Well, it's been fun, but I don't think that I'm going to be a long-term poster
on the newsgroups.
In a couple of the responses I've been given a "Way cool" and a "Conceded" -
but sadly it's just
not enough for me.
My free time is limited. And as I sit here on the terrace, resting my prettily
slippered feet on one of the tame llamas, I realise that, entertaining as
crafting this kind of nonsense is, true enjoyment for me
comes from the delighted giggle of a pretty girl; the smell of a cup of freshly-
cut green tea in a sunny parlor; the swish of a whip as it curls ... oops,
sorry (cough).
If an individual wants to go through the levels of Scientology I think that's a
very fine thing. Some people will try and they won't make it, and often this
will be because they aren't dealt with properly during their
courses and auditing. Almost everyone will have _some_ problems; Scientology
is still a pioneer activity and it's not as smooth as it could be yet.
Helping people to move along more smoothly is very rewarding. On the other
hand, if people aren't interested in spiritual philosophy/don't want to do
Scientology, my strong inclination is to give them a cheery wave, and then
either pass on my way or talk about any other interests we have in common.
If the one little lost sheep needs some help finding his way I'll certainly
give him some directions and maybe even give him a lift, but if he then carps
and moans at me incessantly he can jolly well find his own way home.
(If I was a vicious man I might have written that the miserable sheep could
soon find himself flayed, gutted, divided into suitable portions, and bagged up
in the trunk. But it's a nasty thought and not a good analogy so I'd rather
just leave him to find the way himself.)
I hope I'm not going to regret writing that paragraph. I'm leaving it in only
because it's funny.
Ungrateful sheep: "Baaa. You _would_ prefer to do that to me, Freddie. Baaa.
You wouldn't leave me - you're going to kill me and eat me!"
Freddie T: "No, no,no, no. Please get out. You can walk."
Ungrateful sheep: "Baaastad."
(sheep gets out of the car and exits stage left)
That's an actual conversation, and as you can see, the sheep was not damaged in
any way.
Hem,hem. Anyway, fairly soon, after I've finished pointing out my recent
observations of the Church and telling a few more anecdotes, I'll be done for a
while. I might be inclined to do a bit more if I had more of my
Scientology materials with me. As I don't it's a bit too much trouble to get
ahold of the exact references I need.
Maybe anyone could benefit if they were given the _best_ of Scientology. This
would be those precise actions most suited to their individual situation; those
actions would be performed very well and very smoothly, and anything relevant
which changed in the person's life would be quickly picked up and dealt
with.
That would be the ideal - and the more difficult the person is, the more that
they need this kind of superlative treatment. If someone is an easy case,
they'll generally read a book, roll into the org and get on services.
Most long-term Scientologists, in my opinion, can stand up to some bad
programming or bad handlings. If not they wouldn't still be there. ; ) I'm a
fairly easy case I think. I managed to get two or three of my grades
without even a C/S (it was once a very small org). A few mistakes were
definitely made but we picked them up and that time during which I was doing
the grades was one of the best periods in my life (so far).
Roughly, from the viewpoint of the person receiving the grades, the auditor
makes sure before you start that you're well-fed, rested and aren't worrying
about any pressing issues. He asks you a really interesting philosphical
question ( and if it's not interesting you drop it), and you tell him your
ideas. He listens carefully and understands and then asks the next question in
the process. And you do this until you feel good and have a realisation. It's
wonderful.
By the way, that paragraph isn't meant to be a 'how-to-do auditing' type of
thing. It's just a description of what happened from my point of view.
Since I started posting a couple of weeks ago I have been interested in
correcting a few things that seem to me to go against things I've actually seen.
Whilst I often read reports on ars about a decline in Scn, and orgs with only a
few people - these go against the observations I've made:
a. There has been a resurgence in the quality of services. I've not taken any
recently (so my affadavit isn't as good as it could be) but I've had rave first-
hand reports from trusted friends, and I've seen some big
improvements in the course packs. In the old days the supervisor had to dig
around to find a suitable reference when the student asked a question like: "
What should I do if I ask this supplementary series of questions but nothing
comes up on the meter?"
There was probably a bulletin or a lecture that covered this situation but it
took some experience to know where to look. In the new Golden Age of Tech
packs, those references have been culled and collated so that the reference is
right there and every student can study them and drill them.
b. There has been an increase in the size of the orgs I'm connected with. I've
seem lots of report on ars about how such and such an org appears to be
shinking and doing badly. I've no idea how true these are. As I've said before,
the three orgs I know well are doing very well and are expanding year by year.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jane Allen" <jane_al
...@my-deja.com>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 6:37 AM
Subject: Re: To any reasonable Scientologists (Repost 1. From 9/27/00)
> In article <970643955.39dad9f342...@webmail.cotse.com>,
> <He...@cotse.com> wrote:
(snip)
>You underestimate the dedication of people bent on self-improvement.
I don't think I do. I love people who are interested in self-improvement -
particularly when this manifests itself in things which make the world
brighter for people and the environment around them. I'm lucky to know a
number of people (Scientologists and non-Scientologists) who are like that. One
of the guys I know has a great party in aid of different charities at his house
every month. He also organizes beach clean-ups.
If the Church fell, the freezone would have a resurgence; the question is
whether the resurgence would last. I agree with you that people around the
world would keep doing self-improvement. There would be little or no change at
all for almost all of those people .
However standard Scientology is not easy to deliver; the various
splinter.groups who've broken from the from the Church are very interesting,
but not, IMO, viable alternatives. Providing good-quality courserooms and
holding the line about what exactly should be done to get a result is not an
easy business and I think it demands a certain persistence and toughness to get
it done.
> > If the Church ceased to exist, then a few things would be better,
> Which things specifically?
I've been thinking about this question and I've changed my mind now. : )
Ok. For a relatively few, already trained people, the full range of services
would be
easier to obtain. Some comm lines that IMO don't need to be so closed would be
opened and many of the injustices that have occured over the years would lose a
lot of their force.
> > but I'm afraid that in short order things might well get a lot worse.
> > Ideally, I'd like to see some reconciliation between the Church and the
> > Free-Zone.
> You can get in trouble for such wrong-think, ya know.
Well, I'm not advocating teaching Dianasis or using Bilateral meters in
session. The things that I'm suggesting absolutely don't require the downfall
of the
orgs, or even any very big changes.
I'd like to see a broad, unconditional amnesty for almost everyone and a
thorough review of all past declares. I'd like it to become very easy for
auditors to get their upper bridges - utilizing perhaps a supervised read it-
drill it-do it regime. I'd also like to see the prices come down and the Church
using the internet and DVDs to cheaply and broadly disseminate the entire LRH
library.
No big deal. It could be done within a few months.
> > The Church is a big, bureaucratic organization
> Agreed. But it's much more than that and at the same time far, far less.
I'm sorry, but I don't think you understand Scientology very much at all.
> > Scientology, as practiced in the official centers, is workable for
> > a lot of people. In my opinion it's safer and much better to keep it as
> it is.
> You know what else is workable for a lot of people? Hypnotism. You know
> what else? Capital Punishment. Numbers don't interest me. Except when I
> see how un-workable for a lot of people some of the Church's activities
> are.
> Your statements seem to avoid addressing any intentional harm caused by
> the Church. Do you believe that there are merely "bad apples" in the
> bunch or do you think Declaring SPs both within and without the church is
> a practical and efficient method of keeping things pure?
In the early eighties and during certain periods before that it was very
easy to get declared. Particularly if you had a position of authority.
A number of reasons for the harsh ethics have been argued for - one
of the most interesting to me is the idea that a lot of the problems stemmed
from covert infiltration. Variations of this idea have been suggested by a
number of diverse people. For example:
Bill Robertson; by the Ace of Clubs (fantastic prose style by the way, if
you're reading; some of the funniest stuff I've ever read); in the time line
put out by "The Librarian" (and revisited recently by CL); the rumor line; and
finally by David Miscavige (in the satellite broadcast announcing the deal with
the IRS).
To summarise, the theory is that the church was infiltrated by its enemies;
this caused a lot of problems with things like false reports, sabotage and
plenty of injustices. The damage was not just in what those people did, but in
the ripples that were created - for example the mis-training of outer-org
executives who then went back and messed up their areas. And also, and not
least, because of the subsequent paranoia and witch hunts.
Of course the different people I mentioned above have very divergent views
whether the plants within the church have been fully cleared out and also about
the degree to which the damage has been repaired.
Hardly anybody knows for sure, but I'm in the camp which would hold that the
church is in good hands.
Here are my observations on SP declares:
Justice is working better than it used to. Since the late eighties it has been
much more difficult get somebody declared. One of my friends was something of a
rogue (he was a reg in the mid/late 80s) and eventually had a lot of people
baying for his blood. He very nearly got declared suppressive, but it was too
difficult. There is a long form to go through to check that no gradient steps -
like warnings and suspensions - have been missed. Also a review of the good
things the person has done. Finally the declare proposition was disapproved
(more than once I think) and he escaped with being routed off staff (fired).
I believe that previously missionaires could more or less declare people at
their discretion. Now, sensibly, the final decision is with someone up lines
and its a long, laborious business.
>What about the
> RPF, is it merely a boot camp for malcontents or a concentration camp for
> wayward undesirables? Or don't you think it exists?
A couple of my friends have done the RPF. Perhaps the most perceptive auditor I
ever had learned his trade there. He could really trace down an exact read on
the e-meter and find something that was charged but of which I was absolutely
unaware until he steered me with the meter to find it and look at it.
I've also worked along with the RPF on a couple of projects. They were working
hard but it wasn't _terrible_. A number of people I knew in the SO in the
eighties had done the RPF at one time or another.
I think a lot of the critical stories we can read about it are overlarded. I
guess that some of them are probably more or less true. It's difficult for most
people to know which ones. Once again I think that things in the RPF are
probably easier than they ued to be (I've heard one or two things about this
although I have far, far less direct knowledge here than I do with the orgs) .
> I concede that I may have been misinformed about the routines I was
> attempting, but I just wanted to see if an unblinking stare was possible.
> I discovered that it was and I was content that I had the attention and
> concentration needed for such an uncommon act. Doesn't mean I'm going to
> join a yoga class either.
> Some people just want a little bit of help, others want to see the world
> become a bunch of non-blinkers. I'm somewhere in the vast middle, but I
> like to watch the people bicker as their eyelids flicker.
Poetic, and good luck to you as you watch, but blinking really isn't an issue
in Scientology.
Sometimes I meet someone and I think, "Hey, this guy is living his life just
fine. He doesn't need all the hassles that go along with doing Scientology."
However, almost invariably as I get to know them better I find areas of upset
and worry that cause them all kinds of hassle. With one very pleasant middle-
aged lady I talked with last week I found that as far as possible she didn't
allow herself to look at the past because of the regret that welled
up out of her. Another, aparently successful lady lady who was part of the same
conversation then said
something similar - that if she ever looked back, she realised just how much
her life was filled with sadness. Now that kind of thing is something that
Dianetics is good at dealing with.
At other times I've met good people who turn out to have huge problems with
their boss, or their mother, or ... .
These are areas of life that are well understood in Scientology. If more people
were able to apply Scientology basics to their lives - the tone scale, the
principles of ARC, etc, then I think the world would be an easier place to live
for everyone.
I know this sounds excessively Pollyannaish, but hey kids, let's eat, drink,
and be merry and bright, it's Christmas! (No, it's not. Ed).
Freddie T
p.s. If anyone would like to exchange book lists - recommendations of good
books, please e-mail me. I mostly like sci fi, comedy,and travel stories - but
more or less anything written with a good prose style is fine.
p.p.s. Quite apart from my decision not to post here much longer, I won't be
writing on the newsgroup for at least the next week as the harem girls are
complaining of feeling neglected.
(adjusts cravat, feeds a rather delicious sausage to the llama who spits it
back in disgust, exits stage right)
