Itsa time...

[Voltaire's Child]

fluffy,

I had a professor at university, and he said something which has stuck with me. He said, "If you can't explain something simply, then you have no idea what you're talking about".

In many cases jargon is used in lieu of more common language because the person using it is not wanting to, "dazzle with science", but rather to, "baffle with bullshit".

Well, if you pull up websites about medicine- the ones intended for physicians- or get a book about engineering or mathematics, the verbiage swiftly gets beyond what the average inexperienced layperson could understand without some training.

In Scn, Hubbard discusses his theories, his methods. Same thing.

 

[Voltaire's Child]

I think it boils down to this:

If one is discussing a unique Scn concept or technique or, even more, a Hubbardite theory, then the Scientologese would enter the equation.

If one is talking about something else, then it wouldn't.

 

[Nec_V20]

Fluffy,

Well, if you pull up websites about medicine- the ones intended for physicians- or get a book about engineering or mathematics, the verbiage swiftly gets beyond what the average inexperienced layperson could understand without some training.

In Scn, Hubbard discusses his theories, his methods. Same thing.

I think it boils down to this:

If one is discussing a unique Scn concept or technique or, even more, a Hubbardite theory, then the Scientologese would enter the equation.

If one is talking about something else, then it wouldn't.

A contemporary of ElRon, L. Sprague de Camp, wrote in the essay, "EL-RON OF THE CITY OF BRASS" (http://www.xenu.net/archive/oca/elron.html):

Whereas Hubbard's fictional style was always fluent, literate, and readable, his non-fiction proved incomprehensible - at least to me. A possible reason for this use of obscure language was expressed by W. S. Gilbert:

And every one will say
As you walk your mystic way,

If this young man expresses himself in
terms too deep for me,

Why, what a very singularly deep
young man this deep young
man must be!

 

[Voltaire's Child]

Well, not everyone cares for the subject and that's just how it is.

 

[SarahNW]

Since I joined, I have also had a problem with being discouraged from looking at other bodies of information. I mean, why was it okay for Hubbard to study ancient and modern philosophies, for example, and that's not okay for me? Doesn't the term "scientology" mean "knowing how to know in the fullest sense of the word?" Why is it not okay for one to study it as well as anything else one finds interesting to further increase one's own knowledge?

You know, it's funny. That was one of the first things that got me upset while I was in. I was openly reading about some other religions. Somehow, without asking anyone, I knew my interest in these "other practices" would be frowned upon. I brought it up to a friend of mine who was a good Scientologist and he insisted that nowhere does LRH say that you can't read about other religions. I thought, "Well, that's true", so I told my course supe about it.

I was immediately assigned lower conditions, and many people I knew over-reacted in an alarming way. "All denominational" my butt.

I do believe that if they had just shrugged and said, "Good for you," I may never have left. At that time, I felt a wave of unexplainable guilt for reading about and trying out these "other practices" (meditation and such), and I did do the conditions. But that was the first of many times that I was punished for an "overt" that I didn't feel was actually an overt. I just couldn't see anything wrong with it. It was the first time I realized that all this "guilt" I was feeling for wanting to do something different wasn't actually MY guilt, if you can understand what I mean. So I kept right on doing it.

My road out really started right there.

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can..."
-Tolkien