Skydog, what ARE you talking about? Scamology is not an art. It is a religious cult engaged in criminal activity.

I certainly don’t intend to doubt your overall veracity, but I think legends tend to grow (look at Jesus), and I can’t find any credible accounts of Ghandi putting his hand to his forehead in a sign of forgiveness. The Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention it (the one about his assassination) and here is a scholarly article that doesn’t mention it. I think Ghandi planned to do something noble at the end, if he was shot, and the people close to him knew that, and might have made up the story. Intending something and then doing it when three bullets are suddenly pumped into you — probably two different things. I don’t think this is important to your overall points, but the critical thinker and former journalist in me needed to check this out. I think Ghandi was great.

http://www.academia.edu/303908/Gandhis_inaudible_last_words

Here is the scene from the movie “Ghandi.” It was more audible here, but if he forgave his assassin, that should have been a real “moment.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTAux3_VwI

Hey Ken, thanks. I got my facts messed up. It was as he was crumbling to the ground he touched his hand to his forehead in a Hindu gesture of forgiveness.

Thanks for correcting me. Yet the essence of pronaming (folding hands in respect to others), which I got wrong, is represented even stronger with hands to forehead actually representing forgiveness.

Here’s the link http://100years.upi.com/sta_1948-01-30.html

By the way, I lost track of who wrote it in this thread, and it took me a few days to fact-check it, but when I first read it, I thought it did not ring true, and it isn’t. Ghandi did not bow to the man who shot him. Didn’t happen. He was shot three times and fell instantly to the ground. FYI, in case anyone is tempted to use that in the future.

🙂 Sorry! You can email me if you want to. I am assuming that kept my email address, but in case that you didn’t, just ask Mike for it.

Too bad, I was just about to copy and paste all of War and Peace as my next comment. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just post it on Marty’s blog instead.

I am sorry Mike. I sometimes forget that you read all comments before posting them as part of the moderator function. My mistake. I’ll continue with Dave through email lines. Thank you for your patience.

Please just email each other. I don’t have time to read all this

“Peter,”

“In accordance with what you are saying, let me modify my answer to your question of why someone would want to use things that he learned in Scientology, while discarding the ‘bad’ and using the ‘good’.”

“My modified answer is: because they have already studied Scientology when they were Scientologists; they don’t have to start studying Scn from scratch so it’s not that hard to filter out the ‘bad’ from the ‘good’ they see value in some of the data and techniques because they have already successfully used them but they also have experienced the harmful parts so they know well enough to discard those – AND – they haven’t studied any other systems of personal and spiritual improvement that make those ‘good parts’ of Scientology unnecessary.”

Now, that’s a VERY common sense answer, Dave! I like how you reason things out. You remind me of Mark Sheffler, 🙂 , the one and only Scientologist (or Scn sympathizer) so far (but now I am forced to include you on my list too, haha), that I consider quite free of LRH’s bullshit even when they STILL use Scn in their life with no apparent ill consequences for them. Those kind of Scientologists or Scn sympathizers (or “sporadic users”, to use a less “offensive” adjective, haha), are VERY rare to be found, indeed!! This means, that there is still hope for us.

Just between you and me, Dave, 😉 , I still use some parts of Scn here and there, to some degree or another. Of course, most of those parts are not really original from LRH; he just took credit for them, but he did explained them in better ways, and gave them a sort of “structure” and “methodology” to them. Just to make a quick list – and to show that I am not exactly a “hater” (just a little bit perhaps, haha) – some of them are :

1. The general concept of “ARC”.

Although LRH’s view of this psychological relationship was poisoned with his well known tendency towards generalization and a “not-to-be-questioned” attitude, this concept of the ARC triangle has many great uses, IMHO. Actually, it is a sort of “intuitive” and “common sense” concept. I used it in many successful PTS handlings that handled once and for all many previously long conflicting relationships between people with familial and/or marital ties. My own sister and my lovely two ex-wifes, are just 2 examples out of many. One of the best writings by LRH is by far, the chapter on “Affinity, Reality and Communication” of the POW (“Problems of Work) book. Excellent chapter indeed! Very, very useful for those who can think for themselves free from dogmatic interferences. I always was myself a “rebel” when I was a Scientologist, always “bending” and “modifying” the “Tech” as I saw fit according to my own instincts and judgment. It is to that, that I owe my success with applying Scn to others, when it did worked for them.

If one really knows how to play around this triangular relationship, like Mike Sheffler can so beautifully do, many great PR/good-will and therapeutic approaches could be constructed and applied.

2. The concept of “PTSness” viewed as a conflicting relationship between two individuals, where one of them is emotionally (or dependably as in a boss-employee work relationship) connected to another who is – from the perspective of the affected one – opposing his purposes in life in any way; is another Scn concept which I found to be extremely useful.

Of course, this concept of “psychopathic personalities” and how they insidiously affect those connected to them, is not anything new, and predates LRH by decades!!! Segismund Freud studied and wrote about this as well as other notable psychologists of his time. But this view of how one can become the unwilling effect of someone who is not necessarily a “psychopath” (an “SP” in Scn terms), wasn’t very much discussed and understood in the mainstream psychological circles. At least, not as it is understood today.

But as with almost anything from Scn, LRH perverted a good tech, and turned it into a “Those opposing Scientology” issue, where the personalities of those criticizing Scn or opposing it, were wrongly assessed and evaluated as “SPs”, and they became the target for abusive “Fair gaming” practices. This started since the mid ’50s and NOT in the mid ’60s as many believe. LRH was ALREADY quite bipolar by the mid ’50s, but I personally believe that he was quite bipolar and under a heavy psychological pathology since BEFORE DMSMH. That’s why that book has so many exaggerated claims in it, a clear evidence of a pathological behavior.

Please notice how just the name itself – “Potential Trouble Source” – has to do with “protecting” the organization, because they were called “PTS” primarily to AVOID legal conflicts as the many that occured around the time of the SHSBC with non Scientologists family members of active Scientologists. So it was primarily a PR/protection issue, and not a part of the Scn therapy itself. Later on, it became part is the Scn therapy, but not on its beginnins.

The less “perverted” version of this concept of “PTSness” (and the way that I had always understood the subject) comes from a SHSBC lecture called, “A Briefing of Review Auditors” (14 October 1965), but even in that lecture you find many generalizations and assertions taken as “Gospels” not to be questioned. Here is a portion of it to illustrate my point :

“…..All right, now, let’s take number two, and this is the main thing I want to talk to you about: A rolly coaster equals a suppressive person in that person’s vicinity. In other words, rolly coaster – PTS. If a person rolly coasters, it’s PTS. A PTS is a connection with a suppressive. I’ll give you the exact mechanics of it; I’ll let you sort them out on your own time.” (SHSBC-431, 14 OCTOBER 1965)

Notice how LRH equates PTSnes to a connection to a “Suppressive”. Later on in time he wrote about “PTS type A” where he didn’t necessarily consider the antagonistic family member (or spouse, gf, or intimate relationship) as an actual “SP” by its standard Scn definition. But all other types of PTSes where DIRECTLY related to an SP. Type I is self explanatory. Type II allegedly acted PTS to a non-SP terminal due to a reactive A=A=A identification with a past real SP (usually from a past life, he alleged). But, at the “bottom” of it all, there was always the “real” SP. Not much was written by LRH on the rather common possibility of the PTS phenomena as related with conflicting relationships among people who does not have psychopathic personalities and who are not “evil intentioned” as such. But, it it this type of conflicting relationships, the ones that are most frequently observed in real life. In other words, “PTSness” is a very common phenomenon of life.

LRH continues on that lecture :

“….And that’s postulat-counter-postulate is the anatomy of a problem. And this belongs in actual fact at Grade I. And it’s just this: postulate-counter-postulate. Postulate versus postulate. That is the definition and the anatomy of a problem. And there is no other definition to a problem. There can be several counter-postulates; there can be several going out like this, but that makes several problems. The central problem is always postulate-counter-postulate.”

Here is was relating the PTSphenomenaa as the manifestation of a “postulate-counter-postulate” (purpose counter purpose, intention counter intention, etc). And he was right enough here, IMHO, as a “PTS” phenomena is always the result of a important disagreement, but usually the intention counter to ours is seen as invalidating and forcefully authoritarian. In other words, we feel “suppressed” by it.

Here he got it right, and explained what I had always thought to be the case, and the viewpoint from which I had always done my PTS handlings on others:

“….So the guy has had a purpose in life and somebody has suppressed it, or a guy has had a purpose over a twenty-four-hour period and somebody suppressed that purpose. In other words, his purpose was his postulate, the other person saying he couldn’t do it was the counter-postulate. Do you follow?” (LRH)

I know of NO other reference where LRH made such a distinction. If a KSW out there knows of any, I am all ears. LRH continues :

“…Now, SP is a version of this. It’s a version of a problem and is a specialized kind of problem, and that is what causes the rolly coaster. The individual has run into a postulate-counter-postulate since his last improvement, which makes him a potential trouble source.”

Here he at least inferred (by his comment, “Now, SP is a version of this”) that any “postulste-counter-postulate” situation can make a person PTS and cause him to roller-coaster, without the necessity of any SP as such. But he clarified it even further as demonstrated by this :

“…..He might have only been PTS for twenty minutes. And it’s very interesting that you can overrun a person who is trying to tell you he’s already gone Release and the person becomes a PTS. Who’s the suppressive?”

“Audience: The auditor.”

“Isn’t that interesting? Of course, the suppressive – it’s merely a suppressive action. You don’t declare the auditor a suppressive person. Do you follow? You don’t have to then go through the endless action of „the Pc must separate from the auditor and disconnect and…“ That’s a lot of balderdash, isn’t it?” (LRH)

And (Caps are mine to emphasize) :

“Now, don’t let somebody shake you off of this datum that a rolly coaster is a PTS. And the definition of PTS is: connected to a suppressive person or ACTION. See? Person or ACTION. A guy can inadvertently suppress something. You’re driving down the road and somebody steps out in front of your car – believe me, when you hit him, you suppressed him. You certainly didn’t intend to and that doesn’t make you a suppressive person. Do you follow?”

He also made the following clarification :

“Now, a suppressive person is not somebody with horns; it’s a person who has had a counter-postulate to the PC you are handling. But a suppressive person who is routinely suppressive in life, invalidative of Scientology and trying to keep people from getting well and that sort of thing, is a social menace.”

See Dave? From the above perspective is how I ALWAYS applied this material. But, just how many people do you know that have actually listened to the 431th lecture of the SHSBC? That lecture has never been a prerequisite to finish the PTS/SP course. Some minor quotes from that lecture is included in that course as part of an HCOB, but not all that I have posted.

And anyway, all the subsequent HCOBs that followed that lecture didn’t contain any clarifications (nor the “Tech dictionary” had them) as to the difference between a “suppressive action” done by a non-SP item from those suppressive actions done by SP items, meaning psychopathic personalities as such. In fact, LRH twisted and perverted the subject even more with his Ethics policies that followed the SHSBC.

Do you see my point, Dave? This reply is rather long because I wanted to make my case clear enough for you and for other posters here.

3. Book-1 auditing straight from the DMSMH book is another very workable tool I used on others for thousands of hours. But this is a form of something called “Abreaction Therapy” researched by Dr. Segismund Freud, but then he changed his therapy focus to “Dream Interpretation” :

https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/abreaction-therapy

If you read Freud’s research on Abreaction, you will see notes about “Earlier similar incidents” and about “charged phrases” (“Bouncers”, “Deniers”, etc), even though in not that exact words, of course; but essentially the same concepts. But LRH, as he always did (especially after the mid ’60s), didn’t give Freud any credit for his Dianetics which was in essence, a “copy pasted” version of “Abreaction”.

I used BK-1 very much as described in DMSMH, but I applied to it my own discernment and judgment, and modified it as I saw fit the circumstances. My PCs never complained AT ALL of my modifications, 😉

Was LRH a genius for Dianetics? Of course he wasn’t; it was never his to begin with!!!

Do you see how difficult it is to navigate through the maze of contradictions in Scientology? How can anyone not properly trained in the art of “Critical Thinking” and who does not have a solid background in different methods of healing and philosophy – and their history – be able to filter the truth from the falsities and mere delusions of this subject called Scientology?

You my friend, are the RARE exception to the rule, 🙂

“For what it’s worth, I’m a beginning explorer of other systems and philosophies. I am reading Napoleon Hill currently, which I find far more practical and far less cryptic than Scientology. I once read that you recommended his works (I was already studying him when I saw your recommendation) There’s more on the way.”

Yeah, his works are great indeed!

“I will be in touch with you about them and will refer to the ones you have mentioned above.”

Sure, Dave; it is always a great pleasure to get in touch with you, 🙂

Peter