Scientology

[steve_bank]

L. Ron Hubbard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Before Scientology he creted Dianetics.

There is a mythology to Scientology. Thetan another version of god or vosmic spirit.

Thetan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In Scientology, the concept of the thetan (/ˈθeɪtən/) is similar to the concept of self, or the spirit or soul as found in several belief systems. This similarity is not total, though. The term is derived from the Greek letter Θ, theta, which in Scientology beliefs represents "the source of life, or life itself."[1] In Scientology it is believed that it is the thetan, not the central nervous system, which commands the body through communication points[clarify].[2]

Thetans have been described in the Applied Religious Philosophy of Scientology in a number of ways.

• A "thetan is an immortal spiritual being; the human soul."[3]
• "The being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body."[1]
• "A thetan is not a thing, a thetan is the creator of things."[1]
• A thetan is "the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual."[1]

According to Scientology, the concept for the thetan was first discovered in the early 1950s by the science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, drawing on reports by Dianetics practitioners, who in session, found clients came up with descriptions of past-life experiences. Although the term is comparable to a soul, a thetan can be incarnated many times over lifetimes. An important goal in Scientology is to develop a greater awareness and higher levels of ability to operate in the physical universe as an Operating Thetan.[4]

Hubbard was a 3rd rate scifi writer. There is a weak alleged link to Alister Crowley.


The E-Meter, galvanic skin response meter, is part of the getting clear process. Hubbard adaped it from lie detectors. In todays prices you can build one for about $100.

Clear (Scientology) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

n Dianetics and Scientology, Clear is one of the major ostensible "states" practitioners strive to reach on their way up the Bridge to Total Freedom. The state of Clear is reached when a person supposedly becomes free of the influence of engrams, unwanted emotions or painful traumas not readily available to the conscious mind. Scientologists believe that human beings accumulate anxieties, psychosomatic illnesses, and aberration due to receiving engrams throughout their current or past lives, and that by applying Dianetics, every single person can reach the state of Clear.[1]

A Clear is defined by the Church of Scientology as a person who no longer has a "reactive mind", and is therefore free from the reactive mind's negative effects. A Clear is said to be "at cause over" (that is, in control of) their "mental energy" (their thoughts), and able to think clearly even when faced with the very situations that in earlier times caused them difficulty. The next level of spiritual development is that of an Operating Thetan. A person who has not reached a state of Clear is called a "pre-clear."[2]

Dianetics claims that a person's awareness is influenced by the stimulus-response nature of the reactive mind. Achieving the state of Clear means a person has overcome the reactive mind and is in complete control of their analytical mind. According to Hubbard: "A Clear is a being who no longer has his own reactive mind, and therefore suffers none of the ill effects the reactive mind can cause. The Clear has no engrams which, when restimulated, throw out the correctness of his computations by entering hidden and false data."[3] Sociologist Roy Wallis noted, “Being Clear meant being able to do all those things which one could currently not do, and to which one aspired so desperately.”[4] It is estimated that the cost of reaching the Clear state in Scientology is $128,000.[5]

 

[steve_bank]

Well I did it again, fouled up the title.

Please edit to Scientology.

 

[steve_bank]

E-meter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The E-meter, originally named the electropsychometer, is an electronic device for displaying the electrodermal activity (EDA) of a human being. The device is used for auditing in Scientology[1] and divergent groups.[2][3] The efficacy and legitimacy of Scientology's use of the E-meter has been subject to extensive debate and litigation[4][5][6] and in accordance with a federal court order, the Church of Scientology now publishes disclaimers in its books and publications declaring that the E-meter "by itself does nothing" and that it is used specifically for spiritual purposes.[7]

Such devices have been used as a research tool in many human studies, and as one of several components of the Leonarde Keeler's polygraph (lie detector) system, which has been widely criticized as ineffective or pseudoscientific by legal experts and psychologists.[8][9]

The Church claims that the E-meter can be used to assess the emotion charge of single words, whole sentences, and questions, as well as indicating the general state of the subject when the operator is not speaking.[39] Few users of the E-meter claim that it does anything to the subject. To most, it does no more than suggest to the operator a change of mental, emotional, or parasympathetic nervous state or activity.[48][49]

New religious movement scholar Douglas Cowan writes that Scientologists cannot progress along the Bridge to Total Freedom without an E-meter, and that Hubbard even told Scientologists to buy two E-meters, in the event that one of them fails to operate.[27] According to anthropologist Roy Rappaport, the E-meter is a ritual object, an object that "stand indexically for something intangible".[50]

What’s Inside a $5,000 Scientology E-Meter?

A Swiss maker disassembled a central tool of Scientology, the E-Meter, and finds a remarkably sophisticated and over-engineered device.

www.vice.com

 

[steve_bank]

Auditing (Scientology) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In Dianetics and Scientology, auditing is a process whereby the 'auditor' takes an individual through times in their current or past lives with the purpose of ridding the individual of negative influences from past events or behaviors. Auditing is meant to bring the individual to "Clear" status, thus an individual being audited is known as a PC or "preclear".

Auditing was invented by L. Ron. Hubbard as an integral part of Dianetics, first introduced in 1950. In 1951, auditing also became a core practice Scientology. The E-meter, a device to measure electrodermal activity, became an integral part of auditing in scientology. According to the Church of Scientology, "one formal definition of auditing is the action of asking a person a question (which he can understand and answer), getting an answer to that question and acknowledging him or her for that answer."[1]

L Ron Hubbard claimed auditing provided many benefits including unsupported medical and psychological health effects. Since 1971, Scientology now publishes disclaimers in its books and publications declaring that the E-Meter "by itself does nothing", and that it is used specifically for spiritual purposes, not for mental or physical health.[2]

E-meter​

Main article: E-meter



Mark Super VII Quantum E-meter

Most auditing sessions employ a device called the Hubbard Electropsychometer or E-Meter. The E-Meter is not a custom electrodermal activity measurement device, instead it measures the resistance of the body (flesh, bones, liquids and all; skin resistance is only a small part of the total resistance being measured) from one hand through the breast to the other hand. It measures changes in the electrical resistance of the preclear by passing a small electric current (typically in the range from 50 µA to 120 µA) through the preclear's body by means of a pair of tin-plated tubes originally much like empty soup cans, attached to the meter by wires and held by the preclear during auditing. These changes in electrical resistance are allegedly a reliable and precise indication of changes in the reactive mind of the preclear[citation needed].

According to L. Ron Hubbard the development of the E-Meter enabled auditing techniques and made it more precise. Later, the E-Meter was used to identify which processes should (and could) be run[4] and equally crucially, to determine when to stop running a particular action. As a repair tool, the E-Meter reacts to a list of possible difficulties and relevant phrases, called out by the auditor, helping to guide the auditor to the difficulty.[5] Hubbard clarified how the E-Meter should be used in conjunction with auditing:

HCO Bulletin 3 December 1978
One of the governing laws of auditing is that you don't run unreading items. It doesn't matter what you are auditing. You don't run unreading items. And you don't run unreading flows. You don't run an unreading anything. Ever. For any reason.
Auditing is aimed at reactivity. You run what reacts on the meter because it reacts and is therefore part of the reactive mind. A read means there is charge present and available to run. Running reading items, flows and questions is the only way to make a pc better. This is our purpose in auditing.
L. Ron Hubbard

Hubbard claimed that the device also has such sensitivity that it can measure whether or not fruits can experience pain, claiming in 1968 that tomatoes "scream when sliced."[6][7][8]

Scientology teaches that individuals are immortal souls or spirits (called thetans by Scientology) and are not limited to a single lifetime. Scientologists state that the E-Meter aids the auditor in locating subliminal memories ("engrams", "incidents", and "implants") of past events in a thetan's current life and in previous ones. In such Scientology publications as Have You Lived Before This Life, Hubbard wrote about past life experiences dating back billions and even trillions of years.[9]

When various foundations of Dianetics were formed in the 1950s, auditing sessions were a hybrid of confession, counseling and psychotherapy. According to Passas and Castillo, the E-Meter was used to "disclose truth to the individual who is being processed and thus free him spiritually."[10]

 

[TomC]

Well I did it again, fouled up the title.

Please edit to Scientology.

Wheee!
My first ever edit as mod.
Tom

 

[Tharmas]

MY ADVENTURE WITH SCIENTOLOGY

Way back, say about 45 years ago, when I was drinking heavily (alright, alcoholically) and having problems with my wife, I took a “free” psychology test that appeared on my windshield one day. It turned out to be distributed by the Church of Scientology and was a bait to get you in the doors. A bait which I took, knowing nothing about Scientology.

They offered a free course, comprising several hour-long taped lectures by L Ron Hubbard. You listened to the tapes onsite, on a small room adorned with many books, mostly about Scientology, but also a number of encyclopedias and dictionaries. We were encouraged to look up anything we had questions about.

I actually found the lectures entertaining at first. Hubbard seemed engaging and, although he obviously had an enormous ego, seemed fairly intelligent. Then cracks began to appear. He claimed he could disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity. His “proof” was easily debunked, as a trip to one of the available encyclopedias quickly confirmed.

Second, the doorman. Yes, the church had a doorman. He stood in the street and opened the doors for people. He didn’t seem to have any other duties. He wore an enormous doorman’s suit, several sizes too large, of which he was terrifically proud. The impression was not one I found myself looking up to. I didn’t find myself hoping that I too could become a doorman one day, after passing enough of the courses they offered.

Then there were the church “services,” which were offered Sunday mornings and consisted mostly of informal socials, but which were openly presented as a necessity to preserve their tax-free status. That didn’t seem right. Then one of the sharper individuals I met in the church, the secretary, or whatever his title was, took me aside and told me I had a future in the church, if I applied myself. “A lot of the members here are not that bright,” he told me, “but you are. You could go far.” Again, that didn’t go over too well with me.

At one point some bigwigs from the “Sea Org” in LA showed up. These guys were treated like royalty. I was invited to a special meeting with them. It turned out they were pushing a multi-level marketing scheme using the church members as patsies. I didn’t have to be told this was a scam

So I read a couple of exposes of the church, which opened my eyes. I mentioned a few of the points they raised with the secretary, who quickly told me the books I read were forbidden. I was ushered upstairs to the auditing room and hooked up to an E-Meter, meaning I grasped two “cans” as they called them, and an “auditor” questioned me while reading the meter. Now I was so drunk at the time that you could have put fifty thousand volts through me and not gotten a response on the E-Meter (adapting the dead parrot skit from Monty Python). They asked me if I’d been drinking, and I said no. They asked me about the books I’d read. They told me not to mention them to any other member.

Then they let me go. They told me not to come back, and that all members would be told to avoid me and report me if I tried to contact anyone in the church. That was fine with me. So I escaped scot-free. There was never any harassment of me by the church, like you sometimes hear about.

 

[steve_bank]

Well I did it again, fouled up the title.

Please edit to Scientology.

Wheee!
My first ever edit as mod.
Tom

Thanks. Don't let it go to your head....

 

[steve_bank]

Hubbard appears to have been a con artist starting with Dianetics.

In the 80s I was in Portland Or. Comming hme from work I chnaged busses near a Scientolgy center.

I was waiting for the light to cross the street and a woman came out of shadows and asked me if I knew anything about the Scientolgy place across the street. I said no, she said why don't we both go check it out. I saw her there at other times.

In the 70s in Hartford Ct I was stopped on the street and asked if I wanted to take a poll. The guy had a copy of Dianetics under the clipboard. The poll turned out to be the Dianetics 'personality test' designed to hook you into a conversation.

Scientology has a well know attack squad that goes after negative comments on the net.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

L. Ron Hubbard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Before Scientology he creted Dianetics.

There is a mythology to Scientology. Thetan another version of god or vosmic spirit.

Thetan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In Scientology, the concept of the thetan (/ˈθeɪtən/) is similar to the concept of self, or the spirit or soul as found in several belief systems. This similarity is not total, though. The term is derived from the Greek letter Θ, theta, which in Scientology beliefs represents "the source of life, or life itself."[1] In Scientology it is believed that it is the thetan, not the central nervous system, which commands the body through communication points[clarify].[2]

Thetans have been described in the Applied Religious Philosophy of Scientology in a number of ways.

• A "thetan is an immortal spiritual being; the human soul."[3]
• "The being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body."[1]
• "A thetan is not a thing, a thetan is the creator of things."[1]
• A thetan is "the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual."[1]

According to Scientology, the concept for the thetan was first discovered in the early 1950s by the science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, drawing on reports by Dianetics practitioners, who in session, found clients came up with descriptions of past-life experiences. Although the term is comparable to a soul, a thetan can be incarnated many times over lifetimes. An important goal in Scientology is to develop a greater awareness and higher levels of ability to operate in the physical universe as an Operating Thetan.[4]

Hubbard was a 3rd rate scifi writer. There is a weak alleged link to Alister Crowley.


The E-Meter, galvanic skin response meter, is part of the getting clear process. Hubbard adaped it from lie detectors. In todays prices you can build one for about $100.

Clear (Scientology) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

n Dianetics and Scientology, Clear is one of the major ostensible "states" practitioners strive to reach on their way up the Bridge to Total Freedom. The state of Clear is reached when a person supposedly becomes free of the influence of engrams, unwanted emotions or painful traumas not readily available to the conscious mind. Scientologists believe that human beings accumulate anxieties, psychosomatic illnesses, and aberration due to receiving engrams throughout their current or past lives, and that by applying Dianetics, every single person can reach the state of Clear.[1]

A Clear is defined by the Church of Scientology as a person who no longer has a "reactive mind", and is therefore free from the reactive mind's negative effects. A Clear is said to be "at cause over" (that is, in control of) their "mental energy" (their thoughts), and able to think clearly even when faced with the very situations that in earlier times caused them difficulty. The next level of spiritual development is that of an Operating Thetan. A person who has not reached a state of Clear is called a "pre-clear."[2]

Dianetics claims that a person's awareness is influenced by the stimulus-response nature of the reactive mind. Achieving the state of Clear means a person has overcome the reactive mind and is in complete control of their analytical mind. According to Hubbard: "A Clear is a being who no longer has his own reactive mind, and therefore suffers none of the ill effects the reactive mind can cause. The Clear has no engrams which, when restimulated, throw out the correctness of his computations by entering hidden and false data."[3] Sociologist Roy Wallis noted, “Being Clear meant being able to do all those things which one could currently not do, and to which one aspired so desperately.”[4] It is estimated that the cost of reaching the Clear state in Scientology is $128,000.[5]

In 1983 I was feeling very isolated and bored having finished college and having returned home. The winter weather was bad, and I was cooped up in the house. I remember seeing an ad on TV for a book entitled Dianetics. I hoped that by reading Dianetics I could achieve freedom from the emotionally difficult experiences I was having. It didn't work, and when I got to the end of the book it advised my seeking a Church of Scientology for "treatment." I knew then that Dianetics was not worth bothering with. Years later I heard that Hubbard had started his Church of Scientology on a bet that he could not start his own religion.

The moral of this story is that religion can be and sometimes is started under very suspicious circumstances. Scientology gives us a recent example of deception and corruption at the heart of a religion. Since Scientology is a recent invention, we have a relatively good view of it. Older religions like Christianity are more difficult to scrutinize because so much about their beginnings are lost in the mist of time. If Christianity had been invented at the same time as Scientology was, then we might well clearly see corruption and deception at its birth too.

 

[steve_bank]

People in distress are traditional targets for religion and con artists.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

https://vinaire.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/history_of_man.pdf

Elron Hubbard's "A History Of Man".

"By the way, if you cannot take a warning, your discussion of these incidents with theuninitiated in Scientology can produce havoc. Should you describe “the clam” to some one,you may restimulate it in him to the extent of causing severe jaw hinge pain. One such victim, after hearing about a clam death could not use his jaws for three days. Another “had to have” two molars extracted because of the resulting ache. The clam and all these incidents are very much present in the GE and can be restimulated easily. So do not be sadistic with your describing them to people— unless, of course, they belligerently claim that Man has no past memory for his evolution. In that event, describe away. It makes believers over and aboveenriching your friend the dentist who, indeed, could not exist without these errors and incidents
on the evolutionary line."