Everyone should immediately archive, save, or otherwise permanently record Scientology expert Laurie Hamilton's answer to Michael Tilse. Laurie's reply has to be the most truthful post an OT has ever made in public.

http://experts.about.com/q/1751/4220033.htm

I was blown away by this post and I am not someone who is easily impressed. I am a premiere skeptic, yet Laurie's post impressed the hell out of me.

Laurie opens her reply by candidly admitting that Scientology OT's do not have supernatural powers as LRH promised. Laurie acks that OT's, and in fact all Scientologists, are limited to the constraints of physical reality and the physical body:


Yes, I see the problem Laurie: Scientologists are like all other humans. It is good to hear a Scientologist say this.

Next Laurie restates what OT is and isn't:


Laurie, thank you. You have told the truth about OT: There are no supernatural powers in OT. Why did it take 55 years for a Scientologist to state this simple fact?

Next, Laurie further restates OT by admitting that Death is senior to the state of OT:



Laurie, a correction here: It is entropy, and not physics, that dictates the decay of physical forms. The correction aside, I was astonished to see a Scientologist ack the spiritual law of impermanence. This gives me hope that Scientology will institutionally recognize that all OT's get sick and die and that their illnesses do not mean that they pulled it in as CoS always says.

****

In what might signal a sea change in Scientology, Laurie states that Ron is unimportant. In doing so, she suggests to me that the demythologization of Ron may be taking place in Scientology:



Laurie makes a shockingly honest and frank admission: "That the teachings do not result in Goghood, superhero status or magic is neither surprising nor important." This is amazing. Laurie is telling the truth about Scientology. I have never seen a Scientologist do this. If all Scientologists were like Laurie Hamilton, I would pack my bags and leave OCMB because there would be no more lies to expose. Laurie Hamiltion is incredibly ethical in this post for she basically state that OT does not exist in the miraculuous manner described by LRH and sold by Scientology in PT. I hope Laurie is singnaling important changes in Scientology and is not declared for telling the truth.

*****

Laurie next does something I have absolutely never seen in my entire life: She allows LRH to be human:



Laurie alos admits that Ron died while sedated. She even claims that LRH approved of sedating Scientologists with medical narcotics to relieve their pain and suffering. This flies in the face of the stories of Scientologists dying of cancer and toughing it out with auditing. I am glad to hear that LRH approved of medical narcotics to ease human suffering. Laurie admits that LRH was pumped full of the psychiatric drug Vistaril when he died, this although she puts the "antihistamine spin" on it before admitting that,


Laurie next humanizes LRH even futher and in fact does something monumental: She utterly decouples the tech from LRH, which is something that I have always thought that Scientology needed to do:


This is stunning: Laurie decouples Ron from the Tech. I hope that she is signaling Scientology's attempt to demythologize LRH and decouple him from the Tech. This has needed to be done for a long time.

*****

In the past few years I have seen the beginnings of a major historical revision of LRH. CoS has removed references to his WWII medals and his Ph.D. They are slowing cleaning up the lies. Now Laurie Hamilton is telegraphing the fact that CoS is demythologizing Ron and hanging its fate on the Tech alone. This is immensely significant.

*****

Laurie summarizes her remarkable post with the latest PR line:



This is a half-truth. Yes, some critics assail Scientology because they believe that it does not work period. If that were the whole story, we wouldn't waste our time and we as critics would ignore Scientology. But the whole story is that most critics assail Scientology because we believe that it can damage people and that its policies, especially disconnection and RPF, are inhumane.

I am a critic who splits the difference: I see some of Scientology as working. I do not throw out the baby with the bathwater. However, I see immense problems in Scientology at a certain threshhold of participation.

Laurie continues her summation by arguing that the utility, the workability, of Scientology trumps its dubious origins:



*****

If Laurie Hamilton represents the official position of Scientology, then Scientology is making extreme progress towards a reformation. Granted, Laurie is a 2X (second generation) Scientologist and OT, and so speaks from a POV that a pc in heavy indoc can't. I am perhaps being overly-optimistic, but Laurie Hamilton's reply to Michael Tilse was immense, especially if it was officially sanctioned.


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Who is Laurie Hamilton? Is she high up in the church? If she is a high up with $cientology, then it almost sounds like they are laying the groundwork to make for an explanation for a possible death due to illness that another high up, like David Miscavige, may soon experience.

To me, it seems that if DM was recently diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer, then the Chruch would want to explain that Scientology in fact cannot rid the body of all of its ills.

Then again, if Laurie is just a random OT and not a high up staff member, the church just may not have that much control over her mind.

Laurie Hamilton at http://experts.about.com/q/1751/4220033.htm


Then his last will and testament ( http://home.earthlink.net/~snefru/deathoflrh/1986.html ) is surely suspect.

Oyster, I am not aware of DM being ill. My point was more to the fact that Scientology, at least via Laurie Hamiltion, is demythologizing LRH and humanizing him. They are also admitting the incontrovertible fact that LRH died with a sedative in his system. The implications of such an admission would be that LRH was not at cause over the MEST universe. Indeed, that LRH had two separate strokes, and that Hamilton admits the law of impermanence, shows that LRH did not causedly drop the body but that his body died via a natural mechanisms of death, which in LRH's case was a stroke. This admission opens the door to so many implications.

As many of the Baby Boomers in Scientology begin to age and die, Scientology has to make allowances for medication to alleviate physical suffering. All mind-over-matters religions fail when it comes to sickness and death, for sickness and death arise in the body independently of what the spirit wants, postulates, or decides. Sickness and death have genetic and entropic components that cannot be audited out for the simple reason that auditing cannot change the genetic structure or reverse entropy. Mind-over-matter can be powerful and effective but all humans die. There is no amount of auditing, no postulate, and no Scientology technique that is senior to sickness or death. Even Scientology has Scientologists who are sick go to the hospital after auditing has failed. At least I hope this is the practice.

******

Mark my words: Laurie Hamilton's post is a bellwheather. CoS does not have an OT say the things she said on public lines unless a deep and profound change is occuring at the top echelons of Scientology.

This whole matter is extremely interesting. I wonder if an announcement of some kind is imminent?


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She talks about a single OT not being able to change a tree because it's a group agreement that it exists and so the group (humanity) needs to agree for it to disappear. She then says because of her OT status, she might not get sick when others are. I assume she means that because it's her body, she can be not in agreement with getting sick, and doesn't need group agreement for it?

Just because it's her body doesn't mean it isn't a part of the group. I always feel like this is a copout. Like viruses and bacteria are sooo small that power over it is different than power over a tree.

And then I remember someone's win in a magazine being posted here about moving a car to avoid a collision. Is he lying about doing that or is she lying about not being able to do it?

CP, I nuanced what Laurie was saying instead of picking it apart. The larger message her reply contained made the specifics seem irrelevant. The mind does have an effect on the immune system in a healthy person. Almost everyone has had the experience of asserting that, "I am too busy and will not allow myself to get sick right now," at certain times -- and then they don't get sick. I took this as a given that is in no way unique to Scientology.

In my book, Laurie gets a free pass on a lot of things I could take excpetion to because of the signifigance of her reply. I want to sit back and wait and see what happens next.

Thank you for bringing this info to everyone's attention J. Swift.

Who exactly is this Laurie Hamilton ? Is she anyone important and influential within the "church" ?

I hope she is, because if she admits openly that all the " incredible new abilities " and states of ot one achieves after many years of auditing and total financial ruin, make little or no real difference and lead nowhere in particular, whilst their registrars and anyone else always imply that amazing results and changes will be achieved as one goes up the"bridge", in order to convince people to depart from their money and clear their bank accounts, that is definitely a great advert for $cientology as far as I am concerned.

If it is an attempt on the part of $cientology to begin creating a more honest image of itself, ( 55 years too late ) it would appear to me that it is more like a big bullet in the foot instead, because it attacks the very foundations of all the implied incredible achievements, shrouded in secrecy etc. etc. which have always been used to create the impression in people that something utterly amazing and totally life changing is hidden and available to you behind them, provided you first give all the money you have or might borrow to $cientology, except you will get it always on the "next course" or in the "next auditing level" etc.

Whilst I would welcome a genuine attempt on the part of $cientology to become more honest at long last, I feel that if any such attempt is in progress, it is much more likely to be just another PR exercise, rather than a genuine change; the wolf might have decided to start wearing a
different kind of sheep clothes in public than the usual pretenses of being a religion, help others, and all the old bs, in order to try reversing the downward trend and save the business.

I really cannot see an organization as vicious and ruthless like $cientology
suddenly changing its course, without getting rid of the current management first, other than as a pr exercise designed to manipulate
people in a "more acceptable" way, hoping that it will generate a better
response and reverse the downward trend.

If instead these statements have nothing to do with a change of policy and are just the personal point of view of this lady, then they are very
welcome indeed for admitting openly that $cientology tech does not produce any real ot, in which case she will be getting soon an invitation
to join the nearest RPF.

Time will tell.

Well I asked her a question also. One that I had for years:

Subject How many scientologists?

Question I've seen it written that there are 8, 9, 10 now 11 million scientologists?

I find that very hard to believe. With the number of people in just my local orgs (and the numbers have gone down through the years) where are all these millions?

And during events the stats they show are always up. How can that be when there is not that many people at the local orgs. I use to think it was just my org but then I went to other orgs and it was the same there.

Answer Hi, Martha:

I don't know and (sorry) don't care.

I don't need millions to agree with me to make me right.

I am not on staff and am unaware of current methods for computing, gathering, and reporting statistics.

I do know this:

I live in a town (not NY, L.A. or Clearwater) where, in the last 32 years, I have met tens of thousand of Scientologists. The majority of these, I don't see when I go into the org. Yet, the VAST majority of them, if you aksed "are you a Scientologist?" might or might not hem and haw a bit, but would answer yes.

The definition of a Scientologist is one who has found a way to a better life and is achieving it using Scientology. This could even be people who buy and use what's in the books, and never go into an org.

My GUESS is that anyone who has taken a service and written a success story would qualify to be counted under the above definition, unless they subsequently renounce it. What the actual counting threshold is, I don't know. But keep in mind, 11 million is not a big number. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 million people in the U.S. alone. Over 30 million of these are in the Los Angeles area for instance, and I know for sure there ARE tens of thousands actively on lines in that town, and 'WAY lots more now than when I was there in the 70's, for instance. Further, several central orgs in various European countries are bustin' at the seams as well.

So, truth told, I don't know the answer to your question.

If the stats at your local org are of concern to you, then I would say, "help them." They will accept your help.

"Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow." L. Ron Hubbard


I was going to comment on her response, but it speaks for itself.

The statements made by Ms. Hamilton are a sop to the public.

Scientology always wants to have it both ways : to claim the miraculous, the answer to everything, and yet downplay all that when it seems too incredible to take seriously.

As long as Hubbardian statements such as "This is useful knowledge. With it, the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, he whole catalog of illnesses goes away and stays away." and "Tonight Eleanor has arthritis. [After an evening of auditing], she no longer does." "You are just a few hours away from permanently removing your eyeglasses." and the claim about raising the dead - and ALL of that - remains in print, and / or the belief system - as long as that remains, it means nothing.

Unless her statements were scientology 'acceptable truths,' Ms. Hamilton, if I understand rightly, is guilty at least of some scientology ethics violations ? She seems dangerously close to verbal tech / thought-crime, something. Would RON (Source) approve ? Probably if it helped scientology, he would, if it didn't, he wouldn't.

I think that woman is just talking out of both sides of her mouth.

It looks like she first began answering questions there in April 2002, if you look at her history.

As for finally owning up OT powers being fraudulent, she says she's not staff, but is former staff, so she's "public". She might get in big trouble for this, or it might be them spinning acceptable lies (or "acceptable truths", whatever newspeak you want to use) to deflect criticism. She doesn't appear to be an official spokesperson, but it would be naive to think that the higher ups don't know about her, and after almost 4 years she's certainly acting with at least their tacit acknowledgement.

Maybe, just maybe, DM realized that people are waking up to the contradictions and lies, and with all the OT material on the web the mystique of the secret teachings is largely faded, so to preserve the CoS from total collapse, it will have to reform, decanonize LRH, admit that the OT levels don't grant superpowers (uh oh for the Super Power Building then), publically own up to the Xenu story (but say it's allegorical, their version of a creation myth), water down Disconnection policies, and reform or abolish the RPF. Not likely, but if they don't want to destroyed in the public eye in the coming years (utterly ruining future recruiting), that might be the only route for them to take.

As for how many Scientologists, well we can look at Census data:

http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/pop.pdf The 2005 Statistical Abstract of the United States (not the once-a-decade census, but annual surveys conducted by the government for demographics purposes) puts the number at 55,000 adults (children are not counted).

For comparison purposes, Scientology is about as big as Sikhism (57,000). It's some interesting stats to look at, if you're interested, especially since it also includes 1990 figures for comparison.

That's what the US Government has to say about how common Scientology is.

As to claims of the "fastest growing religion", I think the Neo-Pagan beliefs have that claim all tied up. Wiccans went from 8,000 in 1990, to 134,000 in 2004, "Pagan" on it's own didn't even register in 1990 but now number 140,000, and Druids also didn't even show up in 1990 but now number 33,000.

"I live in a town (not NY, L.A. or Clearwater) where, in the last 32 years, I have met tens of thousand of Scientologists."

Tens of thousands? What is she smoking??
Agree ~ this is propaganda for the masses.

I, too, am surprised to see someone "interpreting" the tech, publicly or otherwise.. When I was in, this was a very strict no-no. The answer to any question was always to quote "Source" directly.

Songbird Wrote:



Makes ya wonder what she has been smoking. Maybe she was a "pilot OT" for the super power rundowns.

I experienced the same as well that one must quote "source" directly. Of course most everyone took liberty on this.

It will be interesting in the long run to see how this type of internet dialogue prevails.

This is ultimately and completely interesting.

One of the biggest "hidden standards" in scientology is the idea that Thetans have ablities above MATTER ENTERGY SPACE AND TIME.

That somehow, by using auditing to remove blocks and resotre awareness of OT states, one can transcent the physical universe.

I think most of us are aware that in Scientology today, this is today Bullshite.
Yes, some people can use Scientology processing to help improve ablilities, but so much of it is more about learning communication and systems of control instead of real OUT-OF-BODY experiences or recall of grand OT states.

Once this is clearly know, we realize that they are really taking advantage of members for other kinds of real-life goals. Other goals. That's what scientology is really all about. Helping people solve a few problems, but giving them new goals. Mostly goals that support the insiders.

So with this in mind, its not long before competition blows away the current "standard bridge".

People should be able to get life repari and grades auditing without having to join their purposes. Maybe pay about 20,000 at most to get through their grades and go on with their life.

This would still make for a workable religious model, but without the overhead of managment and sea org.

Quoth Pitbull:



I agree. Scientology makes its institutional goals the goals of all Scientologists. Scientology evaluates for all Scientologists by telling them what the greatest good across the most dynamics is. This is a false purpose and an overt on Scientology's part towards its members, for it promises to make the able more able and then makes the measurement of ability the achievement of the institutional goals of Scientology. This has lead to DM to make his goals the goals of all Scientologists. In doing so DM has shown that he has no OT abilities as his 1995 speech to speech to the International Association of Scientologists proves:



Given that COB RTC set these goals, he evaluated for all Scientologists in IAS what their goals would be from 1995 -- 2000. That DM failed miserably in achieving his year 2000 goal only confirms his lack of OT powers. Worse, DM still has the same goals in 2005 as he did in 1995 and, given the global repudiation of Scientology, he is further away than ever before from achieving the goals he had ten years ago and LRH had in 1955.

Back to Pitbull:



That is dead on. The FZ continues to quietly grow because people can do their grades without having to adopt the unrealistic institutional goals and hatred of Scientology. It is perfectly possible to adopt a "live and let live" attitude and do Scientology in the FZ and not oppose psychiatry. Why pay IAS dues or donate to CCHR to fight that war when all you want are your grades? That is what the FZ is for. It is really tilting at windows to think that Scientology will ever get rid of psychiatry. And it is delusional to think that DM will ever, "bring Scientology to every Man, Woman and Child on this planet." for the reasons that much of the world lives in poverty and Scientology costs money. Or does DM expect that everyone in the Third World will go on staff so that they can get audited as they starve to death or die from lack of clean water? That DM completely fails to address the more fundamental issues of starvation and clean water and instead offers Scientology shows how disconnected he is from reality and charity.

You control vast wealth Mr. Miscavige. So what will you put in their plate? Scientology?




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You got that right. This is the lie and truly brainwashing bogus and bullshite aspect of what they call ethics and sec-checking. Instead of helping a person deal with their own overts, they subtly use is as a way to enforce the group goals of what is right and wrong. Holding everything else over the parishoners head.

This is truly criminal behavior. Using theraputic techniques to instill new
goals and purposes under coercion.

But untill enough people really step up to the plate, its all just talk talk talk.
A few internet sites and a crazy guy in a xenu outfit won't cut it.

Lives are being eaten up every day and thrown out like garbage in Scientology.

But that's just life, isn't it? Scientology just happens to be good at it.