Well, FP, show us some real evidence the “tech” works. My concern is the dangers that both the organization and the “tech” pose.

The CofS ruins people financially and breaks up families, so I don’t know why you’d recommend them even if auditing did have some benefits.

There’s also a relatively high rate of people going PTS psychotic – close to half the scientologists I personally knew and did business with, including one murder-suicide, if you want anecdotes (and there’s a long string of many more in a couple of threads over at ESMB).

It’s a known problem with abreaction-type therapies that even fooled the pioneers of psychiatry and psychology at first, and it took decades of follow-up research to understand that the effects are illusory and the dangers real.

I realize that your little circle of grizzled veterans may have weeded out the potential PTS cases more or less by accident and by the wider world’s luck that indies practice on such a tiny number of people, but that doesn’t mean that the dangers don’t lurk – and I bet there are a still probably some cases of hushed-up and rationalized away bad outcomes in the history of dabbling outside the official church.

I get that you don’t understand things like science and statistics – that’s what makes your sort of amateurism and blind faith dangerous, like in an Appalachian snake-handling church.

What is this “ad hominem” you are talking about? I have looked through my posts to you and can’t find it.

And yet you spend copious amounts of your time “researching” or rather googling under critical authors for “information” (Gerbode is one of them) trying to debunk Scientology and auditing. Gerbode altered Scientology or rather Dianetics, found “it didn’t work” and then makes out and calls it “Scientology” and then like you, criticises actually his alteration.

And anyway, if auditing doesn’t work what are you worried about and wasting your time writing usually massive length comments which no one bothers reading? I am in constant touch with auditors and their PCs who would laugh at your nonsense (if they would ever read it). No, I think you have some other agenda.

FP, you demonstrate the religious fanatic’s absolute faith in auditing – in the absence of any evidence other than placebo effect and confirmation bias, and apparently even if it may be delivered with questionable quality, almost as if it’s inherently magical. It’s like the foolish certainty of flat earth believers.

Dr. Sarge Gerbode’s research that resulted in TIR, demonstrated that auditing at most is an undistinguished, moderately effective talk therapy. That confirms the studies done in the early days of Dianetics and Scientology, that disproved the theory of engrams and found no particular lasting benefits – after which Hubbard presumably decided to steer clear of actual science, save for a brief attempt in the early 1980s when FASE, run by scientologists with scientific backgrounds, still failed to find validation for Hubbard’s theories.

I know you have the occasional anecdote about supposed “wins.” People who make pilgrimages to the shrines holding the relics of saints, or cast spells with chicken bones, have miraculous claims, too.

How do you explain 7 decades of failure in the real world? People should flock to Scientology if it actually did offer anything worthwhile, but instead the CofS has turned into a complete sham and is dying, and the indies can’t do much better than to capture an almost insignificant number of refugees from the “church.”

Oh! My use of a capital “C” for Church is some sort of secret masonic esoteric test to determine if I am a Church troll or not? Phew! I suggest you read some of my posts and not depend on what amounts to almost superstition for your “data analysis”. Here, have a “church”! Ok now?

No, ok, I see your point (with the main premise here. Perhaps I should have qualified the statement with the probable fact that not all auditing delivered by the Church will be awry and the fact that at least they are still trying. And the courses will still be useful providing that supervisors don’t massacre their students and they sort of ignore references to “3 swing F/Ns” etc.

As you’ve never done any of the OT levels should these newer people you mention take your advice on this aspect?

Hubbard wanted to make people his slaves? Oh! Don’t be ridiculous. And I’m not arguing about the time after DM took over, I headed for the hills as you did. But instead of nattering on and on why don’t you go and get your case sorted out – there’s plenty of good auditors in the field now.

Marc, the failure of independent Scientology demonstrates that there’s no longer a market for Hubbard’s “tech” at any price, under any conditions. There have been attempts to extract the supposed “good” and offer it on better terms within the first couple of months of the introduction of Dianetics, many of them lead by some of the brightest and most talented people who had been co-authors and collaborators alongside Hubbard, and nothing has ever proven viable outside the hothouse of cynical manipulation and “hard sell” in the CofS.

Miscavige is doing what he does, because it’s the only thing left to do with the hand he was dealt – apy only lip service to the unworkable “tech,” keep people in with high-control policies like disconnection, and then squeeze them for the maximum amount of money possible using whatever approaches necessary.