JTCrace

I have recommended I think four or five times that anyone interested in studying Scientology should download Geoffrey Filbert's "Excalibur Revisited." His book IS Scientology as it was originally concieved to be: a tool to assist human beings in achieving their goals (whatever those goals may be). And Geoff will be the first to tell you: the Church of Scientology has not practiced "real" Scientology since the sixties. Geoff is probably the most successful, well-known, and respected counsellors (auditors) out there. I know. I have spent quite a few hours with him and will be seeing him again real soon. He's pretty cool for an old guy. We watched Spinal Tap after a session one night.

The reason why "thinking for one's self" has become such an infrequent activity is because of the idea, "Why do I have to look when someone has already looked for me?" Please, I urge everyone, "Do not take Maynard's word for it," and I am not invalidating his opinion or anyone's else's for that matter. I am simply suggesting that you check this shit out for yourself.

I am going to post an excerpt from "Excalibur Revisited." It is available in its entirety on www.freezoneamerica.org which is a website dedicated to non-Church affiliated Scientology. This excerpt is basically what Scientology is and what it was intended to be. Anything that doesn't fit with the description in the excerpt is not Scientology.

JTCrace

So, I'll take it from the top and it may seem like I'm wandering off of one subject to another, stating something again but I'm not, every drop of the rest of this chapter should be crystal clear and well understood before you sit down, if you so choose to do that, and audit another individual. It is also extremely advantageous to know if you are going to be audited by another.

So, here is the written material you need to know. It begins philosophically. Scientology addresses directly the practical solution of men's problems in the broadest possible sense. It is a body of knowledge which when applied by a properly trained Scientologist brings about an improvement in people. Its orientation is practical and its theory and application are specific in a series of well-defined terms and axioms and developments from these. In these senses it bears similarities to other bodies of knowledge both scientific and philosophical. Many of the ideas of Scientology are drawn from these areas, however, the effective organisation of these and other ideas in Scientology is somewhat unique. It is perhaps unique also in the effectiveness with which it is able to accomplish these goals.

Scientology is not merely some kind of psychotherapy or academic philosophy, though superficially it has some of the appearances of both. It can best be understood in relationship to its own specific goals or an individual's specific goals rather than through comparisons of similarities or dissimilarities to other disciplines which probably have very different goals.

As has been mentioned, Scientology has practical concern with the solution of men's problems, thus it is also concerned with the development and improvement of an individual's abilities and the development of new abilities in an individual. This improvement and abilities and the consequent solution of problems results in happier, more effective people.

Scientology properly applied wishes to bring people to clearer and clearer states of being. Just as a calculator must be cleared of previous totals and other remnants of previous calculations, so must the mind be cleared of inconsequential buttons and emotionally charged data, otherwise its computations will lack accuracy due to inappropriate data entering into its present computation.

A person who is clear is at willing and knowing cause over his own life, environment and his surroundings without a reactive or subconscious mind. This is a high stated being and one few people measure up to. Many would not dare hope that they could reach such a state, yet it has become a realistic goal and has been achieved. Properly applied, Scientology can produce clears.

Through the application of Scientology technology which is an intricately organised complex of knowledge and observations, the trained auditor uses the TRs, a repetitive communication cycle, an E-meter and approximates what is going on with the PC with his options of written material and removes these emotionally charged areas from the PC.

The cornerstone of Scientology processing is, however, communication. This is a very fundamental human activity. Through communication, we contact our environment both the physical world and other life. It is through communication with the past and present environment that each of us forms our opinions about what really is, what is real and not real, and what is possible and not possible. These opinions have an important effect on the course of our lives, we might contrast the person with a limited environment with a person who has communicated with a wide variety of environments.

A country boy who has never left the country and has had little contact with the more urban elements of our culture most likely has less freedom of choice, for example, in the area of occupation than a well travelled person from the same location as the boy. To the boy having limited communication experiences, only a limited range of jobs seems real to him. He has never really talked about or experienced in any sense many other possibilities. Just as the interior controls of a space capsule, or perhaps even an aeroplane, are outside the experience of some of us and hence unfamiliar to some of us; to that extent they may seem vague and unreal. This is not saying that we necessarily intellectually doubt their existence, but that they may seem unreal in comparison to the controls of the family car and we believe in their existence on the basis of someone else's testimony or logical deduction on our part. We do not know them from direct experience.

This communication broadly defined is responsible for a very important function, the shaping of our notions of the world around us, our own personal reality. Communication also effects our affinities, those things which we are familiar with through communication and thus seem real to us are frequently viewed with more affinity.

A rejection of other ethnic groups than ones own is an example of familiarity bringing about affinity for one set of standards while a lack of communication brings about a lack of affinity for another set of standards. The people with whom we communicate very well become our dearest friends and those with whom we communicate poorly may become, due to our own misunderstanding, unfriendly or even hostile. Areas of thought where we understand or communicate well with the elements of that area are likely to become passionate interests. The mathematician is different from the primary teacher or the composer. It stems from various abilities to communicate with and to various elements in the environment. Thus, communication determines what seems real or clear to us as well as our affinities and motivations.

JTCrace

The importance of the communication process should be recognised. The communication process has been broken down into the ten fundamental component parts in the communication cycle listed here previously. The elements involved in communication can be handled very precisely. This type of precision handling provides an understanding of how communication can be misunderstood and what may result from continued application of poor communication or the lack of communication.

Clarification of communication difficulties in a person's life patterns generally clear up ones activities, business, families and other groups where communication occurs between individuals and its members.

A second concept the auditor should understand in auditing is that of the stable datum. In light of our discussion of communication, the stable datum will help you understand how Scientology processing properly applied brings about beneficial changes.

Imagine a vast confusion of particles all in motion. In order to resolve any such problem or confusion, it is only necessary to be able to predict its component parts. If we can say where any given particle will be at any given time, that particle is no longer a confusion or problem but rather is ordered and predictable. To predict the motion of particles we need to pick a reference point, a point of stability from which to view the other points and around which to order them. This point is the stable datum.

In our solar system, we view the sun as the stationary object or stable datum and the planets as the moving particles which are considered to revolve and are hence oriented around the sun. We are able to predict the orbits of the planets around the sun and are so able to predict their relationships to each other. They become ordered and predictable, are not in confusion and thus, are not a problem. At one time, however, the earth was the stable datum rather than the sun. Astronomers tried to predict the orbits of planets and the sun and the other celestial bodies by using this hypothesis that the earth was static and everything else was revolving around it. For a time the stable datum worked, but observations occurred to the contrary. At first, many rejected reality and tried to cling to the stable datum of authority at that time, which happened to be the Catholic Church. Eventually, this confusing observation became so well explained by new theories and stable data that the sun was finally accepted by all as the centre of this planetary system.

Communication through improved means and methods has brought new data which has caused the abandonment of old stable data as it is no longer an effective predictor and the acceptance of a new stable datum which does predict effectively. The stable datum was that the planets and the sun revolve around the earth and the prediction was that there would be certain relationships between the positions of the planets. When these predictions proved false a new stable fact or reality, a new stable datum was needed to account for the confusing observations, yet many people tried to hold onto the old, the accepted, the demonstrably false. They were for some reason not able or willing to communicate with the facts of the situation and change accordingly so as to be better able to predict their environment.

This inability to change stable datum is an important point as we will see. Stable data are a phenomenon of our everyday thoughts. We have certain ideas of reality, codes of behaviour, public and private, personal pleasures and fears, etc. They are important whenever we wish to create an effect of any sort, that is, perform any action or make any change for we must know how to do what we want to do if we are to succeed consistently.

If we want to do well consistently in school, business, family life, matters of happiness, or any other area of endeavour, we must understand these areas and know-how to effect and control them to some extent. We must, in short, have ideas about how to go about accomplishing our goals. These ideas predict what action will be effective and what will not. They are statements which attempt to order, to make predictable, to make controllable, to explain the various areas of life experience. They are stable data, they are necessary for real success in any endeavour. As we have seen, it may be that a stable datum does not predict adequately to resolve a confusion. Indeed, if all stable data did predict adequately, everyone would be successful in their endeavours.

Few of us have completely achieved our goals and perhaps even clearly seen our potential goals. This is often due to an individual's attempt to use inadequate stable data which only add more confusion rather than reduce the original confusion. Like the reluctant astronomers of old, we sometimes find it difficult to give up our pet theories even in the fact of contrary evidence. Men can often be observed to rationalise to fantastic lengths to keep intact a belief which they somehow think will protect them from confusion. Sometimes so great is the need for protection from highly threatening problems or confusions, a person cannot take a rational approach to the problem but rather attempts to hold onto the shattered driftwood, the few remains of a defective stable datum crushed by the tidal wave of fact and experience. The drowning man fears to let go of his sticks and swim to land.

An inadequate stable datum, being a poor predictor of reality, is a liability, a barrier rather than an aid to survival. It will produce more confusion rather than more predictability.

It will produce more problems than it will produce any answers.

JTCrace

Scientology technology implies a recognition of the emotional investment in many of these stable data which each individual has in governing their lives. So, carefully trained auditors must carefully use the knowledge of the communication process to permit individuals to comfortably confront their own stable data. The person undergoing processing also confronts in a relatively objective manner the environmental problem or confusion or the solving of which the unrealistic stable datum was originally accepted and formulated. By slowly and gradually coming to view and detail the stable datum, which may have been completely suppressed, and then systematically examining the effects the datum has had on his life the individual undergoing proper Scientology processing, the preclear, is able to access accurately the value or the liability of any stable datum. The preclear is in a freer position to reject, or amend or create a stable datum so that he will be in better harmony with reality and hence in better control of his now more predictable environment. He then has a greater ability to pursue and achieve his own self-determined goals.

A shy person who has learned at age five that it is dangerous to talk too much or to be too open with others (he got whacked for telling family secrets) may find himself becoming more solid as he systematically looks at the results of using this stable datum. Irrational fears may stem from stable data adopted in times of stress as may fierce drives to achieve or gain acceptance. Sexual and family problems may arise from stable data about personal relationships accepted in the confusion of the stressful teen and preteen age period. The solutions to problems adopted in those periods, even assuming that they were adequate then, might not work later in other confusing circumstances even though they might be similar in some ways to the earlier ones. Adjustment to and control of changing situations is often crippled by unchanged stable data from the past.

Proper Scientology processing asks the drowning man to pause for a moment, supported by the auditor, and look carefully and systematically at his present situation, to look at what his piece of driftwood is now, what it used to be, what the environment is now, and what it used to be, and as with the astronomy example, the person comes to see a better, more effective stable datum.

Under proper processing, the preclear will become better able to confront and adequately resolve new confusions that they will meet in the future. The ability to examine one stable datum and the confusion behind it increases to where when a person encounters new confusions, new and more pro-survival stable data can be applied. The auditor never resolves the confusion or interprets to the preclear. His function is to listen and help the preclear to examine thoroughly the area of confusion.

The proper application of Scientology technology would include the idea that if a man were to understand his own problems through a thorough viewing of them, that individual would be able to solve them far better than anyone else, or anyone outside could. At the same time the preclear would learn how to handle and tolerate confusion in the future so that in the future they could pick the best possible stable data for any situation and still be free to change it at any later time.

Scientology processing is not primarily intended for the insane, disturbed or neurotic individual, although it has been proved beneficial in these applications. It is rather intended for the able person who wants to become more able. It would be highly unwise to accept the norm as a basis for concerning man's potential.

The state of clear is generally beyond most peoples goals for self improvement and yet, it is the goal of auditing to eventually reach this state. Thus, the more able one is to begin with, the better once he is clear.

Scientology is oriented towards increasing and creating new abilities in man, not really working to bring a few up to a level close enough to the norm so they could somehow manage to survive. Although processing could be described as available for everyone, it is best applied on those who already have ability and desire even more.

JTCrace

There you have it, straight from the horses mouth. Notice there is nothing said about how fucking great Hubbard is or how big his dick is or anything else. But do I think Scientology is perfect? No. Is it the answer to everything? Hell no. In fact the definition of Scientology is the science of knowing how to know answers. So by its very definition, it is not the truth, only a tool to find it. In all honesty, isn't that what all religions were supposed to be? Tools? Ummm, ironic...

I am not a Scientologist but I like Scientology. I like it because it helps me get where I want to go. It has helped me forge me better relationships. It has helped me become a better student and musician. It has helped me communicate to others and to myself better. It has helped in all sorts of other ways. And finally, it will help me to reach Nirvana, to vanish, like a cyan Sunday (thank you MJK).

Let me know what you think (and please read every word if you want to make a comment, if not, then just let this post crash and burn and soon it will return to the Apeiron).

SaintCynic

If this is what scientology is, then that has got to be the dumbest thing ive ever herd. ive never read anything more idiotically vague, with obscure comparisons about even more stupid vague shit. To actually form a belief structure out of this seems fucking retarded. Why the hell would you need someone to tell you this? Not only that, but the majority of it seems like rambling to thicken a short book. God damnit I’m mad I took the time to read that post. I believe in doing/believing in what ever floats your boat, but Jesus. Im pretty sure your music/school, etc. wouldn’t suffer too much if you didn’t have to stumble through that garbage on a daily basis.
Anyhow, keep plugging.