I owe him, I just don't want to PAY him...

[thetaCannon]

Hi everyone,

This is my introduction. I first got involved with Scientology for two reasons; I'd been heavily influenced by Landmark Education as a teenager and wanted to know more about how it worked and what its origin was, and because my thesis / research project is a mixture of psychology and comparative religion. Eventually the two paths just converged.

My experience has mostly been a lot of reading, both of official materials and critical essays, personal stories and free zone materials as well. I've gotten a lot out of doing certain kinds of solo processing, and basically studying how processing "is" compared to other transformational products on the market. I also at one point got up close and personal with an org, spent a very tiny amount of time on staff, developed a relationship with a staff member, and saw the quite frightening reality of ethics and security checking as it applies to people who don't toe the line.

Frankly I'm glad that I chose to stay on the periphery, because although there are many things I admire and cherish about Hubbard's work, a lot of the people I met who were on staff scared the heck out of me. The rubbery attitude, the bizarre double-standards (eg no drugs, but ciggies NO PROBLEM), and just the gaping lack of sincere empathy or self-awareness.

Nowadays I potter around with my lefty e-meter, maintain a small shelf of collector's items like copies of my favourite LRH books, and continue to hone my thesis which basically debunks the spiritual aspect of Scientology and recasts processing in a more mainstream psychological context.

My intention in being here is to be with other people who value parts of tech application and training, are curious about the mind, and have some certainty that CofS is really not for them (either any more, or ever ever).

I'm hoping that I can be of some value. A lot of my research work has involved finding scientific validation and studies that independently reinforce what Hubbard was saying. And actually there's quite a lot of that. I'm also interested in offering up thoughts about how Scientology concepts and language has filtered into mainstream thinking, and getting some feedback on that from others.

Thanks so much to the publishers of this board, it's been a big help to me lately.

tC

[Dulloldfart]

Welcome! You sound like an interesting person. Feel free to start posting your stuff.

Paul

[LoneWolf]

Nicely put TC. I’m of like mind. Welcome.

[Ananon]

Hi tC!

!!!

Personally, I think your contribution to the board could be very interesting. Perhaps offering insights from a scientific perspective can help people to understand what happened to them.

As my name indicates, I never was a Scientologist and my overall take of the value of Hubbard's work, is probably a bit less than yours.

I have had a question on my mind though, which I feel Google hasn't been able to answer to my satisfaction. So, when reading your post, I actually figured you're probably the best person to help me out here :-)

My question regards previous lives and auditing. It is my assumption that these are, in fact, illusions induced by the mild hypnosis caused by the repetiviness of the auditing/regression therapy. So your past lives are nothing but fantasies that you are tricked into believing are real memories ('if it's true for you, it's true for you').

There are some webpages supporting this assertion (wikipedia's false memory syndrome for example, or, the Australian Andersson report even though that's rather old). However, I have never seen proper scientific articles (using ERM scans perhaps) that would answer this question properly.

So my question is (sorry, I tend to be longwinded):
What are your thoughts on this matter and what is the research you have used to support your opinion?

Hope you'll be able to give your thoughts on this, and once again, very welcome to the board!

Ananon

[justaguy]

I personally look forward to what you have to say.


Welcome!

[Terril park]

[snip]

Nowadays I potter around with my lefty e-meter, maintain a small shelf of collector's items like copies of my favourite LRH books, and continue to hone my thesis which basically debunks the spiritual aspect of Scientology and recasts processing in a more mainstream psychological context.

My intention in being here is to be with other people who value parts of tech application and training, are curious about the mind, and have some certainty that CofS is really not for them (either any more, or ever ever).

I'm hoping that I can be of some value. A lot of my research work has involved finding scientific validation and studies that independently reinforce what Hubbard was saying. And actually there's quite a lot of that. I'm also interested in offering up thoughts about how Scientology concepts and language has filtered into mainstream thinking, and getting some feedback on that from others.

Thanks so much to the publishers of this board, it's been a big help to me lately.

tC

I think it would be a good idea to examine scientology processing from
a mainstream psychological context.

Would that in fact debunk the spiritual aspects? As another has asked about past lives, this is in fact something done by some therapists, "regression therapy". Not sure how mainstream that is. Do you yourself reject past lives?

[Tiger Lily]

I think it would be a good idea to examine scientology processing from
a mainstream psychological context.

I'm interested in that too.

Welcome to ESMB!

-TL

[Zinjifar]

Welcome aboard

Now, without wanting to be overly negative right off the bat; a couple of questions:

and continue to hone my thesis which basically debunks the spiritual aspect of Scientology and recasts processing in a more mainstream psychological context.

Can you enter a Merry-Go-Ron horse in the Preakness?

A lot of my research work has involved finding scientific validation and studies that independently reinforce what Hubbard was saying.

Do you think that 'finding scientific validation' is a properly scientific starting point? Or, are you willing to accept data that *invalidates* 'what Hubbard was saying' too?

Zinj

[ChuckNorrisCutsMyLawn]

Welcome aboard

Do you think that 'finding scientific validation' is a properly scientific starting point? Or, are you willing to accept data that *invalidates* 'what Hubbard was saying' too?

Zinj

With the vast amount of information already available exposing Hubbard's con game and none ever produced to validate it ... somehow I thinking this thread would have never been started if that was the case, but who knows maybe I'm wrong

[Wisened One]

to ESMB, TC!

Interesting first post, there!

You'll find all kinds of people here, from pure critics to fz'ers and everything in between. (lrh good/rtc and dm bad, lrh was good then went or corrupted bad/rtc dm bad, lrh bad from the get-go/rtc and dm bad, upper tech bad, lower tech good, some tech works, some don't, etc..etc..etc...).

Glad you never got sucked into the stressworld of Staff or the SO!

Looking forward to reading more of your posts.

Michelle