church puts you on some auditing or training not tailored for your issue, you may be heading for a major disappointment. And there are so many out there who are bitterly disappointed by their Scientology experience. And the numbers are growing coinciding with the increased focus on glossy PR and squeezing more money and more contribution time to “off-policy” projects. More demands from you and less delivering to you.

Over selling and bad expectation management is a screaming outpoint with the Church of Scientology leading to the ultimate betrayal of way too many people.

Leave your comments at The Scientology Forum.

The InterNatter – strike two. In come Scientology Facts!

I highly commend all the great people on The Scientology Forum for their contributions. I feel it has provided a higher density of facts and sound debates that most comparable places on the net.

It would be great if we could capture the facts in the various discussions of the forum and build a wiki of facts. Not opinions, but facts. Verifiable facts. A Scientology Wikipedia in the spirit of scnforum.org (same rules but without any opinions).

I could see compilations of useful references (links as not to poke the CoS Copyright tiger too much), facts about membership counts, facts about org stats (one page per org), facts about Ideal Orgs, pages for notable people (one page per person like Mary Sue, Ken Urqhart, Dan Koon…), historical facts etc.

What about scnfacts.org?

What do you think?

Media & The Geir FAQ

New media coverage in the St. Petersburg Times: “Three of Scientology’s elite parishioners keep faith, but leave the church”

And for new readers of this blog, here are some frequent questions I get and my answers:

Q: Why did you leave the church?
A: Read my About page.

Q: Are you still a Scientologist?
A: Yes indeed.

Q: What are your purposes regarding Scientology?
A: 1) To stop the abuses in the church, 2) To help the general public differentiate between Scientology and the church and 3) To help make the Scientology philosophy free for everyone.

Q: What do you mean with “To help make the Scientology philosophy free for everyone”?
A: Read “LRH4ALL“, “Monopoly on freedom” and “Open Sourcing Scientology”

Q: What are your views on the Scientology and on the church now?
A: Read “My positions”

Q: What will it take for you to go back to the church?
A: A reform handling every reason why I left (see my About page). Also read “The ideal scene”

Q: What are you doing now?
A: Lots. Living life to the fullest 🙂 I am running The Scientology Forum (scnforum.org. See also my homepage.

Q: How can I contact you?
A: By e-mail: g@isene.com

More questions will be answered by browsing the Navigation page.

You may also ask me questions directly by leaving a comment on this blog.

Further discussion at the forum.

BTW: Happy New Year

If Scientology conquered the world…

During my last year as a member of the Church of Scientology, I held many seminars on free will and personal integrity. I also conducted an informal mini-survey where I asked Scientologists what the world would be if Scientology really won out.

Several answers were surprising, some unnerving.

As a Scientologist, it’s easy to envision the really nice parts of such a scenario: “A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights…“. (L. Ron Hubbard, The aims of Scientology). A clear world could be a rational world where people are free to be themselves.

There are also dark sides to the scenario of a Scientology conquered world. They are illustrated by a sample of the answers I got to my mini-survey:

“Everyone would be on a standard course schedule”
“Everything would be run by statistics”
“There would be no political system as we know it”
“There would be no other religions”
“International management would run the show”

I leave it to you to imagine how such a world would be. You may leave your thoughts as a comment here or follow the discussion at The Scientology Forum (scnforum.org)