Flying teapots and parlor tricks| Flying teapots and parlor tricks | | Print | |
| Wednesday, 16 March 2011 23:44 | ||
|
By Thoughtful An Independent Scientologist who posts on Marty’s blog as "Splog" posted a comment and inspired the article that follows. First, here's Splog's great post: I thought I’d chime in with some thoughts on what OT means to me. I’m not OT myself (never did any OT levels), I might be Clear but that’s never been clarified. The definition of OT is cause over matter, energy, space, time, form and life. That definition is not an absolute, there’s lots of room for gradients in there. One becomes OT gradiently, much like becoming “educated” – there’s no final end point and one can always become more educated that one is today. Even just managing to live from one day to the next requires some “OTness”, how else do you get your body to pick up one foot, put it down in front of the other and move down the street? Somehow or another the being has to pull the strings in the body’s brain to make the nerves and muscles operate – is that not being “cause over matter”? I firmly believe the state of OT is grossly misunderstood and what gets told in Class V orgs doesn’t help either. It’s not about party tricks and making teapots fly through the air with the greatest of ease – what’s the point of that? It’s not about canceling out gravity with “mind power” and getting to the moon with no effort – you’d have to get everyone else to agree on not having gravity first No, it’s more about getting things done, and getting them done within the reality framework of the rest of the world. Let’s say a real OT wanted to help a poor community become self-sufficient. I live in Africa, so this is something real to me. A real OT would engage people in the village, find out what the current score is, and help them find something useful they could do. They’d have to figure out how to get and use resources, there’s funding, finding markets for whatever the decide to produce and a whole lot of getting people up the Tone Scale and actively producing. Magic and parlour tricks forms no part of this – comm and ARC does. You don’t “wave” or “glow” it right – you persist in dealing with the people till things start moving in the direction of survival. You have to have good intentions across the dynamics, you have to be somewhat free of your own doubts and uncertainties to pull it off and you have to be willing to confront people and listen while they tell you all their reasons it cannot be done. To me, that’s what OT must be all about. I don’t need a magic teapot that flies (I can rig up an internet-enabled coffee percolator instead ), I do need to regain the ability to move a group forward to survival. Maybe a real OT or three can chip in with their thoughts on how near or far to the mark I am? Flying teapots and parlor tricks
In my opinion, people who say "OT doesn't exist,” doesn't understand what OT is. Splog gave a great example of an OT helping a community. Sure -- of course an OT could do that. But in doing so, it would be so much easier to do if one were OT. Here's how it goes for a real OT. He or she gets the idea of doing something. The desire is there to do it because it sounds like fun, or because it sounds rewarding or interesting. 24 hours later, he's talking to an electrician who is renovating a house and the guy mentions wanting to help out his village. He's wants to teach people how to be self-sufficient, but he needs someone to manage the project. And a little light goes on. They talk more and the OT thinks, "Wow, what a coincidence" but of course he knows it's no coincidence. As it turns out, the village under discussion is the same place where the OT did some fishing the year before. He loved the people and then remembers making a postulate at the time to help them out one day. Further chatting reveals they have common friends in the same village. The next day, the OT calls up the common friend in the village (who happens to be a teacher) and it turns out he wanted to get something going and even has a talk scheduled, but needed to bring in a speaker. That weekend, the OT and the electrician and the teacher are hold their first talk and the community project is born. And the OT does some fishing, too. And it all happens effortlessly. As if by magic. As if by accident. But it was no accident. Getting your lightning onThere is an old Zen phrase: “Whatever you are looking for, it is looking for you.” Well, the more OT you become the more swiftly the process runs since there is nothing holding it back. Eventually thought alone can create change like lightning and I'm not kidding about that. I learned the hard way to "watch what I wish for."This is the difference between operating as a spiritual being (dubbed in Scientology, a "thetan," hence “OT”) and operating as a material object. The fact is, you aren't a material object. So it is difficult to operate that way! It isn't normal or natural. The natural thing is to operate as a spirit, because that's what we ARE. A spirit "operates" by thought. Observation is a part of that. Communication is a part of that. He or she makes a postulate ("I am going to help a village") or considers something ("Community work would be fun") and things in his environment swiftly fall into place. The next thing you know, the project is in full production -- sparks and nails and cash are flying. And now the OT is writing a blog about it or a book or what started with one community has turned into a popular movement touching the lives of many people. That's OT. But as for the choice of what an OT might do, that could include anything constructive. In addition to defining life as a game, LRH defined life as "having and following a purpose." So that pretty much opens up the whole of life to an OT. Normally, they get involved in a whole lot of stuff and have a ball while doing so. The reason being OT doesn't include floating teapots across the room is because every game has rules, and in this particular sector of the universe, the rules don't include doing parlor tricks. If you want some tea, you simply use your arm. Or ask someone to pass it to you. Or you postulate someone bringing some to you in the first place. Got what it takes?Just because we don't collectively float teapots across restaurants doesn't mean we can't do it. People do the same thing every day, and every person shooting down the idea of OT is himself sitting there doing these same magic parlor tricks in many ways even as he croaks out "There's no such thing as souls" and swigs down some more Christian Bros brandy like someone used to know. It is the most ironic thing imaginable.A spirit, who doesn't know he's a spirit says it's not possible to operate as a spirit even while he’s operating as a spirit in saying that. It's easy to demonstrate this: Lift up a teapot. Now answer this series of questions: Q: How did the teapot rise up in the air? A: My arm moved it. Q: What moved your arm? A: Muscles obviously. Q: What enabled your muscles to contract? A: Well, there’s fibers in the muscles that contract. Q: Oh, okay. Like threads? A: Of course. Q: Good what made the threads contract? A: Huh… ...you get the idea. One has to face the fact that any attempt to explain body motion purely in materialistic terms rapidly runs out of track. And what is left? Nothing. Or to be more accurately, “no thing.” Exactly. A being has no location in space, no mass, no energy, no time, but is the creator of all these things. Mr. "There's no such thing as OT" is sitting there causing motion from nothing, fibers to move, or creating impulses in his brain that chain react down to the muscles and tell them to move (whatever). But at some point, that track when you run it backwards runs straight into a SPIRIT who is just flat out creating impulses and even creating space and time in which to create energy and motion. So in actual fact, Mr. "There's no such thing as OT" is himself floating teapots across the room. And just because he's doing it on a via or two doesn't mean he's not doing it. It's no different than having a rubber glove glide into the room on a roller skate, hitting the table and knocking the teapot off and onto the rubber glove which then rolls over to the person. Taking a step back, the OT is making the whole scenario happen. Duh! That's also a parlor trick. Whether he does it on a via or not, what does it matter? It’s just a matter of playing by the local rules where he happens to be. But that doesn't mean if you went to dinner in some other galaxy, you might not be ducking teapots. And probably if you were, there would be some guy saying, "There's no such thing as OT, um-kay? If there was, they wouldn't need teapots, um-kay? But could just send streams of tea through the air and into their glass, see.” And if you went to still another galaxy, where streams of tea were flying across dining rooms in restaurants and kitchens everywhere, SURELY there would be someone saying, “There’s no such thing as OT, because if there was, they could just make tea APPEAR in their glass instead of having to make it fly through the air like everyone else.” ...and you know, we could keep going all night. “If one was really OT, they wouldn’t need to drink tea but could just mock up the taste of it.” And so on ad infinitum. But what are we really dealing with? Someone with crashing misconceptions of what OT is, what a spirit is, what the abilities of a spirit are, and how a spirit operates... and who is in total confusion as to what he or she actually IS. Because he is sitting there DOING parlor tricks and magic, but since everyone does it he discounts it utterly and now wants DIFFERENT parlor tricks before he “will be convinced.” What you really have is a being in a state of confusion as regards the upper dynamics. Confusion is not hard to handle. One just needs to find out where one is. However, Miscavige, at least at the Int base and I suspect elsewhere sabotaged the application of the Ethics conditions so that they wouldn’t work. In short, he forced people to apply them only as meat bodies, and not as beings. Whereas they just don’t work that way. Anyway, the fact is, any able person who is having and following a purpose in life, who is playing the game of life, who is taking some responsibility for the world around them, already is OT. It isn't a status, it is a powerful way of living that enables one to succeed. All people who simply use their minds to make things happen around them, are all validly OT to a one. How to win enemies and repel peopleLife IS a game. And you know, it’s no fun to break the rules because as soon as you do, it’s not a game anymore!You can demonstrate this as well to get a subjective reality. Get everyone around for a card game. Deal all the cards to yourself. Announce your winning hand! How fun is that? It isn’t. But it’s not just “no fun” for you. Ask everyone else around the table if they are having fun. They are going to say, “Noooooo.” OTs play by the rules because life is no longer any enjoyable for anyone if you were to violate them. We all agree to lift teapots using our arms. The arm is lifted by muscles. The muscles are lifted by fibers. But the fibers -- they are moved by sheer OT magic and that’s okay. It’s okay, because that is arbitrarily what we have all agreed to as okay. And everyone at the table of life in this particular piece of the universe wants everyone else to play by the rules because to cheat would ruin the game for everyone. YOU basically know this already, and so it’s really YOU who limits your own abilities to perform parlor tricks, and you are doing it right in present time. You kick the soccer, no?I mean think about it. What do you got going? You are building a business. You are raising a family. You son is supposed to try out for soccer in the spring. He’s really into it and the other dads have already asked you to help coach and you have agreed to do that. An indescribably bright futureBut that doesn't mean the world can't evolve toward floating teapots as "normal." Of course it not only can but will. But it will need to be done gradiently, so as not to be destructive. LRH wrote an issue called "OT Maxims" in the 1980s. It said (from memory) something to the effect of, "An OT must exert his power cleverly as otherwise it could be destructive." (I need a set of the Tech Vols if anyone has a set they don't want). Gradiently, the introduction of OT "magic" into the world would be fine. That's all. So, how much fun could the world of tomorrow become? Damn fun. You could fly your body up in the air and give any bird a run for it's money. It's just a matter of time. In other words, there is a natural, organic progression for these things. Before you go knocking hats off at 20 yards, you have to give people a chance to get used to the idea, as otherwise it would be VERY, VERY, VERY destructive. Down deep, you already know this is true and the easier you can acknowlege that, the more responsible you are. The world is a cooperative endeavor. But good suggestions are always welcome. That's how an OT operates. He comes up with "good ideas" that easily gain acceptance, which is how he or she can operate "effortlessly." Has this ever happened to you? You go to a movie and you get so "into" the movie you forget that you're sitting in the audience, in a chair, next to someone? Life works the exact same way. But the "movie" is 3-D. And unlike a movie -- which rolls out according to the way it was already shot and edited (meaning you can't change the outcome), with life you -- sitting right in your theatre seat -- can affect and mold and change what happens up there on the screen. Okay, maybe you aren't very good at it right now... you say. Or are you? How many people do you know who themselves KNOW certain things just "go wrong" around them. We call this Murphy's Law. "Things always go wrong for me" "The car will always break down if I get in it" -- whatever. There are a million variations. They take responsibility for creating effects outside their own bodies as long as they are negative. Even some beer-swilling ne're do well will proudly crow about how things just "go wrong" for him no matter what he does. Look, if you have the power to affect things remotely so that they go wrong -- just cut off that last few words -- you have the power to affect things remotely. That's huge! Power is power. You can only make things go wrong around you through the agency of your own power. So if you have ever done that in your life, heck, you also have the power to make things go in a positive direction. But looping back a few paragraphs, where is that "theatre seat" from which you are viewing the 3-D "movie" of life? Would you like to see? You can, right now. Just do exactly what you do in a movie when you put your awareness back on the movie theater seat you are sitting in. Stop thinking and look. How far is it to your nose? How far is it to your ear? What is the closest thing to you that you can sense? Can you feel your throat? How about the roof of your mouth? That's getting pretty close. How about the back of your head. Can you feel that? Top of your head? Well, perhaps you can observe for yourself that there is a threshold where space, energy, mass and time lose their meaning. As you draw in closer and closer to your own location in space what do you find? You don't have a location in space. There is no finite distance from "where" you are, to whatever you view, because you aren't fixed in space. You have no location in space, exactly as LRH describes in the definition of a thetan: AXIOM 1 AXIOM 2 AXIOM 3 AXIOM 4 AXIOM 5 AXIOM 6 AXIOM 7 AXIOM 8 AXIOM 9 AXIOM 10 You place the world out there to view and then perceive it back. How large is the physical universe for you? Only as large as you are right this moment creating it. How many other beings are even involved in creating the room where you are right this moment? Not that many. Can you affect things in the world around you? Of course you can. I do it all the time. Daily. And it produces a feeling of pure joy. That is the "joy of creating" that LRH wrote about. In case of emergency, break rulesWhile moving up the Bridge, there have been days I could do incredible parlor tricks. One day while on Pro TRs in Austin I found I could move people's attention and make them turn and look. I made someone in a restaurant turn and look at the wall. I made people half a block away turn and look directly at me. I made people turn and look behind them. How fun! I did 10 different strangers in a row. Got every single one to turn and stare at something. They didn't know why they were even looking. A few hours later the ability was “gone.” Could I still do it? Yes and no. Ethically, it’s cheating. Something about it feels wrong, even thought it was fun to do. However there is one situation when performing miracles is permissible.
It really is a joke. Everything around us is magical. You LIVE in a magical world. The more OT a person becomes, the more evident this becomes and the greater his sphere of influence. Moving beyond flying teapots, an OT influences the world around him or her through "thought" which includes postulates, considerations, intentions and agreements. An OT is able to "tap into" higher-level communication lines and forward generally constructive projects more easily. An OT thereby moves up out of the effort band, and into the "effortless" bands of energy that lie above the effort band. You can find plenty of information about this in LRH's books and lectures. Love, faith, communication, reality, affinity, understanding, responsibility, knowledge, good control, integrity, compassion -- THESE are the components of OT. THESE are what enable an OT to KNOW. THESE are what is responsible for an OT's "sixth sense" (and seventh sense and eight sense, whatever they are -- that's a joke). Perpetual motionHere’s another example that proves you already live in a magical world. People say perpetual motion is impossible. You can't spin a top and have it keep on spinning forever. “That violates the laws of physics. Friction would stop it.” Max Planck, the physicist who founded quantum physics said, "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." What keeps all those atoms spinning? You and me. How do I know this? Because if you accept this as a theoretical fact, what do you know? It predicts new data and enables you to do things you couldn't do before. In short, it works. And as LRH said, workability is the ONLY yardstick by which truth can be measured. You got your theory, I got mine. Which one is true if any? The one that WORKS. We'll always have Paris HiltonBut let’s take "frivolous" things. I don’t love shopping. But if I had a purpose that involved needing some nice threads... okay suddenly shopping is fun. Because I have a purpose, now shopping advances me toward achieving my purpose. There is fun in that.Once I’ve achieved that purpose, it ceases to be fun. Many women LOVE shopping. Well, it's because they have a purpose in place and shopping moves then forward in fulfillment of that purpose. So, to them, shopping is "fun." People who don't have that purpose can't understand what they are talking about and might conclude Paris Hilton is a mindless flake or horribly unhappy inside. I bet you she is not. She goes shopping and gets endorsed by cosmetics and earns a huge income from that. So for her, shopping advances her business of being a very successful fashion plate. But really, "shopping" is neither “fun” nor “not fun”: the activity is not the point. NO ACTIVITY in itself is either fun or non fun. NO ACTIVITY in itself is either meaningful or non meaningful. NO ACTIVITY in itself is either rewarding or non rewarding. Any activity you care to do either aligns to some purpose you have or it does not. If it does not, then it is for you not a pleasurable activity. If the activity does align to a purpose that you have, then the activity is fun, meaningful and rewarding because it advances you along in your purpose. Think about the ramifications. This radically alters one’s understanding of life, what it’s about and how to play it successfully. When I was a child, I used to look at people doing what I considered “frivolous” things and I’d think, “Is that all life is all about? Just buying stuff?” I collected some material things and it didn’t seem to give me much joy. So I wrongly concluded most people were bored in what they were doing and life didn’t have any point. No: one has to create "the point" in the first place and then life does have a point! And meaning! And it’s fun! Life is empty ONLY when your activities don't move you forward toward at least one of your own adopted purposes. The real fault is failing to adopt, select or think up some activity (purpose) you want to do in the first place. Solving depressionSo when you know that, how easy is it to solve “depression.” Come on, it takes like 3 seconds to solve. Are you depressed? Dream up something you want to do. Collect twigs that look like animals. Build a tree house. Learn how to dance the Shu-ga-loo. Or the Shy Tuna. (Or if you really like the B-52s, you can be the first person to do the Camel Walk and the Hip-o-crit at the same time and video it and put it on You Tube and then get yourself on Tosh.0). Maybe Paris Hilton’s purpose was to be famous. Hey, she did it! She must be having fun. |
"Scientology has been taken over by a self-appointed dictator, David Miscavige, who has turned the Creed of the Church of Scientology, the Code of a Scientologist, and the Credo of a True Group Member on their heads and instituted the virtual practice of Reverse (Black) Dianetics..." 
Comments
Just because moving my arm to lift a salt-shaker requires a conscious act on my part it doesn't prove that this consciousness is in any way separable from my body.
Additionally, the existence of chemical bonds between atoms doesn't require a consciousness to hold things together. Why would our bodies behave any differently than other matter in this regards?
There are microscopic creatures that live in water that aren't strong enough to break the bonds between water molecules so the water is essentially solid for them. We're stronger so it isn't but other substances with stronger bonds are.
Thanks for the clarification. I guess the issue I have is that it is only a proof if you except the idea that matter is caused by "the fundamental agreements of life" as a fact, which most non-Scientologists are not going to do.
I'm perfectly happy with all you've said as a belief or a theory of consciousness but it can't be proven to someone who has accepted different axioms.
A mathematical parallel is the continuum hypothesis which was put forth by a respected mathematician and then it was later found literally impossible to prove or to disprove. You can assume it to be true and have one branch of mathematics or assume it to be false and have another.
Both can produce useful results but they can't relate to each other in many cases.
LRH suggested more broadly, the only proof of anything lies in it's workability. To me, I do believe that is the acid test. So in regarding any theory, I look to see if it is useful. Can I do anything with it? Does it unlock any doors? If not, for me, I throw it aside into the junk pile of the "unworkable" and therefore "untrue."
Perhaps that is because I subscribe to an axiom that truth unlocks doors. So when I get a theory that sounds nice but it won't unlock anything, or in reverse seems to make things even more incomprehensible, I say that it fails the acid test of "truth" because it fails the any test of workability.
The reason I endorse the seniority of life above the structure of the universe is because it enables me to do things I couldn't do before.
When I was in college, my cosmology (the science of the origin and development of the universe) professor told me about the theory he was currently working on.
I asked him if his theory was true. He told me, "Well, actually it doesn't matter if it is true. It only matters that you have your own theory. If you have a theory, then you can get a grant to study it. And you can write a book about it." That is literally what he said and at that point I was done with college.
This fool was promoting a theory that he knew wasn't true just so he could make a buck. That happened at Southern Methodist University in 1979. I left college and started looking elsewhere for "truth." When LRH placed the standard of workability alongside his theories, and said workability is the only valid standard by which you can know truth, it made a lot of sense.
Thanks for writing.
Steve
ML, Caliwog
Great question. In 2003, scientists working with patients who had lost a limb found that by placing a tiny "brush" of antennas in the brain (a kind of tiny Fuller brush with rows of tiny gold hairs which do not damage the cells) and connecting these antennas to a robotic arm, they could enable the patient to control a robotic arm like they did a real arm. Pick up stuff, whatever.
They don't understand it all yet because they don't know Scientology. But the fact is, the thetan "thinks" or projects a mock up through the brain and the brain (which is just itself a receptor) picks up the sweep of imagery across it, which is converted into electric impulses that move the arm.
In other words, they simply successfully replicated what the body itself is doing. The brain (a 3-D antenna) catches signals from a mock up projected by the thetan across it, converting that into signals that travel through the nerves (wires) to the arm's muscles (motors).
I believe they will find as they research this further, that for most people, the being (spirit) mocks up a 3D picture of an arm moving as they want, and the brain reads this and converts it into signals that move the arm.
What supports this is experiments whereby the same scientists implanted the little golden brush into someone's brain and recorded the signals as he "thought" about moving his arm. They found the signal pattern was the same every time for the same motion, and corresponded identically to the motion. The signal pattern was just as if something swept across that little brush in the same direction for any given motion.
In other words, if you imagine moving your arm from left to right, the signal pattern across the little brush went from left to right. Think your arm up, and the signal pattern went from bottom to top.
It turned out to be stupidly easy, exactly as LRH said the mind worked in the 1950s if you want to delve into his lectures. They are fascinating talks, I assure you. In these lectures the secrets of the universe are revealed, no shit.
Thus these hearty scientists are delving into the field of mentally activated devices, or actually, they are creating an interface with the express people so that paralyzed people can one day do things -- like drive a car or fly a plane -- using their minds directly instead of having to move a stick with their hand. Of course the military already got hold of this and has developed ways a pilot can fly a plane using only his mind. They've already done it.
But of course controlling things with the mind is a two way street. And thus there is a darker side we must be alert for.
If the mind can control a computer, the potential is there for the computer to influence the mind.
Hence the vital necessity to make Scientology broadly known since it is the only thing that has the technology capable of preventing or undoing these kinds of control mechanisms.
As LRH wrote about many times in the 1950s and afterward, Scientology is a race between freedom and slavery.
That's just another reason some people care so much about Scientology (the philosophy not the Church) and will never give up teaching about it. In the wrong hands, Scientology is deadly. The only way to protect people is to make sure EVERYONE has the knowledge and thus the antidote: then we can all protect ourselves.
As LRH said, Scientology is a deadly serious activity. That's why so many of us endured unbelievable hardships at the Int base and elsewhere if you want to know the truth, and gave so much money and support to the activity, not knowing it had been subverted by the rotten apple at the top; and even why now, outside we are acting to make sure the technology stays free.
We understand the risks and what is at stake and we've drawn a line in the sand and I can assure you we will move heaven and earth to create that good future for mankind.
The forces that would misuse technology to enslave mankind have already lost. They just don't know it yet.
ML, Caliwog
ML, Caliwog
I doubt Steve is saying any such thing. The muscles contract because of the impulses carried by the nerves. This is obvious - you can insert needles into a rat's brain and make it's muscles move as you wish with the correct amount of current applied to the right place. These days we can even make devices to help disabled people using the same principles - I've read of prosthetic limbs being wired directly into brains. Neurology is perfectly valid in this regard.
Nerves carry impulses because neurons fire in ways that cause the impulse. The neurons fire because that's what they do. But why do they fire in exactly the way they do? It sure isn't random - you can lift your arm on demand whenever you want. So it's determinate.
I believe Steve is saying it's the being (the "thetan") that triggers the process by making the neurons fire. This is the point where the life-force (or spirit if you will) interacts most intimately with the body. Which makes sense - personally I think it's rather stupid trying to make my arm go up and down all by itself when there's a perfectly good servo system already in place, complete with feedback loops and all the other engineering goodness that makes for an efficient machine.
1) Yes it can reform Scientology. It's supposed to be able to. It requires us to think, decide, act -- which is the definition of ability, well demonstrated here.
2) This should be a whole series of intro or Sunday services in the Church. I mean, what is Scientology about but this? Implicit in your prose, is the concept that at least one goal is the better game scenario. I can also see the observations that an individual must have a game and that that game may be fun, may not be fun.
3) I am gonna start using the expression when tea pots fly. It will be your cause. By definition it will me when better, appropriate circumstances prevail. It will also imply there are not too many folks saying it can't happen or that it should be proven.
Bruce
I did have to agree with SpecialFrog that to someone who believes in their soul, but not as something independent of their body unless acted upon by their god, tracking back gets to them - but not to a Thetan external to MEST. (The common Christian believes they are either an alive body or a dead body and once dead God can act to bring them to heaven or send them to hell. Many even think of themselves in their bodies in those heaven or hell.)
The only other minor point that I'd quibble with is that a floating teapot at Applebee's would not have the final effect unless more was done. The universe tends to invalidate such events. (Maybe the cup had a magnet, a fine wire, slid due to a streak of water, etc.) Agreement that it happened would be very very low.
However, neither of those points is critical - simply ones that stand out a little to a reader who wants to find something to quibble about. (Meaning I've just insulted myself, I know.)
1. I had noticed the Church of Miscavology down-defining OT into someone who can "make it go right," and not someone who can "make teapots fly." I've listened to the PDCs too and Ron was talking about some pretty high level stuff when he was discussing OT, not just "Community Organizers." I believe the "make it go right" sort of OTness is the gradient up to "teapots" but is not the goal itself.
2. I disagree that it would be bad to display parlor tricks. Sure, some types of "parlor tricks" might be too much for people to tolerate or could be destructive to others. But I think most people would love to see real magic and it would inspire them to reach OT themselves. In fact I believe it is the key to making the tech real to everyone. I think that the fear of punishment we think will follow the use of OT tricks is part of the implant that keeps us from using them and is a sign that someone hasn't made it to full OT.
Mlv Klaus
Steven Pinker, on free will, no soul in the machine, and the phone interview covers some great points.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI1624SwYnI&feature=related
from BBC show, shows brain activity building up, before we exercise free will.
These arguments in these clips were sufficient for me, to allow me to revert to thinking we aren't invisible souls which blanket our brains and pull the levers on our brains initiating brain activity.
I believe we are as laid out by Pinker, in the above clip, and there are many other great clips of Pinker on Youtube.
It has been my personal consideration that prior to moving a teapot, it behoves me to know what a teapot is. What exactly is matter, energy, space, time?
Seems to me that to gain a skill in handling something, even the skill of telekinesis, one would have to know what it was, how it worked, what was the 'tele' and how does 'kinesis' work.
I can't move a teapot - yet - but I'm sure enough gaining a real grasp on time and space and working on energy and matter.
Theoretically, with the assumption points of the Qs, the Factors, the Axioms, extrapolations would lead to pushing a pen around with an apparent lack of contact (apparent is used advisedly as in order to have any motion translate, there must be some contact, at some level. Theta must bridge over to theta as MEST. How? Again, one of those prerequisite understandings to actual skill, else, what is it one is practicing?)
I'd ask one who felt he didn't get his efforts worth out of his Scientology, what for example is 'time'. Really.
You can't define it to your own satisfaction that you know precisely what it is you experience everytime you wake up, then how on any plane, could you expect to be 'cause' over that which you don't actually understand as a working fact?
That is a puzzle to me. Time on the other hand LRH, in Scientology, covered but thoroughly.
Once again, you have taken a complex subject and laid it out on the table in a simple way. This is one of the best explanations of "OT" that I've ever heard or seen. Thanks.
There are, of course, some who won't "see" it, shrug.
I just had to stop agreeing with the reg's and the sups and get the hell out of there!!!
People who are connected to a suppressive person or group make trouble. That's why they are called "PTS" -- "Potential TROUBLE Source."
A PTS situation has to be handled before one does any auditing, because auditing doesn't work on someone who is PTS. That's why I can safely say you don't know the first thing about Scientology.
Rex Fowler was connected to a suppressive group: the CoS! They extorted $200,000 from him that he didn't have. So he was most definitely raging PTS.
Any individual must police their own connections if they want to be free or able. Rex Fowler didn't do it.
So that's where the OTness was: there wasn't any because this idiot didn't apply Scientology to his own life. He had a 500 pound leach sucking blood out of his neck and this idiot didn't smash the leach.
This may come as a big surprise to you, but LRH developed the PTS/SP tech for use... as in, you are supposed to apply it to your life because if you don't, you will lose your gains and it will be as if you never got any auditing at all.
Fowler didn't apply PTS/SP tech. The purpose of Ethics is to get in Tech. If Ethics is out, Tech won't go in.
Here's another way of putting it: You can't grow tomatoes in solid stone. And you can't engender "OTness" in yourself if you are heavily PTS. It's a technical fact.
Here's what a real OT would have to do in Rex Fowler's position: throw off the SP.
If he had done that, his OTness would have been shining and his partner would still be alive.
I have given in excess of $200K to get on 7 and to the IAS and I didn't feel the need to shoot somebody. You have to remember, he agreed to give the money, and for a worthy cause - clearing the planet. Which is exactly what I thought when I signed checks to them, broke as I was.
However much you try to not-is this, he is a product of 7. I could be equally facil and say he was dramatizing the level (not cause over life) but the fact still exists.
My problem with the PTS tech is that it is 180 degrees of an earlier LRH stable datum, you are entirely responsible for your own condition. PTS tech says, in essence, somebody else is responsible for your bad behavior. Some sp, some 2 1/2 percenter, some out of valence in R-6 guy is messing with your life and so you make a lot of trouble. While there are no doubt people with SP characteristics out there, that does not justify Rex being trigger happy. Nor can you blame it on the entities the level handles either.
If you are going to discuss the positive effects of the OT levels, you have to look at the negative as well. Otherwise you display your bias.
MB
In 1990 COB made it clear down tech lines -- perhaps you don't know this, but I do -- that giving "good hats" as terminals in any PTS interview or PTS Rundown was not to be accepted. Who was defined as a "good hat"? COB and his protected few. So from that point on, COB and other key suppressive execs were immune to any ethics action that found them as valid PTS or SP terminals.
So you really still don't get it: the whole of the Church is a suppressive group. They lie that they are all about "clearing the planet" when actually the money is being used by COB for a lavish lifestyle and he was NEVER actually using the money people donated for "dissemination campaigns." No, he was using it to live on and spending a small amount on mock dissemination campaigns to trick Scientologists into thinking their money was being well spent.
Hey, have you ever seen an accounting for all the money? That's because it was not spent as promised.
Gretchen, Hy, Annie, Howard, Michelle, Bennie -- every single one, every single staff member in the Sea Org or today in a Class V org for that matter IS a member of a suppressive group. While they are not suppressive individually, they ARE members of a suppressive group.
What you don't get is the definition of a suppressive group.
Do you think every single Nazi was a suppressive 2 1/2 percenter? They weren't. Many were just ordinary people drafted into an army, handed a gun and told to shoot! If they weren't brutal, guess who got shot? They did. So they killed and murdered. They had to follow orders. And it's the same in the Church today. Gretchen, Hy, all of us, were following orders. And those orders became gradiently suppressive. And thus the group itself became suppressive. That's how a suppressive group evolves.
Read that article and then get back to me, "Throwing off suppression." I'd like to know what you think. It explains this whole situation in greater detail.
Every single person in the CoS IS, IS, IS flamingly PTS. It's been intentionally overlooked. Why do you think you were BROKE? Does that sound like a good condition to be in? You are moving up the Bridge and you are "broke"...
Mimsey, that doesn't even make any sense. If you are moving up the Bridge in a safe environment, you ought to be more prosperous, with more money in the bank.
The whole reason you were "broke" is because you were being ripped off by a criminal organization -- extortion! If the mafia were busting into your office and holding a gun to your forehead and stealing your money, wouldn't that qualify as being "connected to a suppressive person or group"? It's no different with the CoS. But instead of a gun, they use the misapplication of heavy ethics -- insinuating you are out ethics if you won't give them everything, telling you lies about the state of the world and how they are handling it. Hey, David Miscavige spent your money on new motorcycles, vacations, houses, $500 Egyptian shirts, zebra wood paneling in his $70 million office building where 10 people worked, a $30 million new "home for LRH" after LRH died (and after bulldozing the actual historic home where he lived at the Int base).
A thought that occurs to me. On refection, a point in your suppression article that I would like some more info on is specifically, what LRH policies are being violated by the Church in the IAS fundraising? Can you email me the names and dates of those policies? You can send them to mimsey_borogrove
After reading your article, I am of the same mind, the CofS needs to have their ethics put in by getting them to pay for such polcy violations.
I appreciate your time spent in this matter. MB
Thoughtful
Actually, anyone wishing to call something a "science" as Hubbard did with Scientology, BETTER be ready for scientific methodology to be applied to it, ie: falsification. Those who decry this are admitting that it ISN'T a science at all but, only a belief system.
is . . . is . . . well, it is probably lost on you. No wukkas, though.
Umm, fail. LRH never revoked his claim that it was a science. Post the ref if you can... BTW, you just conceded that it isn't a science. Something either is or, isn't. There is no middle ground. I think that is lost on you though.
RSS feed for comments to this post