With the help of experts like Claire Headley and Bruce Hines, we’ve been taking a journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

For more than a year, we’ve been exploring Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom,” step by step. We last left off after Bruce Hines helped us understand Operating Thetan Level Seven. That leaves us with one final level on the Bridge, OT 8. We plan to dive deeply into that final step on our journey.

But before we do that, we wanted to take a detour. Since we want to end this series on OT 8, we thought we’d do things a little out of order and spend some time now on the “L Rundowns.”

The “L’s,” as they’re known, can come after OT 8, but they also can come at any time after OT 3. They’re a separate set of very expensive rundowns that are supposed to be “boosters” for Scientologists working on their OT levels. At least, that’s how the introduction to the L’s reads in our materials.

The L’s — L10, L11, and L12 — are delivered at Scientology’s spiritual ‘mecca’ in Clearwater, Florida. According to Scientology, they “increase a person’s power and effectiveness.” Also, they are supposed to help a person get through the OT levels faster.

So what’s in L10?

The L10 intro tells us it is “designed to handle the things a thetan uses to restrain himself. The person regains his ability and power to do those things he intends to do and as a result he feels more at cause than ever before.”

To begin, there is a huge amount of review (which seems common for most Scientology processes), and various tests to make sure the subject is in the right frame of mind for the level itself.

L10 then begins with many individual “rundowns” and auditing. The subject is read chains of many words as the auditor looks for reactions on the E-meter.

The subject is also read lists of questions on various “dynamics” — questions related to his relationships (2nd dynamic), the larger group (3rd dynamic) and so on.

Then come questions from a “sec check” (security check, or interrogation). These get rather interesting. Here’s a sample.

Is there some connection you won’t let go of?
Have you ever done a family member in?
Have you ever brutalized another with sex?
Are you best left alone?
Are women stupid?
Do you have a secret desire to annihilate the opposite sex?
Are you spied on?
How powerful do you have to be to be successful?
Are other people necessary?
Have you squashed a thetan out of existence?
Is life worth living?
Are you facing eternity with lack of hope?
Is there hope for man?

Another set of questions is specifically designed to force the subject to admit to “overts” — transgressions that he or she is hiding.

One set of questions is about family. A sample of them…

Have you ever badly raised a child?
Have you ever split up a family?
Have you ever forced a child into an unsuitable profession?
Have you neglected your child’s education?

The next set of questions is about sex.

Have you ever sexually aroused someone and then not satisfied him (her)?
Have you ever made love to a person of the wrong race?
Have you ever made love to a person of the wrong species?
Have you ever used the wrong body part for intercourse?
Have you ever failed to have intercourse with someone you should have?
Have you ever misused sex?

There are many more sets of questions and processes.

For the L Rundowns, we’re turning to our old friend Jefferson Hawkins to help us out. (If you haven’t read the series Jeff did for us on Scientology ethics, you really must.) Jeff, what can you tell us about L10?

JEFFERSON: I was one of the Ls “guinea pigs” in 1971. I was on the Apollo for administrative training — I did the Organization Executive Course and the Flag Executive Briefing Course (which had just been released). Students had been brought in from Orgs all over the world to be trained up and groomed up as the new wave of super-executives for Scientology. The FEBC was supposed to train us to be ruthless “Product Officers” who would relentlessly drive staff to higher and higher stats and never be reasonable with “downstats.” I was 25 at the time. We were treated like VIPs — we were berthed in the A Deck cabins and we ate in the Officers’ Mess.

As part of the overall package, the FEBC students were also supposed to receive these new L Rundowns. They were supposed to make us into super-powerful unstoppable beings. My auditor was the infamous Otto Roos, who was a Class XII Auditor and trained on the L Rundowns. I recall L-10 as being a sort of whole track Sec Check. All of those questions you listed and many more were asked and were taken earlier and earlier until you were running incidents millions or billions of years ago. It was supposed to free up your attention from those ancient misdeeds and make you more powerful in present time. In retrospect I’d have to say that it made me believe that I was more powerful. It gave me a sort of temporary dopamine rush.

Hubbard had announced that no FEBC student would be allowed to leave the ship unless they were “exterior with full perceptics.” This created a lot of excitement. However, as Otto and I were wrapping up the L Rundowns, I expressed to him that I personally wasn’t exterior with full perceptics yet. He told me, in essence, not to worry about it. And Hubbard still went on announcing that every FEBC student left the ship exterior with full perceptics. And of course, being a good Scientologist, I assumed I was the only one who didn’t. Again in retrospect I’m sure that no student left with that kind of “OT” perception.

THE BUNKER: The sec check questions in L10 seem really invasive. Do you have any thoughts about being subjected to that kind of interrogation, and then feeling some kind of euphoria afterwards?

JEFFERSON: It is terribly invasive, but as a Scientologist you get acclimated to it. Your auditor is like your therapist, you open up to him or her and confide everything, all the innermost thoughts and so on. And the auditor is also like a “tough love” therapist, pulling out those things you don’t want to talk about. All of this is done with the supposed assurance that whatever you say is just between you and your auditor. When you realize that isn’t the case — that your sessions are being openly shared and talked about and so on — it sort of breaks the spell. I don’t think Scientologists these days have a deep bond with their auditor.

And yes, generally a session ends with a feeling of euphoria. Auditors are trained to watch for those euphoric moments, any sort of “aha” moment or feeling of well-being, and end off quickly.

THE BUNKER: According to a 2007 price list, L10 takes 50 to 150 hours — so we’ll assume 100, in the middle. And 100 hours of L rundowns auditing runs $72,000

COST THIS WEEK: $72,000

COST SO FAR: $460,805.50

 
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Part 3 of Chris Shelton’s video series on Scientology

Another fascinating installment from Chris — this time about Scientology’s infallibility.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on April 15, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

Wow, we’re really getting near the top of the bridge. This week, Bruce Hines gives us some amazing insights about New OT 7. But first, let’s take a look at the materials we have on it, which are quite brief.

What we have from L. Ron Hubbard all fits on just one page. (And yet, we hear this is the level so many people get stuck on for the longest — for several years in many cases.)

In the instructions we have, the “Pre-OT” is told to do solo auditing in order to remove body thetans or clusters “one area at a time.”

“You may in some instances have to have the Pre-OT handle BTs Dianetically, running them back through a chain of incidents. This can be complex, with three or four BTs and chains crossed.”

The instructions tell us that running the engrams of body thetans can be “dicey,” because multiple BTs can share engrams originating from different chains, or something. It sounds complex.

“When the Pre-OT has a transparent body and a clear area around it to some distance…and when he realized he is alive and very much himself,” then the “end phenomena” of ‘New Era Dianetics for OTs’ has succeeded.

At that point, the person will have achieved “Cause over life.” Woo-hoo!

So it sounds to our unsophisticated ears like this is just some mop-up of leftover BTs. So why does it take so long? And how did it come to have the name “on the level.”

And why does it require sec checks every six months? (Which isn’t mentioned in the materials we have.)

BRUCE: The instructions you have are probably from 1979. In April 1983 things changed when two new technical bulletins were issued from L. Ron Hubbard himself. Then they changed more in 1991 when almost everything was revised.

On New OT 5, where one is audited by another person, one just scratches the surface in terms of blowing off BTs and clusters. Then one does New OT 6, where one learns to audit NOTs on oneself. Then one goes onto New OT 7, on which the solo auditor is supposed give him- or herself multiple sessions every single day, seven days a week, for some years, with no breaks except when they go back to Flag for their “six-month check.” Hubbard thought that there were a lot of stuck BTs in or on oneself or one’s body in layer upon layer upon layer.

I don’t recall all the details of the two bulletins issued in 1983. But one of them gave a new method for locating BTs, which was to be used for most of New OT 7. Silently, telepathically, and conceptually, the Pre-OT is supposed to say, “Where is the next being? Say ‘Here’ when I ask the question Where are you? Where are you?”

The six-month checks started in 1984. Every six months the Pre-OT is supposed to return to Flag for a (usually) short security check. They generally also receive some auditing from an auditor to make sure that any charge from events in life or from solo auditing errors gets cleaned up, as they say. From time to time there would be fads, and some type of auditing would be given to the Pre-OT while they were at Flag (like the False Purpose Rundown, which is supposed to get rid of evil purposes). Of course, the Pre-OT has to pay for the auditing and pay for the sec check at the same rate. These checks were supposed to detect if the Pre-OT was getting disaffected or going sour in some way. People had been auditing solo NOTs at home since about 1980. In 1982 this became New OT 7. In 1982 and 1983 there was a schism, and many members resigned to go join one of the many “squirrel groups” that had started up after David Mayo had fallen from grace (brought down by Miscavige, as many perceived rivals were) and left the organization. Mayo and some other former church members started the Advanced Ability Centers, which were in a way in competition with the orgs. Plus some other independent groups formed as a part of this whole exodus. Some significant percentage of members left at that time, though I don’t know the numbers. Among those who left were a lot of people who had been at home auditing on solo NOTs. With little control from Flag, and no established reason for them to return to Flag, upon learning of abuses that were occurring, their discontent would grow. The six-month checks made it possible to keep these people on New OT 7 under control. The Pre-OTs had to agree, in writing, to return to Flag every six months before they would be allowed to go home with their materials to audit solo. This resulted in a lot of business for Flag.

THE BUNKER: So what you’re saying is that to this day, people on OT 7 are spending thousands of dollars every six months for deeply personal interrogations as a direct result of a schism in Scientology that happened more than 30 years ago? Yeah, that sounds about right.

BRUCE: Also in 1984 the first “completions” of solo NOTs, the first New OT 7s, were allowed to attest. Along with the instructions on how to do the six-month checks came the procedure for determining if the person had actually completed the level. I well recall the flap that occurred when one of the first completions, the fourth one if I remember correctly, got cancer and passed away not long afterwards. I wonder how many of those early completions are still active.

Another interesting point about New OT 7, at least to me, is the purported “sociological” benefit from having a whole bunch of people auditing on solo NOTs. The idea is that a BT, after having been handled on NOTs, becomes a freed, awake, and possibly Clear being that will go out into the environment and proceed to do good somehow. Many of them will “pick up” a body, so it was expected that there would be a tremendous number of young people growing up who would be unaberrated and generally more able than most people. The NOTs materials stated that there would be “torrents” of these beings being released into the society. This is the idea behind the long-standing goal in the “church” to have 10,000 people through New OT 7. This would supposedly release enough “theta” into the environment to cause society to de-aberrate. Or something like that. After 30 years they are still a long ways away from having 10,000 completions, not to mention that a lot of the ones that did complete are no longer in, or are not active as Scientologists, or have nothing more to do with Scientology, or have passed away. If one does some math and considers various ramifications, the unreality of this sociological benefit is obvious. There are things about it that Hubbard never explained. For example, wouldn’t a new body that gets born and picked up by some thetan have a whole new set of BTs and clusters to deal with? When someone dies, do all the BTs that were on the thetan or attached to the body go along with the now disembodied soul? Or do some stay with the dead body or go attach themselves to some other body? Would there be enough bodies being born to accommodate this “torrent” of freed beings?

THE BUNKER: Whoa, Bruce. Mind blown.

BRUCE: In 1985 there was a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that could possibly move to Clearwater. Somehow word got out that the solo NOTs auditors should audit as much as possible, which would somehow avert this catastrophe. When the path of the hurricane took it to the Florida panhandle and Georgia, of course all believed that it was because of all this solo auditing that had gone on. No one dared ask how that could possibly affect the path of a hurricane. Maybe the freed BTs all got together and pushed that mean ol’ hurricane away. Might make a fun shoop.

I myself, as I explained in an earlier post, started on New OT 7 in 1983 because Flag needed me to audit customers who had already started solo NOTs. I was quite happy to go along with all that nonsense. It is somewhat embarrassing to admit that I enjoyed the status that went with it. I was still on it in 1995 when I was sent to the RPF for six years, where no one would be allowed to audit on New OT 7.

THE BUNKER: Six years! It’s always amazing to hear how long some Sea Org members spend in the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), the SO’s prison detail.

BRUCE: With all the things that go on in the life of a Sea Org member (going on missions, all-nighters, general lack of sleep, “flaps”, no “personal enhancement time” to name a few) it is difficult to solo audit very frequently. I know of very few people who completed New OT 7 while in the Sea Org. There are some that completed it before joining the SO.

Anyway, all of the levels before New OT 7 are supposed to prepare people for the long and very important level of solo NOTs. OT III pales in comparison. It is important for various reasons, the main one being the amount of money that Scientology makes from it.

THE BUNKER: It is a lucrative level. On the telephone, you explained to me how paying for New OT 7 works. People can spend years on OT 7, but they’re solo auditing at home, and not paying as they go. There’s an initial $2,800 that you pay, and that seems low. But then, every six months, as long as you’re solo auditing (or “on the level,” as Scientologists say without a hint of irony), you are required to go to Flag (in Clearwater, Florida) for case supervision and sec checking (interrogation). The case supervision runs $1,700, and the sec check typically costs the same as an intensive with a Class IX auditor — $7,800. But as Jason Beghe and others have pointed out to us, a trip to Flag can cost you weeks as you’re put through the “False Purpose Rundown” and other things while you’re waiting to get sec checked.

BRUCE: And when you’re there — that’s when the reges really pounce on you.

THE BUNKER: Right. So a trip to Flag can really cost a lot more than what you went there for. But let’s be conservative and keep to the price list, and say that a person is on the level for three years (many people spend far longer). That’s six sessions at Flag, for a grand total of $59,800.

BRUCE: It’s a big, big moneymaker.

COST THIS WEEK: $59,800

COST SO FAR: $388,805.50

 
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Jonny Jacobsen takes a bow

This weekend, our man in Paris, Jonny Jacobsen, let us know that he’s putting his excellent website, Infinite Complacency, on a less active status. We have heaped praise on his website numerous times. Jonny is a thorough and dogged investigative journalist, and he’s never received the credit he deserves. He’s been a huge help here at the Bunker, and we’re happy to know that he plans on continuing to be our go-to source in Europe. We asked him to say a few words about the look-back he put on his site this week.

As this week marks five years covering Scientology at Infinite Complacency, I’ve indulged myself with a look back at some of the highlights.

I’ve mentioned the Paris trial coverage because it turned out to be worth the effort, with landmark fraud convictions against two Scientology organisations that could have repercussions beyond France. I pay tribute to Senator Nick Xenophon’s great work in Australia, putting vital testimony into the public record and asking hard questions about the movement’s tax-exempt status there.

And I have revisited a few other stories I think are important: how disconnection split apart the Henderson family in California; how Scientology’s spurious claim to be able to treat led to the death of Heribert Pfaff in Florida; and a look at the great work by Belgian artist Renaud de Heyn that appeared in France’s Revue 21 last year. Come and join the party.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 19, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

We sure have come a long way since Claire first started us out in this series with Scientology’s “Personality Test” a full year ago tomorrow! And now, we’re all the way up to Original OT 7, and Bruce Hines is here to help us as we near the top of the “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

Bruce, we’ve gone through the materials for Original OT 7, which begin with the statement, “The purpose of OT VII is the rehabilitation of ability to project intention.”

Original OT 7 consists of 49 processes, each of which has one to several individual activities. We’ll pull out a few of L. Ron Hubbard’s specific instructions in the name of fair use. (And remember, we’re being asked to answer these questions while paying several hundred dollars an hour, and by this time this catechism should be unlocking the secrets of the universe and helping us unleash superhuman abilities.)

(From process OT 7-1) “What are you willing to be the effect of?”

(2) “Decide something.”

(6) “Recall an intention.”

(8) “Tell me a thought/intention you’d be willing to receive from yourself.”

(10) “What intention of yours could another confront?”

(13) “Give me an unknown datum.”

(22) “Decide something.”

(28) “Spot an acceptable energy source.”

(45) “Find and run a havingness process on yourself.”

(47) “Go to a place with lots of people.”

(48) “Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them individually until you know they received your communication.”

(48) “Go to a zoo or place with many types of life and communicate with each of them until you know the communciation is received and, if possible, returned.”

(49) “Go out to a park, train station or other busy area. Practice placing an intention into individuals until you can successfully and easily place an intention into or on a being and/or a body.”

Hey, that’s fun stuff.

BRUCE: I did Old OT 7 while on the OT levels before joining the Sea Org, and then later I audited the first part of it on other people. You see, there were two parts to Old OT 7 — the first part is audited by another person on the pre-OT, and the second part is done solo. I don’t think any of the steps you have listed are from the first part. Even though I audited it a few times on other people, more than 30 years ago, I don’t remember much about those steps. I do remember that the first part was short, and it was thought that it would be completed in less than five hours of auditing. The solo part also did not take long to complete, probably two or three sessions.

The general idea was to bring the pre-OT to see that there is no liability in intending something, and to practice placing an intention in a being or object separate from oneself. At the time it was a bit odd to me that this is the same idea behind the Training Routines 8 (the one with the ashtray, called Tone 40 on an Object) and 9 (Tone 40 on a Person). In any event, all these OT powers that Scientologists were striving for were supposedly all based on the person’s ability to intend things. And to do this effectively, one must have no counter-intention. Then the things that a thetan can intend into existence just about anything. According to the theory. It can sound enticing once one has walked quite a ways down the garden path. So, supposedly, one should be able to simply intend (or “postulate”) that there will be a parking place, or that one will bring in a bunch of money, or will develop a successful business, or will start and stop rain in LA, or whatever. One sees a lot of OT-wannabes looking for get-rich-quick schemes in order to be able to pay for their Bridge, or their next trip to Flag, or I guess nowadays to donate to the “church’s” various fundraising activities. If one is “in ethics” (which really means that one is following the dictates of the “church”) one should not be counter-intending themselves very much. And then with good intention that money should be flowing in quickly. After all, time is just a consideration.

The solo steps, or some of them, were done outside while walking around, like Old OT 1. I can particularly remember doing that last step, “Go out to a park, train station or other busy area. Practice placing an intention into individuals until you can successfully and easily place an intention into or on a being and/or a body.” I tried and tried to get people in my vicinity to do what I was intending them to do. Like intending them to touch their nose or turn their head or something. I never had success at that. At the same time, the instruction does not explicitly say that the person has to comply with your intention. So I settled on convincing myself that I was easily and successfully placing the intention. Like in TR 8, one is supposed to place an intention inside the ashtray, but there was no expectation that the ashtray actually levitate. Still, the whole experience was unsatisfying to me. No one ever asked me if the people were obeying my intentions. I pretended however that I was very happy about it. Then I could attest and move on to the next OT level. Maybe the next one would finally bring me some semblance of superhuman abilities. The other solo steps on Old OT 7 were unremarkable; I have no recollection of any result from having done them, much less something mind-blowing.

The other strange thing about Old OT 7 was the point at which one did it. It was not done after Old OT 6. It was done after OT 3. Go figure. Well there was some logic to it. The sequence went OT 3, Old OT 7, OT 3 Expanded, Old OT 4, Old OT 5, Old OT 6. The terminology was that if one had done Old OT 7, but not the higher OT levels, one was “OT 7 EP.” EP is the abbreviation for End Phenomena. If one then progressed up the levels and completed Old OT 6, one was deemed to be “Full OT 7.” It was at that point that many people had dead-ended before the release of NOTs. Hubbard’s idea was that after OT 3, the pre-OT would then be in shape to do Old OT 7, and then, with improved ability to project intention, on OT 3 Expanded (simply redoing the steps of OT 3) more body thetans could be located and blown. This was the first time the pre-OT had to go find more BTs after having attested to the fact that there were no more BTs. By the way, an attest in Scientology is a big deal. A “false attest” results in the automatic assignment of the ethics condition of Doubt (see Jeff Hawkins’ excellent account of these conditions).

THE BUNKER: Bruce, that observation you made — that there was nothing in the instructions about these telepathic abilities actually showing any results — is one of our favorite revelations on the OT levels. Beautiful.

We’ll do New OT 7 next week, and update our costs at that point. For now, we’re still at $329,005.50.

 
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Have you seen this man?

Yesterday, Marty Rathbun posted this photo at his blog yesterday, saying that he’s asking for information about the man depicted in it…

The individual in the photograph below was hired by Scientology Inc. to stalk my wife not too long ago. I would appreciate it if folks would distribute this around interested forums asking that anyone who recognizes him to please provide me with the name and contact information for this individual, at rathbunmark57@gmail.com. Thank you.

Hey, we’d like to know who he is too! Take a good look…

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 4, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

Bruce is along with us again this week as we dive into New OT 6. Despite all of the work we’ve done on OT 3, 4, and 5, we’re still exorcising our space cooties on this level — or, in Scientology jargon, auditing our “body thetans” or “BTs.” All of the things we’ve been learning over so many levels is all coming together now, with our BTs hanging together in clusters, and our learning how to telepathically communicate with them and see if they’ve got leftover issues from “Incident 1” (of 4 quadrillion years ago) or “Incident 2” (the Xenu genocide of 75 million years ago).

The set of New OT 6 materials we have is incredibly long and contains all of the New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans (NOTs) stuff that Bruce first told us about on New OT 5. There’s so much material, we’ve just put together some titles and a few outtakes for samples…

1. NED for OTs Part B Checksheet

“The student drills the following steps on a doll. The coach, sitting off to the side of the student, supplies the doll’s answer…command to the doll: ‘Locate a BT or Cluster’ and acknowledges the doll when the doll says he has located a BT/Cluster…”

2. NED for OTs Series 1; NED FOR OTs RD Theory Of

“The reason Dianetic auditing messes up Clears and OTs is that when an auditor asks for an earlier similar which doesn’t exist, you’ll probably go over into a cluster or BT where it does exist. You see the Clear or OT doesn’t have pictures of his own so the Dianetic chain is being run on a BT or cluster and it really caves in somebody when asked for an earlier similar that doesn’t exist, on that BT or anywhere else. And it’ll jump the guy straight into another BT or cluster. And you get chaos…

“When you talk about telepathy, there is a proximity factor. When a thetan is pressed straight up against another thetan very tight, total tactile communication, you get this type of mental transmission. You can achieve it by reaching, when there is no tactile. You have to reach your attention a considerable distance. You can do it. An example of this is where two guys who are in relatively good shape start putting postulates at the same point on a wall that’s maybe twenty feet away in front of them when they’re sitting side by side. And they start putting postulates at a certain preconceived spot on the wall. Both of them will perceive a bzbzbzbzzzzz of sort of little energy explosions. Not small — maybe 3 or 4 feet wide and a couple of feet high. It’s when they both did it simultaneously. Two postulates will collide in the same exact place in the mest universe and go bzzzzzzt. It will happen; that’s at a distance. But apparently there’s such a thing as a tactile. After all you realize the amount of mass that is connected with a BT — he’s massed up. You put an impulse into that mass and the mass is up against the body — you put an impulse into the body it goes into that mass. The BT can respond. Unwittingly, unknowingly, totally at effect. Makes him hard to handle, by the way. That’s how you can make them run an Incident 1 and an Incident 2. They just run it willy nilly They can’t help themselves. And it as-ises in the bank and that normaly phenomena takes place and they go bzzzzzt, unless you yourself have put up a ridge with anger or emotion or something of the sort. I know some guys try to do it vocally or something stupid. What’s interesting is the number of BTs that have strings into the body. You think they blow and they still have a connection — beams.”

Attachment #2 Information for Pre-OTs — Auditing Attitude

“The best way to audit BTs and clusters is highly impersonal. Not impolite. Not rough, savage, no blame, shame, regret, nothing. Just dead calm. No unfriendliness, no friendliness. A zero attitude. The best way to handle it is just zero everything. If you engage in chatter or conversation with them it just stirs them up more. Getting rid of them angrily, they don’t get rid of. And of course you audit them telepathically, not verbal comm.”

7. NED for OTs Series 6 — Blowing BTs and Clusters

“BLACK BTs: Sometimes a BT will put other BTs in front of him as a sort of protection. You get a black area covered by a white area in front of it. A BT in the black area is holding some other BTs in place in front of it as a sort of protection or shield. The way to handle this is to blow the black BT who is holding the others in place, then the others come off easily. Otherwise if you try to blow the front ones first, nothing happens. If you encounter BTs not blowing, suspect and check for a BT or cluster holding the others, and handle it first, then the others blow easily.”

10. NED for OTs Series 10 — OT 3 and Dormant BTs OT 3 attest

12. NED for OTs Series 12 — Repairing and Blowing BTs and Clusters from past auditing or misauditing

16. NED for OTs Series 16 — “Exterior” vision, BT perception

27. NED for OTs Series 28 — Stuck flows, the genus of a BT

41. NED for OTs Series 42 — Repair list for errors in OT 3

44. NED for OTs Series 45 — Partially blown BTs

45. NED for OTs Series 46 — BTs with misunderstood words

…and quite a few more. Whew, this was the biggest OT level of all, full told.

BRUCE: New OT 6 is just a course. It is where a person learns to audit NOTs on themselves. So the bulletins you have are the same ones that a NOTs auditor (a person who audits New OT 5 on another person) studies as part of their training. It consists of a lot of information about the supposed nature of body thetans and various techniques for getting them to blow (the main one being the Valence Technique). The only solo auditing is at the end when the person tries it out on themselves. Once the case supervisor is satisfied that they can do it, they graduate onto New OT 7.

It sounds like you have the version that existed prior to 1991. I did that version in 1983. Since I was already a NOTs Auditor by that time, it was easy and fast for me to do New OT 6. As a sea org member, I was an exception in getting onto Solo NOTs in a relatively short period of time. Most sea org members, in my experience, don’t even make it up to the level of Clear, unless they had already made it above that prior to joining the sea org. One has to be receiving NOTs auditing before one is allowed to deliver it. So I started receiving NOTs auditing within a year of joining the sea org. And then I was pushed onto Solo NOTs because at that time one had to be on Solo NOTs oneself in order to audit another person who was also on Solo NOTs. A lot of people from Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking part of Switzerland were coming to Flag at that time who could not speak English well. Flag promoted heavily that they had auditors who could audit in many different languages. I happened to have been fluent in German. There was only one other NOTs auditor who was on Solo NOTs who could speak German (a lady from Germany named Heidi Stahli). So, because one person was not enough to handle the demand, I was rushed through New OT 6.

In 1991, the bulletins for NOTs and Solo NOTs were all revised. Additionally, there were new courses (new checksheets and course packs) for training NOTs auditors and for New OT 6. I was sent on a mission with Stephanie Horwich (former wife of Jon Horwich who had earlier been married to Diana Hubbard) to deliver these new materials and courses to Flag, get them securely locked up with electronic alarms, and get the relevant delivery personnel trained on them. The course packs were ring binders. The rings were especially strong steel that could not be opened. The bulletins were printed on special paper (I’m forgetting what it was called) that was impossible to tear. So no one could remove any of the confidential writings. The binders had wires with plugs on the end that connected to a security system. Even if a person was already a NOTs auditor, they had to do the new course. As part of that, we had to destroy the old, but super-confidential, materials that had been at Flag since 1978. There were a lot of them, way too much to shred. We also could not trust a commercial shredding company to dispose of them. I had to take them all in a truck to this huge place in Clearwater where they burn trash to generate electric power. Since the powers-that-be in the Sea Org were so paranoid about even one piece of paper from those materials getting into unauthorized hands, I could not let this big pile of boxes that had everything in them out of my sight. I had to load them onto a conveyor belt, after getting special permission from the power company, and watch until all of the boxes had been conveyed into a huge furnace, where everything was incinerated. Just an example of many crazy things that one inevitably experiences as a Sea Org member.

Anyway, New OT 6 does not have any stuff that we didn’t already talk about for New OT 5. It is just the transition from being audited by another on NOTs to solo auditing. If nothing else, it gave them one more level to sell (i.e. making New OT 6 separate from New OT 7).

THE BUNKER: That’s a fascinating tale, Bruce. Just the thought of all those security measures protecting the OT levels has our body thetans a-tingling. We’re going to assume that New OT 6 will take us three intensives at 12.5 hours of auditing each, with a total price of $21,937.50 according to a 2007 price list. Bruce pointed out that New OT 6 is a course, not sold in intensives, so we looked up the cost for the course on the 2007 price list, and it comes to $13,600.00

COST THIS WEEK: $13,600.00

COST SO FAR: $329,005.50

 
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Scientology cashes in on masturbation

Karen de la Carriere’s next episode with Chris Shelton takes a look at the way Scientology confessionals pry thousands out of parishioners through guilt.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 25, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

Bruce Hines is helping us again as we push on into the upper Operating Thetan levels, and boy, are we excited. This week, we’re up to Original OT 6, and the title for this level’s materials is “Familiarisation as a Thetan Exterior with the Physical Universe.” Hey, that’s sounds major!

After some review and preparation, we proceed to Step One.

“Be three feet in back of your head,” we’re told, the classic Scientology instruction to go “exterior” from our bodies.

Then we’re asked to do a series of exercises involving making “copies” of things we see in the room and then “disposing” of them. We’re told to find locations in the room or on Earth and “hold onto them” for two minutes. Once again, as in the previous level, we’re asked to “spot spots” in the room. And then there’s this fun instruction:

“Be in the following places: The room, the sky, the moon, the sun. The above steps should be done to a Major Cognition or ability regained. Repeat until this occurs. Write it down.”

Groovy.

Now on to Part Two, which takes place while we’re instructed to be lying down with our eyes closed.

We’re told to locate an animal and make it move it around, to find a person walking and make them walk faster, and then make a walking person stop and start again. We’re told to find someone “in a distant land”…

“Notice the terrain. Notice the general environment. Smell the air. Locate a thought that is his. Locate a thought that is yours. Continue until flat.”

Far out.

On to Step Three.

Now we’re told to turn on sexual desire and then turn it off. “Continue that step until you feel you have control over the sexual drives.”

Whatever you say, L. Ron.

We’re then told to create a feeling of pain, and then of serenity, then of hunger, then of admiration.

“The end result of these particular drills is the regained ability to control the body and its sensations…The Operating Thetan must be able to manufacture and experience to his complete satisfaction, all sensations including pain in mock-up form, and all energies such as admiration and force.”

Out of sight.

So it’s on to Step Four.

Now we’re told to “postulate” some emotions — anger, boredom, grief, cheerfulness, and serenity. “This is continued until you are sure that you can create any emotion.”

And finally, we get the big test to make sure this stuff is more than just lying down with our eyes closed while imagining things…

“Finally, exteriorized visit a friend who lives in another state. Greet him and flow affinity to him. Ask him to communicate to you by letter.”

And that’s it.

Hey, what if your friend doesn’t like to write letters?

BRUCE: The original OT 6 is similar to the original OT 5 in the general kind of process that gets run. Part of it is supposed to get a person to “realize” that feelings and emotions and sensations are not something that they are effect of. They are something that the person creates. This is probably the most fundamental goal of Scientology in general. Or, rather, this is what people are led to believe. Another way of saying it is the well-known Scientology dictum, “You are responsible for your own condition.” The various travails that any human goes through in life are supposedly caused by the person him- or herself. So they create a reactive mind, which they are supposed to realize at the point they go Clear. They lessen their own abilities because they believe themselves to be capable of harm and want to keep themselves from doing further harm. They “misown” (assign false ownership of) pictures and experiences of BTs and so lose their own identity. This all happens, as given in the theory, because they have been tricked or misled or programmed by implanters (psychiatrists) way back in time. And nothing bad can happen to a person unless they somehow have agreed to it.

So, the people who did the original OT 6 (and that was considered to be a very lofty thing by true believers back in the day) think that they are overcoming all this illusion that mere mortals think is reality. Probably any cult promises some kind of relief from or transcendence of the human condition.

One thing that is interesting about the original OT 6 is that many of the steps were published in 1954 in the book entitled The Creation of Human Ability (or COHA as it is often referred to inside that acronym-happy organization). That book describes many auditing processes that were in use back in the early 1950s. It contained “Route 1,” which was for people who could exteriorize, or who would believe that they popped out of their body upon being given the auditing command, “Be three feet back of your head.” Mr. Hubbard actually used the word “command” for directions given to the preclear in auditing. The step where the person was supposed to be in the room, the moon, the sky, the sun was called The Grand Tour, if my memory serves. And I’m pretty sure some of the other original OT 6 actions were also part of Route 1.

You weren’t allowed to know what was on that level (or any OT level) until you had paid for it, were given the OK to do it, and had an instruction from the case supervisor to actually start it. That made it very mysterious. If people knew that the same information already existed in a book that was available to anyone, it would have been more difficult to sell this “step to OT.”

There was also “Route 2” in the same book. This was for people who couldn’t exteriorize. Supposedly if one followed this route, they would then gain in ability to the point where they could be exterior and do Route 1. The processes were numbered and each one was referred to as “R2” followed by its number. For example, R2-17 was the famous “Opening Procedure by Duplication.” The notorious R2-45 comes from this book.

I’d be willing to bet that most of the people who did the original OT 6 chose a friend that would have been likely to send them a letter in any event. I never heard of someone deciding to send a letter because they felt that they had been influenced to do so by some disembodied soul.

THE BUNKER: Another set of excellent observations, Bruce. Next week, we’ll look at New OT 6, one of the most voluminous levels on the entire Bridge. (For now, we’ll hold on to our cost so far: $315,405.50)

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 18, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

This week, Bruce is helping us as we soldier on into the strange environs of New Operating Thetan Level Five. We’re now moving into a new realm — New Era Dianetics for OTs, which is usually shortened to NOTs. We’ll have Bruce explain that in a bit.

But first, let’s take a look what we ran into as we leafed through the materials for New OT 5.

We ran into a checklist of prerequisites, which include having a security clearance and making sure we don’t have a vitamin deficiency.

Once we’re ready, there’s a 29-step checklist that makes up OT 5 itself. Each of them refer to corresponding NOTs procedures. So the first step, for example, is “Indoctrination Step & clearing words,” which refers to NOTs 4 and 27.

Other steps include “Handle BTs who went Clear,” “Handle BTs who went Exterior,” “Handle BTs audited past erasure,” and “Repair BTs run on uncharged items.”

“BTs” stands for “body thetans,” those disembodied alien souls that we thought we’d gotten rid of on OT 3 and then OT 4. But apparently our BTs need further handling because they’ve been going Clear and Exterior on us.

Some additional steps in New OT 5:

Handle BTs/clusters Being Body Parts
Handle BTs On or Around the Body
Generally Spotting and Blowing BTs/clusters
Mass That Kicks in when Pre-OT Looks into Body
BTs with Mis-U words Rundown

And here’s the final step, which is a doozy: “Verify whether Pre-OT has achieved the full EP of NED for OTs as described in NOTs 27, pages 8 & 11. If so Declare. If not, locate the unflat/incomplete Pgm step(s) and handle…DO NOT DECLARE UNTIL PRE-OT HAS THE FULL EP.”

Well, that certainly sounds sophisticated and worth hundreds of dollars an hour, doesn’t it?

BRUCE: For me personally, the subject of NOTs is especially significant.

THE BUNKER: How about explaining NOTs for our readers.

BRUCE: NOTs stands for New Era Dianetics for Operating Thetans. New Era Dianetics (NED) was the incarnation of Dianetics circa 1978. There were versions in the 1950s which kept getting revised in those early days, then 1963, then 1969 (that was called “Standard Dianetics”), then NED. It was discovered after the release of NED that Dianetics should not be run on anyone who is Clear or above. The claim is that on a Clear, a person who does not have their own mental image pictures, running Dianetics restimulates the incidents (pictures) of BTs, and it gets very messy. It can result in illness or body problems or confusion or upsets or whatever. NOTs came about as a way to address these things on people who were OT 3 or above. Except it actually does not use a Dianetics-type technique. It is never simple.

THE BUNKER: OK. So different flavors of Dianetic counseling are required before and after going Clear. We’re with you.

BRUCE: I joined the Sea Org in 1979 in order to be a NOTs auditor, and then I held that post, after the requisite training, until 1987. In the latter part of 1978 and the first part of 1979, I was living in LA working as an electrician and doing my OT levels at the Advanced Organization of Los Angeles (AOLA) as a public Scientologist. In those days in the lobby of AOLA there would be announcements when someone attested to Clear or to an OT level, and the person who had attested would tell their “wins” to the people who happened to be gathered there. There would also be promotional announcements from time to time. One evening I was passing through the lobby when a guy was telling his “wins” from the NOTs auditing he’d gotten at Flag (in Clearwater). The advanced orgs at that time could not yet deliver NOTs auditing. I listened to that guy and was impressed by the amazing OT things he was saying he’d experienced as a result of his NOTs auditing. That guy happened to be Larry Wollersheim.

NOTs was developed in September 1978. It came out of auditing that David Mayo did on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard during a severe illness. Most people don’t realize how much Mayo contributed to NOTs. He was so utterly vilified to Scientologists later on. For over a decade prior to that, many people had been focused on doing the OT levels, especially the vaunted OT 3. The highest one could go then was what was called “Full OT 7.” That was a much different OT 7 than what exists today. And oddly it was done between OT 3 and OT 3 Expanded. OT 8 was not available until the late 1980s. The result was that there were a lot of people who had “gone up the Bridge” and had not achieved OT abilities. They had kind of dead-ended. With the release of NOTs they all had something new that they could do. There was also an explanation why they were still mere mortals, or so they thought. This meant that there was a huge demand for this new service and the Church of Scientology had a cash cow. I believe during that period was the first time the Flag Service Organization (which runs the spiritual mecca in Clearwater, Florida) took in a million dollars in gross income in a single week.

Bruce Hines

When one has jumped through various hoops, and has “security clearance,” one is allowed to study the confidential NOTs materials. Some of these materials are the same ones that a person doing New OT 5 these days reads in the introductory steps of their auditing sessions. The subject of BTs and clusters is revisited, with a vengeance. One learns that there are way, way more BTs than had been known about before NOTs. In the OT 3 materials Hubbard said that the number of BTs a person might have to deal with is in the hundreds; on NOTs, it is some huge yet unspecified number. These BTs are supposedly dormant and have to be woken up. This is accomplished by receiving NOTs from a specially trained auditor. New OT 5 is not a solo level.

The instructions for the current New OT 5 are in technical bulletins that were put together in 1991 by Sue Koon (Dan Koon’s former wife), who was in “the Hole” at some point according to something I read online. These were revisions of the original 1978 NOTs bulletins that were compiled by David Mayo. The level changed in 1991 from how it was prior to that. Few people know that actions were added in to New OT 5 in 1991 that were never mentioned by Hubbard, who had died five years earlier. This is a big deal for Scientologists, who think that Ron devised all the tech.

THE BUNKER: Jeff Hawkins has made the point that changes in the “tech” made after Hubbard’s death in 1986 were justified by claiming that Hubbard had left notes that were being followed or some other Hubbard-based justification.

BRUCE: The changes are justified by something Hubbard wrote or said (his recorded words). Or on things that someone else wrote and was personally approved by Hubbard when it was submitted to him. But sometimes it was interpretations of what he said. These interpretations were a bit of a stretch on occasion. Like Hubbard said something about staff meetings, and Cathy Rinder (remember her on that Anderson Cooper 360 show?) wrote a whole policy letter called “Staff Meeting” that laid out a whole procedure for these meetings that Hubbard never described. She had been ordered to do so and got it approved through David Miscavige. There are things that are in the current version of NOTs (New OT 5) that Hubbard never wrote or said or approved.

A key part of the theory of this auditing is that the BTs and clusters are not only dormant (unresponsive, like in a coma), but they are out of valence, which I wrote about in relation to the original OT 4. To wake them up and get them to blow, telepathically, silently, the pre-OT has to ask them what they are, and then who they are. The idea is that these beings are stuck in a false beingness (the valence). They might be thinking that they are a body part, or some inanimate object, or a quality, or anything at all. So the pre-OT asks, “What are you?” and keeps asking that until the auditor sees the “correct” E-meter reaction. Supposedly, when the pre-OT then acknowledges the BT or cluster that this is the false identity, a valence shift happens. Then the next question, “Who are you?” is asked repeatedly until the BT or cluster says, “I’m me.” Generally, so goes the theory, once the BT or cluster being audited realizes he or she or it (Hubbard never said anything about the gender of these beings) is just himself (or herself or itself), then they blow. The are freed up and might even go Clear at that point.

THE BUNKER: Yeah, there’s nothing insane about that at all.

BRUCE: The pre-OT being audited on New OT 5 goes through these steps over and over and over again. It is called “Valence Tech.” New OT 5 consists of locating BTs and clusters in various ways, and then running Valence Tech on them. To locate them, the pre-OT has to be able to perceive masses. The BTs and clusters have actual mass, so it is written, and since they are sort of dead, the only way to see them (not with the eyes) is to spot their mass. For example, the auditor might tell the pre-OT, “Locate a mass in the body.” Then, once they have done that, the auditor finds out whether that mass is a BT or a cluster, and then runs Valence Tech. There are several actions that deal with BTs that were messed up in the pre-OT’s earlier auditing. So supposedly there can be BTs who went Clear and are hung up because this was not acknowledged, or they went exterior and could not leave because times when they interiorized (incidents on their own time track) got restimulated, or there could have been other kinds of errors that occurred on a particular BT.

The whole thing is pretty complicated.

THE BUNKER: Complicated? We’re actually thinking of another word.

BRUCE: Well, I think it is all nonsense. But within that world, once one has bought some of the ideas, there is a kind of internal logic to it.

There are a lot of individual actions that make up this level. And there are a lot of contingencies and phenomena that the auditor has to be aware of and possibly act on.

I, and the people I audited on NOTs, had no trouble accepting that there was a whole new layer of BTs and clusters to be “handled,” or getting answers from them, or feeling like they blew.

Originally, there was a bulletin that said that one of the end phenomena of audited NOTs was that the body should become translucent to the thetan perception of the pre-OT. Of course, this is totally subjective. At some point in about 1980, solo NOTs came out and the pre-OT could shift over to solo auditing once they were deemed to be far enough along in their audited NOTs. Then, there was no more effort to get a translucent body. In about 1982, audited NOTs became New OT 5, and Solo NOTs became New OT 7.

THE BUNKER: We’re feeling pretty translucent at this point. So Bruce, how many “intensives” are we going to need to purchase to get through all of this waking up of BTs and making them blow?

BRUCE: When I was still involved, New OT 5 would typically take 4 to 6 intensives (50 to 75 hours). There might have been some “fast” pre-OTs who completed it in 37.5 hours.

THE BUNKER: According to a 2007 price list, 50 hours of intensives for New OT 5 runs $27,300.

COST THIS WEEK: $27,300

COST SO FAR: $315,405.50

 
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News and notes

Yesterday, filmmaker Louis Theroux mentioned on Twitter that he’s working on a documentary about Scientology…

 
Actually, this is a project long in coming that we’ve known about for more than a year, and it’s exciting to see it kicking into a new gear.

In fact, there are currently at least six television or feature film projects in production or being planned that we know of, but since most of them have reached out to the Bunker in some way, we’re going to remain vague about them until they give us permission to begin promoting them. (We’ll just say that one of them may be showing up as early as next month.)

 
There’s been some interest in a story coming out of Germany about an unnamed professional football player’s contract with the team Bayern Munich which included a clause saying that the contract could be severed if the player had anything to do with Scientology. We asked our man in Europe, Jonny Jacobsen, what was being said in Paris about this latest development.

So far as I can see this has been a slow burn: Der Spiegel appear to have run this more than a week ago in its Sunday edition (February 2). It must have been picked up by a news agency yesterday because it’s only now beginning to appear on a few French websites.

No trace of it in l’Equipe, the sports daily: the closest I got in a word-search of their site was “sciatologie,” which I promise you is nothing more sinister than a back injury.

The Adidas statement about supporting diversity and tolerance and somehow suggesting that Scientology not be compatible with such values — the very idea! — very much reflects the German view of Scientology. But while they say it’s a standard clause in their contracts, I can’t help wondering if it extends beyond the Bundesliga.

I can’t see that flying in Major League Soccer — is that what you call it over there? I’ll make inquiries at Adidas France to see if they’ve tried the same clause.

Thanks, Jonny. We hope you get some word back.

UPDATE: Adidas confirms that the clause only exists for its German contracts.

 
On a sadder note, we heard from Colin Henderson last night, who told us that Suzan Holten had died after battling cancer. Suzan’s daughter, Hillary, died in April 2012 at Narconon Arrowhead, the flagship facility of Scientology’s drug rehab network, which is in Oklahoma. Hillary’s parents, Suzan and Matthew, are among several families suing the Narconon center over a series of deaths there. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Matthew Holten, and we hope he can still find some justice in the future.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 11, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41

PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer

Claire Headley and Bruce Hines are taking us on our journey to train as Scientologists. Claire spent years working with Scientology’s “tech,” and was trusted to oversee the auditing of Tom Cruise. Bruce was in Scientology for 31 years and spent about half that time as a senior case supervisor. Go here to see the first part in this series.

This week, as we move on up to Original Operating Thetan Level Five (OT 5), Claire told us she never had any experience with it. But Bruce was ready to help us get another step up the Bridge to Total Freedom.

According to the Original OT 5 materials we looked at, this level is about “the truth about the physical universe,” which is different from “the laws of physical scientists.”

Yes, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard is going to tell us the truth about the MEST universe (matter, energy, space, and time), and once we do, we will become “free of its laws.”

Sounds fun! At this point, we should be able to exist completely exterior of the physical body, and the drills of OT 5 will allow us to “communicate” freely with the “environment.”

Oh, we can hardly wait! Now, let’s see how the true nature of the universe is revealed in a way that those silly scientists have never figured out…

We start with preliminaries. We lie down and get comfortable. With our eyes shut, we do the following:

“1. Spot a spot in the room”

“2. Spot a spot in your body”

This is continued as we spots spots “outside” and on the sun. Then we’re asked to sit up and spot an object or locate objects in the room and outside.

We then locate a moving object, locate a space, and do a few similar things until we’re exterior of our body.

In the next set of exercises, we’re again lying comfortably with our eyes closed. Now were asked to “create an illusion” which can be a “condition, energy, or object.”

Then, with that illusion in mind, we’re asked to do various things…

Conserve it, Hide it, Age it, Rearrange it, and Destroy it, among others.

Next up are some precious exercises that take place outdoors. We’ll quote a few…

“Pick out an object ahead of you and wrap an energy beam around it and yourself and pull yourself toward the object by shortening the beam. Notice what happens.”

“Locate a cloud and notice the space between you and it.”

“Notice the motion of the earth and your relationship to it.”

We’re asked to repeat these steps (and several others like them) until we have a “major cognition.”

And that’s it. What would that major cognition be, Bruce?

BRUCE: Like Claire, I have had little experience with the original OT 5. Like the original OT 4, very few people did it after 1978, and virtually no one after about 1982. Even though from my position in the Sea Org I had access and had to study a lot of confidential materials, the original OT 4, 5, and 6 were not among them. I think I read them briefly once. They were kind of hushed up after the “Bridge” underwent major revisions in ’78 and ’82.

Usually, a “major cognition” in Scientology can be any realization that in the person’s estimation is major. There are only a few auditing actions that go for a specific cognition (like the “Clear cog,” or the realization that one is just oneself in certain auditing actions designed to shift the person’s valence). A major cog should be a wow, mind-blowing thing accompanied by “very very good indicators.” There is a whole long list of “good indicators” and another one of “bad indicators.” In fact there is a whole educational film on the subject of indicators. That said, I would guess (and it really is a guess) that a preOT on the original OT 5 would “realize” something along the lines of, “I really am a spiritual being separate from and senior to the physical universe.”

I put the word “realize” in quotation marks because the whole thing is taking place in the person’s head. They lie down and perform various mental exercises. Let’s take, for example, “Spot a spot on the sun.” If you were to try this, it isn’t too hard to imagine that you are out in space somewhere, exterior to the body, and viewing the sun and some location on it. Having imagined that, and after carrying out a whole bunch of such mental tricks, it is a small step to believing that you are some really bad-ass thetan not confined by the physical universe. I believe this is analogous to what happens when one begins to recall past lives in auditing. When the person being audited is first told or asked or encouraged to find a past-life experience, he or she gets some dim thought that seems to just be something that would answer the auditing question. Then through repetition of this, and with the help of various re-enforcement mechanisms of the whole auditing system, the person gets more and more confident that these thoughts really are past-life experiences. If one fails to “perceive the motion of the earth” or find the past-life incident, then there is something wrong with that person. They then have to get expensive repair auditing, or have to re-do levels already supposedly done, or one might even be suppressive.

Mr. Hubbard taught and Scientologists come to believe, that only the ill-intended would attempt to invalidate or refute the truth of these experiences. After all, who is to say whether the person, as a spiritual being, was not out in space viewing the sun. Well, if it really worked, if these exercises really did produce super-able, super-ethical beings, it would all be good. I have concluded that it does not work. Of course, that makes me an SP. Starting in 1978, the idea was that these earlier original OT levels did not produce their intended results because everyone needed “NOTs” auditing (which now includes New OT V, New OT VI, and New OT VII). So for many years the focus became getting people through those levels. When enough people (read “enough to make it profitable”) had done so, New OT VIII was released. Then a bunch of people did that. But there were still no people with OT powers. That must mean that the earlier steps on the “Bridge” were faulty. But that’s OK, as it meant there were a whole lot of things that people had to pay for. People were even convinced that errors in books from the 1950s were the problem.

When Mr. Hubbard was alive, when his discoveries did not produce the touted results, he could come out with a new discovery that explained why. Then everyone would have to do that. Mr. Miscavige, cannot simply dream up a whole new thing. Mr. Hubbard made it very clear that only he was Source. So Mr. Miscavige has to keep repackaging and “fixing” the things that Mr. Hubbard had issued.

The whole system does not hold up under the scientific method. It is then very convenient to label scientists as fakes and physics and biology as false subjects.

THE BUNKER: Wait, Bruce, so you’re saying we’re not going to understand the truth of the physical universe and be free of its laws?

Well now we are seeing spots.

Next time, we’ll do New OT 5, and we’ll add it on to our running total. For now, we’ll stay at $288,105.50 for now.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 5, 2014 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.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS (We read Scientology’s founding text) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

UP THE BRIDGE (Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN (Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING (Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40

What groovy substances was Raquel dosing herself with a million years ago?

Bruce and Claire, last time we reached Operating Thetan Level Four on our trip up the Bridge to Total Freedom, but it was an early version that was later superseded by “New OT 4.” So let’s see what New OT 4 has in store for us.

It’s interesting to see the date on the materials for OT 4: January 29, 1980, which is just two weeks before Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard went permanently into hiding until his death in 1986. So this material was issued when he was at ‘X,’ an apartment complex in Hemet.

As for the level itself, we’re back to body thetans and clusters of BTs — the disembodied alien souls that take up residence inside our bodies or float nearby, which we first leaned about at OT 3.

Hubbard now tells us that body thetans are affected by drug use.

We learn that drug use along our whole track — long in the past — was worse than the drug use of today. And drug use today has a tendency to “restimulate” your body thetans about the drug use they went through in the distant yesterday.

(L. Ron Hubbard loved the idea of drugs hanging around in your body, ready to pounce on you in the form of a flashback. Now he proposes that the same problem is in your whole track, just waiting to be restimulated — which means you may get a drug flashback from millions of years ago!)

And that sets up the possibility for an odd situation — that you might have stayed away from drugs, but your BTs might be ancient junkies!

“Maybe the guy has never taken LSD or Pheno-barbitol in his lifetime and doesn’t have any of that drug actually in his body. But the BT or cluster freewheeling through an incident containing the drug mocks up the apparency of the drug in the body, making the guy feel that he is on that drug.”

Hubbard describes going through a series of “date and locate” drug incidents. He also runs through a series of case histories, mostly involving LSD. “Heavy druggie,” he describes one person.

As for the process itself, you make sure the subject has done the Purification Rundown so there are no PT [present time] problems with drugs, and then you apparently audit the drug problems of your BTs. (But hadn’t you supposedly already chased away all of your BTs on OT 3? Where did these BTs come from?)

And because your BTs had their wild times on the whole track, they may have used wild drugs that haven’t even been invented here yet.

Now that’s funny.

BRUCE: The idea is that the body thetans addressed on New OT 4 were somehow not available to be located or run on OT 3 because they were affected by drugs more than those that were supposedly blown during OT 3. And so the special approach of the “OT Drug Rundown” (the original name for New OT IV, before it became an “OT level” in 1982) allows one to find these “druggie” thetans. New OT IV is not done by solo auditing. The “preOT” gets audited by another person.

Back in the day I audited some scores of people on this action. In retrospect, it is interesting to me that, after attesting to “no more BTs” upon completion of OT 3, the preOT so easily accepted that on this level a whole bunch of body thetans, who had been there all along, have to be audited and blown. This pattern of “oh, I thought they were all gone, but now I have a lot more BTs than I thought I had” repeats as one continues up the OT levels.

I myself did not receive the version of New OT 4 that people would get these days. I had already started on NOTs auditing (which later became New OT 5) when the OT Drug Rundown came out in 1980. So the auditing I received involved NOTs techniques, which we will be talking about later.

It is interesting that there are four steps of the “bridge” on which drugs are addressed. First is the Purification Rundown. A later action is called the “Scientology Drug Rundown,” which is an auditing action that involves recalling times of drug experiences. Then later there is the “NED Drug Rundown” (New Era Dianetics Drug Rundown) that addresses drugs with Dianetic-style auditing (running through incidents of pain and unconsciousness in this lifetime and in earlier lives). And finally there is New OT IV. Mr. Hubbard did seem to think that drug use, including alcohol, was one of the main things that fuck beings up. Drugs were often used in “implants,” and in those whole-track, space-opera, high-tech societies there were supposedly some pretty sophisticated drugs. This is all pretty ironic, considering Mr. Hubbard’s own drug and alcohol use, which is now well documented.

The first test auditing of the OT Drug Rundown (referred to as “pilot” auditing) was supervised by David Mayo. If I recall correctly, Mr. Mayo wrote those case histories. If the bulletin you have was dated January 29, 1980, there is probably a “DM” in capital letters at the very end. Later such technical bulletins were revised to remove any reference to Mayo. I’m sure there could be a lively debate as to whether any of the techniques in New OT IV were originated by Mayo. I know what Mr. Mayo would say. But, regardless, Mr. Hubbard had to approve the final version of the rundown.

A key part of the OT drug handling is the idea that heavy drug experiences can form clusters of BTs. To understand this, one has to know what a cluster is. It is a group of individual thetans who all experienced some engrammic incident at the same time and in the same place. These beings then believe that they are collectively just one being. They lose their own identity, according to the theory. So on New OT IV (also on OT III) the cluster has to be “broken up” so then the individual thetans that were in the cluster can be audited separately. One process used for this is “Date/Locate”, whereby, as the theory goes, getting the exact time and the exact place where the cluster was formed will break it apart. This could be billions or trillions of years ago on planets many, many light years from earth. Really, I am not making this up!

The theory includes the idea that restimulation of drugs can make a person act sort of drugged in present time. Before the person goes Clear, this would be a restimulation of his or her own mental pictures of drug experiences. After Clear it would be restimulation of body thetans and clusters of body thetans (usually referred to as BTs and Clusters). Such is the power of a thetan that a BT can create something that acts like a drug in one’s own body. Hmmm.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

CLAIRE: Bruce covered it very well.

I did the New OT 4 (not knowing there was an “old” OT 4) in 2000. I finished extensive review auditing after breaking my leg and shoulder during OT 3, and was finally allowed back on the level and finished it.

I agree with Bruce, in retrospect the fascination with drugs and their impact on your life is pretty extreme.

It especially seemed that way for me. I never did any form of street drug. I’d never even taken an Advil or Tylenol. Ever.

And so the “worst” “drug” I had addressed on my Purification Rundown was novocaine and radiation (from my allergic reaction to the sun aka red hair / fair skin syndrome). Honestly the first time I ever got drunk was after I escaped the base. So yeah, not much exposure. I’m sure there are some who did have a major issue with addiction etc. That just was not me.

Either way, here I came to OT 4. And now we’re back to drugs. Except now, it’s Body Thetans with drug issues. All I can say is that I somehow reconciled in my mind (or not) that now we were going to talk about this again.

At least I actually had had some drugs in the interim!

I will say Bruce pretty well summed it up, it’s counter-intuitive in so many ways to come to the end of OT 3 and “attest” to having no more BTs, only to start the next level and without even so much as a blink, we’re back at it.

This is what they call unburdening one’s case, peeling away the layers of the onion.

THE BUNKER: And peel away, we must! So let’s see what we’re going to pay for this e-meter exorcism, according to a 2001 price list.

THIS WEEK: $ 9,831.25

TOTAL SO FAR: $ 288,105.50

UP THE BRIDGE: The Personality Test; the Comm Course; Ups and Downs; the Values & Integrity course; Basic Study Manual; Upper Indoc TRs and the HQS course; Student Hat and KSW; Method One Co-Audit; PTS/SP part 1; PTS/SP part 2 — Disconnection; PTS/SP part 3 — the Tone Scale; PTS/SP part 4 — Declared Suppressive and the A to E Steps; the Purification Rundown; TRs and Objectives; Pro TRs; Upper Indoc TRs for auditor training; the Ethics Specialist course; another look at Disconnection; Pro Metering; ARC Straightwire; Expanded Grade 0; Expanded Grade 1; Expanded Grade 2 and the Joburg Sec Check; Expanded Grade 3; Expanded Grade 4 and Ser Facs; New Era Dianetics and going Clear; the Clear Certainty Rundown; OT Preps; Solo Auditing; OT Eligibility and Old OT 1; Bruce Hines joins us for New OT 1; OT 2 part 1; OT 2 part 2; OT 3 and preparing for the Wall of Fire; OT 3 — the big reveal; OT 3 auditing; Old OT 4; New OT 4

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on January 28, 2014 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.