We could have gotten (X) from somewhere else! Stop giving them credit!

[Claire Swazey]

That's something that often has been said on fora. Sometimes in response to something I wrote, often in other discussions between other contributors.

I had the cherry picking (or, if you like, "raisins". Either's fine.) thing going for a long time. I didn't want to be told what to do. I put up with it a while in CofS, eventually left, and figured I'd continue on with the cherry picking. One thing said to me a couple times was that I could, back then, hardly have the right to call myself a Scn'ist when Hubbard himself and the current midgetment wouldn't, yah? Ok, Hubbard wouldn't have liked me as an Indie. (then again, did he truly appreciate ANYONE? I'm not so sure!! Seems to me like it was mainly all about him, see?) In fact, there are people right here who've said it to me. Then now they post that I'm a Scn'ist in sheep's clothing or something. Yet, I wasn't really one back when I was one. I think those people are kind of confused.

I think that some of the concepts are useful. I have seen many of them in other venues totally outside of any Scn entity or book. I get that. I also think that someone could read zero Scn, never do a drop of it, and be incredibly wise. I see people like that all the time. And I don't mean "Oh, they do pretty well considering." No, I think they are wise, often wiser than I. Sometimes smarter, too. Intellectually, common sense wise, you name it.

It's good to read about other methods and principles. Even for those still into Scn. We all should.

Maybe it's ingrained, I don't know. I do think I've unindoctrinated myself completely. The Hubbardite concepts I use are just tools for life. I use other ones, I meditate daily, it's all grist for the mill. Hell, I'm somewhat conservative politically but I espouse liberal type causes when it's something in which I believe. I'm not tied to any one thing. Unlike CofS members and maybe more than a few FZers.

I recently got into a very upsetting situation -nothing to do with Scn- which bugged the hell out of me. I needed it, though, as it was a Life Lesson. Well, to deal with it, I used a combo of business methods and of Scn concepts. Some of those Scn concepts are well known outside Scn. They are just called something different, Hubbard did NOT originate them. Some, though, he did. So what's wrong with that? It's getting me through.

I don't consider good roads good weather to be innately dishonest. I think it's often used that way. I also know for a fact that it's not a Hubbard invention, anyway. You see it all the time in the business world and elsewhere. But I do see posts decrying it as innately dishonest. I disagree.

I don't see a problem with using the tone scale. I don't mean it has no problems or pitfalls. It does. But it's useful and I have put it to good use this week. Could I have handled stuff without knowing the Tone Scale or ARC thingies? I'm sure!! Providing I had the familiarity with that particular wisdom/set of concepts. Would it have worked out as well? I bet it probably would!! Scn is replaceable. It's just another set of ideas and methods out there. Some good, some bad. The real problem gets when you get into "i'm going to always do it this way because it's what I'm told to do/it's what I am."

And just because I can get help, comfort, succor, really good information, metaphysics elsewhere and just because some things Hubbard wrote can be found elsewhere, doesn't mean I can't give Scn a bit of attribution. That may cause some people to brand me as this or that, to claim I think it's all the church that is fucked, not Hubbard, but those people are just foolish and biased. It helps them to categorize people into a little box so that they don't truly have to deal with or wrap their minds around the complexity of human nature.

It's like the conservatives who scream about Liberals all the time or vice versa. They want to demonize the other faction instead of looking at people as complex beings who are part saint and part sinner, part idiot and part savant. Because that's what we are.

I give Hubbard some credit for some interesting and neat ideas. I also give him credit for FreeLoader debts, the RPF, Fair Game, crazy stupid staff contracts, and some truly inconsistent and draconian ethics policies- and a bunch of other stuff. I guess if I actually knew the guy and had to work with him or something, I'd have to decide, thumbs up or thumbs down on Hubbard. But he's dead, and I'm not in his organization. That means I can just look at ideas. Some of them were incredibly BAD. Oh so bad. Oh my god. Bad bad bad.

But if there's one I think I can use and I think it's good, I'm neither going to refrain from doing that and I make no apologies.

And if I see people who say they don't want to use any of them ever, I'm going to applaud them and think "how cool is that? That guy over there's figured out what he needs to do and what he truly believes."

 

[Student of Trinity]

Thing is, I bet I could pick a book at random out of a library, or a webpage at random of the internet, or a TV show from any time in the past forty years; and by carefully picking out cherries, and applying them wisely where appropriate, I'd have some useful life tools there.

A smart person can make a useful tool out of all kinds of material. At some point, for my money, the story isn't about the material having some useful parts, any more. It's about the ingenuity of the person — in this case, you — who made some parts of the material into something useful.

 

[Caliwog]

I think that some of the concepts are useful... That may cause some people to brand me as this or that, to claim I think it's all the church that is fucked, not Hubbard, but those people are just foolish and biased. It helps them to categorize people into a little box so that they don't truly have to deal with or wrap their minds around the complexity of human nature... I give Hubbard some credit for some interesting and neat ideas. I also give him credit for FreeLoader debts, the RPF, Fair Game..

An interesting post, Claire, and a perspective worth sharing.

I fall into the camp of the knee-jerkers who interpret any positive attribution to Hubbard as support for Hubbard. In my experience, nearly all of useful "tech" was cribbed from elsewhere; most of the true Hubbard originations I see as sci-fi baloney, or nonsense that falls apart if you really think about it.

Which is not to say there is nothing useful in the tech. A favorite example of mine: The non-E formula. If you're new in a job, you introduce yourself around. Wogs "apply non-E" all the time without realizing it. It's just common sense. But to be entirely fair to the Ol' Fraud, I've never seen anyone codify it as a list of steps. Does that make it a Hubbard origination? I don't know, but I definitely think of the concept as the Non-E formula, not as something else.

But is it right to call it "Scientology?" Well, that's where I really object, because it implies that Scientology is a workable system -- hell, that's how the scam works. "This part of Scn works, so all of it must work!" And I don't think that's a valid connection. Einstein said some very intelligent and obviously true stuff, but that doesn't mean that all of his quotes validate his theories of physics.

And I think with Hubbard we have to be extra-careful of what we label Scientology, lest we fall into that trap.

Remember, Hitler was militantly opposed to smoking, something that put himself and his regime way ahead of his time. Today, countries are adapting anti-smoking legislation -- but there's a reason we don't call this "workable Nazi tech."

There are some things people don't want to be associated with. It'd be nice if Scientology was one of them.

For the record, I personally think the Tone Scale is hogwash. People move freely between emotions, and ranking some as superior to others is ridiculous -- the purpose is to get people to conform to a certain level of behavior. I've heard people say the Tone Scale works because some else was angry with them, so they addressed them with a tone of antagonism and that person stopped being angry. Personally, I think it was because that person was shocked at the response in an antagonistic tone. But that's just me, what do I know.

Anyway, good point, glad you brought it up, and looking fwd to seeing more of the discussion.

 

[Claire Swazey]

I get what you're sayin' and I'm really impressed that you actually made it through my big ol' wall o' text!

I guess, for me, too, I'd like to get away from labels and just look at stuff as...well, stuff.

This may be easier said than done in some cases. But I'm trying!

 

[GreyLensman]

I get what you're sayin' and I'm really impressed that you actually made it through my big ol' wall o' text!

I guess, for me, too, I'd like to get away from labels and just look at stuff as...well, stuff.

This may be easier said than done in some cases. But I'm trying!

Claire, nice post.

Confusion and stable datum. Not original to Hubbard, but damn useful.

Any piece of knowledge, picked out and used to evaluate a situation, lessens the randomity.

Randomity, also a nice concept.

Acceptable randomity, too.

I think you can cherry pick, but I think a deep awareness of where the traps can be is essential because there are a lot of them.

 

[Claire Swazey]

People have done a lot of research about what (in Scn/Dn) came from where. Some really good info out there. I'm glad, too.

When I was working through my little shock and my subsequent decision to change a lot of things last week, I leaned heavily both on my Scn background and also on other things that didn't pertain to Scn. As well as advice from friends- and none of the friends had a Scn background.

I think it can be all grist for the mill and outside of an organization- even a grass roots one like, say, the FZ- if one is on one's own, then I think just that factor eliminates most potential pitfalls with such an approach.

Those who opt to do otherwise, moar power to 'em because, unlike in the cult, they are exercising their own freedom of choice. That's the primary thing that cults take away. If they didn't, they wouldn't be cults in today's definition, and you'd not have boards like this one.

But I think I do just as well as those others who eschew all of it. That's why I pushed back rather hard the other week. I know what I'm doing and if those others really knew what I was doing, they wouldn't be always incorrectly summarizing and describing it.

In the end, there's just information. I won't say I don't care where it originated- because it is relevant- but it is only relevant up to a point.

I have a good friend who is a critic and never was in. He laughs at Hubbard. But sometimes he'll quote from him. It's allgood.

 

[Type4_PTS]

Remember, Hitler was militantly opposed to smoking, something that put himself and his regime way ahead of his time. Today, countries are adapting anti-smoking legislation -- but there's a reason we don't call this "workable Nazi tech."

And there's a reason that people don't going into forums or any other gatherings of Holocaust survivors and sing the praises of Hitler for his work on the smoking issue or other positive contributions he may have made.

 

[Claire Swazey]

And there's a reason that people don't going into forums or any other gatherings of Holocaust survivors and sing the praises of Hitler for his work on the smoking issue or other positive contributions he may have made.

I doubt that Holocaust survivor fora have sections for doing so. Unlike ESMB.

I don't sing the praises of Hubbard or Hitler, in any event. I post a lot of criticism of Hubbard. I'd not be interested in praising him- but if I did have such an interest, I would be confident in knowing that ESMB has sections for that.

I've learned a lot of things in Scn, many of which were flawed and which do not have much, if any, applicability. Some do, though.

My personal opinion of Hubbard is that he was an exceedingly greedy man. He tended to be vastly unreliable. He let down people he liked and with those he didn't like, he was awful. He hit on some ideas that really worked. Some of them were lifted straight out of occultism and Buddhism with very little changes added. Some were his own ideas in a way, but probably in most cases inspired by the works of others. And maybe some that were mostly his own invention. Of those last, many were just awful. And a few weren't, IMO.

I think it's significant that he was raving each night (last year or two of his life) about demons.

But if I'm in a situation that I find incredibly stressful or upsetting- as has been happening- and an idea of his occurs to me, I'm goin' for it, if I think it'll work.

And by the same token, just two days ago, when a friend of mine called me in tears becasue she can't stop crying, I suggested she ask her dr. (she was on her way to see him for another thing) if he should prescribe something. And you know what? I'd cheerfully say that on an anti psychiatry forum.

 

[Ho Tai]

I'm with you, Claire. If there's an idea that I can apply usefully in my life I certainly don't reject it because I heard the same idea in a scn context. A good idea is a good idea whether it came from Hubbard, or via Hubbard, or if Hubbard never heard of it. One thing that is useful to me is the idea of the missed withhold. Scn taught me to recognize the feeling. Now when I get that feeling I catch myself and look at the situation. That's good stuff, and I haven't heard of that concept outside of scn, though I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is some adage from hundreds of years ago that expresses the same feeling.

Bottom line - you don't have to bounce anything against scn. Life outside of scn is richer, larger, satisfying.

 

[Claire Swazey]

I think we're on the same page.

I personally believe that the way Scn will survive as an ology (I'm not talking about CofS right now) is bits and pieces that get inculcated in other bodies of New Age thought.

 

[GreyLensman]

I think we're on the same page.

I personally believe that the way Scn will survive as an ology (I'm not talking about CofS right now) is bits and pieces that get inculcated in other bodies of New Age thought.

I loved Scientology the way it was originally presented - as in, we have this goal, a world without insanity, criminality, etc, and we figure we can get there one person at a time and what we need to work with the individual is a workable set of techniques to release the potential of that person.

A workable philosophy.
And it was all downhill from there.

It was not "workable" it was authoritarian and unilateral, not inclusive but exclusive, and at these prices you were not going to reach even 1/100th of 1% of the world's population so as far as handling the world, that's not going to happen.

What a brilliant idea and what a dog's breakfast of an execution this has been.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... What a brilliant idea and what a dog's breakfast of an execution this has been.

Very true and made all the sadder in that much of the available tech actually was quite workable in supporting the brilliant idea.

If the church simply put more direct effort into getting their own staff through the lower bridge and trained as Class IV auditors and less emphasis on rote policy indoctrination & strict adherence to management directives, it would have been a much better experience for tens of thousands. The fact that they don't demonstrates what the real intentions of senior management have always been.


Mark A. Baker

 

[GreyLensman]

Very true and made all the sadder in that much of the available tech actually was quite workable in supporting the brilliant idea.

If the church simply put more direct effort into getting their own staff through the lower bridge and trained as Class IV auditors and less emphasis on rote policy indoctrination & strict adherence to management directives, it would have been a much better experience for tens of thousands. The fact that they don't demonstrates what the real intentions of senior management have always been.


Mark A. Baker

I think you'd need a different "source", a being of different character than LRH to begin with. And an honest man would not have made it a church-as-legal-fiction but let that evolve.

It almost started out right. Grassroots dissemination of a method, people try it, some works, some doesn't, you push out changes and see what works and what doesn't, aggregate that, disseminate that (in the old meaning, not in the Scientological hard-sell bullshit). With a guiding principle of (1)change the world, (2) one person at a time, (3) workable, not perfect.

But you'd have to not have LRH part of it for it to work. As many early Dianetic groups found out.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

I think you'd need a different "source", a being of different character than LRH to begin with. .

The question of 'source' is at best a secondary consideration, questions of utility & value are far more important. Obviously hubbard didn't feel the same way. Your remarks concerning his choice of emphasis are apt.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Smilla]

My theory on Hubbard's place in Dianetics/Scientology.

1. He started it mainly as a scam, but also because it was an interesting idea that might bring him some kind of recognition as a person of substance. Dianetics was almost completely plagiarised from Abreaction Therapy, which of course, he never acknowledged, and later strenuously denied.
2. Was as surprised as heck when *some* of it seemed to work - especially in the hands of others. He was a lousy auditor, which is immediately obvious when you hear audio of him trying to do it. Heck, I'm a better auditor than he was.
3. Realised that it did really have the potential to make him a lot of money, which it did.
4. Noticed that others in the organisation were coming up with ideas and techniques that were often much better and more workable than his own.
5. Hated them for it and cut their legs out from under them sooner or later - always with vilification and sadistic persecution.
6. Annointed himself as 'source.'
7. Believed his own PR and developed a God complex.
8. Turned wildly paranoid and psychotic and stayed that way.
9. Croaked.

Did I miss anything?

Oh yeah, the 'Church' nonsense.

 

[olska]

Very nice summary, Smilla -- I agree.

 

[Dave B.]

My theory on Hubbard's place in Dianetics/Scientology.

1. He started it mainly as a scam, but also because it was an interesting idea that might bring him some kind of recognition as a person of substance. Dianetics was almost completely plagiarised from Abreaction Therapy, which of course, he never acknowledged, and later strenuously denied.
2. Was as surprised as heck when *some* of it seemed to work - especially in the hands of others. He was a lousy auditor, which is immediately obvious when you hear audio of him trying to do it. Heck, I'm a better auditor than he was.
3. Realised that it did really have the potential to make him a lot of money, which it did.
4. Noticed that others in the organisation were coming up with ideas and techniques that were often much better and more workable than his own.
5. Hated them for it and cut their legs out from under them sooner or later - always with vilification and sadistic persecution.
6. Annointed himself as 'source.'
7. Believed his own PR and developed a God complex.
8. Turned wildly paranoid and psychotic and stayed that way.
9. Croaked.

Did I miss anything?

Oh yeah, the 'Church' nonsense.

Well, there's the private Navy / Intel spy operation. Which unfortunately is the main problem we're left with.