Well said on the failure of robotic response and I agree, there are various ways to approach one’s problems.

The example of walking into a room was just my made up example to try to explain how I felt with my own experiences. And I agree it doesn’t prove a thing.

That’s interesting and neat that you sometimes hear music before falling asleep. I find people fascinating in their individuality.

I use it because I come here from a (modestly) academic background and that it the neutral term that is in use there.

My problem with using the term ‘cult’ is that it indicates I disapprove of the organisation in question but does not tell anyone why. It suggests that I am biased.

It’s probably better to show that you are approaching the subject with an open mind – you are then more likely to be taken seriously when you describe specific about abuses – e.g. disconnection, which is a variation on the ‘shunning’ that seems to spontaneously arise in religious movements that are very controlling.

Movements like the Plymouth (Exclusive) Brethren are perceived to be a mainstream religion – but the public are not stupid – they can see, when it is pointed out, that its practice of ‘shunning’, its isolationism and the high degree of control it exercises over members is abusive and malign.

The links, I should say, are my own musings on the subject.

Also, just because Scientology claims that TR0 is about ‘improving communication skills’, and the Scientologists that present it believe this, does not mean that this is its actual function.

On the face of it (especially to an outsider) TR0 seems to to function to induce a suggestible state that makes Scientologists more compliant – and this is backed up by the degree of repetition in the TRs that follow.

Certainly it is hard to see how inducing hallucinations promotes communication skills. However, its more likely that you are more likely to go along the induction of fantasies about ‘previous lives’ when you are in a dissociated state.

As you note, if you want to learn to be more at ease with people, a straightforward social skills course (or just joining a club) is far more fit for purpose. The “robotic” response produced by Scientology training functions to create a compliant attitude in which you accept what you are told uncritically. This is the exact opposite of free communication in which participants can influence each other.

The attitudes that Scientology teaches are designed to turn you into a robotic auditor, who follows rigid procedures. In real life, simply repeating the same question over an over is more likely to frustrate the person you are talking to, and the best way to behave, if one approach is not working, is actually to try another.

Finally, regarding ‘walking into a room and bursting into tears’… everyone (including myself) experience odd psychological quirks (especially when under stress).

It seems to me that that it shows how little evidence there is for the notion of ‘previous lives’ affecting our everyday ones that this is the best ‘evidence’ that can be offered to support it.

Scientology ‘cherry -picks’ common experiences to suit itself. I often hear music before falling asleep, and put this down to a
neurological oddity, not a previous life as a musician.

Thank you for
those links. I know about a few of those studies only and look forward to reading them in more depth.

I never figured that changes in people’s faces that can occur on TR0 were anything but not moving my eyes. I would just move my
eyes slightly and the person’s face would go back to normal. As a young child my sister and I used to stare at a wall in our bedroom at night without moving our eyes until the room went totally black and that was a weird feeling that would be dissociative; but we did
it for fun.

In the TR training that I did there was no emphasis on disassociation, even though people did describe those types of effects. The emphasis was on being able to face someone comfortably so that you were right there with the person. Was the person ready to receive a communication. Did you let the person know you got what he said. Did you remain on topic in spite of a person wandering off topic, being upset, being rude.

All in all though, the whole sequence of the TR training, often done poorly, resulted in robotic responses that were then inserted into the auditing procedures, which were themselves based on Hubbard supposedly being an expert in matters of the mind.

In essence, a lot of people actually didn’t need to change much in their approach to back and forth conversation. There are plenty of
occupations (therapists, police, recruiters, medical personnel) where skill is needed in interpersonal conversation/data gathering and those who are good at it likely get better results. On the
other hand, there are plenty of communication difficulties easily observable and/or experienced such as the non-stop talker, the person who never talks much, the rambling person who can’t stay on topic, misinterpretation leading to difficulties and arguments, to name some.

As far as exteriorization and past lives (not to mention false memories), again, this is a very subjective area. A lot of the
auditing that I had where I thought I might have contacted past life incidents I now consider was me imagining circumstances in an effort to answer the question. However, a few things were
much more definite, and I was not in a state where things were unreal, I was not dissociative and I was not unaware of my surroundings. For example, what if you walked into a room,
looked around, and suddenly burst into tears and then wondered why? Suppose you walked into a room, looked around, and suddenly burst into tears and knew why? And this “knowledge” did not correlate at all with your current life memories and you still felt like the normal you.

If one learned critical thinking early in life, then recognizing cognitive dissonance in Scn or anything at all would make one better able to evaluate situations and people and information. I figure the more information the better. Thanks again for
the links.

I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. Every once in a while someone reminds me that we are not having quiet intimates chats. I always feel like some people are friends in a big living room. ( I feel like that with you , from your posts ) I should also not post when I am tired, I sounded defensive ,but I swear I wasn’t feeling attacked . I have laughed at some of your Heather comments as well.LOL

No problem my man. Just glad to “see” you.

Lamentably I am no diver into the early 1950s Hubbard lectures where that spoken pronouncement by Hubbard that not smoking causes cancer, I’ve seen the same comment/quoting it and I presumed it is accurate, it’s buried in one of the 1950s lectures where he endlessly said that and other duller outrageous non intuitional drivel.
Yea, Hubbard’s material that is mainline on the Academy levels and Briefing Course and the Class 8 Course is chock full of endless evidence of why Hubbard to any sane person ought not be taken seriously.

But other practices in human history claimed the same soul flying and ESP abilities that the Hubbard “OT” promises promised, so I presumed Hubbard’s mousetrap was the best one to give it a go, sadly.

if only one of the freezners could soul fly and do real OT phenomenon, that’d end all the otherwise valid criticism that the bunch of them, orthodox fanatics or the freezoners, none of them can do “OT” stuff.

Where are the OTs?

Hubbard’s Scientology is just another human history OT promise con sales job. Protected by the religion angle.

Please do! Not just cause you are a great storyteller. I do value your friendship! Let me know if you need any bunker summaries or anything else . ((((((((hugs and fat pugs)))))))))

Absolutely yes! Always have a buddy with you to video and document things. Protesting alone is very dangerous.

I have to say there were pulps and pulps.

Hubbard wrote anything for anybody under a number of pseudonyms – for example he submitted fairly crude Western stories under the staggeringly unsubtle name of Winchester Remington Colt.

Late in life, he wanted to be remembered not for the Westerns or the Foreign Legion Stories or any of the others, but his work in the only genre that survived the pulps and matured into a real literature – science fiction. This was the motive behind the execrable “Mission Earth”.

His forth-rate (and largely forgotten) SF appeared in “Astounding Science Fiction”, which was the best of its type. The other stories that were published by its editor John W Campbell included many classics and it is in the pages of ASF, under Campbell, that science fiction started to grow up.

Consequently it’s a terrible embarrassment to SF fans that Campbell also regularly fell for silly pseudo-science – most notably dianetics.