CoS claims both the power to grant and (if the student is difficult / disobedient) take away "clear" status and OT levels,which CoS claims is a pipeline to eternity. Thus CoS claims deity status. Unlike Catholicism, where the Pope is claimed to be the infallible one, it's hard to see where that divinity resides in CoS. Is it Miscavige, who can't cure his own asthma? Is it a corporation? Which one? One site claims CSI,** but which division? Is there an eternity committee? And if CSI is the font of religious authority, why does it send royalty and trademark payments to Church of Spiritual Technology and Religious Technology Corporation?

So the OT Levels aren't a permanent improvement of the student's relation with self or the cosmos. The precious relationship, to be improved or destroyed, is strictly between the student and the CoS corporate umbrella.

Let's imagine metaphors for the OT levels, (assuming each definition/metaphor starts with the phrase: After the student pays vast sums of money to CoS )

1. An OT Level is a probationary status, meaning that the student can keep it only with good behavior. The status is ALWAYS probationary. The CoS registrar / auditor / handler / Sea Org serve as probation judges to yank the status away for independent thinking.

2. An OT Level is a pedestal (raising you up as a person of knowing-how-to-know "science" if you're not religious, and "spiritual eternity" if you are religious). The pedestal is held up by the student with a little stick like a circus clown juggles plates on a broomstick. For the privilege of holding this pedestal on a broomstick, the student must throw to CoS MORE money, obedience, and sometimes health and family. If the student tires of the effort and sacrifice, the pedestal crashes like cheap glass. The student never even got to climb onto the pedestal and enjoy the supposed superior-being status - the OT abilities don't appear and CoS blames the student's overts and withholds for that, and the registrar uses the sheepish disappointment to sell the next level, hinting that the OT abilities were sure to arrive then.

3. An OT level is like a diploma mill where you essentially buy your piece of paper, rather than do real science, math, literary analysis, historical research, etc. The diploma is only valid within CoS, and only when you are in good standing, i.e. still donating.

4. An OT level is, for some, a struggle-filled session ending with an "I Love Big Brother"* euphoric relief that it's over, with love-bombing afterwards, and then more demands for money and sacrifice.

5. An OT session is "Narcissistic Supply" which feeds the me-me-me four-year-old inside all of us, with the message that's we're special and we're better than those mean people who corrected our spelling and smirked politely at our ignorance.

6. An OT level is the supposedly gossamer extra-wonderful clothes that the Emperor wore, and that everyone agreed was wonderful, until a small boy said the Emperor was naked. This is strengthened by the rule against talking about your OT experience except in glowing, bland terms and never admitting that you're have no OT abilities.

7. An OT Level is an act of appeasment to get CoS recruiters to stop hard-selling you for a few moments. An OT level is one of many hoops to jump through,to please CoS.

8. An OT Level is a vanity purchase to display wealth and be better than other Scientologists not yet that far on the bridge.

9. An OT Level is a loan of trademarked and copyrighted materials, which is partly why you can never own your level. If you really owned it, you could start your own religion without getting sued by CoS.

10. An OT Level is a space-opera participating re-enactment by the student, for which CoS fears mockery, and criticism. That's why the OT Levels were so secret until brave souls got them and published them.

11. An OT level is frequently disappointing. CoS fears a popular student could just quietly quit after a lurid level like OT III, and lure relatives and friends to quit CoS at the same time. So CoS hovers and nags the student to remain involved and buy more courses.

12. An OT Level is a piece of paper that is meaningless to start with, and even more meaningless if if a few high-school drop-outs at Sea Org can revoke it, just because you're not totally obedient.

*Last line of the book 1984
** http://www.scientologynews.org/church-s ... ement.html

Uh, erm, the Pope is "infallible" only because the Catholic church thinks he is, and treats all of his whacky 17th century pronouncements like some sort of eternal law.

He's just a human being, like you and me, not a piece of divine existence. Thinking he's more than that is just more institutionalized kool-aid.

Other than that, good post. I always found it intriguing how spiritual states could be repealed.

Not only are the OT levels expensive and worthless, but they are probationary?!
Oh well, at least they will let you keep your SP status

Hummingbird, I changed my post. I don't think the Pope is infallible or has a pipeline to God, but at least some in his church revere him or his office. Miscavige is feared, rather than revered as a judge of a student's eternity.

"The Bridge" is CoS's metaphor for the courses and sacrifices required of a student. CoS's images just show the Bridge going vaguely "up" but this contradicts the definition of a bridge: CoS's term isn't even original. Ancient Hindus mentioned it in the Upanishads, and Theosophy picked it up:
Theosophy or Psychological religion: the Gifford lectures, 1893,**

LRH took a wonderful old English word "bridge," and used it to describe a roadway going nowhere, or in the case of having to repeat courses, a hamster wheel, and the student pays dearly to repeatedly run on that hamster wheel.


LRH doesn't use most other religious metaphors, like Jacob's ladder for the Old Testament, the Eightfold Path for Buddhism,The Light in Christianity, Pilgrimage for Medieval Christians, Dharma for Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains, Submission for Muslims, or Spirit Quest for Native Americans. The New Age term "journey" hadn't been popularized yet. The Way in Christianity and martial arts, (the word "Do" in Tae Kwan Do and Judo means Way") is borrowed for The Way to Happiness. These metaphors have been powerful concepts, and so is a bridge, if it GETS you to the other side. So far, nobody has gotten to the other side, with provable, constant OT abilities like reading minds and moving objects with your mind. The start of the bridge was ego flattery about your high IQ, love bombing, scare stories that CoS's "personality test" showed you to be "in danger," and self-help and commications courses that work just like many community college courses. The middle of the bridge is a lengthy and crafty sucking of the student's money, secrets, idealism, youth, and family ties. The dark part of the bridge is the hard-selling, fraud, extortion, embracing illusions of being outside your body, ignorance of the warning signs of those spiraling into mental illness, and forced disconnection. The end for most has been bankruptcy, broken families, useless-audit-away-the-sickness sessions, and earlier death than the national average.

LRH admitted the Bridge wasn't delivering its promises when he repeatedly called for creating "a better bridge." *** Of course, he may have meant a more profitable extraction of money from each student, rather than a better experience or a better end result.

* http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bridge
** http://books.google.com/books?id=fZdLAA ... on&f=false
*** http://en.allexperts.com/q/Scientology- ... e-tech.htm

Another CoS term is Rundown, as in "Purification Rundown" or "Super Power Rundown"(1) But this is not standard English; it may be a Navy term (2); in standard English the noun Rundown means Chillingly, the adjective Run-down means This "dark" definition really fits

To use correct English, CoS should say "Purification Procedure" or "Super Power Checklist," even if that sounds more cold and clinical. A more colorful and descriptive term would be "Purification Extraction" because, medically, extraction is The extracted item would be your money.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundown_(Scientology)
(2) A navy guy talks about rundown as a kind of procedure/discipline to earn a higher Navy level. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiKPW5U9C5U
(3) http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/run-down
(4) Synonyms of the adjective rundown include "beat-up, bombed-out, dilapidated, dog-eared...dumpy, grungy, mangy, mean, miserable, moth-eaten, neglected, ratty, run-down, scrubby, scruffy, seedy, sleazy, tacky" http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/rundown
(5) http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/extraction

Don Carlo wrote:
"(1) But this is not standard English; it may be a Navy term (2); in standard English the noun Rundown means
Quote:
an item-by-item report or review . (3)"

Not standard English, but I've heard the term "run down" to mean to pursue (more or less) as in "running down the suspects." Using that as a noun, "rundown" would mean, more or less, a "pursuit" or "quest".

Running down, in the sense of pursuing, usually has as its object prey, or a criminal, so that's not the same as a quest. Quests are to find noble things. And, "pursuit" implies that your enlightenment is running away from you as you chase it. If CoS intended this meaning of rundown, they are leaving out dignity.

"Drills" and "Questionaires" are procedures that CoS has labelled correctly. When auditors use memorized words and phrases in course work, the supposed aim is rote memorization and a standard, predictable response to student questions. This is nothing new -and it leaves little room for creativity. Questionaires ask questions - unfortunately, they are traps to gather embarassing info and put the student into a bashful, sheepish state - perfect for CoS to start demanding more money and effort.

In summary, the whole process is one of appeasement of a so-called Church that claimed to have all the answers, and at first was love-bombing you. Then it became insatiable, promising eternity and mastery of the universe as long as you keep buying, donating, and obeying. Finally, as your money vanished, and you could no longer appease, it lost interest in you if you were quiet, and tried to destroy you if you were vocal.

“CoS claims both the power to grant and (if the student is difficult / disobedient) take away "clear" status…”
Don Carlo

Well, in this case CoS brass contradict themselves because they cannot bring back a person’s engrams.

Tory said she and her OT-7 buddies in Scientology had to re-do Clear and other courses.* This was yet another arrogant demand by CoS, launched against their most loyal members back then. Like a deity, CoS assumes infallibility and dangles the OT levels as the highest spiritual achievement. The student, still hungry for the OT levels and trying to keep connected to Scientologist relatives, re-purchases old courses for cold, sweet cash. Tory also said Miscavige expected each OT 8 grad to join Sea Org, buy a mission, or be a W.I.S.E. bigwig. So, even when the student has jumped through every hoop and expects to be treated with appreciation and respect, the student is hit with new demands and stinging disappointment. This disrepect for the earnest student happens even at lower levels, where CoS is often demanding students take and re-take courses, and pay for sec checks, no matter how cooperative and obedient the student has been. The only "eternal" and "infinite" part of this process is the greed of CoS.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XbYEbD7tDY

CoS not only tries to mete out / revoke eternity, it sets itself up as all-powerful policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury, and jailor to its out-of-favor Sea Org employees. Outside of Scientology there is even a strong cultural tradition that setting oneself up as a judge is arrogant and against the Bible (Judge not, lest ye be judged), implying that only the Deity is noble enough to judge a sin. For crimes against society like murder, only an elected government should hold trials and imprison convicts. A tangle of un-accountable corporations claiming religiosity is far from a legitimate government. Of course there should be no puppeteer (Miscavige) forcing a verdict on an abused Sea Org prisoner. Sea Org threatens loss of eternity and disconnection, to force the Sea Org worker to sign an agreement to the RPF. CoS pretends to outsiders it's a religious retreat, but the RPF's imprisonment, harsh conditions, long hours and low pay violate human rights. The sentence isn't even fixed; it is up to Sea Org to decide when to release the prisoner, and sometimes the prisoner dies in the RPF.

Ironically, the Church of Scientology of California (CSC) was once the Mother Church, claiming to be a bestower of spiritual "eternity" and a law unto itself. Then CSC faded away because of the Wollersheim lawsuit, and was replaced by the Church of Scientology International. How could a corporation be a pipeline to eternity, and then "transfer" this pipeline to an entirely new corporation? Where did the pipeline reside at CSC, and where now at CSI? As assets were transferred, and the CSI name filed with the State of California, did sparkly "eternity" particles fly about?

If the pipeline to eternity is not CSI, but the "Ecclesiastical Leader" Miscavige at CSI, how was he chosen for this? What is the succession plan should Miscavige flee overseas / get arrested / become enfeebled ?

Several years ago I was reading an article about Scientology written by former OT 8. I do not remember the whole article, but one paragraph stood out for me – even after extensive OT auditing that is supposed to drive away body thetans, those pesky bastards might return to their habitat. One has to undergo endless auditing to make sure that the kaka stays away from his body. Auditing = money bleed.

One can "pursue" a dream, a career, etc. and those are not necessarily things that are running away from you. And "Running down" is a slang term, but the object can be most anything. An example is "running down a dream." The CO$ has batshit crazy ideas of nobility and dignity. When someone is RPF'ed the CO$ considers that person to have lost his/her dignity and must earn it back. The CO$ also has the batshit crazy idea that putting someone through severe and prolonged mental and physical stress will lead to spiritial enlightenment.

For what it's worth, the definition for "Rundown" in WIS:
"a series of related actions in Scientology which culminate in a specific end result. For example, the Drug Rundown consists of several different auditing processes and actions which, done fully and in sequence, result in the freeing of a person from the mental and spiritial effects of drugs."

The definition does not explain how the term "rundown" was derived, and I still don't know. Just guessing

True about pursuing dreams, but I still can't see Buddha "running down" enlightenment or a Lutheran "running down" a state of grace.*

"State of grace" is HUGE in the Lutheran religion. See http://www.ewtn.com/library/DOCTRINE/MNGGRACE.HTM