I'm trying to do some research on Scientology. It's a little more difficult than I thought, well not too difficult. I wonder if this kind of information isn't too widespread, because the left embraces any and all 'religion's that aren't too popular or too insistent on morality, hence cover up negative information about them.
A friend told me once that scientologists put a person in a chair, with a device that monitors emotions. Then they start spraying all sorts of emotional things at the person, and the person doesn't 'pass' until they successfully sit through the barrage of emotionally provocative things, and remain completely calm.
This is all I could find so far, although I can't do a lot of research right now due to time restraints. I can't really make sense of what the author is talking about. They assume that the person reading it already is familiar with scientology practices.
Question of the day: Is this practice, if true, good or bad?
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-a1.htmlScientology Auditing and Its Offshoots
by Robert Kaufman
L. Ron Hubbard raised Scientology from Dianetics' ashes with the aid of a device that tracks electrical resistance on skin surfaces of the "auditee's" hands during sessions. Hubbard claimed that E-meter "reads" confirmed his notions about events, images and words making up a destructive mind he called the "bank." In the auditing procedure, the readings are supposed to signify the presence and dispersal of "charge" present in the events and other "bank" material. The meter not only keeps the processing on course but also verifies the results.
Hubbard framed his theories and method in terms that thwart comparison with the rest of the world. However, we find ready comparison between the E-meter -- a biofeedback device, the tangible element in a wash of intangibility -- and the assortment of biofeedback devices used outside Scientology to monitor physiologic functions such as brainwave frequency, pulse rate and finger temperature. The readings of the non-Scientology instruments are interpreted only to the extent that their signals (dial needle, flashing light or humming tone) are deemed to indicate moment-to-moment change in a favorable or unfavorable direction.
No doubt the auditee gets "passing" and "non-passing" readings. These reflect the rise and fall of tension, and the underlying composite of mental, physical and emotional forces. A person hypothetically "wearing" biofeedback equipment through the day would get a similar variety of readings, including the equivalents of "baseline," "rising needles," "blowdowns," and "free," "floating" and "clean needles." The readings would reflect, in part, his reaction to being on the device, i.e., to situation.
Incentive, a sense of positive purpose, tends to generate the positive type of emotion that produces favorable physiologic change and improved readings. This is precisely the working principle of biofeedback training, where the trainee's object might be to slow brainwave frequency to alpha, or raise finger temperature, for health or meditation purposes. His incentive directs him to the desired result.
Incentive, of course, is also the major part of learning to pass a lie-detector test. The lie-detector is an array of biofeedback devices that supply simultaneous readings. Clearly, the very principle that makes biofeedback training possible, and useful, makes lie-detector test results inadmissible as evidence in court proceedings: One may beat the machine.
No special magic makes Scientology biofeedback different from "wog" (non-Scientology) biofeedback. Human emotion doesn't take a holiday during an auditing session. The auditee brings his hopes and dreams to the session. His prime incentive, to succeed at auditing, is channeled through the inculcation of "stable data," "R-factor," and his own auditing experience. The regimen instills how auditing is supposed to go, what should happen, and what is expected of him. He is deluged with suggestion, and may even glean the nature of his forthcoming insights from descriptions in Hubbard's writings and the "Bridge" chart, or simply from the name of the process.
The auditee begins to associate his success with the indoctrination; following the program becomes his prime incentive. When he does as Hubbard tells him he feels positive. Compliance is then reward in itself.
The auditee's motivation to get favorable readings is tremendous. With each floating needle he is closer to his shining goal. He is probably unaware that he can control the meter. In any case he wouldn't want to, for that would defeat the assumed purpose of auditing. Here emerges one of Scientology's strange contradictions: The auditee, following his natural instincts once he's on the machine, controls it anyway -- and neither he nor the auditor knows he's doing it.
To begin with, the auditee has access to the running supply of machine-generated information that constitutes biofeedback -- directly, if he is self-auditing, otherwise in the form of cues given him by his auditor. His intellect may not register this information, but his body does. He soon learns to identify a certain special feeling with end of "cycle" or process. His inner sense learns what produces a floating needle. Also what doesn't -- as when the auditor merely acknowledges and repeats the question or instruction. At some point he experiences a subtle sense of prediction about floating needles. Again, this is not his wish to influence or control the needle, but out of a feeling of accomplishment (Certainty On The Data) wedded to compliance, as well as what body-mind physiology has learned about biofeedback.
... more.