Thank you, my brother.

“Scientology, the best Mindbenders on Teegeeack!”

Sympathy is way, way down tone. Sympathy is frowned upon, as is being “reasonable.” Two of the many concepts I could never wrap my mind around. But those two probably bothered me most.

I requested it from my local library. Thanks

Thank you. I appreciate the generosity of people, like yourself, who freely discuss their experience of Scientology. It would be impossible for outsiders to make any sense it, otherwise.

I’m currently working on a blog post discussing an excellent and accessible book by the neurologist Oliver Sacks called “Hallucinations”, which may be relevant.

Sacks is very, very, good at explaining a crucial feature of Hallucinations – that although they are made up of material drawn from your own experiences, those materials are recombined in impossible ways – ways that are completely outside of your experience. They come from inside your head… but appear to be novel and convincingly ‘real’.

Consequently, people who hallucinate during TR0 are sometimes convinced that they have had real and deeply significant experiences that originated outside of themselves. When Scientologists present an explanation for these experiences – that they have accessed ‘previous lives’ – that can bring about a lasting commitment.

Many ex-Scientologists and Independents remain convinced that there is something valid at the core of Hubbard’s teachings because their hallucinations provided this kind of deeply meaningful epiphany.

They do not understand the nature of hallucination. Their insight actually came from within themselves and was deeply personal to themselves. It has a subjective, not an objective meaning.

Sometimes this mistake seems to prevent people from ever letting go of the hope that Scientology will, some day, fulfil it’s promise.

They may stay with the CofS even after they are disillusioned. They may become Independents, reasoning that the corrupt Miscavige regime is the reason they can’t make ‘the tech’ work.

In fact, such people will often emphasise that it was their early experiences in Scientology which were life-changing, and everything after that was a series of disappointments,. This makes the ‘corruption’ argument a little more feasible.

I can understand this, in a way. You believe that you have directly experienced a previous life. It follows that death is not the end, and there are millennia of past experiences out there for you to explore. This does not require faith – you think you have had direct experience of a larger universe.

For some people, it’s impossible to let go of that hope. They spend the rest of their life struggling to make sense of an brief experience that came from within themselves, but felt convincingly real.

“Hallucinations” by Oliver Sacks… highly recommended.

I see your point. Also in my case and probably others this was the 1970’s. I had had similar experiences with LSD and even then had associated that with a mystical experience. Such were the times and a lot of popular music and literature. So the Scientology experience was exhilarating because now I was sure it was real. I think your hunch about TR0 and the Occult is the place to look. I had no idea of anything called a disassociated state or any psychological studies at the time. My education was mostly in the arts and I was prone to magical and mystical ways. Still am to some extent I guess. I do appreciate our conversations. The experience we are speaking of was the last one to let go of. So I appreciate an educated and outside view. You have been a good deal of help. Please let me know if you run into any info on the origins of the TR’s.

TR0, which is not only the first ‘exercise’ which beginners but also capable of producing altered states of consciousness (definitely dissociation, sometimes full-blow hallucinations which, in their nature, seem to have come from outside of the person who experiences them).

It sets the pattern for all of the other TRs, which are less effective at producing these phenomenon. It strikes me that Hubbard hit upon something effective, and elaborated it over time – his SOP.

I have a notion (which I will research when I have the time) that TR0 was inspired by practices in the ‘occult milieu’ of Hubbard’s time, which still turn up, now and again, in present day urban myths.

Social support leads Scientologist to interpret experiences such as you describe in terms of Scientology – e.g. as evidence of ‘previous lives’.

If you had the same experience as a volunteer research subject for psychological research into inducing dissociation, it would have been presented to you as a meaningless subjective phenomenon (which it is) and it would not have changed your life.

Presentation and interpretation is everything.

LOL. Same here. Pope David Miscavige is non-existent to 99.9% of the world.

Yes, but one success is boring. You have to offer a duplicity, I mean plurality of successes in order to really rake in the self-help bucks these days. Too much competition. I’d go for “Ecstasy and Mindbendengness is possible” because mind-bendingness would be a real havingness to do. And we know how much fun turning verbs into nouns is-ingness.

I hate to be a pedant, but I’m pretty sure that grammar is correct. Happiness and successes are possible, because “successes” is plural and closer to the verb. Successes and happiness is possible, by the same rule. The “/” isn’t formal English, and the “,” should perhaps be a “;”, but it’s not a bad sign, grammatically. The chipboard facade is more questionable.