If Study Tech Ruled the World

[airhead]

What do you mean, the concept was abandoned? Does it still say that in the study tapes? How exactly do they teach rote acceptance of data only?

I haven't seen any CofS checksheets since 1995, but I used to be a sup so please be specific.

Paul

OMG!!! You mean you haven't tried any of the Gold Age of Yech courses?? (You lucky thing, you!)

The new student hat is full of mind-numbing memorization, parrot repetition and perfect recall.

And NOTHING on evaluation of the information.

Just perfect memorization pounded into your brain with ten inch nails.

Really, you literally have to memorize just about everything and be able to repeat it back (to a wall and then to your twin) with absolute, 100% perfection.

And you get asked a long list of questions which you have to answer JUST ONE WAY, and you get flunked even if you are logically correct. If the drill sheet didn't say it, you get a flunk.

 

[airhead]

A lot of stuff changed like that - was directly contradicted later.

I think there are 2 Scientologys.

The first Scn existed from 1950 to around 1965. It was filled with all-american ideals like freedom of speech and the stuff you find in the Creed and in the basic books.

And the 2nd one, beginning in 1966 or so, laid over the top of this one and violated all the original ideals - and reasons people got involved in the first place. The 2nd Scientology was filled with JUSTICE ACTIONS and policies on "Sources of Trouble", Supressive Acts, High Crimes and expulsions, Stats and ethics conditions, etc.

The 2nd one still exists today, but a Church of Scientologist never sees it. They are walking around in the 2nd Scn and still believing they are in the 1st Scn.

Whenever they see the 2nd Scientology at work, they immediately think "That's not Scientology!" And they look away. Or they may write a KR or something.

They were just never told that there are 2 Scientologys!

The first to get you involved, and the second to exploit you.

I agree totally.

Sad.

 

[Zinjifar]

alanzo and I disagree on the 'Two Scientology' theory. While there *is* a difference between the 50s-mid 60s, the actual change was *money* and the ability to enforce itself.

Had ron had the ability in '53, Scientology would have been no less totalitarian, although, admittedly, Ron *did* get crazier in the later '60s.

Zinj

 

[GreyLensman]

Axiom

I'm mixed about study tech because I recall my bogging issues and MUs all being centered around Scientology definitions, twisting meaning so that common words are abducted by new concepts. Maybe I have a little BPC still.

EP

I think you nailed it, I was thinking in terms of high achieving students; medical students and law students who are pretty damn capable.

Study tech is good for diagnosing remedial students, but will only get in the way of the fast and capable.

Per Scientology universities would be empty as they do not have word clearing and all the students would have blown.

I have seen MU phenomena and experience it, but I also think you can plow through a text and learn a hell of a lot from it without clearing everything. I think it's a minor thing, MUs that is.

I've found, since out, that I learn by reading and doing, finding what doesn't work, reading more, doing more, and quickly have a professional competence, and with a bit more reading a full understanding.

Most writings on subjects define the words of the subject eventually. They could do it more linearly - define the gaddamned word BEFORE using it, some authors seem to think that you reading it and NOT understanding it makes you pay attention more to the definition. I rarely use a dictionary except when I am writing - and then to clarify that the word can be used the way I want to use it.

Lack of mass was always more real to me. Clearing words was arduous, slow, caused me to invalidate what I did know and anticipate the phenomena. I was handed a glib label when I walked in (I was not) and handed MU phenomenon for years after that. I invalidated what I knew, had difficulty, knowing there must be words I didn't understand that would explain why I kept feeling that something wasn't entirely right.

Study tech has some value, but I think more important is that people learn differently, requiring different cues and balances of mass and doing and book study, and that finding that balance for a person, plus watching for gradients, words and mass itself as possible issues, would work more broadly.

 

[Voltaire's Child]

OMG!!! You mean you haven't tried any of the Gold Age of Yech courses?? (You lucky thing, you!)

The new student hat is full of mind-numbing memorization, parrot repetition and perfect recall.

And NOTHING on evaluation of the information.

Just perfect memorization pounded into your brain with ten inch nails.

Really, you literally have to memorize just about everything and be able to repeat it back (to a wall and then to your twin) with absolute, 100% perfection.

And you get asked a long list of questions which you have to answer JUST ONE WAY, and you get flunked even if you are logically correct. If the drill sheet didn't say it, you get a flunk.

I'm no fan of "GAT", but I did want to demur just a bit here. I did the Student Hat both the old way and the new way. And,yes, the old pre GAT Student Hat is much much better, and yes, the GAT drills have a LOT of memorization on them. But not all GAT drills are the (annoying, dreaded, pointless) "patter drills" which have the memorization. Some have situations and then the person is asked "what would you do?" and the answer does not have to be verbatim. I hasten to add- it was no great series of revelations, it didn't really do anything, but still, there were those kind of drills, too.

There still are other essays and practicals on the Student Hat that are non GAT related, too, but, like I said, the GAT-ification was no improvement and we'd all be better off without it.

 

[airhead]

I'm no fan of "GAT", but I did want to demur just a bit here. I did the Student Hat both the old way and the new way. And,yes, the old pre GAT Student Hat is much much better, and yes, the GAT drills have a LOT of memorization on them. But not all GAT drills are the (annoying, dreaded, pointless) "patter drills" which have the memorization. Some have situations and then the person is asked "what would you do?" and the answer does not have to be verbatim. I hasten to add- it was no great series of revelations, it didn't really do anything, but still, there were those kind of drills, too.

There still are other essays and practicals on the Student Hat that are non GAT related, too, but, like I said, the GAT-ification was no improvement and we'd all be better off without it.

You're right, cousin fluff. I guess I'm having selective memory.

Much as I hated getting my hands dirty, clay demos were (for me) far more useful in retaining information than talking to walls to achieve total memorization. HATED that!

 

[Voltaire's Child]

Oh, I did, too. There was one particular patter drill on the Student Hat that was really lengthy. It was sheer purgatory!

 

[Challenge]

alanzo and I disagree on the 'Two Scientology' theory. While there *is* a difference between the 50s-mid 60s, the actual change was *money* and the ability to enforce itself.

Had ron had the ability in '53, Scientology would have been no less totalitarian, although, admittedly, Ron *did* get crazier in the later '60s.

Zinj

He was just as totalitarian in 1952 as he was in mid-60's. People just didn't talk about it. Remember that there was no Internet. communication was by letter, 'phone, and for the most part by word-of-mouth. We didn't have cell phones and Blackberries and all the technology that we have today to make things known.
In 1966, Ron said" OK. You guys have it all now. I'm going South." And he started undercutting. The tech got watered down for the peeps who didn't get it the first time around, watered down again and again thus keeping people hooked and paying paying paying for promises that are never kept.

chlng

 

[Royal Prince Xenu]

Turn (verb)

The worst thing I hated about word clearing was going through numbered "meanings" that were all based on the same idea in the first place, e.g., "turn" which basically refers to the rotation of an object. You can turn a device on or off (even though there's no rotation in the switch). You can turn the volume up or down (again probably pressing buttons these days). You can turn the hem of a skirt up. You can turn an invitation down. The weather can turn cold leaving a person to turn blue. A photo of DM can turn up in the mail in which case that poor person will turn green. You can turn the pages of a book. You can turn the whole book over. You can turn a screw driver. You can turn around, turn the corner, turn into the wrong lane in traffic. You can turn nasty. Today Carmel turns 50.

I have no problem with looking up the Dictionary and getting the right definition in context (and usually the rest sort of "fall into place"), but no, you had to go through the entire 15-20 meanings when the differences were so subtle that another dictionary editor wouldn't have bothered listing them.

Now I think I'll turn in for the night.

 

[Zinjifar]

But, you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, no matter how many intensives you pay for or correction lists you run.

Zinj

 

[Royal Prince Xenu]

But, you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, no matter how many intensives you pay for or correction lists you run.

Zinj

Which means the org can turn a nice profit, while you turn into a vegetable.

 

[Dulloldfart]

I have no problem with looking up the Dictionary and getting the right definition in context (and usually the rest sort of "fall into place"), but no, you had to go through the entire 15-20 meanings when the differences were so subtle that another dictionary editor wouldn't have bothered listing them.

You were using the wrong dictionary.

I found the most sensible way of being able to follow that HCOB on clearing words - i.e. first find the definition that fits in the context and then clear ALL the other definitions in the dictionary and the derivation and usage notes etc. - was in general terms to "use the simplest dictionary you can get away with."

Most of the time a mid-range dictionary works OK. But not always. If you have to clear, say, "of" for the tenth time, this time because you couldn't define it in the phrase "Church of Scientology" [and it doesn't really mean "having to do with" there ], then find the correct definition in maybe a college-level one or the KTL one [which really is very good for the small common words] and clear that thoroughly, then DUMP that big dictionary and pick up a child's dictionary with four meanings for "of" and go through the motions with those, then clear the derivation in a dictionary that gives good [i.e. sensible and easy-to-clear] explanations without tying you up in word chains on what Medieval Geordie means, and you're done. Then go back to studying using the mid-range dictionary as needed.

Sometimes a child's dictionary works fine most of the time. Then a definition you want isn't in there so you look in the mid-range dictionary. If not there then a college one. If not there then hunt around.

As a sup I noticed that often the people toting around the college-level dictionaries were the ones least able to use them, maybe thinking that using a thick dictionary would improve their literacy level.

If a student would protest going to a simpler dictionary instead of clearing the other 37 definitions for the word they got caught on, I would point out there wasn't really a whole lot of difference between the remaining 37 definitions of that word and any other group of 37 definitions in the dictionary. They didn't help the person in studying the text on the course he was doing, which was the whole point of clearing the word anyway.

Sometimes it WOULD be necessary to do more in the bigger dictionary as the student's attention was hung up in something that only that bigger dictionary would resolve, but as a routine action, no, no, no!

Paul

 

[Voltaire's Child]

I seem to remember that having been changed. Like didn't it used to be that you'd look the word up, scan through the definitions to find the appropriate one, then clear that and use it in sentences? Then, somehow, it changed to clear all the definitions, synonyms, root word, etc, etc, etc...

 

[Stephanie]

I seem to remember that having been changed. Like didn't it used to be that you'd look the word up, scan through the definitions to find the appropriate one, then clear that and use it in sentences? Then, somehow, it changed to clear all the definitions, synonyms, root word, etc, etc, etc...

thats why now they often have the children's dictionary, so you only look up a few definitions, do the synonym if there is one and the derivation, and boingo 1 hour later you've got 5 checksheet points.