Aquamarine, The Jeff Hawkins’ book “Counterfeit Dreams” is chockful of wise revelations, such as that illuminating survey. Like you, I had meaningful results from auditing. Like you, I kept the “weirdness” of the “Church” of Scientology close to the vest. Like you, this inhibited me from disseminating much. It’s a dysfunctional super-family with the irony that this group imagines itself to be set up to teach and model sanity.

Agree with you that it is a shame the survey got ignored; and it’s a shame that ANY useful, bright thinking continues to get ignored.

As LRH was fond of saying in at least one lecture: We may be witnessing a group that is getting “hoisted with its own petard.”

[“Hoist with his own petard” is a phrase from a speech in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, meaning that a bomb-maker is lifted (“hoist”) off the ground with his own bomb (a “petard” is a small explosive device), and indicates an ironic reversal, or poetic justice.]

I was never “in” but I know you are correct. I was trying not to say what I really think of it.

Peridot, I read your comment with interest and agree with everything you’ve said and every point you’ve made. I didn’t get into Scientology because I was looking for a RELIGION. In fact, in my heart of hearts, I never agreed that Scientology WAS a religion. How amazing to hear that Jeff Hawkins had that survey done recommending that Scientology not be a church but instead self-help and therapy. That survey results certainly resonates with me – I’ve always thought so! The lower bridge – the auditing and the courses – helped me a great deal and continue to do so. I would recommend the courses I did and the auditing I had to everyone. I did benefit a great deal from them. However! I always had a problem recommending the ORGANIZATION that is COS and I never brought anyone in because of the back off I had about the organization. Certainly, that survey Mr. Hawkins commissioned was worth its weight in gold. Its a shame it got ignored.

Aquamarine: When I was in, I similarly and privately wondered–What is the Scientology end game with psychiatry and psychology? I think for the same reasons as you. A Church of Scientology org is well within Policy to not accept a person onto service who has had even a small amount of exposure to psychiatry. For instance, a person who did an outpatient treatment program and took an antidepressant for six months, or a person whose aunt, uncle or cousin is a psychiatrist.

Beyond such a “low bar” to clear (for rejection), any org will have zero capacity or interest in accepting a difficult mental health case. That is part of the irony, a person has to show up in good mental and emotional condition for Scientology to accept them.

In addition, your observations and remarks here make me think of a passage in the terrific memoir by Jeff Hawkins, “Counterfeit Dreams.” During his time heading up marketing for Scientology and Dianetics, he commissioned an extensive survey “of the public” by a well-regarded PR firm in New York City. After some months of effort and rigor, the agency provided an insightful set of recommendations. Chief among them was to discard the religion angle. Focus on the self-help attributes and results of the offering. Leave it at that, go forth and conquer (your intended market).

Interesting results (and recommendation), since so many enjoy the Life Improvement courses and “grade chart” actions covering communication, problems, and how to manage change–basically the “lower Bridge” actions done leading up to “Clear.”

Those things, affordably priced, positioned and sold as “self-help” may have done just fine. But it’s the profound over-reach of “I am the reincarnated Buddha” and “This is a religion” which derails the offering and renders it, ultimately, pretty godawful narcissistic and crazy (as many routinely attest here). Not to mention the cognitive dissonance of insisting on being a church and having tax exempt status, but rejecting the idea of IN ANY WAY helping the less fortunate.

NOTHING with the great big one’s name on it could EVER be banned/forbidden. Instead, “Mission Earth” would be held up as the ideal civilization’s description, to be studied and star-rated multiple times.😇
Can you IMAGINE having to slog through all that dreck more than once?

“kakavangelist” is a polite way of putting it.

“We’ve never been this close!!!” …
Close to complete extinction, that is. Davie Boy is succeeding in ways we couldn’t have imagined when his series of coups gave him the crown, throne and keys to the treasury.

Of course it makes no sense, Aqua, as scientology is based upon lies and has always seen itself as the “savior to mankind”, curing any and all mental illness or sub-optimal condition with one discredited treatment option which psychiatry had abandoned years previously. Hubbard wanted to control it ALL, rake in ALL the MONEY, be the most important personage, never mind that his version of the ‘tech’ didn’t do anything near what he asserted, promised. He FAILED! Completely and absolutely. He didn’t make all men his slaves; didn’t even get a miserly little harem of women who were his slaves (discounting the messengers as all accounts point to his disinterest in them in that way — he probably had “dope dick”, eventually unable to hold up his end of the transaction, in addition to his walrus-like proportions and fetid breath. As I think, the only area which he succeeded in was making lots and lots of MONEY — more than even HE could squander away in his lifetime.

Here’s what I never understood when I was in; needless to say I still don’t understand it after 10 years out:

Scientology’s purpose is to make the “able” MORE able.
Per Hubbard and many of his HCOPLs and HCOBs, Scientology does NOT handle the mentally ill. Curing mental illness is NOT Scientology’s responsibility.

Ok, got it.

But then, if Hubbard’s tech is NOT intended for the mentally ill, then why RAIL about psychiatry’s solutions for mental illness?

After all, Scientology has no solutions for schizophrenia and psychotic behavior, for people who are serious dangers to themselves and society. Scientology does not DEAL with the mentally ill – only with the “able” as it defines its public.

Ergo, Scientology is NOT in competition with psychiatry and psychology. The latter purports to handle and manage mental illness – mentally ill people are their market share; the former wants only the “able” which presumably means those who might have mental and emotional hangups but who are not raging lunatics endangering themselves or society.

Different market shares, no?

Where is the completition?

Why doesn’t Scientology just let psychiatry do what it does, and concentrate on clearing and training people, which is what Scientology is SUPPOSED to do?

But no, instead, Scientology declared WAR on psychiatry! Why?

Really, why?

It makes no sense from a TECH perspective.

Of course from a fundraising perspective it makes sense!

But then, when I came in and for many years afterwards the focus was on TECH, on “going Saint Hill Size”, on making Clears, on training Auditors. Yet even THEN there was this huge hoo-ha, this indefatigable grandstanding about psychiatry, about ending psychiatry. What if Scientology had succeeded? What would be THEIR solutions to the mentally ill, the truly mentally ill who MUST be isolated from society at large because they ARE dangerous?

I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now.