Press Conference Review

Turns out Pres. Obama was “monitoring” the situation from “Day One” with “regular briefings” and “meetings” all during his day.

I bet that just thrills all those Gulf fishermen and women who lost their livelihood to BP’s disaster.

Unfortunately, this was as pinned down as it got during today’s briefing (which he was forced to accede to.)

Obama (not unlike other government agencies) considers that he is “in charge” of the situation by holding MEETINGS.  And sending down people to investigate so they can “hold the boot on BP’s neck”, but question the metaphor as they do so.

Let’s have more meetings. Let’s cancel future oil projects. Let’s revise regulations. Oh, and we’ll need more “bipartisan cooperation” to get more laws passed, which will require — more meetings.

Take just half the suggestions that Carville said yesterday and implement them. How about those supertankers sucking up all that goo?!? In 30 days, I imagine you can get them about half-way around the planet by sea – though that’s just a guesstimate (Update: See above Esquire article: “…with the right calls, tankers could be on the scene in 2 days”. )  Not like BP doesn’t have any supertankers nearby which could be quickly commandeered for this. But heck, the Army Corps of Engineers can’t even approve a sand levee – much less sending the military in to handle a disaster and commandeer some vessels…

No – - it’s “I’m responsible” and “let’s have another meeting and more briefings…”

And, of course, this is before he goes on his second vacation since the Gulf Rig blew up. (While not laying a wreath on Memorial Day. Hope  his golf game goes well.)

Business as usual at the White House.

Heckava Job, Barry…

(OK, now I’m going to go do some Levenson release technique in order to cool off. Why I ever watch TV for anything…?)

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Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”

(Preamble: the below are my comments and conclusions on my own personal understanding of Scientology. For those who are happy and succeeding with your practice of that belief-system: carry on. This post isn’t for you. But those who have any doubts may find some data below to support your suspicions…)

Recently I dragged myself, nearly kicking and screaming, back into the world of Scientology and it’s books. I watched and listened to the current corporate head delivering his stylized version of how they “uncovered errors to restore the basic books to their original intended version” – all just because some well-meaning staffer sent me a package of them.

There were two differences I noticed from when I was an active Scientologist a decade ago. One was that there was now only the Miscavidge Way. No other execs were on the stage or presenting anything. Second - these confirmed why I quit believing that Hubbard only spoke sooth long ago.

I was watching a person who had taken over all control of Scientology-the-Corporation, telling this adoring, almost enraptured audience that now they could re-read and study the “Master’s” words in a correct sequence without any errors. Never mind that they read them several times before – here we go again.

Hubbard was definitely prolific, and researched a wide range of materials. The premise for all this work was that there was a unifying theme behind it.

Unfortunately for me, I got onto the Internet right after leaving staff. I didn’t avoid this stuff like the plague as active Scientologists are told to do. Because I had built their first corporate websites – all 30-some thousand pages in several languages. So I knew what you could find on the web, all that information.

The information I found on Hubbard was remarkable. Not to you, but to those of us who had been instilled with the idea that he was some sort of super-being who had left some sort of indelible bread-crumb trail we only had to walk to eventually get up to the high state where we could touch his robe.

First datum I found: Hubbard was very human. Had multiple wives, and at one point was a bigamist. In fact, he took his first daughter (who you never heard much about) to Cuba in order to write his “Science of Survival” book – mostly to hide from wife No. 2 while he had his lawyers cool her off enough to get out from under that marriage. Or that’s the corroborated version I found.

Second datum: Hubbard was far from infallible. And he had created a messy scene through his directions through his corporate bodies. As he continued, the lawsuits mounted, based on no more than simple mistreatment of people who worked for him and the laws they broke to carry out his instructions. Finally, he hid out at a ranch and turned over control to others so that he could get out from under various law suits. And died under mysterious circumstances, having drugs in his bloodstream which has been designed and used by the very psychiatrists he hated and maligned.

Third datum: He left no “Upper Bridge” of courses and materials. All of the materials they say is “Secret” is too easily found on the Internet. And the people who are left standing have no clue how to compile those remaining “upper levels” from the supposed rooms of file cabinets full of notes. So the remaining loyal Scientologists who still follow the “closely taped path” are now dead-ended. Hubbard didn’t do it and didn’t let (or admit) anyone else (could).

In short, what Hubbard produced as results were now questionable. However, this is not just an ad hominem attack. (I cover more of this below, particularly in the update.)

When I started looking up the materials which he so often denigrated, I found that what he had thrown away was often more valuable than what he had extracted. Yoga was one. Another was Christianity, and still another, Buddhism. Then there were Hindu texts. People were actually getting enlightened throughout history on each and every one of these paths. And yet Hubbard proclaimed them all to be “dead-ends.”

Other materials he simply declared “suppressive” were also useful, such as Lester Levenson’s Sedona Method (release technique). While Hubbard’s Dianetics and Scientology were both found to fail university studies, Levenson’s work (and also the similarly-declared Silva Method) were proved valid in helping people to improve conditions through repeated university studies and even independent peer-reviewed research.

(And to those loyal corporate-cult followers reading this, yes, I’m one of your open-minded “squirrels”.)

Along this line, I had gone to find out if there was any possible natural system at work below all self-help and improvement. This would then either support or disprove the methods Hubbard (or any other self-help guru) recommended. I found out that there does exist a natural system of improvement. Many, many, many authors have found the bulk of this. And this system is also found in every single major religion’s texts (if not in their practices) as long as you take them back to their original versions. And what is workable within Scientology is also based on that natural system.

When these studies showed Hubbard went out of his way to diss and degrade all these religions and belief-systems just in order to prop up his own, it began to get a bit strained. As all of these other belief-systems also proved improved conditions, if not creating bona-fide miracles, they were in need of study, not criticism.

(Hubbard also had many, many people studying his own life and reporting on what they found. And the Internet also delivered these. If you only take the commonalities of these reports, you’ll see a very different picture from what was routinely presented at all the various events we staff had to attend over the years.)

What I’ve uncovered from all this independent study and research is a way of achieving enlightenment which is possible in just one month of dedicated work. This is what Lester Levenson said was possible. He himself made the state in 3 months, but with the techniques he refined, said he could have done it in a month if he had those techniques available when he started. (But you can also be critical of Levenson if you choose…)

Levenson himself said that Scientology was a huge advance, that auditing could do overnight what a psychiatrist would take months. However, he also stated that they would take at least an entire lifetime to achieve what someone trained in Sedona Method could do in months – or a single month.

There are other additional techniques a person could include in Sedona Method to even speed this up.

The point of all that is to tell that Scientology has no “monopoly on the human mind”.

And the highly touted “Standard Tech” (see update below) is actually a strait-jacket in a padded cell, far from a “route to total freedom.” The only people finding increasing freedom in their lives are those who have left this subject and have studied either outside that remaining corporate structure – or took up other, more basic materials.

So what are we then left with? Declining membership, beautiful-but-empty buildings, increasing tales of physical abuse from management and rising numbers of veteran and formerly life-long dedicated staff leaving (such as myself).

The corporate side of this organization is imploding at a mad rate. But the technical end of it isn’t so supportive, either. At the time I left, I had been to their top-level Flag for their “training” and found that not only were they not doing what Hubbard had said to do with their “Training Routines” and Metering courses, but were also using politics to silence those who were reporting the alterations. Being “audited” later by one of their graduates also showed me personally how they couldn’t get results despite their “Golden Age of Tech”. Meanwhile, I had also seen that the policies Hubbard had laid down years (even decades) earlier weren’t being followed, even though known. And I had evidence of this being true even from those who worked directly under Miscavidge.

Essentially, for at least a decade, corporate Scientology has been “off-Source” in their three prized areas of “Ethics, Tech, and Admin”. And now, it is showing in the numbers of books by abused staff available through Amazon.

Now, this isn’t to say there isn’t a great deal of material inside these writings and recordings that can and does help people. The problem is that it’s interspersed with some very destructive corporate policies and close-minded denigrations which keep people from looking for themselves.

To my mind, the whole subject went irreversibly down the tubes with the 1969 issue of “Keeping Scientology Working”, where Hubbard denied anyone else’s actual assistance in “discovering” Scientology. He doesn’t mention his own wide borrowing of materials from other faiths and authors. And so denied the giants whose shoulders he stood on to see further (per Isaac Newton). And creating the Sea Org just made the whole thing worse – and their “Flag Orders” have been used to justify Miscavidge’s rise to current “power”.

But I’m not here to do other than give a summary of what I found.

For I long ago found there was no profit in dealing with Scientology. There is closure by writing what you find for yourself. And I’ve worked for this decade after leaving that corporate cult to find and write up my own path of how I got this closure and moved on. It helped that I cut all ties and returned all their mail, but none of their phone messages. There are a very small handful of people I talk to infrequently, who knew me from before. I keep up on matters (when I get idly curious) by watching the Internet – but mostly Scientology is a huge distraction to any spiritual progress I could make.

Others will have their own opinions. And those who are still getting gains within Scientology, whether at a corporate-approved organization, or in the field – keep going for all it’s worth. Get all the gains you can. And know that if you do leave corporate Scientology at any point, these gains leave with you. No one can ever, ever take these away from you.

I am only telling you that there will never be any additional OT levels released. OT VIII was the last – and it was in fragments. Where you see these “OT’s” now leaving the corporate fold, realize that they do not leave any stable gain behind when they do. Only their own personal invalidation (or agreement with those who would criticize them) could create any adverse effect on them. If you study the materials that Hubbard studied, then you’ll see where the gains you received actually came from – and how to get more of them.

But this is only my opinion.

I no longer fear this corporation. I have nothing of value that they would possibly want. I am connected to no group of people who are working actively against them. I only want to be left alone, in peace. (Plus, people driving out to my fairly remote farm can’t create much effect on the grass, trees, cows, and wildlife out here…)

Their threats of being “declared suppressive” are bogus – since there is no upper Bridge to worry about, is there? Their “freeloader” status is another laugh if you don’t ever intend to take services with them. Legally, there is no debt to prosecute. More corporate-cult harassment.

And I’ve already found perhaps a dozen or more additional paths a person could follow reach even higher states than Hubbard ever researched or the current corporate head approves. (And these are easily found for any who have already exhausted what corporate Scientology has to offer and still want to really achieve their “Total Freedom”.)

So I say to everyone: believe as you will. And listen to no one – including myself – who tells you how to believe. Search for the truth in the world around you which is true for you. Because that is the only truth that counts. (As Hubbard covered in his Essay on Personal Integrity…) You are and have always been free to communicate to whoever you want to and however you like. You have always had the freedom to read, and think, and realize any damned thing you please. No one has ever been able to tell you not to or deny you that choice.

Just this final piece of advice: Be Your Self.

- – - -

Update: (even before this goes live) Having read recent posts on Marty Rathbun’s blog as well as scientology-cult.com, I was reminded that there is a precarious situation ongoing: Scientology only can be (and always has needed to be ) delivered within a very tight set of constraints. It does work, but only within its very narrow world. All within that world must have incredible faith in the “technology” of Scientology as being infallibly correct. One you get a crack in that dike (as I experienced), then the ensuing flood tears a new outlet and the dam breaks irrevocably.

As a long-time “cramming officer”, I saw this first hand. And this is what drove me right out of doing any “tech” application. People were afraid, and were altering what they knew was in writing or on tape – as policy, “tech”, or ethics – in order to preserve their own safety, control, or approval. I was frequently able to debug very snarled-up people in just minutes of “two-way-communication”, yet was attacked because I didn’t use a meter until after the fact (while I could often sort them out in the time it took to get down the hallway to my office). …Because executives over me were afraid of being attacked if what I was doing (helping people directly) was “found out.”

The point here is that Scientology as it was known will never ever recover. Certain individuals, as my friend Marty (who I haven’t seen in decades) are able to carry on by themselves. But they will never be able to run any international organization or keep up the standards necessary to do so. Practicing Scientology will only be possible on very local affairs after the current corporate-cult collapses from internal intrigue. Because there have been too many abuses, starting well before Hubbard passed on. The cat is out of the bag, and Miscavige has been the one holding the strings at the time.

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If you’ve found it valuable, please consider donating via PayPal to enable my continuing research.

Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”

A “cracker” isn’t a southern derogatory term – it’s someone gaming a computer or Internet system (or both) for personal and nefarious gain.

What brought this to me was an email from an associate, who was reportedly over in London (suddenly) and had been robbed a gunpoint – now needing a wire transfer. Which, of course, I’m too happy to help with, even though my savings are hardly enough for myself these days.

But I was given Western Union’s web address and went to their site to find locations. While there, I then looked up their page on fraud. And that page matched in their description what I had received in email:

Hello,

I’m sorry for this odd request because it might get to you too
urgent but it’s because of the situation of things right now, I’m
stuck in London with family right now, i came down here on vacation ,
i was robbed, worse of it is that bags, cash and cards and my cell
phone was stolen at GUN POINT, it’s such a crazy experience for me, i
need help flying back home, the authorities are not being 100%
supportive but the good thing is i still have my passport but don’t
have enough money to get my flight ticket back home, please i need you
to loan me some money, will refund you as soon as I’m back home, i
promise.

Thanks

And of course none of that occurred – my friend was busy working on his meditation and marketing in a nearby town. He emailed me shortly after to tell me so.

Of course, this got me curious how it could have happened.

The Gmail scam hack heard ’round the world

The exploit for Gmail hacking was posted some time ago, as covered at GHacks.Net

But even though that’s nearly a year ago, it is apparently still possible to get your gmail account hijacked.

And the result of this can be very hazardous to professional business, as David Airey found out last summer when his business domain was moved after he left on vacation – however, due to the outpouring of friends and strangers willing to help him, he got all of his domains back and is piecing back his SEO standings (and hopefully that is accomplished by now).

What you can do to protect your gmail account

Essentially, the way they get your data is to hack into your gmail account when you browse online – a filter is inserted into your gmail through some web-designed sabotage, which then forwards anything with “password” over to that site.

Some solutions:

• The trick is to not be logged into your Gmail account at all times. It’s that “sign in” button over at the end of your Google Toolbar. Keep logged out except when you are actually accessing your email. And don’t browse with your gmail tab open.
• Another solution is to use Firefox and search for security plug-in’s which detect fraudulent websites.
• And many say not to use Gmail for your business traffic at all. If you have webhosting, it probably also has free email accounts which you can set up and manage yourself
• If you do use Gmail, some say to access it through Thunderbird or similar, like you would if it were a hosted account. Never access through your browser.
• My friend also had his Yahoo account hacked at the same time. And since that was his backup email, it was difficult for him to regain access to his Gmail account. So your back up should be a non-freebie email provider.
• This exploit apparently only (hopefully) works over wireless – and the workaround is to check gmail through a client rather than directly.
• Always use https://mail.google.com – and log out each time.

Of course, this rolls into best business practices, that you check your email on a set schedule and then get out of it and not spend time chatting away all day. And check out ITPro for their take on best business practices for this.

Your own simple precautions are as above – and add to this to check any filters you’ve set up in Gmail to be sure that they are all yours.

That this exploit has been known about for a year and is still effective is not good news.

But now you know…

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If you’ve found it valuable, please consider donating via PayPal to enable my continuing research.

Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”