Sparrow:
On further thought about the lasting benefits of Scn/Auditing my short answer to that is there actually may be something good in all this mess. What I've noticed is that it is never original. The courses have a lot of tidbits that are, if not useful are harmless and I always run into people who tell me it's all been done before.
The defenders of Scientology always point to the so-called Study Tech. I've done the Student Hat, I know what that is all about. There might be some things in it that are alright, but I am suspicious. I believe that if there is any good in it then it has been done before somewhere in this world or is incredibly obvious. For instance Clay Demos I think may be useful. If one is pouring over books for hours they would be a nice break from all that reading. You may even see things from a different perspective. At the very least it would be harmless and do nothing. But let's get real it is not original. It is just the same idea as Generals plotting strategy using model ships and planes.
That brings me to another pet peeve of mine. If Hubbard really cared about mankind he could have just written a book on the subject of study. People could then read it and pick and choose what they liked and maybe mix it with other things that they have found to work. The pity of the Study Tech is that it is used to study Scientology so what happens is that the student is now using the tech to brainwash himself better and faster. I DON'T think we need Delphi, Applied Scholastics, or Apple Schools either. If you want to learn badly enough you will find a way and do it on your own. I'm sorry if I offend any ex-Scientologists but I also frown on anyone starting up their own school or group delivering Study Tech or a mixture thereof. It is over-rated anyway and the world does not need any more LRH wannabees. Go to college and become a real teacher if it means that much to you.
I myself have learnt many new skills since leaving and how I usually did it was by stupidly murdering my way through my lessons. In other words it was by trial and error, never giving up, having the desire and interest in the subject, and not expecting instant gratification or results. That seems to go against the grain of everything in Scientology.

Paul

I find your insights into scientology most interesting. What a good thing you always retained a large amount of commonsense and stubborness. This probably saved you from going under.
Your comments about Clay Demos being 'a nice break from all that reading' reminded me of books I've read about learning. Give the pupils difficult tasks and finish with something easy and undemanding. This apparently reinforces what they have learned, leaves them in a winning position and eager to absorb the next chunk. I've heard that a break in learning something acts as a plateau for the brain to absorb the information. The idea is very old, don't know where it originated. I don't think it was ever intended for use by a brainwashing cult.

Lucky

I'm stunned by what you write. Your outspoken comments will be invaluable to anyone reading this message board. Scientologists having doubts might think more carefully about staying in and people considering joining or knowing vulnerable people who are thinking of joining can point to your posts and show the possible outcome.

Haarek

Regarding your sneaky look at the course supervisor, you are being unreasonable - what did you expect to see? The guy levitating or diving into a bowl of custard for purification purposes? (I would expect this at least from such a high level being)

You only had to ask why he was unpacking his trunk and you would have been told the truth - he was auditing a body thetan out of his nose. Hope it didn't take up residence with anyone else.

::)I laughed so much at your post, I can't wait to hear more.

John McMaster, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., and other SP's yet again

I remember when I was on staff I once came across some old Scientology magazines like the Auditor, Advance, and Celebrity Center Mag.
The CC Mag. had a profile on some actor called Heber Jentzch, boy was he ever gung ho!
I don't know which mag it was in but there was an article on John McMaster, the 1st Clear. The photo was done just perfectly it looked so bright. You would think he was an angel. His smile was just beautiful. I knew right then and there that I wanted to be like that. "So this was the first Clear!", I thought, "How come I've never heard of him?" I thought that this was exactly how a Scientologist should be like. He just seemed so friendly and compassionate.
Then I came across some Sea Org Bulletins, I think and I found out he was declared an SP. I found it disappointing but at the same time a little peculiar. Things that make you go,"Hmmm...".
Then I remember reading policy letters from the big green books. The older PL's from the Washington, DC days would mention LRH Jr or Nibs as he was sometimes called. Again I would wonder why I never heard of him. I asked those staff who were long time Scientologists and I would never get an answer. "Hmmm..."

Sparrow

I think you are right, he was auditing
out BT`s. And it must have been a severe
problem for him, because I observed him
do it, many times.

Haarek

I hope they didn't remove too much money from you for the pleasure of watching this superman. Even if you got nothing out of the particular course you were taking, your fascination with this individual must have kept you sane and firmly in the real world.

As for me I'm cracking up with laughter - your comments were so funny.

I once got into a short conversation on the subject of cults with some co-workers. We all agreed on the dangers of cults and how being intelligent and educated was no guarantee of protection from their claws. We mentioned the Moonies, Krishnas, and the Children of God. I threw in, "Then there's the Scientologists."
One of the others piped in that they were different and that he had read a lot of Hubbard's books and found him to be a genius. I knew for a fact that he wasn't a Scientologist and that his personal lifestyle would have gotten him kicked out of Scientology. In fact, he wasn't the first such person I had met who said the very same thing. I immediatly dropped the subject. I still wonder about people like that. Who are they? Do you people out there ever meet such persons and what is your view on this?

Tell him, "Hubbard's pretty controversial. If you're interested, here's a website. Here, I'll write it down... www.xenu.net. Let me write down "The Hubbard is Bare," that's an interesting article on the writers that influenced Hubbard." Hand the guy the paper and say no more.

If he's curious, let him look for himself. If you lecture him in front of other people, he may resent looking foolish. Here's the link to "The Hubbard is Bare":

http://xenu.phys.uit.no/lrhbare/

I'd like to add that Elron's history/ancient religion/philosophy seems plucked right out of Will and Ariel Durant's "Our Oriental Heritage" and garbled to fit his needs. This massive series, ten books each the size of the NY City phone book, was heavily promoted by the Book of the Month Club. Decades ago many living rooms had these books. Your local library probably still has all of them, too.

The books zips through the dawn of civilization, covering Shiva, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Confucious, and so forth in an easy-reading format. If willing to take the time any college dropout could read this series and impress the yokels with his deep knowledge of the mysterious East.

Before "Our Oriental Heritage" there wasn't anything like this popularized book, and suddenly average people could learn about cool ideas from the past. As long as Hubbard kept attracting people who (1) hadn't taken Asian religion courses in college and (2) hadn't sat down and read "Our Oriental Heritage," he could dazzle them with his "genius" knowledge of the Buddha. Plus the Durants dropped in real quotes, so Elron could copy them as though he had been right at the feet of these wise men in previous lives. Yeah, right.

I only took one course in ancient Indian religion. Yet it was heavily influenced by the real "genius" Mircea Eliade.

http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/artic ... 86,00.html

I remember wading awestruck through Eliade's "The Sacred and the Profane" at the time. I would not have dared quote the Durants in this course, since I could see how they had simplified and dumbed-down Buddhism, for example. If Hubbard had quoted Eliade, I would have been impressed that he had somehow gotten through the equivalent of a religion course aimed at 20-year old sophomores. But, alas, I have never seen Eliade quoted by Elron, although he was a huge influence on scholarly research in the 50's and 60's. It's just the "easy" Durant version that Elron plagiarizes.

Let me clarify: The ten-volume series is called "The Story of Civilization" and the first volume is "Our Oriental Heritage. The second book looks at the Greeks, the third book looks at the Romans, and so forth up to Napoleon.

Don Carlo

Yes I plan on reading the Durant's books one day as sort of a primer on history just like HG Wells book I guess. I will try to resist winning friends and influencing people with cool quotes though. I may even try to take it further by reading other books but we'll see. After all, 10 volumes seems like a lot of work!

Thanks Don Carlo, I have of course often seen the dedication to Will Durant in "Dianetics", but never got around to find out who this Durant guy was. Ooops, guess I passed by an MU right at the beginning of the first Hubbard book I ever read, no wonder I didn't make it as a scientologist!

Out-PR or Revenge of the Nerd

It was a Christmas party at the org. Bring as many wog friends as possible and show 'em how cool Scientology and Scientologists are. Naturally, there was going to be booze there. There is just so much present time that even a Scientologist can take. One clam, a rather "unique" nerdy type got into the juice a little too much. There he was babbling away about past-track and all sorts of crazy stuff. This was a potential public relations disaster. It was bad enough that he was nerdy and strange when he was sober but this was awful. What to do? No problem the tech works! One true believin' staff member took it upon herself to give the poor space case a locational. "Look at that wall!", "Look at that table!", etc. Except the guy wasn't having none of it, "What wall?", "What table?", "Why?", and on and on. I should have known right then and there that Locationals don't work and that Scientologists are ridiculous. The wogs figured that much out. My money was on the weirdo.

Aw, I'm envious - at my org we never had Christmas parties with booze

For a brief time we did have a bit of Saturday night entertainment, some of our local OT publics who used to hang around the org would rent a couple of videos, and we would watch them late at night on the projector screen in the chapel. Thrillers, "Flash Gordon" and a number of Bruce Lee movies. Eventually, the LRH Comm got wind of this and made an enraged order to stop it. The chapel had a window towards the street, what if passerbys would see a screen of violent fights and nude women in there!

All things considered, that would probably have attracted more new members...

One of my snapshots:

My first scientology course, the Self analysis. The list of strange words to look up in a small scientology dictionary where even the language sounded strange - yes, the words were mostly Swedish but the grammar and syntax seemed very foreign. The box of paperclips, elastics, coins and undetermined small pieces of matter that was shoved in front of me, which I was expected to use to somehow illustrate what I was reading. The teacher who wasn't supposed to explain anything. The funny excercises talking to a ragged stuffed animal, a dog I think. If the book I had to study was strange, I hardly noticed - it fitted right into this unusual environment.

Despite the name of the course, the idea was to sit together with another student and ask them to remember things from a list in the book. It wasn't too hard and the other person seemed happy about the whole thing, so I thought I had probably gotten it right. The teacher also seemed very happy - I didn't quite understand why, we had not exactly moved mountains that afternoon. Little did I know then about the sacred Thursday 2 p.m. statistic...

She grabbed my arm and briskly showed me upstairs, into the inner compartments of the organization that I had not entered before. I was taken into a room full of haphazardly arranged desks, books and papers, and told to sit down on a chair. Another woman handed me two soup cans with wires - hey, this must be the mysterious e-meter! I had heard about that. It looked like a toy, but I decided not to comment. After all, my whole intent with doing this scientology course had been to check out what these people were about, not to really involve myself. Then soup can lady wanted me to sign a paper declaring myself having fully achieved the aims of the course. What was this? How could *I* know if I had gotten everything right, I knew practically nothing about the subject? Wouldn't it be better to ask the teacher who presumably was the expert! And, anyway, what did they want with my signature?I started to protest, but reminded myself to shut up and go along with it. Soup can lady insisted, and I signed.

But it wasn't over yet. Now soup can lady asked me to write down my success story. She had to explain what she meant, that people used to write testimonies of what they gained from the course they just finished, and pointed to some such stories others had written. It was with great difficulty that I kept myself from laughing out loud, but she seemed so sincerely concerned about the whole thing that I felt kind of sorry for her. OK, if all it took to make her happy was to write some nonsense on a piece of paper, I could do that.

Now I would finally get out of there, I thought. I had not counted on the teacher, who was still waiting for me. She said there was one person who absolutely wanted to see me before I left, but would not tell me why. It turned out to be the especially nice and friendly young man who had an office close to the entrance. We had talked before and I didn't want to be rude to him, so I said ok, just for a few minutes. He wanted to know what course I was going to do next. Ha, as if I was going to go through more of this weirdo stuff! I said I wanted to think about it, but somehow he kept the conversation going and going. In the end I thought the best thing would probably be to just buy one of the really cheap courses so he would let me out of there. With a crumpled up receipt for a Dianetics course in my hand I rushed out of the place. I was never going to set my foot there again.

Or so I thought...