Almost four years after its grand opening, a new look inside Scientology’s ‘Super Power’

 
We want to thank the tipster who took the time to send us some scans from the new issue of Scientology’s Source magazine, which features the “Perceptics” area on the fifth floor of the Flag Building in Clearwater, Florida, better known as the Super Power Building.

Way back in 2012, we published a massive set of blueprints of this building as it was being completed (part 1, part 2, part 3), and the most interest was always generated by the Star Trek coolness of the fifth floor and its Super Power gadgets. The building was finally opened in November 2013, some 20 years after construction first started, and now wealthy Scientologists pay tens of thousands of dollars to go through the various “rundowns” that make up the Super Power experience.

The futuristic fifth floor is set up to test and improve a Scientologist’s “perceptics.” These are 57 senses that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard proposed were abilities that the immortal thetan — your true inner self or soul — had once possessed but need to be regained as part of a Scientologist’s exploration of his or her past lives. As you go back millions of years to find out what happened to you on other planets in the galaxy, you should re-experience it with superhuman sense abilities, which the Super Power fifth floor can help you hone.

You might be tempted to imagine that Hubbard pulled this list of perceptics out of his ample posterior, but this is really as science-y as science gets, pilgrim. Here’s the list, from the magazine article:

Time, sight, taste, color, depth, solidity, relative sizes, sound, pitch, tone, volume, rhythm, smell, touch, personal emotion, endocrine states, awareness of awareness, personal size, organic sensation, heartbeat, blood circulation, cellular and bacterial position, gravitic, motion of self, motion (exterior), body position, joint position, internal temperature, external temperature, balance, muscular tension, saline content of cells, fields/magnetic, time track notation, physical energy, self-determinism, moisture, sound direction, emotional state of other organisms, personal position on the Tone Scale, affinity, communication, reality, emotional state of groups, compass direction, level of consciousness, pain, perception of conclusions, perception of computing, perception of imagination, perception of having perceived, awareness of not-knowing, awareness of importance/unimportance, awareness of others, awareness of location and placement, perception of appetite, kinesthesia. (Hey, what happened to oiliness?)

Former Scientologists who were around in the 1970s will tell you that Hubbard dreamed up “Super Power” as a set of exercises to help fatigued Sea Org members get back on track, and it was never meant to be something sold to wealthy “publics” as a way to get superhuman abilities. But that’s just what it’s become, as a sort of add-on to the “Bridge to Total Freedom,” a pricey side quest that members tend to indulge in as they’re working their way up the “Operating Thetan” levels.

And sure, you can see why folks who have already spent years buying in to Hubbard’s space opera fun would want to get beamed up to a setting like this…

 
The sexy gyroscope chair tends to get all the attention, when really it’s just a carnival ride that’s been around for years and years, with a little extra skinning to make it look more ultra. But hey, you’re paying hundreds of dollars an hour, you deserve a really cool gyro tilt.

 
The magazine includes a neat collage of images that we recognize as some close-ups on the features of set-ups to test your sense of smell and taste and others. Are those small containers on the left side, second picture down, part of our white whale, the oiliness table?

 
And if you think we’re kidding about the idea that Scientology is selling super powers to its members, you can read the come-on for yourself…

 
Oh, and hey, look who is pictured honing her sense of beingness by fondling what look like 3-D chess pieces from the Starship Enterprise: It’s Princess Joy Villa! When she’s not taking Trump supporters for a ride, she’s apparently working on her superhero transformation.

 
The magazine also helpfully lays out the list of rundowns that make up the Super Power experience…

THE SUPER POWER RUNDOWNS
Here are unique procedures unlike any other grade, rundown or process. These 10 rundowns unleash your super power as a being.

THE RUNDOWNS START
Super Power starts with a thorough review and preparation of your own unique case — so that you receive maximum case gain on each of the nine succeeding rundowns.

ETHICS AND JUSTICE
The rundowns begins with “something never done in this universe — or any other.” You will clear away Third and Fourth Dynamic engrams related to Ethics, Justice and Injustice. On your entire case. On your whole track. On all flows.

PERSONAL REVIVAL
The purpose of this rundown is simple yet powerful — to restore life to a being. How powerful? So powerful, LRH said it could even “bring a dead Thetan back to life.”

CONSEQUENCES
With this prescient rundown you achieve a restoration of prediction and the full awareness of consequences.

BRIGHT THINK
With this simple yet powerful rundown, you are headed to another rundown that gives case gain equivalent to an entire level of the Grade Chart. The rundown has unique end phenomena that always occurs — with every preclear and every pre-OT.

SUPER STUDY
This rundown will rocket your ability to gain competence … as a being. It’s auditing technology like nothing you’ve ever seen — or experienced. It addresses any element in life that prevents case gain — and all factors that can impair any learning abilities, in life itself.

FALSE DATA THINKING
This is the first time in this universe that a being’s think can be straightened out. It isn’t False Data Stripping, it’s False Data thinking — a restoration of your full thinking ability. This is a rundown that focuses on the very essence of sanity.

CONFRONT AND CAUSE
If a being was all-knowing, how could he be put at effect? It’s the same reason one can be hypnotized. It’s what caused beings to identify with MEST. Five powerful high-echelon processes to move you up to Confront — and all the way to Cause.

POWER OF CHOICE
This will not just increase your ability to make your own decisions, it will increase that choice-making power. You’ll be able to make those choices at an extended distance. You’ll increase the very amount of life you possess. That’s power.

PERCEPTICS
You will experience the rehabilitation of all your 57 perceptics. This means handling any disabilities on any perceptions. With case barriers removed, you can restore them in their entirety. You not only have them all — you’re using them. Drilled to perfection of perception.

 
Back in 2012, Dan Koon let us in on one of the rundowns, “Bright Think.” It turns out that the entire process involves having an auditor ask you, over and over, “Where do you feel safe?”

It’s hard to imagine spending so much money to have some pimply-faced kid ask that question a couple of hundred times while you’re squeezing the cans of an e-meter, but then we aren’t the ones this magazine is pitching so hard.

It’s Super Power!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on August 4, 2017 at 07:00

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The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2016 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2016), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield