Dianetics

[Relaxation]

Anybody here into it?

[fortymile]

i read the book once.

it's an interesting theory.

[Unhorizon]

I've never heard of it. Could you explain it?

[Matze]

It is just stupid psycho-mumbo-jumbo by some nutty science fiction writer who had only moderate success with his books in the 50s.

The church of scientology itself is considered dangerous by many people because they suppress their members to get their money. In fact they are not a church but a very aggressive company.

I think it is better to stay away from these guys.

[fortymile]

well, me too. but the theory behind it--the way emotional associations can form in response to traumas--is pretty interesting. i'm not saying its right. there are so many psychological theories that make universal, sweeping statements about the way the mind works when what you're really getting is an examination of how the theorist's own mind or culture works. i believe freud was guilty of that to a large degree. some of his insights were useful, but his 'psychology' as a whole seemed to be a psychology of the victorian mind, not the human mind. in a similar way, dianetics might be the psychoogy of L. ron hubbard's mind.

seems that your own psychology has a lot to do with the way you think about the way you work.

[Bizarro]

Tried to read it... couldn't do it. His logic was seriously flawed but he tried to make up for it by using big words. As a highly educated person I had no trouble with his vocabulary and the fuzzy logic came shining through!

Some neat ideas though.

[fortymile]

how was his logic flawed? i didnt see that. i just didn't believe it accurately described the way the mind works.

[SkinnyDevil]

L. Ron Hubbard did not have moderately successful books in the 50s, bro - he is an award-winning sci-fi writer whose friends include Azimov, Heinlen, Adams, Herbert, and others.

I find interesting the story told by Harlen Ellison (he's the "underground" sci-fi writer who was the inspiration for movies like "Terminator"). He said he, Hubbard, Larry Niven, and most of the above listed were hanging out at an awards ceremony. Heinlen won some award for "Stranger in a Strange Land" and then made a bet with Hubbard that he couldn't start a religion (those familiar with "Stranger" understand this bet). Hubbard wrote "Dianetics" as a response.

Ellison claims Hubbard died before he had a chance to spring the punch-line.

I suspect Travolta, Cruise, and others would not like this story, but it was supported by several other writers who were there.

[fortymile]

can you show us a link to information about that? it sounds like a private moment between ellison and hubbard. hard to understand how word got around.

also, isnt ellison known as a guy who loves telling lies for effect? its part of his style it seems...i have some of his short story collections here. he goes so overboard with style that i've never been able to decide if the anecdotes he tells from his life are real or not.

[Bizarro]

Fortymile, there are too many ways that his logic was messed up. I gave the book away recently so I can refer to it. He basically builds up a series of "half truths" and makes them sound like they are real for every instance, and uses this for sweeping generalities.

One thing that was funny... He said that eyeglasses are needed because your mind isn't "clear". Myopia is a function of the shape of the eye, which is basic optics and first year physics.

[forgottenking2]

It was a pretty big thing in among intellectuals in Ecuador back in the 50's and 60's. My dad was into that at some point, he even did some seminars on that stuff... but you wanna know something? He got rid of his diplomas, doesn't really bring the matter up and to me he seems like a normal mortal man (very smart mortal man though :D ) . I did read one of the books and I have to agree with Bizarro, it sounded like pompous esoteric BS to me... (I'm also highly educated :p ) But it's just my humble opinion, other people might be firm believers of it and I respect that.

[fortymile]

i also have a good education and am quite heavily read in science. (mind you, i am *not* sticking up for hubbard here. dianetics has nothing to do with science.) i read the dianetics book eleven years ago (just because that commercial for the book had played all through my childhood and i finally said 'ok what is this'), so i don't remember much of anything. but knowing who hubbard was, it would be hard to call it illogical, right? he was a logical dude if i remember correctly. famous author. educated. my point is that half truths are not really instances of faulty logic if the guy is doing it to you on purpose. in fact the whole book could be seen as a game of logic, wherein the author is trying to construct a logical system using a whole lot of garbage. it seemed to me that his basic ideas seemed to cohere *IF* you accepted his half-truths, many of which were just assumptions and weird associations.

that eyeglasses thing is ridiculous.

[Relaxation]

Don't just read the book use it! Seriously the techniques presented are effective! Only 8 hours of auditing and already it has made me a happy kid. Don't believe the anti sites especially that xenu guy. They don't hypnotize you or anything nor give you drugs. I admit it is costly but they won't force you for dianetics doesn't really force or convince anything to you. Everything is up to you for it gives you self-determination. HElped also my guitarplaying in killing some of those "doubting" and "can not do it" engrams. Even Mr. Big's bassist is into it.

At first I did not believe the facts he presented in the book but when I did decided to give it a shot, I quickly "returned" to a incident in my past and was able to capture the feelings of it. After that, I felt a lot has been released.

[Bizarro]

There needs to be a separation of techniques which can help an individual, and all the meaningless blather that is contained in the book. There is a great deal of *crap* in that book, but there are also very sound ideas.

[fortymile]

it's based on some sound ideas about cognitive therapy. i do think there is something to the idea of ennegrams. but i'm not sure how well the religion/practice gets to the heart of the problem. i don't like to tool around in my past looking for connections unless i have to. it can set you on a course of false discovery where you get attached to constantly 'rediscovering the clear.' it can become a way of life. and that'd be a buzz for you, but a false one. seems to me to be one way to fall into the snare of the religion. but what are you getting from it? far better, i think, to realize that ennegrams are most likely real phenomena, and leave it at that. learn to create better ones in life as you move forward, by staying present and watching what you focus on in times of trauma. because i don't believe that an ennegram could ever really be undone. surely you can gain awareness of them, and how they formed, and maybe even sever the links, but that charge that permeated the ennegram is now a part of your emotional makeup. free floating, maybe, but you'll always remember it.

it seems all that dianetics does is open a path, not THE path, for you to say "ok, yes i can do this. yes i can play guitar" or whatever. it lets you believe in something that lets you believe in yourself when, for whatever reason, you cant do so for yourself. it lets you attach to something external from yourself to gain power and/or a sense of self-efficacy. i mean, dianetics is a big complex system. it sounds authoritative. it speaks in shady terms that can't really be verified. it therefore requires a certain amount of FAITH which is precisely the thing people who are stuck lack. that's how a lot of religions and self help systems must work--i mean, it must be one of the prime functions. hubbard most likely knew that. another thing he probably knew is that "secret knowledge," available now, only to you the priveleged consumer, is by its nature exciting. the prospect of 'the secret' or 'the answer' is what the self-help industry is founded on. an endless parade of baited hooks where the knowledge itself is not whats important, but rather your own ability to get motivated by it. this excitement is one of the ways in which these books marshall your resources and focuses you. we're being sold ourselves, to ourselves.

i might not know what i'm talking about. its been so long since i read it. this stuff is all just coming back to me now. but i do think that there's nothing wrong with any of this. attaching yourself to external sources of power and/or faith is one of the important things that the mind does and has always done. it's vital. and if this tactic works for you, it works. but it won't for everyone.

but for more global effectiveness, i'd have to vote for harry palmer's very simple, very *obvious* and very "forgotten beneath the crush of life" tactics as presented in his avatar program, over dianetics. far simpler, more intuitive, and in some instances impossible to argue. it seems to restore childhood tactics of mind to you, which are more plastic and less rigid. it seems to show you how "attention defines you," and that if you control your attention (really one of the few things you CAN control) then you control your world. too bad it costs thousands of dollars. but he has small tastes of the basic idea available online and a small book of exercises available.

[Chim_Chim]

As a religion this is right up there with The "Jedi" religion,The Lord Of the Rings,and Harry Potter.

Why would you wanna go and follow a religion started by a fiction writer?

Too many psylocibin mushrooms? :D

my 2 cent$

[fortymile]

actually, although i find the hard core star wars fans ridiculous, the jedi religion is based on sound religious principles from the east. it's not ridiculous at all.

[Chim_Chim]

actually, although i find the hard core star wars fans ridiculous, the jedi religion is based on sound religious principles from the east. it's not ridiculous at all.
Well in YOUR opinion anyways...
My opinion would differ from yours as this is entirely subjective!

The jedi religion may be based on what you call sound eastern principles (I however don't consider them sound principles).But whether it is ridiculous or not is entirely subjective!

Personally,I find it ridiculous.

"Luke,the Qi energy is strong in my pants" :D

[fortymile]

i find it ridiculous too, to actually follow the religion *from* the film.

but i was speaking of the sound psychological principles behind the religion. the only kind that can be objectively thought about in any discussion about religion, since the other kinds of principles are faith-based and beyond inspection.

if you think that the basic idea behind the force is not sound and doesnt reflect something basic in the universe--light and dark, positive and negative, plus and minus, newtonian action and reaction, well...in my opinion...your opinion is wrong, because that's not subjective! it's easy to see why people would see psychological truth there. even our thoughts are binary. even this argument is. you're proving my point.

i dont really even like star wars that much . why am i defending it.

[Relaxation]

Dianetics doesn't really convince you that you can do this or that. What's unbelievable about it is that when I started encountering things that usually scares me or anything that keeps angry or sad, I don't feel it anymore. Its like its gone forever. Just try going through auditing. You'll see or feel rather what i mean. ;)

Oh yeah, its not based on faith. It's based on experience. Again I didn't believe the book but when I decided to give it a try, that's what convinced me its the real thing. About the glasses/clear mind thingy. I had a friend who just recently had an enormous release of engrams and guess what? His vision became clearer. No bull ****.

[fortymile]

it is based on faith in that you have to have faith in the method for it to work.
its just like cognitive therapy in that sense. if you dont believe in it, you dont get anything out of it because you're not motivated to really put the effort into it.

i can't believe the clear vision thing. thats also part of what i mean by faith. if he believes that, i would imagine that his vision actually just got way more clouded.

but i dont want to insult the system or your friend. i'm sure you can understand why some of us would discount the clearer vision thing. i'm actually intetrested in hearing more about your experiences, relaxation. doesnt auditing require the help of another person?

[Chim_Chim]

sounds like a placebo

[szulc]

Too many psylocibin mushrooms?
I have eaten a few of thes in my earlier life and I don't believe this nonsense!

[Chim_Chim]

I have eaten a few of thes in my earlier life and I don't believe this nonsense!

Come to think of it so have I and I don't believe this stuff either.:D LOL :p

[fortymile]

same here

[Relaxation]

Fortymile, first of all, I really respect you and the other's opinion. I'm not forcing anything on anyone I'm just revealing the facts.

Auditing indeed requires the help of another person. But during actual therapy itself, it is the preclear (one being audited) that discovers the engram. The auditor doesn't say "oh that's an engram and that's the reason why you are like that". The preclear discovers it himself and the auditor is just there to say "go back to the beginning of the incident and say what is happening as you go along" (return the preclear) and other things.

PErsonal experience. I came to the Church of Scientology of the Philippines since I had read the book and was interested if everything the book said is true. I attended a seminar called Hubbard Dianetics Seminar which gave me the basics of dianetics and its principles. The next day was actual auditing day. At first, I didn't know what incident to think of and as to "challenge" and "test" dianetics, I presented an incident that I have no full account of.(I remember the incident but only bits and pieces. I was paired of with a FIRST TIMER like me with the professional auditors just supervising. When we went into therapy, I was actually able to "return" on the incident. Returning on the incident means you feel the feelings, and physical pain of the incident which is very different from what we call remembering. It's one of those capabilities we have that has been discovered in dianetics. I was running an incident in my childhood when I got into a fight and got knocked out. All the time I thought this incident had no effect or charge on me whatsoever being it just a simple fight. When I returned to the incident, I was able to feel all the physical pain, the dizziness similar to the one I always have. The unskilled auditor made me recount the incident several times to discharge it and on the final recounting I went to the part of that when I cried after the fight. When I told that part, believe it or not, the exact way, and position of me crying before came to me. Then out of nowhere, I cried the same way I cried during that time. Tears indeed fell from my eyes (I actually found myself weird during that time being able to return and re-experience the incident) Since I'm a person who usually does'n't cry and always try to maintain a "tough guy" image" I wanted to stop therapy and they made me. After that they did locational assist on me so I could really go back to the present time.

I really did not thought it was possible to re-experience an incident in your life (return) but I was able to. I was not in anyway affected of that incident before for I thought it was just a normal "experience". I didn't even feel sad about that incident for I was only four years old at that time (im 19 now). After that auditing experience, I really felt better, more present and in control. And guess what, the unexplained dizziness I experience everyday was gone the next days of my life.

Dianetics is really about experiencing the technology itself. If you want, just try it out of curiousity. :D

[fortymile]

yeah man i'm not trying to start an argument or anything. i tend not to edit myself on message boards all that much, delivering forceful opinions about concepts i sometimes don't even know that much about. in some cultures, they call this being an a$$&*%$, but i sort of have to type what i feel to see what i think sometimes.

i guess i just don't believe some of it. if you believe you're getting something out of it, though, then i don't want to discourage you. i would like to say, though, that i am able to 'return' to and re-live events from my past very easily. very often, at the edge of sleep, i will be absolutely transported and feel all the sensations, smells, feelings. it's also easy to do with a little concentration.

check out www.starsedge.com for another system/quasi-religion that i personally can criticize on some levels but not on the exercises themselves. if you want to feel present, some of the avatar exercises are very good for that. it doesn't deal with past traumas. its a completely different philosophy thats rooted in the present.

[SkinnyDevil]

Just dropping a note (it's been weeks since I've visited due to my hectic schedule) to say I may have confused Dianetics with Scientology - re: my remarks concerning Harlan Ellison. I'll check that and get back to you.

[fortymile]

i thought dianetics was sort of the manual for scientology.