On E-meter:
The E-meter reacts to both reactive and analytical thought. In the beginning it picks up the obvious reactive thoughts connected with an unwanted condition. But once the inconsistencies associated with these thoughts are resolved, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish reactive thoughts from analytical thoughts. This makes Scientology approach to case resolution uncertain.
One effect of this uncertainty is endless ‘auditing of entities’ that occurs on OT levels. The other effect is conditioning where one believes that one is getting better and powerful while unwanted conditions persist.
Thus, an E-meter may appear to be helpful in the beginning, but on a long term basis it creates dependency and leads to conditioning.
.
On “Source” of life:
We observe that man has both physical and spiritual attributes that exist side by side. The claim that man is a physical organism, which is animated by an individual source called ‘thetan’, is highly speculative.
This speculation identifies self with ‘thetan’ and claims that self exists independent of the physical body. This speculation goes further to claim that the basis of thetan (self) is theta (spirit) which produces everything physical.
A life organism is evidently made up of physical and spiritual attributes. Both seems to have existed side by side since millennia. However, there is no evidence that the spiritual attributes came first and they produced the physical attributes.
From actual observations, body grows and so does self. The atoms and molecules, which make up the body, are changing continually. Similarly, the factors (consideration, desires and impulses), which make up the self, are also changing continually. There is nothing about the body or the self, which remains constant for ever.
Memories of past does not necessarily mean that the body and self of the past is also the body and self of the present. There is no permanent or unchanging body, self, or individual “source” of life.
.
On Time Track:
When we talk about having a childhood, birth etc., we are talking about a sequence of memories attached to our present identity, individuality or self. Memories are impressions. These impressions may be collected together in some manner as a set. This set may be called a time track.
As the make-up of self is changing from moment to moment, self is also a part of the time track. There is no permanent ‘element’ of self owning the time track. So, any talk, such as a ‘thetan’ having a time track, is superfluous.
It is not necessary to have a moment to moment record stored somewhere. A recall could be a reconfiguration of memory from stored basic patterns, similar to visualization.
Any process to handle unwanted condition should address things that are in restimulation. These would be inconsistencies impinging on the person in present time. What needs to be sorted out is always there. There is no need to dig into the ‘memories’ or keep any notes. This makes the need for a time-track unnecessary.
.
On Clearing:
What Hubbard called Clear in Scientology is a relative condition. There may be a major release. But clearing continues as new inconsistencie comes to view in present time. Thus, the “clearing” is never absolute.
Any erasure is relative to its context. It is the resolution of inconsistency. Only thing that disappears is the inconsistency. There is no absolute erasure of actual matter, energy, space or time.
.
On Past Lives:
When a ‘memory’ does not seem to be consistent with ‘current life’, it is relegated to the category of ‘past life’. When a ‘past life’ incident presents itself in sufficient detail, accompanied by a release from some unwanted condition, it seems to lend credibility to the notion of past lives.
However, such incidents are isolated. They are reconfigured memories triggered by some inconsistency impinging on the person in present time. It may be called a reactive visualization that resolves the inconsistency. This is similar to analytical visualizations used consciously to solve problems of science and engineering. The contents of such visualizations are significant only to the degree that they resolve the problem. They are neither true nor false in some absolute sense.
One may then speculate past lives based on such isolated reactive visualizations, but such speculations do not lead to further resolution of unwanted conditions.
.
On Death:
Death has been the most fascinating subject in human history. It has spawned religions. What is observed is a sudden cessation of body’s animation.
But this cessation is not so sudden. The circulatory system fails first, which is followed almost immediately by the failure of the respiratory system. The usual chemical operations in the body starts to get suspended. The physical organs start to shut down one by one. There is a chain reaction. This is not much different from powering down a computer.
The body is a much more complex system than a computer. There are more fundamental systems underlying its electrochemical system that are yet to be fully explored. It is true that the spirit has left the body, but this is a poetic expression only. We do not fully understand how the body begins to power down at death. In spite of it suddenness, it takes a finite amount of time.
There is a similar curiosity about how a body powers up at birth. But the process of fertilization to birth is not so sudden and fascinating. There are a whole lot of connections going on in the body during this period. We do not have a clear demarkation of the moment at which the spirit enters the body.
Of course there is a spiritual aspect to the process of birth and death, but it is not so simplistic as visualized in terms of a thetan entering or leaving the body.
.
On Mental Image Pictures:
Scientology talks about a person’s having mental image pictures of the past. Such pictures are supposedly recordings of the physical universe as it goes by. All memory is supposed to be made up of such pictures. According to Dianetics the pictures of painful and unconscious moments are stored in a reactive bank in the mind. It is necessary to recall such pictures to handle one’s unwanted condition.
Is this premise of stored mental image pictures correct? Could it be possible that there is no such storage of pictures, and that the mind simply visualizes to handle inconsistencies as and when needed!
Mind processes incoming perceptions directly into action. As long as the mind is able to process data perfectly one continues to act without thinking. But the moment mind is unable to process the incoming data, an inconsistency is formed and the mind gets wound up.
Thus, winding up of the mind occurs due to stacking up of such inconsistencies. Later, when attention is put on inconsistencies, and the mind is allowed to unwind itself, it creates the visualization necessary to resolve those inconsistencies. This is very plausible because, normally, we use visualization to solve our problems.
To unwind itself, the mind may go through thousands of visualization rapidly to find the one that resolves an inconsistency. It is like Alan Turing’s machine that broke the code generated by German enigma machine through rapid iteration of computation based only on a few clues.
In short, there are no mental image pictures that are continually being recorded. There are only present time visualizations in the mind to resolve the inconsistencies impinging on a person. Resolution occurs to the degree mind is able to visualize correctly.
The chances of resolutions of inconsistencies increase as mindfulness is practiced.
.
