.ll 72
.fo off
.co on 
.ce ((Editor's comments in double parenthesis - Homer))
 
.ce Copyright (C) Flemming A. Funch
.ce Redistribution rights granted for non commercial purposes
 
Technical Essay # 61 - FAF 12 October 1991

.ce Heresy


Studying other subjects and earlier basics to clearing, such as Buddhism and general
semantics, it becomes increasingly clear to me that there were some artificial barriers
installed in Scientology that don't have to be there.

What we are doing is maybe clever and useful, but it is not as unique as we thought it was.
There are similarities and connections to a great many other subjects. Some much
emphasized differences are mostly constructions of language and don't actually exist.

Hypnosis

LRH admitted that he used hypnosis in the research of Dianetics, but otherwise he
emphasized that this was exactly the opposite and he expounded the insidious dangers of
hypnosis. I could see some justification for doing that. However, anyone studying a bit of
hypnosis can determine that Book One auditing basically is hypnosis.

He subsequently removed some of the most obvious hypnosis elements, such as the
counting, the canceller, laying on a couch, etc. However, what remains is that any type of
clearing is based on some level of suggestion. Hypnosis can be defined as a relaxed state
where one is open to the directions of the practitioner.

When the pc is "in session" he is in a somewhat altered state where he is in a better position
to make changes in himself than outside in his everyday life. Experienced pcs go into that
state just by sitting down and taking up the cans. That in itself tends to produce an F/N in the
expectation of the wins of the session.

Many techniques of clearing don't work unless there is an expectation from the client that
they will. The suggestion can be as simple as the practitioner with his attitude implying that
this will give a positive result, but it is still suggestion. Most clearing techniques would not
work in a completely clinical experiment with completely neutral participants.

None of this is bad. As a matter of fact it is useful to know in order to ensure good results with
clients.

Meditation

Most good scientologists would consider meditation a dangerous other practice. This is sort
of funny because they do quite a bit of it themselves.

Knowing just the most simple basics of meditation it is quite obvious that TR0 is meditation.

Sitting down quietly, trying to do nothing, and working though the various phenomena that
come up, well, that is a basic meditation technique.

Many other drills and processes could also be regarded as advanced types of meditation.
Doing a simple thing and them working through the appearing phenomena until a stable
state is a meditative technique. There are buddhist monks who do simple objective
processes as meditation.

Incidentally, clearing that is over-done can have some of the same drawbacks as meditation,
namely that the person becomes detached from life and feels great, but doesn't have much
desire to do anything.

Freud

The idea of the reactive mind bears strong resemblance to Freud's ideas of the unconscious.
LRH took over his idea of the unconscious being a screwed-up jumble of unwanted material.
Freud also had experimented with running of incidents in chains, but gave it up.

It should be noted that the theory of the sub-conscious being unwanted is by no means the
only way of looking at it. Other schools of thought hold the idea that the sub-conscious
basically does a lot of good things for you, but that it might need some adjustments.

Regression

Except for the obvious parallels with Freud's work, a great many other therapies use incident
running techniques quite similar to Dianetics. Re-evaluation Counselling, Gestalt Therapy,
Rebirthing, hypnosis, etc. They follow incidents in chains and try to run out basics etc.

Many of these other practices have been inspired by Dianetics. But, whatever their origins, a
great many people are running engrams and calling it different things. Many of these
approaches have quite useful techniques that we also could benefit from.

Entities

Just as many groups run entities in various ways: psychic healers, neuro-cellular
repatterning, the Huna religion, etc.

Channeling

You can't really run entities without channeling. And you can't really get sudden bright ideas
without getting them from somewhere, which is a form of channeling.

What very often gets in the way is simply the words. If you close off your mind to what other
people are doing just because they call it something else, you are going to miss out on some
things.

My attitude is one of integrating what we have with whatever else is out there, so that the
most useful principles and techniques can be used as widely as possible. Once I started
looking I realized that the other guys weren't nearly as far off the target as I had been led to
believe.

The unwillingness to look at what is there is about the most unfortunate attitude that one can
have in the field of change.