Just wanted to drop a line to say - Keep up the good work, DC! You seem to have hit a right ol' nerve here, especially with some of the "I'm not a Co$-$cieno! Really!" people. As the title of the thread suggests, I'd be inclined to say that Bernie is *not* Fair and Balanced.

Especially after reading the hard-work you seem to have put into it, DC. Apologist websites on this subject seem to be much akin to the "real deal" ones - Loaded with PR and "proof" as to why things aren't a particular way.

Perhaps someone should commemorate DC's hard work into a website somewhere.

Bernie's website is not fueled by desire to defend CoS as much as personal revenge and diatribe against CoS critics. Bernie has made alliances with Diane Richardson and others who have investigated critics, and has been bruised by critic charges and attacks, and outraged by some critics' hypocrisies, lies and cover-ups.

Bernie and Diane's mistake (or tactic?) was to be harsh and name-calling to critics. They publicly, ruthlessly attacked critics' blunders, weaknesses, and personalities, and were "hurt" by the emotional and aggressive counter-attacks. Some people attacked Bernie & Diane just for endlessly posting the same old accusations, and clogging message boards with nit-picking. (Like the 23-page argument about whether L. Ron lied about his grades) That escalated into MORE on-line aggression, and more verbal abuse.

Everyone involved needs to look at their own imperfections and mistakes, too. Feuds need two sides, and Bernie & Diane have encouraged argument and been triumphant about it "proving" critics are bad and wrong. After becoming too unpopular, some anti-critics re-emerged with new identities, and it became a parlor game for critics to figure out which old anti-critic the new person was. Who cares?

Most real religions deeply value forgiveness. I wish I saw more of that on the message boards.

The Truth and the Hype of Hypnosis - Scientific American July 2001 article by Michael R. Nash. Quotes in green

QUOTE: A person's responsiveness to hypnosis also remains fairly consistent regardless of the characteristics of the hypnotist: the practitioner's gender, age and experience have little or no effect on a subject's ability to be hypnotized. Similarly, the success of hypnosis does not depend on whether a subject is highly motivated or especially willing. A very responsive subject will become hypnotized under a variety of experimental conditions and therapeutic settings, whereas a less susceptible person will not, despite his or her sincere efforts. (Negative attitudes and expectations can, however, interfere with hypnosis.)

(Don Carlo comment – The variability of susceptibility to being hypnotized shows up in Scientology. Many people quit after one or two sessions, no matter HOW much they are pressured. I think these people are only slightly susceptible to hypnosis, so the sessions seem boring and pointless. Many people, however, are susceptible enough to get hooked by the euphoria. A small minority are hypnotic virtuosos and progress rapidly through the levels. A low-income hypnotic vituoso, when hooked by auditing, would be VERY frustrated by the expense, and indeed might find more euphoria on the cheap in Freezone. Basicbasic was so proud of his rocketing through the levels, and so eager to spread this throughout the planet. I wonder how hypnotizable HE is)

Under hypnosis, subjects do not behave as passive automatons but instead are active problem solvers who incorporate their moral and cultural ideas into their behavior while remaining exquisitely responsive to the expectations expressed by the experimenter. Nevertheless, the subject does not experience hypnotically suggested behavior as something that is actively achieved. To the contrary, it is typically deemed as effortless--as something that just happens. People who have been hypnotized often say things like "My hand became heavy and moved down by itself" or "Suddenly I found myself feeling no pain."

(Don Carlo comment: Bernie and others have repeatedly stressed that Scientologists do not become automatons or zombies, and therefore they are not under mind control. But this paragraph indicates that the behavior of persons being audited COULD be consistent with being hypnotized.)

Taru Kinnunen, Harold S. Zamansky and their co-workers at Northeastern University have exposed fakers using traditional lie-detector tests. They have found that when real hypnotic subjects answer questions under hypnosis, their physiological reactions generally meet the criteria for truthfulness, whereas those of simulators do not.

(Don Carlo comment: this shows how central the e-meter is. If the e-meter shopws the person is telling the truth, that means that the person is genuinely hypnotized.)

But the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis says that hypnosis cannot, and should not, stand alone as the sole medical or psychological intervention for any disorder. The reason is that anyone who can read a script with some degree of expression can learn how to hypnotize someone. An individual with a medical or psychological problem should first consult a qualified health care provider for a diagnosis. Such a practitioner is in the best position to decide with the patient whether hypnosis is indicated and, if it is, how it might be incorporated into the individual's treatment. END QUOTE

(Don Carlo comment: Hubbard found that he could write the hypnotism script and any people, even teenagers, could act as auditors and
get results. No extensive study, like that required of a doctor or a priest, is necessary.)

All quotes from Scientific American are no longer on-line.

HYPNOTISM QUOTE: The Australian Report devoted an entire chapter to another danger they saw in these sessions -- hypnosis. They concluded that these various exercises were a type of hypnosis. To support their hypothesis, they listed every aspect of the Scientology auditing session along with its hypnotic counterpart. They also mentioned the fact that Hubbard admits he was "schooled in hypnotism and mysticism" although Hubbard claims he doesn't use hypnotic techniques.

The Australian Report concluded that Hubbard does use hypnotic techniques but that he has simply changed the name of various hypnotic phenomena to names of his own invention. The report pointed out that it was a common practice for Scientology auditors to ask the preclear at the end of the session whether he had achieved his goals and was satisfied with that session.

Since they believed that the auditor was asking these questions when the preclear was coming out of a "hypnotic trance," while the "hypnotic rapport" with the auditor was in effect, the post hypnotic suggestions helped the preclear to believe that the goals had been obtained and that the session was successful. After the session was over, the "suggestion" that the session was a success could still persist. The Scientologists believe these exercises have helped them, while the Australian Inquiry concluded they've been used to hypnotize them.END QUOTE From
The Secret Scientology Sessions

ANOTHER HYPNOTISM QUOTE:
Chapter 9. Dianetics (LRH quote: )
"Hypnotism was used for research, then abandoned."

Hubbard gave stage demonstrations of hypnosis in 1948, and wrote to his literary agent about a new project with many selling "angles". Marrying hypnotic technique to research long abandoned by Freud, Hubbard came up with Dianetics. In 1950, he modified the hypnotic technique without further "research" to write the book Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health.

In a 1909 lecture, Freud explained a method for uncovering traumatic memories. Patients were asked to recall earlier and earlier life incidents on a "chain" until the emotional "charge" was released. Hubbard not only took the technique, he even retrained several of the expressions used by the translator of these lectures. Freud had abandoned the technique, because it was laborious and completely failed to uncover key repressions. In fact, after sometimes providing initial relief, Dianetics all too often deteriorates into the dangerous conviction that entirely imaginary incidents are literal truth.

Hubbard took Freud's technique, added a little of the then-popular General Semantics, and asserted that the "basic" or original traumatic incidents had occurred in the womb. In this he was following the work of Otto Rank, Nandor Fodor and J. Sadger. Hubbard also asserted that it was actually possible to recall prenatal incidents, right back to conception (the "sperm dream''). Fodor too had written of prenatal memory.
END QUOTE from The Total Freedom Trap, Chapter 9, Dianetics.

Don Carlo comment: In summary, Hubbard encouraged his followers to think that hypnosis was the Hollywood stereotype of being zombie-like and asleep. Since his followers believed that, any mention of "hypnosis" or "mind control" sounded false to them. But the critics are not saying that a person under auditing is a zombie or robotic, just that they are more suggestible. CoS has taken the increased suggestibility and made millions off it.

It hurts the self-esteem of some ex-Scientologists to think that their mind was tampered with, when they THOUGHT CoS was helping them become a more free spiritual being. Sorry, guys, Hubbard knew what buttons to push, taught his auditors how to set up the trance, and you got tampered with.

Scientology is a Scam that Masquerades as a Religion is the next Bernie page I'm covering.

Bernie claims CoS MUST be a religion because it has "spiritual tenets." Well, so did the Nazis.

QUOTE from Alfred Rosenberg, a sort of spiritual advisor for the Nazis:
"We now realize that the central supreme values of the Roman and the Protestant Churches, being a negative Christianity, do not respond to our soul, that they hinder the organic powers of the peoples determined by their Nordic race, that they must give way to them, that they will have to be remodeled to conform to a Germanic Christendom. Therein lies the meaning of the present religious search." (2891-PS)

In the place of traditional Christianity, Rosenberg sought to implant the neo-pagan myth of the blood. At page 114 in the "Myth of the Twentieth Century" (2891-PS) he stated:

"Today, a new faith is awakening-the Myth of the Blood, the belief that the divine being of mankind generally is to be defended with the blood. The faith embodied by the fullest realization, that the Nordic blood constitutes that mystery which has supplanted and overwhelmed the old sacraments."

Rosenberg's attitudes on religion were accepted as the only philosophy compatible with National Socialism. In 1940 Bormann, in writing to Rosenberg, made this statement:

"The churches cannot be conquered by a compromise between National Socialism and Christian teachings, but only through a new ideology whose coming you yourself have announced in your writings." (098-PS)
END QUOTE from
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Rosenberg_Responsibility.htm

My comment: What if Nazi leaders had decided in the 30's to claim Nazi-ism WAS a religion, and that anyone opposing it was a religious bigot?
It would be right for the Allies to claim that, spiritual tenets or no spiritual tenets, tingly feelings of awe or not, Nazism was a monstrous power, money, slave-labor, and real-estate grab, and NOT WORTHY OF THE TITLE OF A RELIGION.

I am using Nazism as a logical extension of the "religion" defense, and am not comparing CoS to the Nazis in behavior and motives.

So the "spiritual tenets" of CoS are irrelevant, if its ultimate aim is getting the power-money-and real-estate "stats" up. And now that the stats are going down, CoS can't even achieve THAT purpose!

I do like Bernie's conclusion of this page:...it is not completely unwarranted to say that Scientology is a scam. That it can also be considered as a religion is not a contradiction under this light.

It's ironic that when it suits its purpose, Applied Scholastics claims to be completely non-religious, even though it tries to funnel its members into Scientology.

I have said before that Scientology is at heart a form of participative fiction, where the student fantasizes his own previous lives and exorcizes his own sci-fi BT's. There are several parallels to this in religion, especially the spirit quest done under the influence of peyote! Exorcizing one's own demons links back to contamination-phobias of primitive religion. Belief in reincarnation or heaven is a spiritual belief (but you can believe in them and still be a jerk). Most religions do participative "re-enactment" of sacred events, so they, too, are a form of participative story-telling (or participative fiction, if you're an atheist).

So, sure, there are religious aspects of CoS, and every critic needs to remember that when speaking out. What's important is not Belief X or Belief Y, it's the fraud, abuse of employees, and destruction of families. None of those are spiritual acts, so critics aren't bigoted to discuss them.

Don Carlo:

I like your commentary.

As to the Hypnosis angle, I think that comparing what G.H. Estabrooks wrote in his 1943 book "Hypnotism" will give the reader a very sound clue of hypnosis and the phenomena thereof.

I found myself remarking how exactly he describes the phenomena of "Dianetics" and "Scientology" counseling, including getting the person to recount causatively the content of a post hypnotic command to release it and the autohypnotic creation of "demons" that then wouldn't go away.

Thus it is all prior art in the mind control business that the Cult is in. I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of THE texts that the departed conman used.

Michael

Nice work Don Carlo. I wish we had more op/ed analysis around here.

Umike

Thankyou Don Carlo for your continuing sterling efforts in reviewing Bernie's site.

As I recall the point of this thread was to determine whether or not Bernie's "alternative" site was truly unbiased as Umike claimed.

I note that Umike has had few disagreements with your assessments thus far, which have been quite damning. So I would hope that he will stop praising Bernie's site as a fair and balanced view of the Scientology debate.

Look forward to more posts. Thanks again Don.

Ditto. Thanks, Don. Very enlightening.

Bernie says decide for yourself whether what critics engage into is critical thinking or cultic thinking and links to Judy Stein

This page is an argument about critics of Transcendental Meditation. There is nothing about Scientology critics at all. Bernie says the idea of not thinking critically applies to critics.

Bernie is absolutely right. Some critics can't see their own flaws and aren't critical thinkers, yet hammer Scientologists for THEIR lack of critical thinking.

I agree that there is not enough critical thinking in the world. Many people are uninformed, don't listen, jump to conclusions, and assume their opponent is evil or an idiot. Some posters also don't check their writing for meaning and tone before posting it, so their post remains garbled, faintly dumb and overly insulting.

This is human nature. Yes, critics should all be intelligent and thoughtful. They should argue using logic and facts, not personal insults. I wish we were all more wonderful. Bernie, you find a way to improve human nature and you'll be a billionaire. Hubbard claimed HE had found a way, but Sea Org produced cranky, ordinary people in pseudo-Navy garb barking orders, and public taught to fear SP's and scorn outsiders.

My only argument here is that the critics are not necessarily being "cultic." They're just being dense and touchy, like many pro-Scientology posters. We all need to take a class on effective debating.

Including Bernie.

Critical Thinking can be very addictive. It is comprised of many components,one of which is Fallacious Arguements.
When we recognize which ones we use and why they aren't legitimate can be a transforming and humbling experience imo.


This is just one compilation of Fallacious Arguements available on the web:

fallacious arguements


Umike

Great Site!

T

I agree, Umike. I have been guilty of using some of those fallacious arguments myself. I'll try not to pre-judge before I even open Bernie's next page, Attacks on Dissenters.

This page is central to Bernie's entire website. It is crying out with betrayal, outrage, and pain. I read this too-briefly two years ago and thought everyone was kind of nuts. Now I'm trying to read it as if it's a murky document from the Dark Ages when Something Awful did happen to some people because of Paulette Cooper's settlement with CoS.

It appears the protest over the settlement caused a defend-Cooper backlash by trigger-happy critics, insults escalated, Diane R. started a revenge research project, and a small band of battered "moderate critic" comrades-in-arms formed a tight alliance. Some voices-of-reason people tried to stop the fighting but got so abused THEY took sides. Some outraged Cooper-defending critics decided to become archenemies of Diane & Bernie. Seven years later this is still an open wound. People stumbled into the fight months later and years later and took sides. Now a whole heap of people just want their enemies to go away, while their enemies won't give them the satisfaction. "New" people come into the fight, some of whom have taken a new name in a desperate attempt to criticize without getting PERSONAL insults back.

The curse behind all this is the gag order Paulette agreed to in order to settle the case. She couldn't defend herself without re-opening the lawsuit, and from her writing she seems in a post-traumatic daze anyway.

If this Paulette-started-it theory is true, Bernie's motive for his website is proven to NOT be a defense of CoS. Hasty critics have jumped to that conclusion, because he certainly has made biased statements that support the CoS line. But this whole website is fueled by outrage at mean critics.

I wasn't around a.r.s. in 1997, and I don't know who did what to whom and who said what bad thing. Also, I am not jumping in and taking sides on this. This could be a case where the participants once had good intentions, everyone has been bad and wrong at times, and everyone has been bruised. Also, Paulette's flaws don't make CoS right.

....and I might add, $cn's flaws (evil, greed, & criminal conduct) don't make Paulette wrong either!!!

There's always 2 sides of a coin.

We must not forget LRH's definition of
"reasonable" to even begin to understand the intent of Bernie's abyss of non-committal marshmellow fluff.

IMO,

tp