YEs Mike, not only do they choose NOT to see, but they invent dub-in to see. Delusional.

LRH was a friend to the auditor who saved his life, David Mayo? No, he betrayed him. LRH was a friend to his loving and loyal wife who took the fall for him and endured years in prison as a result? NO, he betrayed her. It’s too bad LRH didn’t betray David Miscavige while he was at it. He wrong targeted good people and let the real SPs run rampant. So maybe LRH went PTS to his SP’s to the point of not being able to see at all.

Thanks Annette and also for being interested in people recovering their lives.

Thank you all for the thoughtful insight on this sensitive subject. I’m a never in; I ask the question from observation. I have been reading this blog and others daily for years and many times have thought, wow another one passed from cancer. Could it be the same rate as on the outside? I don’t know…. The scientologist population is much smaller than the general population (especially now) and the number of those that were actually very high on the OT levels who I have read have died of cancer seems high…. To me. No scientific data, just my observation. This is why I asked if anyone looked at this.

I agree with the observations that it could be: stress, smoking, asbestos, poor diet, and perhaps more (a broken spirit?). It is just interesting to me because I thought being audited, going clear and going to the upper levels is supposed to create a superior type of being who has a type of control over their physical body. instead, I read about these same people suffering very serious illnesses.

Again, thank you all for your thoughtful insight, I admire each and every one of you for your brave journeys back to a full life!

Namaste, Annette

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhrBDcQq2DM

Yes Mike – I agree – I think we were both more or less stating the same thing but coming at it from a different angle.

Annette:

My ex-mother-in-law is one of the ones who died of brain cancer after completing OTVII. She said she started getting headaches while auditing OTVII. She quit Scientology and sued them before dying.

Whether or not Scientology was the cause was never determined, how can you determine a physical connection to a metaphysical process? But . . . it left doubt in the rest of her immediate family. No one else went past OTV and they all left Scientology. It is an odd phenomenon, exacerbated by the refusal to seek actual medical help before it’s too late.

She was auditing long hours and under great pressure to complete, eating poorly and dozens of other things which could well be contributing factors.

I had ovarian cancer after leaving Sea Org and Scientology. I was at ASHO. I have no clue if the two were related, nor do I care. I was in remission 13 years then it recurred, I have now been in remission another 18 years.

It is hard to link Scientology to causing cancer when the causes of cancer are still so nebulous, Once someone can actually come up with concrete cancer agents (i.e. smoking will cause cancer every time – not true, but it’s a strong factor), then maybe it will be easier to link other things to them. Until then, speculation really is just that.

Whoa! Who gave me a soapbox?

No point continuing this debate. You have made your point. And mine, perhaps better than I could….

Yes Mike, but the “dogma” is what individual Scientologists have dubbed in. Whenever I had physical problems (not often) or whatever, I and all of my peers would always go to a doctor. I remember many C/S directives in folders saying “send to Doctor” or using other words. Now both things are actually correct – firstly the thing about “you, the thetan, can heal your mind and body” is of course true – I have applied this many times and I don’t see what the argument is against it? But if the person applying it also refuses to follow the other LRH advice about seeking competent medical help – when needed – then again you can hardly blame the subject but the people applying it. It is the same with Policy – LRH wrote them and if current management choose to ignore it what can one do? You can’t blame the Policies.

Also personally however I find most doctors that I have come across to be charlatans and pill pushers but that is a personal observation which many many others claim as well, and has nothing to do with the subject of Scientology – there are many books about this theme.Nearly every time I have been to a doctor in the past 20-30 years I have been misdiagnosed (deliberately?) and they have also attempted to start some usually lucrative (for them) treatment on me.

These are all really good points here on the cancer incidence amongst Scientologists. I don’t think that Scns necessarily get cancer more than the average but no real study has ever been done on this, so we are basically speculating.

I would like to add that although I think stress can play a huge role in Scns getting cancer and other illnesses, asbestos may also have a role here too. The Complex (PAC base) and the Ship still are/were no doubt full of asbestos. This has always been a concern of mine. Asbestos is highly linked to mesothelioma, a lung cancer but to abdominal cancers too. Don’t forget smoking, which is also highly linked to lung, pancreatic, head and neck, and Gyn cancers.

There are other factors such as the foods we eat, the water, and air quality. Many Scns, staff and SO who spend much or all of their time on bases may be more prone to these environmental hazards than others.

I have also observed Scns taking an extraordinary amount of supplements/vitamins and have known some to have elevated liver enzymes or abnormal liver/kidney labs due to the overload on the digestive organs. Not that this necessarily causes cancer but its certainly not a healthy condition either.

That is a true, but somewhat disingenuous response Foolproof. Like much of what is written in scientology, there is a contradictory position or caveat that can be pulled out for almost everything that “explains” how it is not “the tech” to blame for failures, it is the people that are not applying it right.

Nobody can convince me that the references about CSes and D of Ps sending people for medical checks prior to auditing are senior datums in scientology to:

1. You are not a body
2. Auditing and training put you at cause over your body
3. The thetan is senior to the mind and body
4. Auditing (especially Dianetics and NOTs) removes/erases physical conditions and cures psychosomatic ills
5. Clears are not supposed to get illnesses caused by the reactive mind
6. ALL illness comes about as a result of being PTS
7. With the tech of “PTS/SP” one can shatter and control suppression and be at cause and no longer PTS and thus not predisposed to illness

And a lot of other “everyone knows” data that tends scientologists towards “handling” their “body problems” with scientology, or at least trying to do so, as a preference over medical treatment.

And also as a note, most of the references concerning getting medical treatment before auditing are subsequent to the FDA raids — the fear was being charged with practicing medicine without a license and this was a method of avoiding that allegation — to insist that pc’s on lines with any sign of medical condition be sent to a doctor. Prior to that, this is hardly mentioned, but many claims were made about how dianetics and scientology would resolve certain conditions. There were even “pilot programs” run to “cure polio” and a lot of other things. Probably some of these people ONLY end up going to a doctor because of the insistence that they do so by the church when they try to route onto auditing lines — missing the opportunity for early treatment.

Sorry, but the explanation that “there are plenty of HCOBs that tell people to go to doctors” really doesn’t hold water when there is overwhelming dogma throughout the entire subject that says “you, the thetan, can heal your mind and body”