Sonny Bono, a closet Scientologist, died after hitting a tree while skiing. How could an otherwise sane and healthy person have run into a tree? This paper suggests one possibility.
There is an identifiable stage of semi-conscious which pertains to loss of bodily orientation. Before someone blacks out, while he is still aware of his environment, he is aware that he has a body -- but it seems to be moving independently of him. He senses that he is floating, soaring or swimming.
Normally this condition lasts only a fraction of a second. Some people sense it right before they go to sleep, or before they become fully aware in waking up. It is not a naturally stable condition.
It appears that L. Ron Hubbard spent some research into isolating and stabilizing this condition. He referred to it as "exteriorization" -- being "outside" the body. There is a problem with this term. Though there may be experiences which occur out of one's body, this is not one of them. It is exclusively a physiological phenomenon. It pertains to the body as an organism, not to the spiritual being.
This research appears to be a result of a dental extraction Hubbard had in 1938, under the influence of nitrous oxide [1]. Hubbard believed he left his body during the operation and was taken on a tour of heaven. While he was in heaven, he was awarded care of all knowledge in the universe. This, he believed, gave him a unique insight into the nature of reality. His new-found understanding made him superior to all of humanity.
[2] Hubbard spent his life searching for one particular experience. From the early 1950s, he had insisted that "exteriorization"," or out-of-the-body experience, was the crucial element of Scientology.... Hubbard desperately wanted to repeat that experience and, according to those who audited him, was never able to do so, despite his glib claims about Scientology techniques which would readily and rapidly produce "exteriorization." Hubbard published numerous techniques, and, of course, made elaborate claims for their efficacy. Indeed, the stated purpose of Scientology is to create a "stable" exterior state, whereby the individual consciously achieves immortality.
To sum up:
- There is a transient state of reduced awareness which is connected to bodily disorientation.
- The goal of Scientology is to place a person in this ordinarily transient semi-conscious state.
- The person is not told that he is being coached into a physiological condition. He is told this disoriented feeling is not a delusion at all - that he is in fact having an out-of-body experience.
"Exteriorization" as taught by Scientology is strictly an imaginary state. The purpose of this fanciful condition is to induce self-delusion. A person is directed in Scientology courses to convince himself that he has this magical power.
The "proof" supplied by Co$ is called the "floating needle." This refers to a read on a Scientology magical e-meter device. When the magical needle sways aimlessly back and forth in this little device, it's supposed to mean that the person attached to it is outside of his body. (Auditors correct me on this.)[3]
"Exteriorization" is the common link in all the Co$ levels. Communications, engrams, overts/withholds, SciFi episodes all magically appear and disappear back into nothingness on the Co$ "Bridge to Freedom." But from the first training one receives in the Communication Course all the way up to the highest Co$ levels, being outside of one's body is constantly stressed. It is by no means a subtle command: "Be three feet in back of your head."
Children are told to view themselves from outside their own bodies. They are told that this is what it is like to be dead.
While the feeling of freedom one receives may be beneficial, the overall goal of placing oneself in a semi-conscious state of reduced awareness is harmful.
Ulterior motives exist for Co$ "Exteriorization" (Leaving the Body).
Co$ undeniably represents a "thetan" as being separate from his body. I have seen Co$ pictures which have an oval blue bubble with the word "thetan" on it which is a distance away from the head of the person it supposedly belongs to. There is no mistaking what this means.
Co$ preaches that the "thetan" is the real person, and his body and mind are just hindering baggage. I don't have a problem with that.
However, when a person has been led to believe that he is residing outside of his body, he has been misled into believing something which has no basis in fact. Have you ever seen a spirit leave a body? I have, and so have billions of other people. It's called death. Giving up the ghost. Going to the other side. Going to heaven. That is what happens when you leave your body.
Co$ can make you believe that you are a spirit without a body, that your body is just another animal, like a fish or a dog.
First let's start with some real Co$ logic. Picture your body. Do you see it? Now, since you are the one who is looking at your body, that means you cannot possibly be your body, right?
Good, now for a hundred dollars Co$ will teach you how to do TR0. Just sit there and do nothing. Do you notice what your body and mind are doing? Your body is busy feeling things, and your mind is busy thinking things. You are told that you are not the one who is doing the feeling and the thinking. It's your body and mind. You are the one who is observing your body and mind from afar. The purpose of this drill in Co$ is to convince you that you can separate yourself from your body and mind without any harmful side effects.
Now for a thousand dollars Co$ will teach you how to do Dianetics. Just hold those cans firmly but naturally. They are attached to a Co$ e-meter. Whenever the thetan leaves the body, it gives a little blip here on the meter. And when the thetan is exterior, the gauge wanders pointlessly back and forth. These are more drills to convince you that not only can you leave your body, but this handy little e-meter registers your comings and goings!
And for another hundred thousand dollars you can learn how to be an Operating Thetan, which means a thetan who operates completely independently of his body. This claim has never been proved.
It is promised to one and all that people are really thetans who can separate themselves from their bodies without harm. Money is collected. Checks are cashed. Funds are transferred. Each person believes that this promised miracle can somehow make his or her dreams come true. This is intentional deception which is done for the purpose of taking people's money.
There are people reading this who firmly believe that they can leave their body at will. I will not disagree that this is what they believe. Out of body experiences do appear to be real. I just think that nobody should make their living by deceiving people, such as Co$ has done, is doing, and continues to do. Scientology can not produce a spirit which lives outside of a body, as it claims it can.
How this hoax makes Scientologists "Stupid"
(This is dedicated to those people whose families have been broken up by Scientology.)
Gerry Armstrong wrote in reference to Scientology staff members:
"Unfortunately, having rendered themselves really stupid by chasing really stupid goals really stupidly, they have become really dangerous. Who, after all, when there is plenty of peace to go around, would whip themselves into a dangerous war-like frenzy, but the really, really stupid?"
What is Gerry talking about? What makes Scientologists Stupid?
Lying to yourself is the stupidest thing you can do. Once you start being dishonest with yourself, even if you have a very good reason, you open a pandora's box of deception from which you can not easily escape.
The only thing you can do to yourself that is stupider than lying is to think that you can cover up the fact that you are lying. In other words, you think that no one around you knows that you are lying.
One way that Scientologists lie to themselves, then try to cover up the fact, is by claiming they are outside of their bodies. I bring this practice up because it induces a semi-conscious state which is known as bodily disorientation.
Please note that I am a firm believer in "out of body experiences." It may even by true that some people leave their bodies and flit about at night like bats. I am not taking issue with this, and I will not argue the point.
I claim that $cientology leads people to believe that they are out of their bodies when they are really not. Deep down inside, people know they are lying to themselves about "exteriorization", but it's too late. They are already lying to cover up the fact that they are lying. This is the start of an endless cycle of self-corruption induced by $cientology
.Now, aside from the lying, what is so harmful about believing you are located somewhere outside of your body? Bodily disorientation is the state between consciousness and unconsciousness where you are still aware that you have a body, but you don't know exactly what position it is in with relation to yourself. This state of lowered awareness can be artificially induced by believing that you are outside of your body. The more firmly you believe that you are outside of your body, the deeper you sink into this blissful state of semi-consciousness. These are observable facts.
Now would any Scientologist in the group like to demonstrate that they are not lying when it comes to being outside of their body?
(Note: Does $cientology know the value of a lie? Look up "Missed Withhold" on the web pages of the Church of Scientology. This is the technology Co$ uses on its own members. It is also why $cientology only works on Scientologists.)
"People who would aspire to transform the world should start by transforming their own life and let it serve as an inspiration for others. Hubbard wrote best about what he most needed to learn."
- Joe Harrington---------------------------Repost of $cientology Exteriorization Win
From: Steve Jebson naismith at spam_blocker.sprintmail.com
Date: 1997/07/13Message-ID: 33C8A957.7F7E at spam_blocker.sprintmail.com
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
I see many exotic OT wins in Co$ pubs and don't usually post them, but this one was just too good to pass up. From the current issue (131) of Advance!, page 22:I had been using the ethics conditions to sort out a situation I was in and experienced a huge win, a major breakthrough. I was so keyed out that I ran down the passageway... However, I'd forgotten that in this particular passageway there were stairs, and right where the stairs were, the ceiling sloped down. In my excitement I decided to leap to the bottom of the stairs, and I jumped. My head collided with the sloping ceiling at a very fast speed. I was exterior and I remember thinking as soon as I perceived the impact, That was a mistake! I was completely aware of what was happening as my body flew through the air... Even though my body was in extreme danger, I had complete certainty I would be OK. My body crashed to the floor, right where I knew it would. The back of my head smashed against the concrete floor. In *normal* circumstances my back should have snapped in half and my head should have been very badly damaged. I went back into my body and I didn't feel much pain... and after a couple of minutes I got up off the ground and walked away. I didn't even have a bruise on my head. The onlookers were completely amazed and I took a huge win.
I-----------------------End Repost of $cientology Exteriorization Win
Response to some questions
I am presenting the idea that there is a specific, attainable state of semi-consciousness having to do with bodily dissociation.
I further claim that this state is used by Co$ to make people more susceptible to its suggestions.
I further claim that people who are in this state will lie about it. Their "shore story", if you will, is that they are "exterior."
This particular state of reduced awareness would not be very important except for the fact that it seems to act like a drug or a mild poison in that a person in Co$ who is in this condition will experience a "high". Most people would avoid such a feeling, but Co$ teaches you early on to overcome any natural anxiety you have about voluntary bodily dissociation.
You asked why a person who had been in this state over a long period of time would not be a "pathetic mess." Some people do turn into a pathetic mess. They are quickly abandoned by Co$. Other people have a higher built-in tolerance for self-deception.
You also mentioned that such a condition could not exist unless it were "universally effective." People are not universally identical. Therefore the same action or condition imposed on a group of people will not have the same effect on each individual. I claim that anyone who maintains that he is out of his body when he really is not is in a specific, identifiable state of reduced awareness.
I believe that people who are in this state will come to conclusions which are not necessarily based on reality. For instance:
1. Mental image pictures have weight.
2. Auditing improves eyesight and intelligence.
3. Sex is an implant designed by space aliens designed to limit our awareness.
4. Many more, just read this news group.
Comment: This "exteriorization" is called depersonalization. As we know, a hypnotist can induce what looks like MPD thanks to the one bad shrink talked about in the newsgroup. Needless to say, the cult does it's hypnotic stuff on purpose as hypnotised people are more open to suggestion.
Okay, there is "dissociation", which is "the splitting off of certain mental processes from the main body of consciousness." That would be along the lines of multiple personality disorders.
I'm talking about a state between consciousness and unconsciousness where a person is aware that he has a body, but is not sure where he is in relation to it. A person in this state may feel as though he is floating, or 'high'. It is a specific semi-conscious state specifically having to do with bodily disorientation rather than a split of consciousness.
MPD, multiple-personality-disorder, is a split of consciousness. I think exteriorization is not a split, it is a regression towards unconsciousness.
There is some measurable physical difference in the body when a person reaches this semi-conscious state of being "exterior." $cientologists measure it with an e-meter. At this point nobody else has done enough research to find out what other bodily changes it creates.
I have not yet looked into the effects of nitrous oxide. Perhaps Hubbard was trying to duplicate these effects without using the drug itself.
[1] From Channel 4 'Secret Lives' transcript
FORREST ACKERMAN
"He said that he had died on the operating table, and that he rose in spirit form, and he looked at the body he had previously inhabited and that he shrugged the shoulders he didn't have any more and he thought 'where do we go from here' in the distance he saw a great ornate gate, and he wafted over to it, and the gate, as they do in supernatural films, just opened without any human assistance. He floated through and on the other side he saw an intellectual smorgasbord of everything that had ever puzzled the mind of man, you know, how did it all begin, where do we go from here, are there past lives, and like a sponge he was just absorbing all this esoteric information and all of a sudden there was a kind of swishing in the air and he heard a voice, 'no, not yet, he's not ready' and like a long umbilical cord he felt himself being pulled back, back, back and he lay down in his body and he opened his eyes, and he said to the nurse 'I was dead, wasn't I'. Then he bounded off the operating table. I don't know how you die then you bound off an operating table, then he got two reams of paper, and a gallon of scalding black coffee, and at the end of two days he had a manuscript called 'Excalibur' or 'The Dark Sword'. And he told me that whoever read it either went insane or committed suicide. And he said that the last time he had shown it to a publisher in New York, he walked into the office to find out what the reaction was, the publisher called for the reader, the reader came in with the manuscript, threw it on the table and threw himself out of the skyscraper window."
VOICEOVER
"But was Hubbard's extraordinary story true? Excalibur became the stuff of mystery. Hubbard told friends it was too dangerous to publish. But forty years later, a treasure trove from Hubbard's early journals and manuscripts, believed to have been long lost, was discovered by his staff.
GERRY ARMSTRONG - Hubbard's household manager
"There were two and a half versions of Excalibur. I read them and I didn't go mad and I didn't commit suicide. They also include the information within related writings, that these came out of a nitrous oxide incident. Hubbard had a couple of teeth extracted, and it was while under the effect of nitrous oxide, that he came up with Excalibur."
VOICEOVER
"Hubbard's 'death' was in fact an hallucination under the effects of anaesthetic. So what was the intellectual dish he'd fed on?"
GERRY ARMSTRONG
"It wasn't anything particularly revolutionary. The key to Excalibur was this great realization, by Hubbard, of 'Survive' as being the one command that all existence, and all life and all people, have. That became the basis for a lot of Dianetics and a lot of Scientology"[2] This paragraph is from Piece of Blue Sky, page 375. The prior two sentences are paraphrased from elsewhere in the book.
[3]
From: EdGood site, and good contest essay!
In this place, under "Hoax" you invited correction by any auditors on one point, so here goes:
Floating Needle (F/N) doesn't indicate the pc is exterior. It shows that there is no mental mass impinged on the pc in the moment. This translates to anything from pleasant contentedness up through ecstasy. The "higher" the feeling, the wider will be the range in which the meter's needle idly sweeps. As soon as the pc's attention goes to something that is troublesome or a problem, etc., the needle will slow down into a slow, steady, heavier sort of movement.
In good tech, the way it used to be sometimes, it is fairly common for any preclear to go exterior someime in auditing, but usually only once. Similarly in real life, lots of people have near-death or out-of-body experiences, but rarely more than once. Auditors and Hubbard noticed this and LRH's theory on this phenomenon led to the rundown known at various times as the Exteriorization RD or Interiorization RD or Ext/Int RD.
The theory is that leaving the body is a pleasant experience if you're in session, but it is likely to restimulate lots of earlier charge from past deaths and whatever unpleasantness was involved with them. In real life, exteriorizing was the later part of a death engram.
When a person comes back into the body after exteriorizing they often feel very heavy, bummed out, often with headaches. It is not unlike the feeling of a hangover or coming down from drugs, in that the person feels lousy and remembers just a short while ago being exterior. This condition, called out-Int, is the first thing that needs to be addressed in auditing if the pc is experiencing it.
The Int RD clears whatever engrams are in restimulation pertaining to the whole subject of exteriorizing or interiorizing, whether that is "out of" or "into" a body, or being "put in" or "trapped" or the like, that is, various kinds of imprisonment; or being expelled or kicked out of one's place, like we have seen in Yugoslavia.
If a pc goes exterior in session the auditor is supposed to just gently end the session and have no futher auditing until the pc interiorizes.
Even if you aren't trying to use "tech" and don't use a meter, these phenomena seem pretty real to me from observation.
Ed
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