Another in the series of essays from Terra Cognita. See earlier posts: Why Scientologists Don’t FSM, Respect, The Survival Rundown – The Latest Scam, Communication in Scientology… Or Not, Am I Still A Thetan?, To Be Or Not To Be, An Evaluation of Scientology, Fear: That Which Drives Scientology and Justification and Rationalization.
The Horrors of Word Clearing
Word clearing—defining words—is big in Scientology. Really, really big. LRH emphasized word clearing repeatedly. One small misunderstood word—commonly abbreviated as “MU”—could have disastrous results. Every word in an auditing session had to be cleared and fully understood before auditor and PC could continue. From the smallest preposition to the most obscure multi-syllable word, all had to be cleared.
Per LRH, the misunderstood word is the cause of stupidity and the reason why people do poorly in subjects. It’s the reason people drop out of school. And MU’s are the root cause of confusions which result in overts!
Basically, misunderstood words have been the cause of every misfortune since the Big Bang—no doubt an MU caused the event! The first of LRH’s Factors should probably be revised to read: “Before the beginning there was an MU…”
Just After the Beginning
According to church doctrine, the reason all of you reading this essay aren’t sitting in a Scientology course room right this minute is because you have MU’s. It’s not that you disagreed with anything Ron wrote or didn’t feel good about the way the organization is being run, it’s simply because there was a word you bypassed and didn’t fully clear.
At the beginning of every course in Scientology, LRH warns students to never, never go past an MU. Bypassing a misunderstood word is the primary reason a person blows the church. They didn’t leave because they thought the “tech” was whacky or ethics was harsh. They left due to a misunderstood word. Simple as that. LRH’s tech is flawless and not to be questioned—everything he wrote is easy to understand and makes perfect sense. If something can’t be grasped, it’s simply because a person bypassed an MU. There is NO other reason.
All Scientologists clear lots of words. Lots and lots and lots of words. To a point where they feel guilty for not pulling out their dictionary at coming across a word they feel they might not have fully understood. This mentality spills over from the course room to the outside world until everything a Scientologist reads—novels, text books, labels on cans of food, etc.—becomes susceptible to the terrible consequences of the MU.
Manifestations
Per LRH, bypassing an MU results in “a distinctly blank feeling or a washed-out feeling,” and “a not-there feeling and sort of nervous hysteria.”
The two phenomena following the MU are a) the section the person was reading right after the MU is “blank,” and b) the person may give up on the subject he’s studying and “blow.”
He goes on to say, “The misunderstood word establishes aptitude and lack of aptitude; this is what psychologists have been trying to test for years without recognizing what it was.”
First of all, I’ve bypassed plenty of MU’s without feeling blank, washed-out, not-there, or a nervous hysteria. And secondly, if in fact, everything following the MU was “blank,” I would have no memory of anything I’ve read since I picked up my first primer.
That said, can misunderstood words cause confusion and uncertainty? Sure. But they’re not the end of life as we know it.
The “Right” Dictionary
Using the correct dictionary is imperative in Scientology. Small, paperback versions are known as “dinky dictionaries” and are prohibited. So are ones without etymologies.
On the flip side, dictionaries with too many definitions are frowned upon—especially college dictionaries in which definitions are deemed “too hard.”
Finding just the right dictionary to clear a word is crucial, and over the years, Scientology course rooms have favored different brands.
Word Clearing While Holding the Cans
Word clearing is often done on the meter. Which means, the person being word cleared holds a pair of cans while his twin, supervisor, or auditor operates the e-meter. Per LRH, the meter “reads” when the student hears or reads an MU. To my dismay, the effectiveness of the meter to find MU’s (and countless other shit) didn’t work that well on me.
For every true misunderstood word that ever read on the meter, the needle never moved on dozens of others which had never been cleared to LRH’s specifications. At the same time, the needle “fell” on words on which I clearly knew the definitions. In Scientology, this later phenomenon is known as a “false read.” Which in my experience, is actually more common than not.
The Dreaded Word Chain!
Early on, every Scientologist learns the precise—and often laborious—method of how to fully clear a word. This includes looking the word up in a dictionary and clearing every definition, idiomatic expression, and the etymology. Frequently, additional misunderstood words appear in definitions that are being cleared. These must be cleared, as well. If further misunderstood words crop up in the clearing of this secondary word, these, too, must be cleared. And so on, and so on, and so on. In Scientology, these long strings of words-that-must-be-cleared are called “word chains.” Word chains can involve the use of multiple dictionaries and hours of investigation. All Scientologists hate getting bogged down on word chains.
Cheating. Yikes!
Most Scientologists cheat on clearing words. Instead of clearing every single definition until “it’s theirs,” they clear the definition that applies to what they’re reading—and fuck the rest.
DM and the powers-that-be are obviously hip to this because they’ve now included glossaries in the back of all the new editions of books and course packs in which the needed definition is spelled-out to the exclusion of all others. If pressed, supervisors tell students they’re expected to clear the rest of the word with a good dictionary—but no one ever does.
On the other hand, not fully clearing words is an overt, and thus, fodder for sec-checking, which in turn, is an additional source of income for failing orgs.
The Nine Methods of Word Clearing
LRH penned a series of Bulletins covering nine methods of finding and clearing the elusive and destructive misunderstood word: Methods 1 through Method 9. Some of these word-clearing actions are done in an auditing session with a person hooked up to an e-meter. In others, course supervisors or twins quiz students on words that might be misunderstood.
I’ll touch on just a few of the methods.
Method 1 Word Clearing
Method 1 word clearing is done in session while holding the cans. The purpose is to clear up every misunderstood word in every subject in a person’s past learning. “The result of a properly done Method One word clearing is the recovery of one’s education.” Yeah, right.
Despite nobody ever having achieved this result since that one guy on Marcab, thousands of people have attested to the EP. I never understood how I could possibly remember all these misunderstood words from my past education, nor how clearing them would suddenly “recover” my education. I’m sure many of you have your own stories on how you justified getting through the process. (Or like me, you don’t remember.)
Method 3
Method 3 is used in course rooms to clear words found in LRH’s bulletins, policy letters, and lectures. Usually, the student clears his own misunderstood words as he encounters them. Other times, supervisors “check out” students for bypassed MU’s.
If a sup (supervisor) “flunks” a student on a particular word found early in his studies, the student is expected restudy his materials from that point forward.
To the torment of many, LRH used lots of colloquial words not commonly found in standard dictionaries. To combat these little IAD’s lurking in wait, some course rooms kept definitions of “hard to find words” in special, homemade files.
Even if a supervisor knew the definition of a particular word, he was prohibited by the “Supervisor’s Code” from verbally telling the student, and once again, students could spend hours looking up the definitions of “hard to find” words.
Misunderstood words were especially prevalent on taped lectures, especially before the advent of transcripts. Many a time, student and supervisor would have to repeatedly listen to garbled sections of tapes, trying to make out what was said. Simply continuing without resolution was high treason.
Method 5
Method 5 is most commonly used in auditing sessions to the clear words of auditing commands.
As a brand new Scientologist, my first auditing was Life Repair. Did this action repair my life? No, but that’s another story. What dirtied my needle to no end was when my auditor asked me to define small words which I’d been using regularly—and correctly—for years. If my definition didn’t correspond to his idea of the proper meaning, I was forced to pull out a dictionary and clear the word. What incensed me the most was that I was paying $100 per hour for the privilege! Which back in the day, was one hell of lot of cash!
Not only did I waste my hard-earned money, I began each session with a heaping dose of invalidation. You see, auditors are trained not to accept the PC’s—preclears—assertion that he knows the definition of a particular word, but require him to define that word to their satisfaction. Any hesitation, any stumble, any not-perfect recitation of a definition on the part of the PC, and out comes the dictionary.
And out go your Ruds. Which uses up even more of your hard-earned money! (Ruds—short for rudiments—are factors, issues, and considerations that must be “in” for a PC to continue with auditing. To name a few: he must be well-fed; well-rested; have no present time problems; and of course, not be hiding any overts.)
Incidentally, many of these small words have scores of definitions, ALL of which must be painstakingly cleared. As for the dreaded “word chain,” hopefully, the PC was wealthier than me and went into session with multiple intensives in reserve. (An “intensive” is a block of twelve auditing hours.)
Method 9
Method 9 word clearing is a means of ferreting-out MU’s by a student reading aloud. For every pause, hesitation, stumble, twitch, or body reaction by the reader, it’s assumed there’s an MU that must be found and cleared. I hated M9’ing with a passion!
It didn’t matter if the material one was reading was illogical, poorly written, grammatically inept, archaic, and littered with malaprops: you blink; you got an MU. Since there are countless other reasons why a person might not read something in perfect cadence, more often than not, there is no misunderstood word. Which, of course, is not acceptable to the “coach.” And which means the student is forced to admit defeat and clear a word with which he’s already familiar. The concept of personal integrity does not apply.
M9 word clearing is built on the premises that all LRH material is one-hundred percent perfect and nothing but an MU would cause a person to not read flawlessly. I call BS.
As an aside, after painstakingly explaining to my MAA why I objected to and didn’t believe in M9 word clearing, the very first thing he ordered me to do on my “program” was to M9 Keeping Scientology Working. (So as not to add pages to this essay, I shall refrain from further thoughts on this.)
The Key to Life
The Key to Life was the ultimate course in word clearing, and was based on the assumption that people didn’t go stupid by just misunderstanding BIG words. The real culprits tripping them up were all the underlying LITTLE words—like “the,” “have,” “go,” “it,” “is,” etc. The entire course consisted of clearing all the small words in the English language—hundreds of pages of them.
Without knowing what was involved, I paid for the course. Who wouldn’t want the KEY to frikken life, right? To my utter horror, I learned the course was done Method 9! NOOOOOO!!!
In true delusional fashion, I persevered, and my twin and I finished the course. Was clearing shit-loads of small words—of which I already knew the definition—the KEY to life? Not even close. I must have had overts!
So if any of you reading this disagree with me in any way (or are feeling slightly blank), I have but three words for you: Find your MU!
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
Never been a Scientologist but know all about psychopaths and other pathologicals. This word-clearing nonsense sounds like ‘gaslighting’, distorting people’s sense of reality (i.e. ‘I didn’t understand that even though I thought I understood it’) and thus making them easier to manipulate, because the abuser becomes the only trusted reference point in an increasingly unreal world.
From the little I’ve read about Hubbard he sounds very, very sick. I would guess either a psychopath or a narcissist. Psychopaths love weaponised language, love power and control, have no principles, have no remorse and are lying and manipulative. They have no conscience, none at all. Some psychopaths are charming and likeable (charismatic psychopaths) and some are abrasive and bullying (bullying psychopaths). They all pretend to have emotions, a conscience, empathy and remorse and to do this they wear ‘masks’ or false personas. They also wear ‘ideological masks’, pretending to believe in an ideology or belief in order to manipulate and control others.
If I wanted to deprogramme myself from this F—er I would probably be learning everything I could about his private life (this is where narcissists and psychopaths typically let their masks slip), reading books like ‘Snakes in Suits’ and ‘Without Conscience’ (about psychopaths), and researching Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which results after prolonged emotional abuse). ‘Trauma and Recovery’, Judith Hermann, is an excellent starting point for more about CPTSD.
Emotional abuse at its simplest is picking someone up and dropping them down randomly again and again e.g. praise followed by criticism. It creates a ‘trauma bond’, a magnetic hypnotic yearning to stay with the abuser. CPTSD affects decision-making abilities (e.g. not being able to make the decision to escape), sense of identity and self-confidence, and can lead to physical and mental illnesses (e.g. gastric upsets, anxiety, sleeplessness, high blood pressure). It also causes obsessive thinking (‘ruminations’), characteristic of all those in a ‘relationship’ with a psychopath.
‘Love-bombing’ is the second stage of a ‘relationship’ with a psychopath (the first stage is assessment). Most cults love-bomb. Then comes ‘devaluation’ (emotional abuse). Most cults emotionally abuse. However, that doesn’t mean that all cults are run by psychopaths because a variety of other low-conscience individuals use the same tactics. But it does indicate that Hubbard was almost certainly pathological.
Anyone who escapes from a psychopath can be expected to be ‘hoovered’ (sucked back into the so-called ‘relationship’). I’ve read that Scientologists are big on ‘hoovering’, not allowing those that escaped from escaping if they can help it.
An excellent blog about what it’s like to be with a psychopath is PsychopathsAndLove (dot) com. You might find that some of her experiences ring a bell (or not).
I had my first of many fits of rage when I got into a word chain on “Keep Scientology Working”. It was late and i was tired and I was flunked on a little word like “as” or “to”, which I did understand. It was so ridiculous. I’m not prone to rages but I was chronically angry in Scientology.
Word clearing is a bit like being so focused on the bricks that you don’t see the whole building. Maybe that’s the point. If, in the beginning, you really took in what “Keep Scientology working” is saying, you’d be horrified.
you may find the following interesting:
“The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference—the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. “Projection makes perception”. We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth AS WE SEE IT. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing. If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes—our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in WHATEVER FORM it may take—we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy and despair. All this we must learn to forgive, not because we are being “good” and “charitable”, but because what we are seeing is not true. We have distorted the world by our twisted defences, and are therefore seeing what is not there. As we learn to recognise our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or “forgive”. At the same time we are forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self-concepts to the Self that God created in us and as us.”
Word Clearing really works the way LRH said if you understood it. It is a beautiful peace of tech. The problem is, people are forced to use it without understand it.
Piece*
Jeez , grammar and spelling are not important but clearing words such as ‘the’ are? For $100 an hour if want to learn every complicated word in the English language and other languages to boot.
WORD CLEARING is the substance Hubbard employed to fortify the thick wall of his bubble,
– it is his answer to the question: “How do I keep them all hypnotized and under my control?”
The subject of study tech is one I have written a bit about.
I recommend any ex Scientologist or Scientologist consider my opinion and see if it makes sense.
I believe that hypnosis can be induced (caused) by confusing a person, and that in method 3 word clearing a person CONFUSES themself.
By finishing a sentence, paragraph, or page and KNOWING they understand what they just read BUT, by spotting MU phenomena they KNOW they have an MU; thereby confusing their own mind!
Furthermore Ron Hubbard knew and intended for this to function this way !
Quotes from Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique:
[Quote]
Now, if it comes to a pass where it’s very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.
The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, “But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees.”
You say, “Your professor of what?”
“My professor of physics.”
“What school? How did he know?” Completely off track! You’re no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you’re arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won’t know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis. The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they’re not sure of their own name.
And at that point you say, “Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don’t you?”
“Yes-anything!” And he’ll go out and draw the water out of the well.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard Lecture, 20 May 1952 “Decision.”
source Lermanet.com
Also, even earlier, in 1950:
[Quote]
One error, however, must be remarked upon. The examination system employed is not much different from a certain hypnotic technique. One induces a state of confusion in the subject by raising his anxieties of what may happen if he does not pass. One then “teaches” at a mind which is anxious and confused. That mind does not then rationalize, it merely records and makes a pattern. If the pattern is sufficiently strong to be regurgitated verbatim on an examination paper, the student is then given a good grade and passed.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard lecture 29 August 1950, “Educational Dianetics.”
source Lermanet.com
He also knew that when one is confused they can feel relief (i.e. brighter TEMPORARILY) when they get an “answer”, even if it doesn’t address the confusion!
“A confusion can be defined as any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion is random motion.”
“Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particular in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder.
“Any body of knowledge, more particularly and exactly, is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” – Ron Hubbard [ref]
“Any time anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude…if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject…he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as a hypnotic suggestion….With parity, such as occurs between acquaintances, friends, fellow students and so on, there is no hypnotic suggestion” (Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery, volume 4). Source Jon Atack
From Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/insidious-enslavement-study-technology.html?m=0
Frankly, the day has arrived in which it is no longer necessary to quote LRH or employ any of his acronyms. Toxic in purpose and nature, the language is designed to isolate and keep the subject isolated from the community at large.
Let’s purge it,
and so enhance the new path of thought freely understood by both the general audience and the wandering insider struggling to find the tools to navigate his way towards independent thought and personal freedom. Freedom from cult language leads to opportunity, widening the door for self-exploration and releasing the mind from the trappings of belief.
… and, yes, i do agree that effective hypnotism comes more easily to the degree you can succeed in confusing and disorienting the…[“preclear”]. Good point, I guess. And never was there a more effective hypnotist than, oh god, i mean thank god. The term mass-hypnotist still unsettles me. Then the technical information about altitude and relative position, the ease and power of the power of suggestion, shuddering yes again. I mean, I do remember so fondly loving the …SOURCE MATERIAL…, felt almost like knowing god himself. It was, after all, my only source of stress-relief in what can only be described as a hostile community, about as hostile as can be outside of a war-zone – a closed community of scientologists.
Nobody has got this s___ down better than Blubbard. Thank you lord of the universe, for the need to express that man’s name exists for me NO longer. Sing, sing slow ride take it easy. The rythm is right slow ride all nite easy… and i say good bye. Straightened out no longer bent i say good bye.
ps
beat your own drum with your own drumsticks (words), be your own drummer, tell the truth and you (and I) will be alright. The only real advise here (?) well, ok, my shot… :
Look, we need structure.
That is, a basis from which to construct a picture of reality for our minds. From that we can work on our relative position to the world. But, you know, it has to be your own doing, that structure. What you agree to, in your mind. What you decide is right. Otherwise, it is some one else’s. And it makes no sense to give yourself away. Not even if they DID pay you a handsome salary and retirement and health, etc. Or, maybe it does. (would it not be great if scientology was based on Truth? Actually. Wait wait, that IS another universe, in an unobservable dimension.) But that would be contingent on YOUR say-so, and nobody nobody except nobody else’s. I feel like Harvey now. And that’s the rest of the story.
Fortunately, I was really good at reading aloud and never had a problem with M-9 word clearing. I could mouth the words without really understanding what I was reading. Later I would have to go back on the sly and actually read the material for understanding. Some of study “tech” is common sense. If you don’t understand one idea, you won’t understand an idea that builds off of that. I admit that I was disappointed in M1 wordclearing, because I hoped that I would finally understand where I went off the rails in Algebra in 8th grade and it did nothing to help with that. Later, I took a series of Math classes at a community college to resolve this, when I needed to take a course in Statistics for my job. Studying a subject cannot be replaced by looking up words in a dictionary. Sometimes even wordclearing didn’t help resolve an apparently conflicting statement by Hubbard himself or others interpretation of it. The ratio of SPs to non-SPs as stated in “Keeping Scientology Working” meant that there were very few actual SPs in the world, but Scientologists seem to think that they are everywhere. Pure paranoia, that I could never resolve by referring people to what it actually said in that article and getting them to actually read it and understand it.
You don’t have a problem with word clearing… oops.
The hypnotist smiles, contentedly.
When any part, word or idea of LRH sounds plausible there is a real danger your mind has already been sucked down the proverbial rabbit hole.
Word clearing is the hypnotic glue that keeps that manipulation welded to the workings of your mind and fully distracted away from the very information to save you. Natural identity is at hand. If you’re inside, it begins with reclaiming your right to refuse their questions, refusing to read LRH material altogether- and especially avoiding the precept of WORD CLEARING.
LRH was a genuine paranoid megalomaniac. He was also a charmer, had quite the gift in presenting himself. One could take these two points to the furthest imaginable extremes and use that as their “stable datum” (god how me hates to quote the guy, me thinks im being controlled) and, presto, you have the profile of this forsaken belief system and its personality traits all wrapped up rather neatly. Scientoggly is the spitting image of The Old Man’s alter-ego, and, omg and mercy combined, that man was a certifiable mess. Compare that to what a scientologist believes and “knows” about Hubbard and learn right away what the power of hypnotism can really do for you …
…
that LRH, what a clever genius…
he made sure to keep you thinking.
Thinking that all your doubts belonged to you. You own them and you created them and all you have to do is go back and rehash the lesson: the answer is scientology, the answer is here. There is no other answer.
And here is the tech. You can not criticize that fact.
That tech bombards you with information. Drill it into your head.
[definition, DRILL: word-clear]
Drill, like a power tool, into your head again. Drill in scientology.
You are a good scientologist.
Understand every single, flawless word.
Again and again and again.
You are the reason and the creator for your doubts. There is no reason to doubt. Read the book.
(note: Dianetics has more false promises and makes more outlandish claims without reference per page than any other piece of literature in history)
Where was I? Oh, yes, read the book.
Which, after 30-whatever years of clearing words, you find out that human endurance cannot move you up the ladders of either human consciousness nor ability, no matter how much of this stuff you read, and you have not gotten one step further in your personal life than where you were that first day, after that first reading. You know what THAT means… because you know scientology works and the tech is sterling… yep. Time to go back and read it again, find that MU, and you will find your flaw. Your personal flaw. Don’t worry, as long as you have scientology, you have a chance to reclaim your Eternity. Forever. It’s in the book.
good bug
These are such fascinating posts. Thanks.
I (a never in) love looking up words I didn’t know in a dictionary – I love reading the etymologies and where words are formed in their “first recorded instance”, and how they change. My 2 brothers did not have this enjoyment.
Funny, we’re all pretty successful in life… even though they never used a dictionary like I do.
What is really fascinating here is the way the “church” keeps changing the names of courses and auditing to make it seem as though “new tech” has just emerged from L. Ron Hubbard to validate David Miscavige’s incompetence as a leader. For example, most people familiar with word clearing should have heard of a course called the PRIMARY RUNDOWN that produces a SUPER LITERATE person. It consists of word clearing thousands of words, not big words, small ones, but all of them like a, and, an, of, or, it, be, do, get, go etc. etc. Then it was called the Key to Life Course. Now what is it called? It is indistinguishable among other services as one that boosts not only a student’s studies, but helps tremendously in life and in auditing. Is the new GAT II Phase II are real improvement (which I doubt) or a cover up for a mistake in communicating the tech which is of course an overt. I suspect the latter. 🙂
Lawrence. EL CON came up with KTL NOT DM. The PRD was a service that had already been “dropped” by orgs when DM was just a kid.
An amusing look at WC – I enjoyed this bit especially: “Most Scientologists cheat on clearing words. Instead of clearing every single definition until “it’s theirs,” they clear the definition that applies to what they’re reading—and fuck the rest.” In my final days I wasn’t even doing this much, between seeing how much sleep I could get away with and day dreaming all I did was look up the definition of the word then immediately go back to the cd, there was no thought of putting it in a sentence, etc. I took so little in that to answer the questions afterward I had to go to the transcript and find the relevant part. Of course scions would say that I was clearly ‘MU’d’ to have go to this point, frankly I didn’t give a f***. If all you do it sit in a course room listening to lecture after lecture of tedious, irrelevant chatter then this feeling tends to set in no matter how many words you look up.
I’m not saying that WC is not useful, it was probably the most useful thing I got out of scn, prior to this I would read a book and invent a meaning for a word which seemed to fit the context. Clearing it per scn though is very much overkill.
I’m so glad I never did KTL, I remember someone trying to sell this to me in the early days, they gave up when they realized I wasn’t qualified – ie didn’t have the $,000’s needed to pay for it, thank god!
And I have news for LRH and the church. Almost all of the people I know that are no longer in the church did not blow the church from their MU’s. They left from their lack of them. 🙂
Using dictionaries and playing with modeling clay are actions for pre-schoolers, not mature adults. The cult utilizes Word Clearing and clay tables to reduce adults down to a state of infantilism because it’s easier to inculcate and brainwash an infantile mind. Any approval of Word Clearing is an endorsement of this process.
How is using a dictionary an action for “pre-schoolers”? Or learning what a word means reducing an adult to an infantile mind?
One day in London, I visited Dr. Johnson’s home and saw a copy of the first English dictionary. I think he would possibly disagree with your point of view just a wee bit after all the years he spent compiling this work for adults to use to learn the meanings of words.
There’s a difference between the usefulness of a dictionary (and they have some uses, especially in standardizing the spelling and definitions of words) and the use of a dictionary as a crutch or as a manipulation tool. Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster would be horrified at what Scientology does with their work.
Wrong, Espi. Words are the building blocks of phrases and sentences. To have a good conceptual grasp of the various meanings of words is a tool, a useful tool in good communication. One needn’t be dependent upon them or pedantic about it. They’re just tools to be used appropriately, not obsessively.
Word clearing is also the delivery system for brain washing and the hypnotic command.
For instance: when “we have ‘researched’ all critics and have found they are criminals.” (Paraphrase)
I agree, word clearing assumes that all of Ron’s writings are infallible. This in effect makes the mind subject to being imprinted by whatever Ron says is absolute truth.
So Ron now has the altitude per Altitude Instruction, non understanding of his words now become a fault of our understanding.
1) Ron is perfect
2) we are flawed
3) Ron’s tech can help us be unflawed
4) we will word clear everything.
So word clearing is really the delivery system for brainwashing.
The result:
All critics are criminals. This thought becomes the truth. But if you think about it, only a hypnotized person could see this absurd idea as true.
How can all critics be criminals?
Answer: word clearing
It goes like this, student,”how can all students be a criminal?”
Course sup,”please look up the word “every.”
The student then does a word chain on “every” then on the word “criminal”. After spending ours or days trying to “cognite” on Ron’s great wisdom, the student then simply allows the idea to become true in his mind.
Word clearing, besides being a great technique for learning, is Scientology’s delivery system of the hypnotic command.
Brian – Either prove what you say with clinical studies or shut the fuck up loudmouth.
Clinical studies? Are you being serious? Clinical studies of what? His opinions? His conclusions? Word clearing? All critics are criminals?
Mike, I’ve recently watched your series with Leah. But now to read that you regularly went past misunderstanding words, gosh I just lost so much respect. Lol not that that matters to you. I am curious though, was there actually physical violence used against you? I think that is wrong regardless of whether you cleared your words or not. But frankly I’m glad you’re no longer in management after reading that confession of blatant misunderstanding. Have a good day, god bless, namaste. – past BSO
You’re a little slow to respond here my friend.
And perhaps you should check for MU’s right at the top of the article. This was not written by me, but by our old friend Terra Cognita.
Hey Nickname, thank you for your passion. It certainly is intense.
My clinical study is my own brain. My own ability to look in my past and do my own data analysis if you will.
When I read Ron’s writing on “all critics being criminals” I was, like most Scientologists, under the spell of Ron’s infallibility.
That means in essence that “if it’s not in writing it is not true.” The corollary is that if it’s writing it is “the truth.” Because we agreed that Rin was the savior of the universe. The only one true savior of the universe.
So, when I remember myself back then, having Ron as my infallible Buddha, these statements like “all critics are criminals” was accepted by me.
I remember myself being subject to this. And the technique that drove these ideas into my mind was word clearing.
Aside from the great skill one can achieve by loving words and loving the dictionary, as I do, and can thank Ron for that, word clearing became the enforced delivery system of false and dangerous ideas.
That is what I meant.
I do not need a psychiatrist to help me remember when I was susceptible to Ron’s hypnotic commands.
Anyone who can agree with the absurd statement “all critics are criminals” is hypnotized. Because this is an unquestionable absurd statement.
I hope you get the spirit of what I am talking about.
I am not attacking word clearing as an action. I am criticizing word clearing as the pedagogical programming tool of brainwashing in Scientology.
And Nickname, that was a true, authentic expression of anger. Direct and to the point.
Unfortunately I am from New York, and expression like you have expressed sometimes are words of endearment between friends.
I accept your expression of affection as a New York buddy hug:-))
Brian that’s a cool reply 🙂 Funny too! I think it is a comment brushed off easily in NY. I’m in CA, opposite coast from you, and it would be considered an insult here, but also not worth responding to. The ‘stfu’ is often used when someone becomes really mad that someone else made a good point, and they can’t think of a counter-argument for it, so they resort to name-calling. Very cool to recognize this. 🙂
I also agree with Mike Rinder – no one has to justify their opinion with clinical studies… seriously? lol. This is an internet blog – opinions will be voiced, no one will agree with or like them all. 67% of posters may disagree with you, but remember, half of all statistics are made up.
The now-apparent motive behind this word-clearing doctrine is to to keep the subject’s mind engaged while running on a very specific track, one that deletes all opportunity for independent thought and/or critical analysis. I hope that much is proven already, Brian does a fine job of highlighting several supporting points in his post.
Nickname flies against the wind with his suggestion as this is the theater of discussion, a platform from which to speak, and personal attacks are indeed pointless and self-defeating. The vulgarity just seals the deal, his summary rejected thanks to the objective, evaluating mind.
Brian, it may interest you to know that my ability to word clear was in no small degree instrumental in realizing that all of what L. Ron Hubbard wrote was NOT infallible.
A word is just a symbol for something. It isn’t the thing itself. Hope this helps.
“A word is just a symbol for something. It isn’t the thing itself. ”
Something one realizes while learning how to talk.
i’d say how smart you are, Mr. W, but it would be rather pointless.
That’s great Aquamarine! I believed everything Ron said. I was only 17 when I got in. Very naïve.
I, like many others, thought there was something wrong with me if I could not get what Ron said. Or I would reason that it was because I hadn’t gone through OT3, or the Ls or whatever.
I would just assume that I was not evolved enough to get it.
The realization that got me out was the 82 mission holocaust and that Scientology was a business not a benevolent religion.
Aqua,
It is a joyful and an encouraging road mark in the journey of self-realization for me as well.
That moment of realization.
Here is a moment in time some 40 years later,
and still
I do recall that first time, a very specific moment still clear as day, after signing up as Staff…
that first doubt about something Hubbard had said.
It was… not specifically important, but had to do with the concept of recalling past lives…
the moment of brilliance, my moment of independent thought, my brave wandering into the forbidden realm, into ideas NOT described or actually not agreeing with THE almighty SOURCE. As far as I’m concerned, your word is far more [ i had a word, but it sounded too sugar-coated, and right now i need to sound more ] real, thank you.
Espiando, you’re right that SCN assumes:
1) Ron is perfect
2) we are flawed
3) Ron’s tech can help us be unflawed
4) we will word clear everything.
What allowed me to run for the hills was realizing the untruth of assumption #1. At that point, the house of cards started to collapse. The specific trigger was realizing that most of the assertions about the Purif showed that he didn’t understand High School Biology or Chemistry, though he did show a personal understanding of the effects of drugs on a body.
Now, with the wealth of info on sites like this, I’ve determined that most of the time, his understanding of subjects he expounded upon was based upon reading the most elementary of popular publications, such as “Readers’ Digest” and “coronet, as gold old “S.I” pointed out in that so-well written critique on D:MSMH, “From Science fiction to fiction Science” was a great observation, “S.I.”. Nailed it dead on the head.
As I consider further, I, and many of the willing slaves are and were smarter and better educated than he. Algebra was his downfall; I found it and Calculus were lots of fun well before going to a REAL engineering university that required numerical literacy, not a party school that allowed him the free rein given to him to come up with that hare-brained scheme of the ill-fated “expediition” to the Caribbean. GWU should have flogged him out for “impersonating a student” when he couldn’t pass that intro to atomic physics class. As it happened, he couldn’t fake it very long after that and was flunked out. Perhaps THAT is why he so much liked us to “FLUNK” each other.
so now the place is crawling with bugs
hear that bug racket? love that noise.
note to me, i was right again, i am not alone.
tanks o’ thx 4 daPOST, señor Jere Lull
the Primary RD was SUCH a waste for me; I’d been tested as reading at a college level in 5th grade and didn’t suddenly lose my vocabulary.
Still, many years later, the feature that I most enjoy on Apple’s OS X is the dictionary tightly integrated into all the applications. As a “verbifore”(one who lives by consuming words), I prefer to use just the right word to express my thought;Part of that includes actually understanding what I’m responding to. These days, I sometimes wake from a dream “having” to look up a word because I wasn’t sure I was using it correctly in the dream.
Still,”word chains” have largely been supplanted by following interesting chains of hyperlinks if I’m not careful; As a friend quipped a few years ago, “The Internet is God’s way of telling us we have too much free time.” I still have my favorite dictionary about 3 feet to my left as I type, just in case I should be deprived of the
charge on bug
and soon you won’t be needing any cult words (except to testify to the existence of the trap). Funny how that dictionary thing does clear your mind. To a point.
and, since i’m on a roll…
Funny how either path leads one to the same particle of knowledge. There’s no jolt like the first one, realizing the real heart of the founder was black and not red.That only seems like it matters at first. The real gem, thing to know, is that the tech is, lock, stock and barrel a very sinister, identity-robbing larceny on the personal being. The whole being. The entire enchilada. For all eternity. Even the clever words at the beginning, that made you so sure, and that fleeting moment of happiness, it does come into perspective, like a floating needle that comes to a dead stop, frozen dead in space and time when you realize the thing is some dick’s trick. Clarity. Scientology’s promise does take one, tiny step in the evolution of personal consciousness, right there and that’s the end of that sentence. I charge. You’ll find IT after you get past security, over the fence at the squeaky window of opportunity, they are so vigilant about personnel, and out the back door, disconnection finally works for once- me, bugs rule.
Dave,
Once your ‘Scientology Basics’ are deconstructed — and either debunked or attributed to where Hubbard stole them from — your endless revisions are meaningless. BTW, what is up with the SuMP remaining a ghost town on Sunset?
What is wrong with word clearing in the CoS (and in many many other things in the CoS) is mostly the extreme length that it is taken to and the compulsiveness connected to it. What is mostly wrong with “Study Tech” is what is left OUT of the subject in the student hat material, the right to disagree and the importance of evaluating the truth of what you are studying (well, LRH does mention this last thing, but it is not applied in any way in Scientology or emphasized as a point of study). *and yes, I always LOATHED M9 WCing, an almost complete waste of hundreds of hours of my life.
Now, having said the above, I found the ideas of the three barriers to study (and the first two obstacles, thinking you know it all already and having no real purpose in your study) to be extremely valuable and applicable in life and in study. I skipped 8th grade and graduated from the best high school in San Francisco, but with poor study habits and a poor attitude, I could only get into junior college, where I was for three years (flunked out second year). I joined staff at 19 and did the new student hat course in 1972 when I was 21 and on the day I finished, I dropped out of my part time studies as a university junior and soon became a Cl IV auditor.
I was terrible in math throughout school, could never get past multiplication, died on division and algebra? get real. When I was 35, because of the demands of my “wog job” I had to go back to school and spent a year at night studying financial and managerial accounting. Knowing study tech, words and gradients, I not only got 100% on the tests now in night school, but I could apply the materials in the workaday world, going over balance sheets, income sheets, monthly statements, dealing with banks etc.
I applied world clearing (especially M3), gradients and mass in helping some thousands of NON Scientologists in my years of training people outside of the CoS.
Really, the TRULY stunning thing is that SCIENTOLOGISTS with all their study “tech” and world clearing, read Keeping Scientology Working and Tech Degrades countless times and STILL remain clueless as to their application in life. But then we are onto what happens when you study these things in a Soviet style fascist environment. Another subject all in itself.
But man, when you make sure people understand the words they are reading and hearing, and you add mass to make things more fun and interesting …. learning is a lot more fun for a group!
*yeah, and ok, I ALWAYS had fun confronting the challenge of a clay demo, had a LOT of fun doing them for 35 years and even liked doing clay checkouts. So sue me.
Joe 😎 Pendleton is one of the minority – in or out of the CoS – who can think for himself.
Because he approve of Scn and “Standard Tech” ? Now, THAT’S what I call “Cult Mentality”. The ” minority” you refer to, exist ONLY in your mind, Marildi. What IS a minority, is the amount of Indie Scientologists who can think for themselves. So far I’ve only met TWO of them!!!
No – because he doesn’t run with the pack.
And he doesn’t get all worked up, like some people.
Anyway, I thought you said these discussions were a waste of time and you were done with them. Not that I believed that – you seem to love getting all worked up.
I confess that I love the randomity of it all, and getting YOU all worked up!!! :)))
It’s not really random per se. It’s a simple formula: the closer you get to the roots of the Tech, the greater the chance that Marildi and Nickname and their ilk show up to defend it. We’re attacking the Basic Basic of Study Tech here, so obviously the Hubbard Defense Force has to come out, guns blazing. The ultimate example of the Crazy was when Mike put out his article on niacin last year. You remember that one, I presume.
Joe, on the other hand, sticks around and contributes positive things, in addition to the Utter Stupid when it comes to Tech defense. I respect him for that. I still haven’t forgiven Marildi for attempting to justify Hubbard’s homophobia.
Espi, I just tried to include some of the data you like to leave out. Sorry if it spoiled your pity party. 🙂
pity party: An instance of feeling sorry for oneself and/or seeking pity from other people.
Correct Espi. I call them the Flying KSW Monkeys. Similar behavior and intelligence level as those depicted in the movie.
Just need the clip of EL Con standing in the window exhorting them to FLY!
“It’s not really random per se. It’s a simple formula: the closer you get to the roots of the Tech, the greater the chance that Marildi and Nickname and their ilk show up to defend it.”
By “randomity”, I was referring to a coined Scn word that we ex staff members used to describe, not random events per se, but a lot of noise, movement, work cycles, confusion, too many actions at once, etc, etc. What I meant was that I actually liked all these heated back and forth comments (what I called ” randomity) between Ronbots and Ex(es)
As to Marildi and Nickname, I no longer see them as just individuals still under the unsuspected undue influence of a cult and a cult leader, but as supporters of a criminal, who damaged and injured hundreds of lives. I very much believe in redemption and forgiveness as a core part of my personality. It really affect me to hold anger and resentment towards others, and more so with all the shity things that I have done in my life myself, though never to the extend of LRH. It is VERY easy for me to feel forgiving and merciful for those who accept their crimes and mistakes. However, I find it rather hard to feel that way towards those who never saw anything wrong with their actions, and who were not compassionate enough to realize on time that those actions were destroying many lives. LRH was such an individual.
And those Ronbots like Marildi and Nickname, are as guilty as LRH by never having taken responsibility to BROADLY and PUBLICLY acknowledge the many crimes that LRH DID committed so as to – as THEY call it – “indicate the CORRECT bypassed charge” to those who were hurt and heavily injured by LRH’s methods and policies.
I really don’t have a big issue with others taking from Scn what they feel works for them and helps them. However I DO HAVE a BIG issue with others being so damn blind, stupid, and sheep-like; so as to dismiss so easily the wrongdoings of those they admire, while ALSO diminishing the effects that others received, and even justifying those effects by trying to make others believe that the damage was brought about by “Out-tech” and “Out-admin” applications, and not by 100% LRH’s policies totally unadulterated. The above is why I no longer feel any remorse by attacking those Ronbots as I used to feel. Because they TOTALLY deserve those attacks as the PERFECT ethics gradient that applies to this scenario. So I don’t give a rat’s ass if they feel invalidated or not, or attacked or not.
When I see them taking some responsibility for the damage that LRH caused, then and ONLY then I will be more compassionate and merciful with them, but never before.
“We’re attacking the Basic Basic of Study Tech here, so obviously the Hubbard Defense Force has to come out, guns blazing. ”
Yes Espi, I totally agree with you.
“The ultimate example of the Crazy was when Mike put out his article on niacin last year. You remember that one, I presume.”
Yes, I do remember; and it was crazy indeed. I even feel ashamed that I attempted to defend some parts of it.
. “Joe, on the other hand, sticks around and contributes positive things, in addition to the Utter Stupid when it comes to Tech defense. I respect him for that.”
I can see your point, thinking about it in retrospect. He seems like a good individual who can’t confront the pain of losing the stable data with which he has apparently guided most of his life; like I did. The reason that most Scientologists don’t throw the baby out with the bath water faster – because they all DO throw it away eventually – is because doing so represent a HUGE loss for them. I went into a HEAVY confusion myself when I finally stopped believing in Scn as a workable therapy. I had spent DECADES of my life trying to handle “ruins” that got handled by just the fact of “disconnecting” from Scn as a subject to help and guide my life.
“I still haven’t forgiven Marildi for attempting to justify Hubbard’s homophobia.”
Marildi not only has justified that, but practically EVERYTHING wrong that LRH has ever done. Back in the BIC blog, I wrote a few articles that most posters (the pro and the antis alike) considered as quite balanced and just. If they disagreed with any part of it, they started their comments by acknowledging the parts they agreed with, and by validating my HONEST efforts to be as balanced as was possible. But Marildi never fell into that group. She ONLY commented about the parts she disagreed with, w/out supporting in ANY way the parts she well damn knew I was right about. And this to just “protect” somehow the “reputation” of Scn and LRH as if being honest was a “bad PR” action. And for that, I lost the respect I had for her and for other Indie Scientologists, or Scientology supporters.
I think Mike should ask you the same question – why it is that you can’t ever let something go. As usual, you are the one who writes half a book when you’ve already written more than everybody else, and everybody else has already ended off.
I guess you’re trying to make up in quantity for the lack of quality. You always remind me of a fast-talking lawyer whose glib rhetoric can be seen as specious at best and out-and-out lying at worst – at least by anyone who isn’t looking through fixed biases.
Did you know that you are the personification itself of Q&A, Marildi? God, I had never seen anybody do so much Q&A with arguments as you do. Always trying to escape, and avoiding confronting the subject in subtle ways that you feel makes you look smart, but ONLY in your cultic and delusional mind. We here know where you come from, dear. You are not fooling anybody on this blog.
Just so others know, Geir Issene performed a little “exercise” on all of Marildi’s posts at his blog. Geir wanted to verify if Marildi had ever accepted being wrong at ANYTHING at any time, regarding her blog comments. Of out of almost 5,000 posts from Marildi at his blog, he couldn’t find not even ONE single instance where Marildi accepted being wrong at ANYTHING, or apologized for ANYTHING.
AS I found that assertion very hard to believe, I did the exercise myself, and inspected in detail at least 2 years worth of Marildi’s posts at Geir’s blog. To my surprise, I could not find ANY instance of that myself.
Marildi is the most “I am always right” person that I have ever known in my entire life. A subject worth researching. Gee, Scientologists are always dramatizing being right at ANYTHING; but this girl? This girl won the prize!!!
If anyone wants to understand the manifestations of undue influence, and how an irresponsible cult member behaves like, one only need to look at her, and it would be as if one would have done a HUGE clay demo of it; TOTAL MASS. 😉
My take is that Marildi may have just one purpose. To provoke people into making hateful comments or get people to “repudiate the tech” so it can be “proven” that this blog is just full of squirrels as a means of “dead-agenting” anything here to scientologists being handled by MAAs/OSA. It is my conclusion based on observation. But marildi could indeed just be a scientology fundamentalist. Don’t really care one way or another and it make little difference. One thing marildi does accomplish is stimulating comments.
I think if you look over even this one thread you’ll see that hateful comments are made not just to me but to others who say anything positive about the tech. That’s the only “provocation” needed. And the majority of the time, their repudiations of the tech are originated first.
“My take is that Marildi may have just one purpose. To provoke people into making hateful comments or get people to “repudiate the tech” so it can be “proven” that this blog is just full of squirrels as a means of “dead-agenting” anything here to scientologists being handled by MAAs/OSA. It is my conclusion based on observation. But marildi could indeed just be a scientology fundamentalist. Don’t really care one way or another and it make little difference.”
Believe me Mike, I know Marildi, and being a fundamentalist (and not only about Scientology, as she became one about Non-dualism as well) is the correct answer. But as you said, it makes no difference one way or another. Unlike most Scientologists who become sort of robotically stupid, she is pretty smart, and her arguments – which are alterations of reality anyway – can confuse those at doubt regarding Scn and LRH, into believing that they are wrong about having doubted “Standard Tech” and dear LRH. So I am always on the watch for people like her ready to Dead Agent her faulty arguments as I always do.
“One thing marildi does accomplish is stimulating comments.”
Can’t argue with that! 🙂
Gee, thanks. It’s a pretty good trick to be a fundamentalist in both of two completely different teachings. LOL
You TOTALLY missed my point, but I am pretty used to by now, of your tendency to misduplicate my post comments. That Scn and Non-dualism are (according to YOU) entirely “different” subjects, has NOTHING to do whatsoever with you – or ANY other individual for that matter – being a fundamentalist in BOTH. I am the one “Laughing out loud” by your comment.
Fundamentalists – to educate you on the subject a little bit – share one key characteristic; they have the tendency to believe almost (please note that I said “almost”, not “always”) everything that ,what they consider to be a “spiritual leader”, says. And when they feel mentally disagreeing with something that leader said or wrote about, they frequently feel the cognitive dissonance of it all, and brush it all off as the result of their “own misunderstandings” of the philosophy or spiritual practice in question.
The fundamentalist frequently feels and think that such spiritual “leaders” are smarter and more spiritual “advanced” than they (the fundamentalists) are, and thus they can’t accept and reject at will the utterances of such leaders. These fundamentalists look for excuses and justifications to explain away those things about their leaders or their actions, that they disagree with.
It has been my experience with you, that you have such tendencies in spite of the incredible smart that I KNOW you are. You can take the above as a personal attack, or as what it actually IS ; an honest effort to get you to LOOK.
W/out your tendency to become cultish about new methods of spiritual practices, and w/out your compulsion to “BE RIGHT” and never to accept when you are wrong, you can even become Nobel Prize material, and I mean that. But it takes the ABILITY (because it IS and ability) to be wrong at ANYTHING to REALLY succeed in life, and to EVOLVE as beings.
But of course, I am pretty sure that you will just become all defensive, feel cornered by me, and post some totally non sequitur comment as a Q&A reply. I am used to that as well. 😉
You left out the fact that Geir also couldn’t find a post of his own where he had said he was wrong. Like I say, your arguments are specious if not downright lies.
marildi opined, “You left out the fact that Geir also couldn’t find a post of his own where he had said he was wrong.”
Fascinating. A scamology bot defending NOT getting the E.P. of Grade 4 because someone else didn’t. (and NO person has ever gotten it) Yet, constantly defending the validity of El Con’s “tek”.
I doubt in such a cult induced, befuddled state of mind that the poster will get the irony of it’s own post…
Also, I’d add, because Joe P has the ability to make distinctions between things.
Yes, and he knows what he knows, from direct experience – regardless of what others may try to convince him of.
There is NO convincing a fixated cult member, Marildi. 😉
There you go with your sweet talk again. 🙄
That can’t be true.
Sorry Aqua, but that’s not how I see it. Joe might seem to you like he is being self-determined about Scn, but I know better than that. 😉
Tech is toxic,
a sort of black hole to suck your identity.
Promoting it without qualifying scientology as a predatory, aggressively profit-oriented cult of manipulation and persuasion is being misleading and, to the same degree, ignorant.
And this string degenerated because that point was negleted and trumped by pointlessness far too long ago.
The reason I got interested in this thread was that I’ve been a word clearer and I saw firsthand the extremes of both good and bad application of that tech. At one end of the spectrum students had life-changing wins, and at the other end there were students who once had no problem with study but were MADE into poor students because of the rote and obsessive way word clearing was being applied.
I tried writing knowledge reports about my observations back then, but the group agreement went all the way up the lines. Even so, there were still some supervisors and word clearers who had conceptual understanding of the tech, and their students did well. Those staff were like Dan Koon, where he indicated in his comment above that he found references to get around the group think – and I believe that was because of a good understanding of word clearing tech. There truly is no substitute for understanding.
Anyway, my attempt here was to counter what I see as a similar kind of group think being spread, which is just as black and white. But you may be right that it is pointless.
ok.
This had an impact on me, re-evaluates my own objectivity.
I am just so down on the church because of the hidden motives, false promises and false claims regarding the tech. It is so insidious, I just can’t believe that, well, that there is any good intention left behind it, nearly no potential upside except to test common sense and a huge potential on the down side in that once you think Hubbard has special knowledge how do know when to question yourself… that you are not being tricked? Right? Every word must have this qualifying safeguard because we are always so apt to accept a “source” for unsubstantiated reasons, we do have a tendency to not think, decisions made unconsciously and you can bet that Hubbard took advantage of this and every other vulnerability at every opportunity. His lot in life was all about controlling people, and the cost was immaterial. His aim was to be bulletproof, because his greatest adversary was criticism in any form, in both his mind and mine.
I have to say, you seem like a poster who is willing and able to have a reasoned exchange. You inspired me to address or at least acknowledge pretty much every point you made.
“I am just so down on the church because of the hidden motives, false promises and false claims regarding the tech. It is so insidious…”
I fully agree. It literally gives me a somatic just thinking about it. I would also note that, for the most part, the false promises and claims did not come from Hubbard’s writings but from reg’s on up, for the purpose of pushing stats by misinterpreting policy knowingly or unknowingly.
“…I just can’t believe that, well, that there is any good intention left behind it…”
Based on my own staff experience and observation of others, I think there is good intention even now in the average staff member. They see many of the outpoints but they “grit their teeth and bear it” (mixing the two phrases) because they have been indoctrinated to believe that, overall, the church is involved in the most worthy cause in the universe. My view about it is, there but for the grace of God go we…
“…nearly no potential upside except to test common sense…”
Actually, I consider it one of the gains of having been a church member that I learned what a disastrous mistake it is to be so “self-sacrificing” as to give up one’s own common sense and knowingness. That is a pretty stabilizing lesson for a being to learn. When it’s learned directly, through personal experience, it’s learned far better than being taught it with words alone.
“…and a huge potential on the down side in that once you think Hubbard has special knowledge how do know when to question yourself… that you are not being tricked? Right? Every word must have this qualifying safeguard because we are always so apt to accept a ‘source’ for unsubstantiated reasons, we do have a tendency to not think, decisions made unconsciously.”
Right you are. This is another one of the more vital lessons to be learned on the road to freedom. And former scientologists need to continue to apply it not just to the church but to their fellow ex’es and others – on the subject of scientology still.
“…and you can bet that Hubbard took advantage of this and every other vulnerability at every opportunity. His lot in life was all about controlling people, and the cost was immaterial. His aim was to be bulletproof, because his greatest adversary was criticism in any form, in both his mind and mine.”
He was a flawed human being, no doubt about it. In any case, if we’re going to be objective and rational, we need to avoid the logical fallacy of Ad Hom in evaluating core scientology principles and tech, and the core does not include management of the organization, IMO, regardless of the intentions.
Thanks for being open and sharing your thoughts.
Yes
Again, the tech is toxic.
Word clearing rivets that jargon into your head, literally re-wiring the malleable mind in order to make the tech be perceived as something real and to keep the perceiver in that rut.
The tech is proven toxic.
Hubbard learned the ease of hypnotizing and controlling people todo his bidding and became obsessed with it.
You have the weapon.
You have the motive.
You have the body
of lost souls and broken families.
Look at you, using words like “somantic” and references like “misapplication of tech” as if there were something there.
That is NOT the way to educate our children
Period.
According to Hubbard policy, not clearing your words is a HIGH CRIME. It is labeled as the failure to apply study tech.
And, people who disagree, decide to “take a break” or leave, have MUs.
Therefore, if you disagree or want to leave, and refuse to go in for word clearing, you are guilty of a high crime, and thus you are an SP.
This is the insidious argument the church uses to convince your family and friends that they should disconnect from you.
Thank you Terra Cognita for all your insightful posts. I really appreciate them!
kind of reminds me of the story where Bill Franks and David Mayo were summoned to meet with LRH because of a student blowing on the Apollo and Hubbard fesses up that people do not blow because of O/W’s, but because of ARCX’s. And LRH tells them not to disclose this info with others.
NO Shit, LOL
I believe Jeffery Augustine did a vid with Bill Franks, as well as another media person on this topic.
What a neat little manipulative package to twist someone up in. You sound like you know of what you speak. I appreciate your expansion on how word clearing and high crimes go together in a most sp way.
One characteristic that successful individuals share, is that they really understand the words related to their areas of success. When you listen to individuals who have a great reputation for their expertise on a certain field – like top scientists and scholars – one of the first thing you notice is their command of the language in general in the ways they express themselves. Great speakers are always admired because of their command of the communication cycle; and that control is mainly due to their understanding of words and grammatical rules.
There is a REASON why we have SO many dictionaries being constantly printed. LRH didn’t invent the damn subject. In fact, the importance that defining words have in developing our intellect and abilities was stressed by Socrates 2,500 years ago when he said, “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms”.
What is wrong with the Study Tech – and with ANYTHING from LRH for that matter – is the absolutism with which he enforced his ideas on others; an EXTREME form of authoritarianism. Misunderstood words frequently DO bring about mental and physical difficulties, and can cause a person to blow or lose interest in a subject. I’ve seen this in my own daughter (and in DOZENS of individuals I have helped) every time; and I have also rekindled her interest for the abandoned subject every time by just finding her misunderstood words, and by supplying the absent mass.
I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with the Study Tech in terms of the three (but there are more than three) barriers to study; barriers that have been well known by linguists since centuries ago. In fact, my biggest wins in life have brought about by understanding words; I am ” work junkie”.
The problem was (IS) that ANY disagreement with “Standard Tech” (or with ANYTHING that LRH ever uttered) was arbitrarily thought of as the result of having gone past misunderstood words, and not because HE was wrong on his assertions (which he WAS FREQUENTLY). And going past misunderstood words were given a VERY exaggerated role in the subject of studying anything. Yes, clearing all the meanings of a word is the IDEAL action that will prevent having difficulties with the use of that word on another context. But it all depend of the purpose one has for learning a subject, and the time available to learn it.
If one is reading a fiction work for amusement, it is quite illogical to clear all meanings of a word. Clearing the one that applies is enough. Anything else can spoil the fun of it. If one needs to learn a subject quickly, it is also silly to stop to clear all definitions of a word. But making a list of all words about which we just cleared the definition that applied to the context, with the idea to clear all additional meanings later on at some point in the future, is also a wise thing to do that will turn one into a faster and more efficient student.
The more words and definitions an individual knows, the better his life and activities will be, and the more effective his abilities to make others understand him will also become. And with better communication abilities life is SO much easier!
So do not throw that little baby out with the bath water yet. Reason must always be senior than emotional responses. That’s how I live my life.
Thank You! (Said in my most drama queen voice possible!)
🙂
The Fatman said: “The only reason a person gives up studying a subject is because he went past a word that was not fully understood.” Or some such – I’m paraphrasing.
Anyway, that’s bullshit. Sometimes people look into something, start studying it, and realize they just don’t want to spend any more time on it now that they know a bit more about it.
Study “Tech” is basically a ripoff. It’s not necessarily harmful like his other stuff, but nobody involved in, say, putting men on the moon had the Fatman’s “tech.” Isaac Newton managed to invent calculus without the Fatman’s “discoveries.” Kepler? Aristotle? No, none of the Fatman’s utterings were available or even needed.
Even today, AD 66, plenty of people get plenty smart without Fatso’s “tech.” Hell, school itself is a “gradient” – people start in Kindergarten and progress through high school and college. “Mass” is obtained in labs and projects. Even the dreaded public schools have dictionaries. It also has TEACHERS to SHOW us how to do advanced math and chemistry. Fatso’s study “tech” is nothing new; it’s no world-changing breakthrough. (I slipped a semicolon in there just to piss off Dave).
Imagine asking a question about, say, solving a quadratic equation and being told by the teacher, “what do your materials state?” So you spend the rest of class digging through your book when the teacher could have just shown you the bit you missed in a minute or two. That’s one big problem with scientology schools. God forbid you should get verbal data! Could you imagine a medical student not being SHOWN how to do a lumbar puncture?
Oh, he had his stupid tech films, but it’s the back-and-forth, question and answer with someone who knows the subject that results in real learning. Scientology’s method of study is really lousy.
What do your materials state? Bah.
Wait, Gus Cox, why is it ad66? I thought LRH died in 1986, wouldn’t that make it ad30? or is it counted from formation of scn in 1954, so then it’s scn yr 62? help plz… mizunderstood words.
ThetaClear, you brought up a very good point: it is possible to understand precisely what is being said or written, and disagree with it.
I’d add that it is also possible to misunderstand what is being said or written, and disagree because of this misunderstanding.
Or one can fully understand and fully agree.
Scientology dings in that non-agreement ALWAYS = a misunderstood word or words.
Well, sometimes that’s true and sometimes it isn’t.
Its the automaticity of this link up that gives word clearing a bad name.
Its possible to word clear the hell out of something, understand every shade of meaning in what’s being said or written, and disagree with it in whole or in part. Believe me, I know, because it happened to me. The cult went a little nuts, trying to use word clearing on me as a submission tactic.
I refused to let them do that. I told them, “Look, I understand perfectly what I’m supposed to do and I don’t agree with it, and here’s why…”
On the other hand, I’m not blaming the word clearing itself. That, to me, would just be stupid.
I’m going to risk a possible avalanche of disapproval at best and derision at worst from a number of people here by sharing that I actually liked word clearing, and Key To Life was my favorite course and I had tremendous benefit from it. Having said that, I’m aware that there are many who loathed word clearing and who dismiss their KTL experience as a bunch of bullshit and wasted time, which is OK with me. I can have viewpoints differ which differ with mine if the interaction remains mutually civil and respectful. I have my life and my experiences; you have your lives and experiences, and if we mesh, if we agree, great, and if we don’t, c’est la vie, you know? Peace.
Aqua – there is an LRH comment in, I think it was the Dianetics Today book, where one shouldn’t walk around in a zoo and wonder if one is acceptable to the apes. Word clearing is a fantastic technology which I have passed on to my children and grandchildren, which if applied correctly, results in highly educated, intelligent people. The Key to Life is also a fantastic course, as is the PRD. In short, there is no body of knowledge on education that comes anywhere near what LRH managed to create. Why anyone would want to criticize it is of course contained succinctly in HCOB Confused Ideas and which statement will of course now produce an attacking torrent of confused ideas, no doubt!
Part of the problem (which is expressed here in the critical commentaries about (what they think is) “word clearing” (sic)) has been the relative poor training of course supervisors since the 1980s, exported it seems by Flag and perhaps FOLOs, sending out a bunch of robotic semi-thugs masquerading as “supervisors”, interfering with and aggravating students endlessly because they themselves have “observed” themselves being interfered with at Flag and think this is the way to supervise – the irony of course being Miscavige’s “blind leading the blind”, which in this case is actually true. I think the rot (of poor course supervision) started in and with the Flag-based OEC/FEBC (and perhaps the Hard TRs course as part of it) in the early 1980s which produced some of the most incompetent overly-aggressive numbskull managers in Scientology history, walking around scowling at staff (and public) menacingly and setting impossible targets, amongst all the other nonsense they got up to etc. All of the graduates from these courses that came back to my Org had to be extensively word-cleared (they all admitted to going past Mis-Us right left and center) and they all failed as Execs (but which was partly explained by having Execs above them who had had the same training) and I am afraid the avalanche of non-comprehension was too much and eventually the dam burst with the result that there really is no management as such now in Scientology Orgs – they are all operating on incessant telephoned orders and chivvying from the FOLOs every half an hour or so, which of course, is again ironically, totally off-policy. I also read that the Orgs no longer have OEC volumes to hand, which is another indication of what I state above.
There is nothing “wrong” with word clearing at all, when properly applied and when you have people trained properly to apply it, which again someone(s) has thrown a spanner into the works of, it seems.
“Part of the problem (which is expressed here in the critical commentaries about (what they think is) “word clearing” (sic)) has been the relative poor training of course supervisors since the 1980s, ”
COMPLETE B.S. Sups were doing the same exact W/Cing crap in the 70’s.
You haven’t got a clue what I am on about.
I DO have to admit a marked inability to decipher the rantings of the insane. You are correct Fool.
Have a look at HCOB C/S Series 22 Psychosis – you’re talked about at length. To quote:
“Insanity can now be precisely defined.
The definition is:
INSANITY IS THE OVERT OR COVERT BUT ALWAYS COMPLEX AND CONTINUOUS DETERMINATION TO HARM OR DESTROY.
Possibly the only frightening thing about it is the cleverness with which it can be hidden.
Whereas a sane person can become angry or upset and a bit destructive for short periods, he or she recovers. The insane mask it, are misemotional continuously and do not recover. (Except by modern processing.)”
Must be awful for you!
Seriously? If your idea is to make evaluations about someone’s personality based on comments on a blog and then quoting Hubbard as if this is indisputable fact you need to take a chill pill. You are definitely on the wrong blog.
Mr. Rinder it is your blog and thus I respect your right to direct us about content. However, I believe that it is beneficial to allow these “true believers” (for lack of better description) to post this type of stuff so that those who have never been in get to see someone who is still under the influence so to speak.
YEs, I try to let everyone have their say. I find some of your comments to be inappropriate – or at least not what I would say. Same with Espiando and others here at times. Some I simply trash – but that is very few.
I think free and open dialog is helpful to everyone. I feel an obligation to try and point out the illogic of scientology believers more than I do the ex or anti-scientology posters as I feel I identify with their inability to see outside the bubble at times. And try to help them see that they are being silly and don’t look good…
“And try to help them see that they are being silly and don’t look good…”
A VERY honorable intention as you always have for others. Unfortunately, Scientologists never listen to anything that doesn’t match with their conditioned mind. Anything that disagree with LRH’s folish utterances, they filter out, always, to avoid cognitive dissonance.
Mike – I didn’t start it. You have simply ignored the fact that Wynski stated that I am insane and a fool. I just retaliated. I only do so when attacked or when something I hold dear is attacked.
Than just say: “I” think you are an idiot back. Don’t come up with “LRH quotes” to justify and name-call. That is what rubs me the wrong way. Taking one of those quotes as if it is handed down from God as an unassailable truth and you now hold it up to “prove” you are right. It is what fundamentalists do constantly. Just give YOUR opinion. You do yourself no favors offering up quotes or scientology “expertise” to explain your opinions like that.
Mike as you well know Scientology is simply a representation of what is actually going in the universe – the rules as such have always been there – it is just that Hubbard observed them and pointed them out and gave remedies for them when remedies are needed. Actually one might say Hubbard summarized them nicely and when you say I am quoting Hubbard as if it is just his gospel is a bit unfair to me and my understandings. I also observed these things (he invites one to do so) and found them to be true as do/did most Scientologists. Therefore they are MY opinion – now. It would be a bit like saying “well, someone has invented the wheel but I am going to use oval wheels instead of round wheels as that is MY opinion. When I see round wheels work it would be rather daft of me to do otherwise. I have spent too long in Orgs and from observing people (and seeing them benefit) to deny what, per my observations – works. Hubbard summarizes things better than I do so why not use his “round wheels”? There is no blind faith on my part. The problem with Scientology now is dudes like Miscavige bending and altering these (Hubbard) observations to suit his/their own agendas.
As you know I am very disagreeable about what COB is up to so I am obviously not a “blind faith” person, but lo and behold we find that every instance of his shenanigans can be traced back to him not observing and altering what Hubbard quite adroitly wrote about his (LRH’s) observations of the universe etc., whether policy in running Orgs or the technology of auditing.
Well, I tried.
“I have spent too long in Orgs and from observing people (and seeing them benefit) to deny what, per my observations – works. Hubbard summarizes things better than I do so why not use his ’round wheels’?”
Well said, Foolproof. And you speak for me too.
You do a great job with this blog Mr. Rinder. Thank you for you extreme patience with us all.
Thanks for your nice reply Marildi.
The vitriolic, continuous and rabid gainsaying of my remarks with fatuous data, speaks volumes and as I say most people on here will see through it for what it is. It is actually embarrassing for the persons involved. After all, if Scientology technology didn’t work then what are they worried about? Why don’t they troll Christian or Hindu web sites? Anyway, I am not going to get so involved in the to-ing and fro-ing in future but then I never start the ball rolling (well, sometimes for entertainment but generally not). The predictability of the people who responded – responding, has been 100% accurate and I am thinking of asking for bets on whether so-and-so will respond – I would make a fortune! (The content is drivel anyway and unimportant.)
As I have previously said, their stance on things will tend to maintain and hold people in Miscavige’s church as, if these under the radar types ever browse this site they will take one look at the lunatic comments and think “Jeez, I’m staying in the church!” So the irony is that they are doing OSA’s job for them, wittingly or unwittingly. I wonder how many commenting on here are actually OSA agents who write drivel and outrageous anti-Scientology stuff just to discredit the web site?
After all, if Scientology technology didn’t work then what are they worried about? Why don’t they troll Christian or Hindu web sites?
Well, from my perspective this bog EXISTS because of the abuses in scientology. People are harmed. Families broken up. Money stolen from people based on lies.
I am here because of that and because I have experience with this, not with Christians or Hindus. I assume that is why commenters post here too.
The line “if we weren’t winning why are they complaining” is one of the thought-stopping techniques of scientology as in the squirrels only scream when we are winning…
Mike, you wrote: “Well, from my perspective this blog EXISTS because of the abuses in scientology. People are harmed. Families broken up. Money stolen from people based on lies. I am here because of that and because I have experience with this, not with Christians or Hindus. I assume that is why commenters post here too.”
That’s fine for them to post here for that reason, but it shouldn’t give them the right to be abusive in turn.
On this very thread, posters have complained about how word clearing was used by supervisors in the CoS to basically force people to adopt the group think instead of being allowed to have their own point of view. Ironically, if some poster here has an opinion about the tech – based on their own experience with it – but it doesn’t fit into the group think here, coercion is also used to convince them that they don’t know what they know. They get slammed down repeatedly until they shut up.
And I think there is truth to what Foolproof wrote here:
“The vitriolic, continuous and rabid gainsaying of my remarks with fatuous data, speaks volumes… As I have previously said, their stance on things will tend to maintain and hold people in Miscavige’s church as, if these under the radar types ever browse this site they will take one look at the lunatic comments and think ‘Jeez, I’m staying in the church!’ So the irony is that they are doing OSA’s job for them, wittingly or unwittingly.”
They may not want to stay in the church, but they would probably think the church was right about “squirrels” being nutty.
Sadly, You cannot just let anything rest. I give you a lot of benefit of the doubt in the interests of open discussion. But I must say you do a good job of creating the impression that you are merely a troll. Though generally the stimulation of conversation is healthy in my view, it no longer serves any purpose when it simply degenerates into endlessly repeating “your mother wears army boots.” Everyone tunes out. Nobody is listening and it just becomes annoying. Like the above.
Sorry to try your patience, Mike. I know that you personally are sincere. It just bothers me when people get bullied and the playing field isn’t level.
I went thru my school life up to the age of 17 never using a dictionary until I was reading an American History text book and realised I didnt understand a damn thing it said. I thought I was dumb, and I was. The Student Hat taught me to study from the ground up. Anything can be overdone, period, and I learnt while giving method 9s that many students would pick a word they knew to clear, cleaning cleans, usually they just couldnt pick the right mu, but when done properly I had students volunteer to me that they “floated” out of the room after the M9. It is all a matter of how the tech is applied!
Percy, I had exactly the same experience as you. When I finished the Student Hat I then realized that I was now an educated person, and that I could also even improve on that as well, and even though my schooling etc. was of the first order. But the difference for me was like night and day after having completed the Student Hat.
A lot of the criticism here is when people have mis-applied and altered word-clearing tech to satisfy some cruel or petty impulse they have but LRH of course even has remedies for that (Ser Facs) in the HCOB “Change the Civilization Eval”.
“But the difference for me was like night and day after having completed the Student Hat. ”
Same here FP. I know there are people on this blog who want the whole subject to disappear, but I hope those on the fence can look thru the squirelldom that Scientology could be at times to what it became all the time under Dave and see the potential.
Here’s hoping!!
Yes it seems there are quite a few on here who are intent on, and have committed spiritual suicide by denying themselves auditing and want to drag others down with them.
Yes, Miscavige, after all is said and done, is the core of the problem. Thing is though that there will be many in his valence now. Indeed, here is hoping.
Wow, “spiritual suicide”. Explain the mechanics of a “spirit” committing suicide.
Sounds like “losing one’s eternity”. Now, where have we heard THAT insanity before?
Insane cult members will be insane.
Poor old Mike is only envious he can’t get auditing any longer. All he’s saying really is “PLEASE someone, pull my withholds!”
This is a horribly arrogant statement. Reminds me of what Miscavige used to say about me and others “they are upset because they so badly want to come back, they miss being in the Sea Org and now realize all the benefits they enjoyed.”
Truth is the only reason he was saying that was to try and reassure himself. I think your comment is similar. Realize there are a lot of people who have left scientology that are very happy with their decision and will NEVER go back. Whether you think it’s because they have withholds or not isn’t going to change that in any way. But you saying it does not make you look good.
You know why Foolproof is here in this blog in the first place, Mike? Because there are no longer any blogs supportive of Scn/LRH except the ghost town called MS2. So he is DESPERATELY attempting to revive the dead corpse called Scientology, by “educating” us on how our dreadful withholds are making us critical, and barring our “eternity”. 🙂
By his assertions – and due that according to LRH withholds ” add up mental mass” – you must be weighting like 1,000 pounds already! as you are the #1 Scn critic. 🙂
Again Mike, you are ignoring the fact that Wynski has stated or at least implied that “insane cult members will be insane”, meaning me of course, (even though I have not been in the Church for decades). I feel I should have a right to reply to someone who is constantly attacking the only workable technology of the mind and then not be told that my remarks are OTT – but his rather nasty and vicious remarks – aren’t!
But I would be denied auditing, based on your own rules, because I’m not willing to “raise my tone level” by changing the gender with whom I have sex, and because of my history of psych drugs and unwillingness to expose my liver to damage through the Putrif. So, according to your own standards, your rules are causing Scientologists to commit spiritual homicide on me. Well, we now know the answer to the question, “What are your crimes?”
Foolproof’s biggest crime is being a complete fool !!! 😉
Theta Clear embarrassing himself again by resorting to childish ad hominem remarks, and all because he had a Mis-U on the word “Remimeo”.
Mike, I will (try to) ignore all this sort of thing in future when and if I post. Most readers on here know the reasons behind them anyway. I realize you must get fed up with refereeing it all.
At least you are learning to fight back instead of playing the role of a god-damn victim, Ronbot. 🙂
Firstly, you have no divine right to get auditing. And they are not “my rules”. But let us look at your view on these rules:
Secondly I think you will find that homosexuals do and did get auditing even in the Church and I think you are quite right in that their sexual preferences should not play a role as to whether or not they could receive auditing – which actually Hubbard states or implies in HCO PL 2D Rules. If local execs did otherwise then that is incorrect. Many Orgs though did have PCs who were homosexuals.
Thirdly, the rule that people don’t get auditing when they are taking drugs of any description is for the benefit of the preclear – he won’t make gain. There are/were many cases who had previously taken psychiatric drugs who then received auditing.
Lastly the idea that Niacin damages the liver is based on 1 or 2 cases where other detrimental factors were at play, as discussed previously on this board. If you choose to look at these cases instead of the scores of thousands who have successfully done the Purif RD – to manufacture a reason why you can’t do the Purif, then that is your problem.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit, respectively.
In the first instance, if I don’t have a “divine right” to get auditing, how come you’re pushing it as the solution for what ails you? If it can do what you claim it does, I should have a divine right to it. Everyone should.
In the second instance, we’ve already discussed this here. Again, Hubbard contradicts himself. In his HCO that you cited, sexual orientation doesn’t matter. But he calls LGBTs 1.1 in Science of Survival and considers LGBTs “sexual deviants”. The fact that San Diego Org contributed money to the Prop 8 campaign and wasn’t condemned for doing so by CSI says it all.
In the third instance, I’m not going to stop taking psych drugs, which have worked and are working with me, to grab a pair of cans operated by a person who has not been trained in the ACTUAL workings of the mind. “Only workable technology of the mind”, my ass.
In the fourth instance, again, we’ve discussed that here. It isn’t one or two cases, it’s documented, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, something that none of Scientology has. A basic knowledge of physiology, biology, and biochemistry shows that the Putrif doesn’t work the way Hubbard says it does. Any drug that eliminates itself from the human body through urine or feces does not leave traces that can be “restimulated”. It’s gone. You pissed or shitted it out, very often within hours. This is scientific fact. A fact that you choose to ignore based on the say-so of a college drop-out who never took a college-level biology class.
I don’t have a problem. You do. And you refuse to look.
Foolproof and Percy, I’ve had similar experiences with word clearing, mostly very good and some bad, and agree that it all depends on how the tech is applied and with what intention it is applied.
Having never been staff or SO, I had very little word clearing done on me with the intention of forcing me to agree and none done to get me to comply with an order.
The word clearing I experienced was done with the clean purpose of assisting me to understand the meanings of words so that I could make up my own mind. Except in the very end when I refused to donate to Ideal Orgs and refused to redo my Objectives, where the word clearing was being done to get me to comply (although politely – I was a public and they couldn’t mistreat me) – except for those few experiences in the end, word clearing was always done on me with kindness and patience and no make wrong, and helped me a lot. And on KTL, clearing the many meanings of the small common words with a twin was one of the most beneficial actions I have ever done. And, I should add, it was never, ever done on me when I was hungry, exhausted or even tired. Nor was there ever any threat, implied or otherwise, of being deprived of food or sleep if I refused to “understand”
That being said, I believe that on this blog are people who were word cleared without patience or kindness but with the objectives in mind of absolute unquestioning agreement and compliance to specific orders and/or absolute unquestioning agreement and compliance to orders and pretty much anything one was told by seniors, in general
Need I say more? Used this way, “word clearing” is torture. Its punishment. Who wouldn’t hate it?
Yes Aqua, I quite agree. That was my point. Brusque martinet course supervision (as well as the donations industry) has emptied Academies worldwide. I think the Crashing Mis-U of these “supervisors” (and Miscavige’s as well I would think – but in terms of being an executive (ha!)) was the word “tough” (see HCO PL “What is a Course” I think). They think “tough” means walking around glaring at the students like a Marine drill instructor and wanting to hit them over the head with a tech dictionary if they yawn. I wouldn’t be surprised if the supervisors these days got the “erring” student to do 50 push-ups if they smiled at something.
To explain further – the word “tough” as I interpreted it, meant getting the student to understand the materials and not giving up until he did – not scowling at the students or treating them as “enemies”. “Tough” has been interpreted by many latter-day supervisors as “no ARC”, which is of course nonsense. If you can’t have ARC for student auditors who want to help their fellow man then you have no business training them – they are the most decent people on the planet. I have even seen reports of where a student kept flunking a drill and the “supervisor” impatiently and truculently kept issuing him with Ethics Chits instead of finding the missed gradient or whatever was causing him to not do the drill properly. This is what I mean.
With apologies, I didn’t read this until there are already lots of comments. Still: here’s my say.
I was the Sr. SHSBC sup at ASHO/F from 1975 until 1978.
When I started, only M3 word-clearing was used. Students could use whatever dictionary they had, they looked for the definition that would make the sentence (or phrase) make sense. It worked. The symptoms of a bypassed m/u were/are mostly wrong. Although, i CAN say I notice when someone’s not understanding what they’re reading. It’s obvious.
During my time as a sup, the other “M”s were released. To be honest, I don’t remember why “looking up words you don’t understand until you understand the sentence” … I don’t remember why we were told it wasn’t working. It worked fine. I didn’t know it was one of a series in “how to define words you don’t understand or aren’t sure of” until Method-4 was introduced, and the personal responsibility for looking up words was re-presented to us as Method-3. I let it slide. But it was the absolute beginning of bogged students on word-chains that were filling up databanks that had NOTHING to do with the subject. I know I should forgive all, for my personal benefit, but I’m still not able to forgive Hubbard for screwing up the real value of a dictionary by his narcissistic policy.
Fascinating to read this. It adds so much to the conversation. It reminds me that the best thing ever in the clampire was the good people trying to keep the show on the road like yourself and other commenters.
I had little word clearing to do beyond Hubbard’s made up words. I’d been an English major and had a father who was a writer. We had a dozen different dictionaries in the house as well as an excellent thesaurus. Even when we were quite young, when asking for a definition, we got instead, “look it up”. And while we hated that, we soon learned to do it without being told. Made one hell of a difference in my own professional writing life.
I remember spending a LOT (weeks) of time Word Clearing someone on the letter A and a and one.
Somewhere along the line they claimed they went Clear on Word Clearing. VVGIs
Some years later I talked to a friend of this person and found that this person had a fatal ending during OT3.
I guess the blame goes to the C of S if one wants to look at it that way.
1. I was an undetected SP Word Clearing someone to a false state of Clear.
2. The person should have been labeled an SP as they worked for the government.
3. Rather than being being shoved onto OT3 for a stat some background research should have been done on this person.
4. The person is just pushing up daisies now.
5. The screening process now for new public coming in and on lines now I would say is extreme.
My grammar school teachers were big on using a dictionary, and taught me how to use one. Once I discovered the wonders of it, I made it a staple of my library. But I didn’t catch on to the MISunderstood word until I came upon Scientology. And somehow, I didn’t think of all the words I thought I knew, even though I seemed to have difficulty with some subjects. I could bypass what I had read, and be functional. Then one day for some reason, I looked up the word “finance”. It surprised the heck out of me to discover that it was not exclusively about “handling or managing monetary assets”; it is also about managing borrowings. I’m still looking at the applications of that one. It’s a big field.
Method One word clearing (which I have done – a short action, no more than four hours in my case – but I had an excellent auditor) is to me about finding a basic on a chain of words within one’s immediate primary field of interest. I found one that went back a long time, in another language entirely, in the field of religion and philosophy, then an earlier MU, at a cross-over point between the fields of a) the arts and aesthetics, and b) religion and philosophy. This is My World, you understand, not any statement about anyone else’s thoughts or relational concepts. It did have a profound impact, in that it clarified **for me** the relationships between those areas.
It is still interesting, a curiosity to me, that I do not look at the word I found in another language as text with letters which I could easily write or say, but as a conceptual understanding. I can see the word, but apparently it is no relevant to me to recall it exactly enough to be able to reproduce an image of it with pen and paper – one reason is that if I did, I would recall a flood of data, which I am not prepared for, such as sounds and writing in that language, parents, relatives, friends, foods, clothing, temperatures, years, and so on. Too much data, too much shift of frames of reference in realities. You can experience some mild form of that by going back to a high school reunion, if your school building is still there, walking into a classroom you haven’t been in for many years, and recalling a world long gone but right there in tangible form.
The earlier word, the basic on the chain, didn’t even formulate on a page – it was a book I was replacing on a shelf. I could say that just spotting the existence of MU’s, and the time, place, form, and event of the MU’s, was sufficient to blow the charge, and leave open to myself how I could blow charge and not have the actual words and their definitions. But I think I have some insight into this. Words represent materials, causes, and effects. We have this in grammatical constructions, subjects, actions, and objects, with modifiers. Oxford Encyclopedia of Grammar is a big book – 1,000 pages of small print on big pages. When you know a word, what you know is not the letters and the ink and the paper, who wrote it, and when. You know the materials, causes, and effects, the word symbolizes. Most know what a “cat” is, but each individual will have their own personal concepts and associations of a “cat”. No two are alike, never will be. A veterinarian knows more about a “cat” than a pet owner, but does not know the pet owner’s “cat” until they bring it in for a checkup. Words are also agreements of representations. Grammar – the use of words in sentence construction – varies from culture to culture, language to language, sometimes very markedly. The German Language, for example, capitalizes objects such as Automobile, Faucet, Window, Door, and so forth – and that is really almost all I know about German, and I don’t even know much about how they capitalize. I still wonder if somehow that respect shown for objects has anything to do with German engineering. But if you say “Door” to a German, I somehow feel that culturally, the generalized concepts he forms differ from the generalized concepts of an Englishman. When we think, when we formulate things such as “plans” in our consciousness, I do not think we use words or grammar, although we may be influenced by those and express our plans in those terms.
The whole notion of writing or saying a word found in a long-ago language is itself fascinating, and maybe something a guy named William Sidis obliquely looked into, or maybe I just see as similar. He didn’t write much, but one thing I recall reading, was a description he gave of walking past a bookstore with a book on a stand in the window. He did not focus his attention on it as he passed, did not “read” it. When he arrived home some five or ten minutes later, he wondered if he could, or would be able to if he thought about it, somehow access what he had seen as he passed, and get the title of the book. He was very interested in memory. Apparently, he memorized the Boston mass transit system so well that, given a point A and a point B, he could tell you which train or bus to catch, which transfer tickets to buy, when to transfer, and how far you had to walk to navigate between those two points. ANY two points. It was a hobby of his, apparently, a pastime. Chess was probably too simple for him.
So the mind is an amazing thing. And our perception is an amazing thing. There is so much to see, so much to learn, and so much we pass by without noticing.
I have no problems with word clearing. If you know a word, you know it. If you don’t, you don’t. It’s the ones you think you know, but don’t know, that confuse you. Dictionaries are there for those reasons.
Looking back to my public school days, I’m surprised about what I wasn’t taught about study.
I wasn’t taught:
– A word is a symbol for a concept;
– Always use a dictionary to define words;
– The etymology of a word can be useful in understanding it;
– Curiosity and interest are the prerequisites for study.
The tech of “defining by context” was coming into vogue while I was in school. Instead of using a dictionary to define a word, you guessed at its meaning by looking at how it’s used in the sentence.
I now look up words when necessary, choose textbooks that present the subject in a gradient manner and have the mass of the subject to hand when needed. This approach to study is common sense. Hubbard regimented it, repackaged it, sold it and used it as an aspect of cult indoctrination.
Hubbard’s main purposes seemed to be the accumulation of wealth and adoration from his followers. This tainted everything he taught, regardless of how effective it was.
WORDCLEAR THIS YOU BIG MOFO ! (respect)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMK0prafzw0
LRH included a get out of jail free card in the Study Tapes when he said that it is okay to go past an MU so long as you know you are going past an MU. That negated all the deadly phenomena of MUs as well as all word clearing tech. I was a past master at finding obscure references to justify anything.
Dan – Please see my post above. I still think it helps to have the concept of the word, especially if reading in the present. – Nickname.
Yes, it was in the earlier versions of Student Hat tapes but has been deleted from the current.
I recall than from the Student Hat tapes as well. Back when they were SHSBC tapes, before Miscavige fixed LRH’s fuckups 😉
oops, I recall *that…
Dan, I highly doubt that with your experience you would deny the fact that “word clearing rivals the wins of auditing” (paraphrased from an HCOB).
I KNOW the fact (from experience in both) that “eating a good breakfast surpasses the wins of auditing”
Good one Dan. I practiced at that too.
So, having read through all this stuff on “study tech”, the basic bottom line is that El Con Blubbard was a complete and utter cunt………??
There, that is a summary of the findings of the Board……..
Please clear any MU’s…….
Laughter! Yep, pretty much sums it up.
Oh Pres. Clinton could have used ” Word Tech.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0
Off-topic: Just finished watching a documentary on Netflix called (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies. A fascinating study about human behavior, the handling of truth and society. The scientists doing the research (yes, REAL research), are doing some groundbreaking work. It would interesting to study the sub-culture of Scn using these principles.
Anyway, a big thumbs up on this doco.
In 1972 at asho , I did method 1 with don Jennings. I agreed to be the class 8 sup foundation.and needed to do this action, I hated it.i got hot hung out of it. Period.
Ironically, when I was “in” and all the time I spent in a dictionary probably served to expand my already strong vocabulary. I enjoyed those word chains as they led to learning on a multitude of topics that those word chains led to — typically topics and subjects that had nothing to do with Scientology.
LOL — I no doubt learned more from those dictionary expeditions than from Ron’s works.
As others have noted, Hubbard cited Korzybski and General Semantics in his lectures and writing. General Semantics point out that the word is not the thing. That may have expressed itself in Hubbard’s work in clay demos — to get closer to the substance of the thing and beyond the mere word.
I never had to do much if any word clearing on the “cans,” so I may have avoided some of the trauma and silliness of that approach. On the other hand, I have continually observe that a yawn or spacing out while reading does often follow having read pass something I did not get.
However, that does not mean the study tech is “right,” just that as some parts of Scientology have workability, so too does study tech probably have some aspects that could be researched an applied in a non-absolutist way.
As to the core concept of never passing a misunderstood (or non-understood) word, that’s a ridiculous position to take in any absolute sense. For example, no child would ever learn a language, and adults might kill lots of kids, if every single word the kid heard around him had to be researched and defined. Child language acquisition functions in a very different fashion: iterative refinement of the meaning of words until the culture’s common meaning is probably reached. Linguistics literature on child language acquisition goes over this exhaustively. This is also how youth and adults continue to expand language — they infer meanings through context and then refine those inferences as needed as further usages appear.
A child, for example, will tend to level grammar — I bringed rather than I brought, etc. As the child is coached by adults and hears other people say I brought, the child learns that bring has an irregular past tense and begins to use that. Or take a child hearing that the white light in the night sky is the moon, and at first overgeneralizes that to refer to all round things (a balloon, a coin, a ball, etc. might all get called a moon by the child), but the child, without a single dictionary at hand and not needing to read anything at all, will sort it out with further exposure to other parts of the language. No study tech is needed because human children are deeply and strongly wired to learn language.
In contrast, an adult working through a technical paper should be clear on words that are not understood. So understanding a Hubbardian concept like say “reactive mind” (no matter how fallacious it proved to be) would be important to define and even demo. However, going over the multitude of definitions and usages of function words like for and painfully demoing them out, and passing an e-meter exam could drive someone nuts and at least bog them down.
While Hubbard superficially eschewed absolutes, he evoked them continually. Study tech is prone to that same fallacy of being an absolute solution, and that (along with the refusal to allow sound social science research) tends to eclipse where it might have actual usefulness.
Totally agree! While the three primary ‘technologies’ that supposedly underlie the life-changing effectiveness of the Student Hat course (i.e., misunderstood words; too steep a gradient; and lack of mass) are indeed effective tools that will improve your study skills, they’re hardly the be-all, end-all when it comes to learning and study skills.
It’s another partial truth that’s used as bait to set the hook and reel you in for some serious wallet-lightening efforts by the group’s reges and more sinister mind control efforts.
Being a studious and scholarly person by nature, I actually enjoyed going in depth on the etymology of certain words and delving into the finely distinguished meanings that they often have. That alertness to words that I encounter which I don’t understand has stuck with me to this day. Similarly, my early experiences with auditing did free me from some of the residual effect of trauma that I’d experienced in the past and that had continued to negatively effect me.
It was only after the hook was deeply set and I began to be reeled ever-deeper into the cult that I began to realize that the “wins” that I could sincerely testify to on the lower rungs of the Bridge weren’t ones that continued to occur as I climbed up the Bridge. In fact, during my time in the cult during the mid 70’s, as the 5% per month price increase program started to bite, I began to think of the Bridge as one that might well lead to Total Financial Ruination, instead of to my own spiritual freedom.
In retrospect, it might very well have been that my pre-crime thought transgressions then caused the first cracks in my belief in Elron’s cosmology, which eventually led to its complete shattering.
Thanks for sharing that, Harpoona. Sounds like we had some shared experiences and outcomes (I too had some benefits from auditing) and in the end reached similar conclusions. I still love words and dictionaries to this day, but I think that started in high school when I actually tried to learn every word in a dictionary!
I think it is important for all readers to understand that Scientology was not all horrible and had some attractive features. That does not exonerate Scientology from hiding pseudo-science from scrutiny and research behind a screen of religious freedom rights.
As an aside, where I’m at on religion in general is bemusement: why are we humans so insistent on having one faith or another instead of trying to use reason and evidence to increase the odds that we believe in things that are actually true?
If you are Clear or above and have Star Rated Keep Scientology Working to a pass, surely your ability to recall perfectly would allow you to skip star rating KSW again in the future?
Reasons why everyone has to constantly study KSW.
1) Clears don’t have perfect recall.
2) Study Tech don’t work.
3) Repetition is a form of Hypnosis (number of times over equals certainty)
Nice words Terra. I miss our “chats” on the BACINCOMM blog.
Old Timer: Our “chats” on the BACINCOMM blog? Huh?
A whole article could be written about the Star rate check out word clearing and the mind control it induces.
For those that don’t know how the above works one person checking out another on a reference will ask: What is the definition of the word ____? The person will give a snap definition or else get flunked for comm lag and be sent back to restudy the material.
What this mechanism does is makes the student rattle off a definition, while looking confident, in the hopes of not getting flunked.
Hence, after doing this enough, you get very confident at lying.
That is most likely how Scientologists become excellent liars. It becomes ingrained without their being aware of it.
Study tech is a Joke.
I laughed my ass off when I read a book published around 1962/63 by Will Durant (history of civilization) just before LRH announced his great discoveries. In this book Will was talking about one of the founders of modern Pedagogy,John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), that is still applied in all Schools on this planet. Will describes the methodology created by this Pedagogue in some short sentences, in fact the 3 Barriers to study.
Here you can read read more about him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Amos_Comenius
Also, you ‘l find nearly word for word the Definition of a static in Will Durant books.
In any School on this planet you’ll find dicitionnaries, pratical exercises and masses (Pictures, movies etc…)and materials that are applied to the comprehension Levels of the students and their age.
LRH really could sell us the biggest nonsense and we bought it…
You are really a big SP
ROFL……..
I’m a teacher in the public schools. Despite the responsibility (problem) that the public schools have in trying to teach the masses – teaching each and every citizen (or not) who is of school age- there are more indications of the study tech in public schools than in many Applied Scholastic schools. I know because I belonged to one which was superior to any that I had witnessed. Still, the lack of mass was evident in my school and each school I visited. In public school, teacher’s have many ways for students to demonstrate understanding. Teacher’s present material with the use of relevant videos, personal demonstration of how to do something, along with appropriate reading material. Students show their understanding through projects, group work,and presentations, as well as quizes and tests. What is not understood is retaught. There is opportunity for ‘do overs’ so the student isn’t stuck with an incorrrectly done assignment or poor test. In both private and public schools the student responsibility for learning, or wanting to learn, is placed at the foot of the teachers and the school. This sounds reasonable until you consider what it takes to truly learn something. The student’s postulates, attitudes, home life (huge factor), and most importantly, the basic interest of the student is really not consulted until most of them are too old to care. Therefore, using the ‘study tech’ in APS schools or public school is a fight because of the way that it is used.
In the APS environments I visited, students used work books as the main ‘source’ material. “Teachers” graded them. There were some variations, like one school did do plays, and another had Karate classes for phys.ed, but the academics were simply workbooks that one did alone. Workbooks can be a tool, but they don’t teach! The students in all the schools looked bored! The scientology kids that went to school and then joined staff (most did not attend college) never showed a love of learning. Moreover, these students HATED using the study tech because the only part that they learned was looking up words. If all you do is read and fill in blanks in a workbook or look up words all day, that can be very boring. I can verify with certainty the value of knowing the meaning of words, however, not using hands-on or creating something which demonstrates understanding leaves one with a terrific lack of mass. Also, no one will go clear on simply looking up words (though Scientology parents think that ALL their child’s problems/case is directly do to mu’s. When the child does anything wrong then it is the school’s fault for not catching the mu’s. Consequently, the child is now the victim which the school needs to take responsibility for fixing). However, this can also be true of public school parents.
In public school, I don’t know any teacher who doesn’t provide vocabulary or who doesn’t make a big deal about it. I teach English, and the other teachers all have dictionaries in class and take entire class periods dedicated to vocabulary! However, looking up unknown words is not the end all to teaching or studying. I do show the students how bypassing a definition can create confusion and misunderstanding through a simple demonstration. They get it and it only takes a few minutes. It is up to the student to embrace,or not, this information. I can’t possibly find all the mu’s in each student, and neither can APS staff when dealing with their students. I know Scientology kids who were on courses at the ‘church’ but refused to look up words in school. Furthermore, they didn’t really think that any other information outside of scientology (LRH) was valid. That idea is as destructive, if not more harmful, as being ignorant of the meaning of words.
Okay, so I didn’t proof my writing LOL. Please ignore that apostrophe in ‘teacher’s’ in lines seven and eight (and anywhere else where it’s inappropriate). Thanks 🙂
“Furthermore, they didn’t really think that any other information outside of scientology (LRH) was valid. That idea is as destructive, if not more harmful, as being ignorant of the meaning of words.”
Good auditing is a help, it gives more potential. Session ends, and one’s life is one’s own to continue with. People somehow end up with some notion that Scientology says “Life”. It doesn’t. To me, it is increasingly a conviction that the most misunderstood word in Scientology is “Scientology”. Probably next is the word “help” in the sense of “assistance. Following that is the distinction between at least “organizational ethics” and “Ethics” in a philosophical sense.
The subject of Ethics goes way back – I really don’t know how far back, but at least to Ancient Greece. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were very interested in it. I had an idea a couple of years ago, and over two or three weeks I asked non-Scns what “ethics” meant, and got very rational answers, all of them floating around the bulls-eye of “the difference between right and wrong” and “the way we treat each other”. The next two or three weeks, I brought up the subject of ethics with Scns, and found myself ducking missiles. A few months later I tried explaining a bit of the subject of Ethics, and referenced Aristotle to a few Scns. NO INTEREST. NOTHING. NULLIFICATION. BLANK.
That’s a good point, Nickname, as re studying Scientology so that one can live one’s OWN life to the fullest. I mean, that IS the point, or should be, IMO.
All he really had to do was get off his ridiculous ambition to be the greatest philosopher the world had ever seen.
Study Tech would have been completely acceptable to more or less anyone if it had been presented as Study Tips and Tricks.
Auditing would have been mostly acceptable too if it had been presented as some things that might help rather than The Only Road To Salvation and done by friends with friends rather than in the context of any kind of organisation whose purpose is to Save The Fucking Planet.
The Ethics conditions are mostly sensible if you do them yourself or with a friend in a FRIENDLY and helpful manner.
The Data Series stuff is excellent except for the parts that denigrate Aristotle and the subject of Logic.
If he could have “figured out” stuff rather than made Startling Bolt From The Blue Breakthroughs he would probably have been fondly remembered as someone who contributed something to the knowledge of mankind. And if he’d done it with a few self help books alone and no organisation he might even have a reputation as a thinker worth looking at.
I completely agree I.P.. I was going to attempt a comment along those lines but you pretty much stated my exact sentiment. I couldn’t have said it better.
Supposedly much of the Study Tech was developed by Charles Berner and then stolen by Hubbard.
Word clearing is a great concept but very over done in Scientology.
One of the great, no longer delivered, courses was the Primary Rundown (looking up every word in the ‘Study Tapes’ and then getting M! word clearing to clear up previously studied subjects)..
Just about anyone who did it had great results.
Alan Walter told me about the Berbers. He was at St. Hill the night they arrived. At dinner in town, they went over the 3 barriers to study and the handlings they had developed over 25 years of teaching in Orange County, California. They presented it to LRH the next day. He had them expelled, and stole their tech. The whole NY Photography mail course story is a lie.
This was a very interesting discussion on a part of Scientology I had not thought a lot about. How did word clearing work at higher levels of abstraction, like advanced math? At some point, just memorizing the definition won’t help comprehension of the meaning behind the word. I wonder how LRH would explain how to work clear more advanced concepts? I wonder if he would say that as one progresses through the word chains leading up to an advanced word, one gains the understanding necessary to realizing the meaning of the final word.
I am tickled by the use of anachronisms by both Ins and Outs, reflecting the Hubbardspeak of 1960s United States (and UK). One example is the word “scene” to mean situation or environment, as in “it was a dangerous scene.” No one uses that word in this manner anymore.
Oh, that’s just basic Scientologese, a language unto itself! lol.
“Handle” is another one. Problems are not solved, they are handled. Disagreements are not worked out, they are handled. Schedules are not made, they are handled. “Scenes” are often “handled.”
I’m fluent in Scientologese and it took me a long time to re-learn normal English. Listening to scientologists talk about “handling” their finances or “handling” their “2Ds” drives me bloody nuts now.
Scientologese always drove me crazy and I refused to use it, instead of ‘get in comm’ I insisted on saying ‘I’ll talk to them’, ‘2D’ is a pet hate, I always used the appropriate address – husband, wife, etc.
I like reading and learning a lot. Must have read over 5000 books (all nonfiction except Battlefield Earth)
For me a course room situation slowed down my learning rate by at least 75%.I would rate the effectiveness of study tech about a 2.
Haven’t used it in years. In fact forgot it even existed.
I agree that curiosity and interest is key to learning.
Misunderstoods is just dumb.
A child learns English or any other language when they cannot speak it with minimal use of a dictionary.
How many times have you seen a scientology promo piece for like the world literacy crusade without spelling and grammatical errors in it?
Ah the memories or word clearing (Ugh!).
There are a few more methods of Word Clearing, though:
METHOD Two word clearing:
Can only be done after Method One Word Clearing has been completed. Person reads policy or bulletin aloud while on the meter. Person watching the meter has to pick up any read on the meter and force the person holding the cans to look up in a dictionary whatever word read on the meter. The word has to be Cleared to Floating needle. If no F/N, go earlier similar until floating needle, then go back up and touch on every word in the chain, getting each to floating needle. This process is torture for both word clearer and person receiving word clearing.
METHOD 4 Word Clearing:
Part of the High Crime procedure (in a nutshell, means if you have not been properly checked out on LRH materials before applying them to another… you are committing a High Crime). Thus the coined term “High Crime”. Method 4 is also done on the meter, while looking at a page, or 1/2 page, many questions are asked such as “on this page, has any word been misunderstood?” If the question reads, misunderstood word must be found and cleared to floating needle. If I remember right, the actual question must have a floating needle before going to next page, or next 1/2 a page.
Method 5 word clearing – this one escapes me for some reason. Same with Method 6… hmm… they exist, but they escape me now.
METHOD 7 is reading aloud for foreign or illiterate person. Not on the meter. Each word not said right is “explained” by the word clearer, and they move on to reading again.
METHOD 8 – another torturous one. This one, as far as I know, the only use for it was for the “Superliterate (ha!)” – Every single word of a document or course were listed out and cleared whether the person knew the definition or not. This one is already compiled for Student Hat course. Yes, every word in every bulletin and tape on Student Hat is listed out and cleared. Talk about head spin with no mass…. It is not done on the meter. Actually the Key to Life course, Book 6, is another example of Method 8 word clearing.
Happy hunting y’all!
I’m Super Literate, got a giant certificate the says so,
signed by L.Ron Hubbard.
I make ton’s of money,literally in bullion.
My children think I am a wierdo, my relatives are deathly afraid of me.
My doctor says I’m a Liar and a fuitcake.
Scientology refuses to declare me an SP because it will make SP’s look bad
not to mention Scientology.
Never had to much trouble word clearing. Use my computer to clear words or subjects.
Have dictionaries all over my house in two languages
Seems fine to me. Some people just don’t know what a good product is do they?
Carry on… enjoy your abilities, and what do doctors know anyhow? They deal in sick people all day long, it rubs off you know!
I don’t need no stinking dictionaries anymore. I just disagree with anything I don’t like, one of my many OAT TEE abilities I anointed myself with.
According to Scientology there’s 4 conditions of existence, you know… as-is, alter-is, isness & not-is. Well I don’t agree, there’s 5! I added, myness to it and it works really well.
I use being at cause over Matter ,Energy, Space and Time to make myself rich
but it’s nothing like what people that don’t have a clue envision .
Hint is a book was written about principles but banned by the the
Christian Church. I can almost say the Devil Made me do it ( joke )
I like the Devil – he gave being good a bad name!
being politically correct is for the birds.
replace all university professors with cowboys.
And claw back the professors’ milked salaries and the university endowment funds to pay off most student loans (one Trillion dollars); to ‘make up the damage’ for worthless degrees (‘overt products’).
And word clearing can get even worse than anything covered in this post. In mid-2000’s at ILO one fine evening, late at night, at securing time, the whole building was mustered together read the riot act over something or other, then sent off to M9 (for the umpteenth time). No one could leave until they completed their M9. Nobody was even remotely physically rested or well fed at that point. It was a horror show. Of course no one was FNing at examiner either. Devolved into a complete squirrelled up mess. What is the point of M9ing or word clearing any tech or policy, if is not even followed anyways?
I almost forgot about 2 of the dumbest things with study “tech”.
Having to play with paperclips and marbles constantly while you are studying. Dumbest thing in the world. LRH read all of the time in his office on the ship and I just confirmed with a long time messenger that he NEVER played with stupid trinkets while reading. But then, he was far superior to everyone else on earth.
Grown men and women having to make little clay people with torn pieces of paper stuck in their mouths and paper labels saying “auditor” on some blob of clay is another insanity of this tech to grasp concepts better. Getting my hands sticky playing with clay only helped me understand the concept that whoever invented this BS was nuts.
I’m sorry Mike, but I really had a problem with today’s post. I feel squashed, confused…feel myself reeling, kind of washed out. Sort of feeling like I’m not here…..woe is me.
Been there done that bought a T-shirt. Wait…what? My bad! Didn’t know you were talking about Scientology…
Nothing a Pink Sheet won’t fix Harvey.
Creepy being studied while you study hey?
Sort of dead, bent, spinny? Oh, wait, that’s lack of mass, sorry.
Good Morning, TC, great essay.
I can tell you didn’t spend much time at the Int Base. Depending on what was going on, there was often a hard and fast rule that everyone get 2 1/2 hours study.
Unfortunately there was no corresponding hard and fast rule that everyone get 8 hours of sleep. Or even one hour. So often the course room was full of zombies nodding off.
That was when the “word chain” scheme really came into its own. Just completely give up on reading whatever boring and venal Hubbard concoction you were supposed to be “studying”, fake a word chain, and spend a lot of time getting up to go to the library or the big dictionary. Much easier to fake full awareness while you are ambulant. You could find something interesting in the Encyclopedia Britannica and read it standing up. There is some danger that you will pass out and fall down, but it is a lot less hazardous than the chair at the table where you can prop your head on your hands.
You could spend a lot of idle hours reading about Alexander the Great or studying the Bible in the Gold Course Room. The supervisors never catch on. Highly recommended.
Or you can just blow and leave all those weirdos behind, sleeping every night and reading whatever and whenever it suits your fancy.
Bruce, Once the Gold supervisor walked by and gave a blank look when she noticed me reading about Cecil Rhodes in the Encyclopedia Britannica (Hubbard’s past life — LOL).
Wow, Bruce.
So many times in the past I would read some LRH bulletin or PL and have to re-read a certain paragraph or sentence because it would not make proper sense to me. This happened often. I would always think that I must have an MU because I either didn’t agree with what he wrote, or that it sounded like a bit of word salad, so he must mean something else that I couldn’t grasp. I thought it was obviously my own learning problem. Now, after being out of the cult for decades if I ever have to read his bullshit, I do not look for MUs but just know he was typing out of his ass half of the time.
I recently was forced to M9 some LRH ethics policies. It turned into honing my skills in reading aloud and developing a cadence rather than having ANYTHING to do with MUs. I got really good at it and could read words that I didn’t have a clue to their meaning without stumbling. Eventually though even the best speakers stumble. It usually was on a word I knew well, like “gone” or “music” or something silly.
I was being charged by the hour by these crooks so I really had to get proficient at this nonsense! Just further made up tech by LRH and his cult.
A few years ago when I was already out of the org but not yet completely disaffected with the subject of scn I decided to listen to the PDC lectures and course. I already knew that only about 5% of what LRH said was of any relevance and I knew I would be dozing off – so I found the ultimate solution to listening to him. A pot of strong coffee at my elbow. That kept me going about two months on PDC as an extension course. But when I got to Creative Processing I knew the game was finally up. I packed up all my lecture series, books and course packs never to reopen them.
Clearly: Can totally relate.
I blew because I had a serious MU on Scientology’s version of the word “HELP”
I thought I got into Scientology to help myself obtain MY goals…only to find out after tons of money and years going up the Fraudulant, Deceptive and FAUX Psuedo Science Bridge to NO WHERE….that LRH slowly, by his tech, gets you to feel guilty and selfish if you want to help yourself, you are nothing and you should join the Sea Org in order to be accepted in the Group of clubbed seals.
You better not think about yourself in Scientology. It is a high crime.
When you are shattered from loss of a love one – the crush Registrar’s will annihilate you financially and ruin you so that you do leave your body due to the TRAUMA!
So true, W & O. One is eventually made to feel very guilty and selfish for wanting to live one’s life. The longer one remains in the cult is the more one is expected to, effectively, renounce one’s own immediate concerns.
Of course, it is not characterized as a sacrifice but as a rare privilege and a yuuuge win: “I have succeeded in arranging my life so that I can contribute to the 4th Dynamic!”
Right.
Allow me to translate:
“I’m a trust fund baby.”
“My spouse works a wog job”
“I live with my parents who support me.”
“I’ve had 20 moonlighting jobs in the past 15 years, declared bankruptcy, but hey, I’m still on staff!”
This is one of the days I feel sorry for them. What a waste. Reminds me of that line in “A Bronx Tale” from Robert DeNiro’s character about “wasted talent”. So very wasted, its a shame.
I love that too since long. The whole subject in scientology has had such importance that indeed, it led the poor members got lots of new MUs, since LRH’s own MUs were inseminated -if i can say- in their void heads instead of the true meaning in the everybody’s language.
The most horrible MU in LRH was ” reality”. In order to dupe his duped adepts, he transformed the facts (reality) into “something one has to accept as real as long I defined it that way”.
Everyone here can certainly see why I reformatted his own treaherous definition of reality into that one!
I didn’t blow because of an MU, I blew because I finally, FINALLY understood!!!! I think word clearing distracts you from the wog world, and puts you on the path Hubbard wanted his slaves to be on! God bless the wog world!
Yes, its funny that Still Ins cling to the delusion that EVERYONE leaves because of misunderstood words. This is the hard and fast rule and there are NO exceptions. So funny, as, in fact, some of us left because we understood altogether too well.
Writing this above, it just became clear to me how word clearing can become linked with cohersion and mind control. This link up is harmful, evil. People do NOT ALWAYS drop a subject because of MUs and/or desert a group because of MUs and overts.
Nothing created more “BPC” for me than word clearing….hated the idea one cannot make
it through life without knowing every word one reads…..seemed silly to me. Of course finding definitions of words is helpful or why would we have so many dictionaries? This is not a fantastic discovery by LRH by any means. As an auditor I avoided PC’s with M-1 on the program…begged out of auditing M-1 at every chance….and it worked…lol. And those awful word lists to clear on PC’s?…..ridiculous. M-9’s?……nothing created more stress and upset for me as to have to do an M-9. I was guaranteed to mess up quickly and often. One of those actions could ruin my day. I likened M-9’s to LRH’s service facsimile tech. Seemed they were used more to make a person wrong and someone else right. Word clearing slowed down training cycles and auditing sessions. People know if they don’t understand something….it’s common sense.
Hello Terra Cognita, fortunately I don’t have to go and find a dictionary to clear my MUs as I do not disagree with you.
The problem with most of scientology scriptures is that they were taken as ‘absolutes’. Examples: word clearing, Purif, PTS technology and others.
Look around you and you can find very fine people in the world that are very good lawyers, architects, engineers, doctors and so on and I bet they did go by MUs. Are they stupid? No. Did they blow their profession? No
It is OK to say that if you do not understand a word you should clear it, nothing wrong with that. It is authoritarian to demand to go through grueling word clearing because someone else said (LRH) that that is the ONLY way it gets done.
As anecdote, I had a Spanish speaking friend who started her Student Hat back in late 80s. She spent 4 hours trying to find definitions to clear the words “panty” and “waist” until the supervisor caught her and told her that was an idiom and gave her the compiled hard to find dictionary. Oh boy, what a waste of time.
Dear Silvia the biggest forced mu clearing was GAT 1 on the 3 swing FN. Oh my god you had to M9,M4,M3,M6 every word over and over and over until you agreed that DLHDM was right on the 3 swings.
Even thou you knew it was wrong, too bad ,you had to lose your personal integrity and
realize you were crazy in order to accept this out tech and to graduate your course.
And the internship to get a perfect video pass was pure torture.
Now there is no SHSBC or CLASS VIII course. These courses were W/Ced out of existence.
Yea, that’s ridiculous. F/N’s are one of the most important, if not THE most things to learn as an auditor, and it’s the stupidest, most contradictory and confusing definition there is. He threw that word “rhythmic” in there, which confused everyone. How could you have a rhythmic Instant F/N? And to have to have 3 swings (Playing Dixie) is so stupid and unrealistic. But then again, consider the source. But the basic fuck up here is the original LRH definition.And by the way “No other definition is correct”.????
Well, if all of that is true it brings up a question. If bypassing a misunderstood word is the PRIMARY REASON a person blows, which word(s) caused you Mike R. and Marty to abscond? I have never seen the “Hole” written about in any official Church textbooks. I know which word that would cause me to jump a spiked barrier and that word is DONATIONS. LOL
angryskorpion, it can be a reason but it isn’t the only reason. For example, long ago I tried to read “The Golden Bowl”. No one was asking or forcing me to, I just thought I should read it so I bought it and into the 2nd page my head was already swimming. James’ writing is kind of – thick. Doggedly I plowed ahead. This was before I had any study tech. Finally I put the book down, clueless. No idea what was being communicated. Yes, I have MUs, absolutely, and maybe the material in this book is genius level but I’ll never know because I’m not willing to get my wisdom writers who are incapable of ANY brief, declarative sentences. The point is, I don’t understand what he’s saying in that book, but more importantly, I won’t read it again because I disagree with HOW he writes it, and whatever he’s saying that’s so profound in this indefatigably thick style I’d bet that someone else, somewhere has already said it more succinctly and eloquently.
LFBD!
Luckily, I no longer succumb to the compulsion to clear every word I feel the slightest uncertainty about, and I no longer scan every word to make sure I do feel certain about it. What a relief. Of course I continue to look up words, especially those I am curious about, which can easily lead to concept chains on the internet. But I can stop those any time without feeling guilty.
My hat’s off to you, Terra Cognita, for surviving and passing KTL.
Btw, I found my MU: What’s an IAD?
Good article. I think you are declared but just don’t know it… believe me, you’re an SP . ?
Unless you pose with a picture of Mike Rinder, you may never be declared these days.
But Tony is right, you are an SP. 🙂
(PS: Love your articles)
I wonder if one can earn multiple declares? Is there a Bridge to being an SP? Like release states but in reverse, like being appropriately classified as “mass regained” with certificates of authenticity issued by Qual, verified by HCO. A suppresive’s suppressive gradient scale so to speak. One should never be unclear about being an SP, it’s not healthy.
I am a never-in and I am likely an SP already after writing all over Laura Prepon’s FB page about her being a Scientologist. And Greta Van Streudel’s, and…..Marisol Nicholls….and….lol..
Don’t hold back… splurge on it.
If worst comes to worst we’ll issue you an honorary SP Declare ourselves if they bypassed you in all their confusion. We all deserve to be recognized.
Excellent, Carrie. Thanks for “outing” these celebs. We know they’re hiding their cult membership from the general public as much as possible.
While on my Solo One Course, about 3/4th’s complete, a course supervisor did a spot check on the Dianetics book – the first book you read on the course. She kept at and asked for definitions of about 20 words, until I finally stumbled. Of course, she “flunked” me, then instructed me to go back to that point in the checksheet and restudy ALL of the material. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Understand I had been on the course for about five months part-time. So, I picked up the Dianetics, walked away from the drill I was in the middle of, and re-started my course. A couple of hours later the Practical Sup asked me what I was doing, I told him, he grabbed the book from me and put me back on the drill.
Later I spoke with a friend of mine, who was a veteran SO Pro Sup, who laughed and told me of times when they would purposely do this to students – especially good ones, to send them back to the beginning of their course, knowing they will make loads of student points as they rip through material they’ve already studied.
This shit is just another mind-fuck control mechanism invented by Blubbard to instill fear in his minions.
Oh god – that’s called being taken advantage of. A cash cow of student points! This happened to me too, I’ve seen it done to others and it’s dreadful. At some point, I got the idea to keep my head down and rip through the material, generating lots of student points consistently. I found that I was more or less left alone, except for the obligatory ‘meter check’ once per period. Once bright sups see that you make lots and lots of student points on your own without being bothered, they leave you to it. On the other hand, when they are down in stats they will press you to do more than ever by giving you ridiculous targets and press you to come in “extra time.” Student points is the name of the game in the Academy. It’s not the sups fault though, it’s the system that is devoted to playing with numbers. Just like people are “bodies in the shop” (people on course or in the HGC), their energy translates to numbers/statistics/money/Staff/Sea Org/fundraising, etc. etc. You can’t fight City Hall in Scientology.
Addendum…
I once noted to a Scientologist that they were using a word incorrectly, because, they were. She said she did indeed know what the word meant because she used it. Yes, she used it in a sentence, so therefore she must know what it means! No idea what malapropism is all about.
Can’t make this stuff up!
I dated a Malapropism once….she was all over me.
Is that the sister of Crepuscule? A real goer that one, all night long and disappears just after daybreak.
Yeaaaah…I wondered why she left before sunrise.
Clever!
In my limited dealing with online Scientology apologists, I’ve observed their pedantic devotion to word meanings. They will often accuse critics of “not understanding a word” or using it incorrectly. This technique can derail any discussion. It gives the Scientology an artificial upper hand; they feel superior over their detractor. It also changes the focus of the conversation from the ills of the cult, to a silly digression into irrelevant subjects.
I’ve also noted the Scientologist doesn’t really understand a word themselves. They may know some third definition from the 1800s, but they’ve missed the point completely.
Language and communications doesn’t work the way Scientology thinks it does.
For example, someone might say “I was literally melting in the heat.” Of course, ‘literally’ is often misused in this manner, but the speaker here is using it as emphasis. Is it correct? No. But, as a listener I understand that he was simply REALLY hot. I don’t care if he’s using a word incorrectly unless it was a formal paper.
Word clearing is a brilliant cult technique for keeping people preoccupied and distracted. It gives the victims busy work, and as Terra noted, he paid for the time chasing his tail, looking up words and mesmerizing useless nonsense.
In the cult I was involved with back in the 1970s, the leader had us color code words in the bible. Allegedly he had cracked the bible code, so he was going to use this information to see what God was really saying to mankind. All sorts of insane, yes? But, it gave us a distracting little project.
Can’t think when one has distracting projects.
Agreed. Keeping people busy, busy, busy keeps them from observing and using critical thinking. Cults are very skilled at this tactic. So are certain work places, and even intimate relationships can be cultish. If anyone is struggling with compulsively clearing words or compulsive Scientology language or thought, it might be helpful to study the subject of cults and how they work.
Has it occurred to anyone that Our Ronnie might have been a bit….dyslexic?
Am enjoying Terra Cognita’s series of posts very much. Thank you!
As a Flag course sup who lived Dec 1975 through summer of 1983, all the various revisions of Method 3 word clearing, and our course room piloting all the various Method 3 (clear up ALL definitions or clear up just the definition in the right dictionary that applied and skip the rest, a big choice, and a forgotten piece of MU wordclearing history); and our course room piloting bits of the Key to Life, including on the side, we piloted the Debug Tech Checklist, and Crashing MU finding (I piloted the Crashing MU method on each one of the students), I have a whole different level of been/there-done/that on it all.
What in the end of the day of using all the methods, so much so that when I got busted finally in summer of 1981 by Jon Horwich, he didn’t even know what I was doing, his High Crimes were so out of date and he’d not lived on the ground through what us who lived that whole piloting era of the many changes in Method 3, Method 9 (when M9ing was done like it’s today done on the Key to LIfe Course).
The details can be overwhelming when you get into all the fine points of “doing it correctly.”
The biggest thing I think all of Study Tech misses having as the central pillar is curiosity.
Don’t squash curiosity and don’t squash student’s purpose to learn.
Hubbard’s whole parade of rules, particularly the horrendous amounts of “High Crimes” associated with failing to clear words properly, all of the dozens or so “High Crimes” for messing up on Supervisor tech, or messing up on MU tech, going by an MU, is what ought be completely dispensed.
I had a conversation on the phone with Jon, years ago, when he first left, and we chatted, and he asked pointedly didn’t I still believe in the Study Tech.
I said, no, and essentially, the reason is a person learns MORE by just using curiosity and one’s purpose to learn something to guide one into one’s understanding of that area.
I dumped the WHOLE study tech, and just use curiosity and interest/purpose when doing adult reading today, which I greatly enjoy.
My amount of material understood and vocabulary increase jumped up much higher after dumping ALL of Study Tech.
There’s YouTube to look up anything, and get fresh videos of anything, for “mass.”
There’s Google and search engines to look up anything.
I cannot think that Scientology will survive since when students and people study beyond into the rest of world’s ideas, you see by comparison how stilted and authoritarian and “High Crimes” left right and center are Hubbard’s rules for doing things his way, stifling your curiosity by engulfing you in endless word chains to clear up all definitions of the word that you have Misunderstood at the moment.
Authoritarian word chain education is what word clearing ends up. With the exception that Method 7 (for illiterates and children and foreign language people) is more natural than all the other methods.
But skip Study Tech, follow your curiosity and needs for your hobbies and interests in life.
The internet and YouTube completely are a joy.
I asked a recent Course Sup of an Ideal Org did he feel inclined to sneak a look at Google when helping students, and he said he did so and just didn’t report it. He so felt that using the internet was right, that he did it and didn’t even think it was an “overt” and against their rules. So he snuck using it while supervising, he kept his laptop in the Course Admin area and used it as needed when supping.
The internet is like the librarian from heaven. It completely would transform the course rooms if they just piloted letting people use it as their curiosity leads them.
They could dump all their course room “High Crimes” Hubbard left them. They could dump so much, in fact all of it, since today I don’t believe in “body thetans” needing exorcising and frankly the whole subject is a crank crackpot subject that ends the faithful up with the Running in Circles Rundown if they follow Ron’s lead.
MUs are way over-rated I agree. But I also think you are way under-rating them.
Do they cause blows and overts and the destruction of all that is holy? Probably not.
Can they mess up your understanding of a subject so that the subject looks like bullshit when it isn’t? Yes they can.
A major criticism I would add is that of the policy that prevents a sup or auditor from telling you the definition they consider the correct one. Here is an example from my own experience as a PC. The question was something like “What could a bird do to a fish?” What is the correct definition of “could”? There were a few that might each work but the question, presumably, was meant to get me looking at some very specific type of answers.
It could mean having permission – “what would a fish permit a bird to do to it?”
“Could” could also mean – past tense of having the ability to do. So the question might be “What action was a bird able to take regarding a fish whether the fish liked it or not?”
Then again “could” might be present OR future tense with either meaning above – “what might a bird do to a fish?”
The auditor, from experience running the process should know the definition that works for the process. But no. She was not allowed to tell me which one applied and I was completely unable to decide because I had not run the process successfully prior to this.
That turned out to be the turning point for my faith in the subject.
I’m stuck on “Yip, yip, yip and yap, yap, yap.” Once I figure that out, I’ll start on “I never had a second wife.”
I’ve had two wives: My first wife & my third wife.
LOL! Ah, brings back memories. Another stolen piece of “tek” that was of course twisted beyond usefulness by El Con.
This reminds me of a scamologist I saw post somewhere years ago that the only reason the Perfect Tek written by El Con failed was because everyone in the world (except for El Con and the poster in question) was too stupid to understand the simple, brilliant tek. Scamology is a about extremes. 99% of them wrong.
Like much of Scientology, Hubbard borrowed the core concepts in “study tech” from others…two Southern CA teachers independently developed the “three barriers”…told Ron about them, then were promptly dismissed from Scientology with Hubbard taking their ideas and calling them his own. A great deal of the rest was taken from Alfred Korzybski and his study of general semantics.
Like much of the rest of Scientology, some simple ideas with value were perverted into overwhelming complexity, associated with dire consequences…and ultimately “weaponized”…not to “help” an individual, but to subjugate them into abject adherence on Hubbard and his false promises of magical abilities that would be achieved if one “kept the tech pure”…and of course gave all their money…or time…or both…to the church.
Lol.
Looking up words is not a bad idea and every well educated school child is taught how to do so early in their schooling.
Sometimes it is true that a person does not know…that they do not know.
When the correct collection of words are finally understood…they are in fact better able to perform their duties or think through issues related to the previously non-understood (or misunderstood) words. This idea is not unique to Hubbard or Scientology…at all.
But the obsessive focus on this small aspect of learning in Scientology is not about helping anyone…it is about creating a smoke-screen of introverting excuses that will later be used against a person for NOT achieving the (knowingly false) promises of the abilities to be had in the states of Clear and OT that the church has been selling for decades.
The Scientology tautological excuse machine never stops running.
The “three barriers” independently have been known about far longer than when those two teachers developed them. FAR longer. Looking up words while studying, do practical manipulation to better understand and not going too fast in a subject for a student is older than recorded history.
How do you know about stuff that is older than recorded history!
Why Lying Joe Pendleton, the same way you knew most of us here and our personal attitudes many years ago, without knowing us or our attitudes.
LMAO @ those still under El Con’s brainwashing.
Joe is one of the coolest/smartest guys around.
Go Giants.
nomnom, who said that liars cannot be “cool” or smart”?
Mike W., I’m just going to point out that your response to that question did not answer the question. You merely deflected it and threw in an ad hom. Just saying.
How did Mike know all about stuff that is older than recorded history? Mike’s a whole lot older than we ever imagine…
Hey Dude, got an idea from you reply – wana start a new religion? Imaginology! Wow… image all that money we’ll get, new wives, desert compounds, ships that float and all the trimmings!
I want to be the chief imaginologist though, you in?
Am I in? Is DM short. All hail the new religion! Imagineology! Imagine what ever you want to be. I’m a Jedi Knight…
Osd, shhhhhhh. Don’t tell my secrets.
I’m in bed using my kindle fire and can’t switch to a dictionary and stay on this site so … I haven’t a clue what your last sentence means … and you know why sweetheart.
Well “sweetheart”…your Kindle Fire has a built-in New Oxford American Dictionary…you should use it.
But since this is not a Scn courseroom (lol) I’ll provide a simple definition of my usage above of “tautology” for you:
“…a statement that is asserted as true merely by virtue of saying the same thing twice…”
Example:
“All blows occur because of M/U’s (stated without evidence)…followed by “he blew…therefore he MUST have an M/U.”
That’s a tautology…and Scientology is full of them.
Thanks … now with the word cleared I got it. (No way I could negotiate between two sites on the kindle as I’m falling asleep … It was late here in SE Asia) Morning now.
You could take this Scientology course for only 25 bucks:
Dear Joe,
Old used Apple Iphones that work great for one’s “dictionary/YouTube video display”, only cost 50 bucks for old Iphone 4.
Old any brand smart phones are great pocket dictionaries to use when reading anything printed or reading one’s Ipad/E-Reader/Kindle/etc.
Or use your old Kindle that’s got good enough video coverage as your future dictionary.
If I were SEI QEI today, I’d be piloting Ipads.
IN the LRH Routing Forms advices, there is one whole track advice saying that in old space civilizations they used a device like today’s Ipad.
That advice is good enough authorization, were Miscavige’s or someone’s head on, to bundle everything into Ipads, and sell those onto the public for holding all their materials and dictionaries, and give them internet access free WiFi in the course rooms if they ran with LRH’s routing forms Ipad idea.