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Bruce Hines Joins Us As Claire Headley Keeps Us Moving Through Scientology’s OT Levels!

Bruce Hines

Bruce Hines

Claire Headley is taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. She and her husband Marc were Sea Org workers who escaped from Scientology’s International Base in 2005. She spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Go here to see the first part in this series.

Claire has brought us all the way to the “OT” levels, and last week she introduced us to “Operating Thetan Level One,” consisting of L. Ron Hubbard’s handwritten 1968 notes. We had all sorts of fun with Hubbard’s instructions to go outside and “count bodies,” at hundreds of dollars an hour!

Some time in the 1980s, we believe, those handwritten notes were replaced with another set of instructions known as “New OT I,” and we wanted to take a look at them as well as welcome a new member of our team as we continue up the Bridge to Total Freedom. Bruce Hines, thanks for joining us! How about a little background for our readers.

BRUCE: I got into Scientology in 1972 and left it in 2003. I joined the Sea Org in 1979 and was in it up to the time I left. From 1979 to 1987 I was at the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida, where I was an auditor for people on OT levels. From 1987 to 1995 I was in what was called the Office of the Senior Case Supervisor International, which was part of the Commodore’s Messenger Organization International at that time. There I mainly served a quality control function, and was also ordered to audit some celebrities and other people who were considered important. I knew Marc and Claire there, though we did not cross paths much. I did do a security check on Marc that allowed him to come to the Int base for posting. Then I fell from grace and was on the Rehabilitation Project Force (the Sea Org’s prison detail) from 1998 to 2001 at “Happy Valley,” a property near Int Base which the church no longer owns. Then from 2001 to 2003 I was in New York City at the organization on 48th St between 8th and 9th, and was involved in renovating the org on 46th St in the early stages of the Ideal Org program.

THE BUNKER: Wow, that’s an amazing background. And last week, in our comments section, you gave us some history on OT I.

BRUCE: Yeah, through the years there have been three different versions of OT I. Originally, like in 1967 or so, the level consisted of auditing more of the “Clearing Course” materials (this was also solo auditing and it was the only way to go clear before “Dianetic Clear” came out in 1978). Next was the Hubbard handwritten version that consisted of processes done solo while out walking around (as described here last week). Then much later, an entirely different version came out, and it was now called “New OT I.” This is the only version that a person would do these days.

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THE BUNKER: Let’s take a look at “New OT I” and how it works. In this version, an e-meter is used as the subject goes through solo auditing, asking himself questions and reading the results on the machine.

In our copy of the New OT I materials, several examples are given of sample processes to be run, and they use as a subject, “mother.”

“Does mother have an ARC Break with me?”

and

“Does mother have a Present Time Problem with me?”

and

“Does mother have a Withhold from me?”

We’re told to keep questioning ourselves about these matters until we have a “big win.”

We asked Claire to give us some idea of what such questioning might result in.

Up_The_BridgeCLAIRE: From my own experience, when I first started my own auditing, I was of the view that I could see that it might help to talk about certain people in my life who I’d had issues with. However that didn’t last long. I talked about it, felt better, worse or the same, and then moved on. Maybe by the time others hit OT I, they had a new list of such people to talk about. For me, it was a repeat of things I’d already covered, only now I was doing it solo.

In other words, this kind of auditing was nothing to write home about in my books.

I can’t say that I really had any earth shattering realizations from doing OT I.

Maybe I felt some relief that I wasn’t having to regurgitate to someone else now, I was only having to do it in my own head.

BRUCE: I don’t remember anyone being “blown out” from doing OT I. That is true for the latest version and for the walk-around-and-count-bodies version. I believe people viewed it more as a warm-up. It is the first time that one runs a “real” process on themselves. (On the Solo Auditor Course Part 2, the person runs some rudiments on themselves, but it is known that it is for practice.)

On OT I, one supposedly is doing something that will result in “case gain.” But everyone knows that it has nothing to do with gaining supernatural abilities as a powerful, immortal being. Both versions of OT I were something relatively simple to get the person’s feet wet and give them some confidence as a solo auditor. Nonetheless, your are led to believe all the way up the Bridge that every step is vital, and that Hubbard carefully laid it all out. One must walk each step in order to make it across the Bridge, there are no short-cuts, and Hubbard with his great wisdom knew that the next step (OT I in this case) was necessary, even if it is not immediately clear to those of us more aberrated beings. This kind of mind-fuck is drilled in over and over and over. So in my experience, people would just do OT I in order to get to OT III, which was always promoted as the real mind-blower.

CLAIRE: Bruce reminded me of what I expected OT I to be, having grown up in Scientology, having heard countless people sharing their “wins” from OT I and also from reading hundreds of “OT phenomena” success stories as published in Advance! magazine.

Doing the level was a much different experience than what I’d envisioned, as I’ve already described.

BRUCE: OT II is much more bizarre.

THE BUNKER: Oh, well now we can hardly wait to get there. Until next week, Bruce and Claire!

(Our cost so far remains the same this week: $262,133.25)

 
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Scientology Asks for Another Garcia Filing to be Stricken

It’s getting hard to keep up with all of the motions being filed in Luis and Rocio Garcia’s federal fraud lawsuit against the Church of Scientology. If you’ve been following along with the case, you know that Scientology is trying to convince Judge James Whittemore to dismiss the case in favor of the church’s internal arbitration system. The Garcias argue that Scientology’s arbitration is a sham, and it’s designed so that a former church member can’t get a fair hearing.

Before he decides on the matter, Whittemore asked Scientology to submit a short description of its arbitration scheme, limiting the church to only five pages.

The Garcias then submitted a response, saying that what Scientology had described was a system that was never intended to work. They attached a declaration from Mike Rinder, who had long overseen legal matters in Scientology before he left the church in 2007. Rinder said that he had never seen anyone receive a refund through Scientology’s arbitration system.

But now Scientology is unhappy, filing another motion which says that Whittemore never asked for a response to the church’s 5-page description of arbitration, and also that the Garcias used more than five pages to include the declaration of Mike Rinder.

Well, we can’t blame them for squawking about it. And all we can do now is wait to hear from Whittemore. Let’s hear it, judge!

Meanwhile, in Texas, there was a new motion filed Friday by Scientology in Monique Rathbun’s harassment lawsuit against the church and its leader, David Miscavige. Monique’s attorney Marc Wiegand tells us that the new motion was submitted by two of the defendants in the case — Steven Gregory Sloat and Ed Bryan — who asked to join with the Church of Scientology’s anti-SLAPP motion, which we described earlier.

And so an admitted hired spy (Sloat), and one of the Squirrel Busters (Bryan), have joined with the church in claiming that Monique’s lawsuit is insincere and is only meant to keep them from doing what they believe are First Amendment-protected activities — namely, spying on the Rathbuns and following them around town with head-mounted cameras. How’s that for chutzpah!

The next hearing in Monique’s case is still scheduled for December 11, and at some point before the hearing former Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis and actress Leah Remini will be deposed. But Wiegand cautioned us that dates in the lawsuit are still pretty fluid, so we’ll keep checking to see how things stand.

 
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SUPER POWER COUNTDOWN: 5 Days to Go!

With Scientology’s “Super Power Building” opening this Sunday, we’re counting down the days with some of the wild schematics of contraptions that were planned for the space-aged fifth floor. Check out this breakaway of the “Sound Room,” which another architectural drawing says will be where Scientologists go to test their sense of “Sound, pitch, tone, volume, rhythm, and sound direction.”

 
SoundRoomBreakaway

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on November 12, 2013 at 07:00

E-mail your tips and story ideas to tonyo94@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

 

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