Vicar, in his short but excellent comment over on Mark C Rathbun’s blog, wrote:
“I would have to think that the deeper one follows Ron and presses on in this search for his native state, the more likely they are moving away from ever realizing it and being at peace.
Its a collapsed bridge.
Run.”
I would add this to his statement:
And what if this goal of “native state” that Ron implanted into his open, receptive and spiritually vulnerable followers never existed?
What if the idea of a “thetan” was just that – an idea?
I’m re-watching one of the best episodic TV series ever produced, “Six Feet Under”. In Season 2, Ruth joins a cult called “The Plan” where all one’s problems in life are explained through the central metaphor of a house.
The cult teaching is that “You are the Architect of the house you live in”. And followers talk about “cracks in their foundation” that have to be fixed, and other ways of re-framing their problems and working on the issues they face in life so that they come to a new viewpoint and a renewed energy to do something about them.
Listening to Ruth sit at the dinner table and preach to her children using house metaphors to describe everything in life is just hilarious.
And quite cringe-worthy if you’ve ever been a Scientologist.
Adopting a simplistic house metaphor and trying to pack your whole life into it, and then forgetting that it’s just a metaphor and your life can not possibly fit into a metaphor, perfectly illuminates the problem that thinking with a cult ideology creates.
There was no “native state” that any other person could ever describe to you.
And what a “thetan” is does not exist except in the English words used to describe it, along with the cult ideology it is fixed in.
What’s funny is that, for a while, Ruth really does improve her life using the central house metaphor – She fixes her relationships and fights against loneliness and moves from boyfriend to boyfriend in her fight to be happy after her husband has died.
So yes, the metaphor works for a while, until it doesn’t.
By the end of the season Ruth is blown from “The Plan” and back to being her depressed and lonely self again – the mental and emotional states that she was always trying to escape.
Like 99.9% of people who ever got involved in Scientology – she tried it, got some wins for a while, and left.
She did not let her whole life get derailed and retarded by thinking with a simplistic cult metaphor.
Yes. Even Ruth Fisher could tell she was in a cult.
Hubbard’s “Bridge” and “whole track” were only metaphors for the solution to all our problems.
Can you think of other cult metaphors Hubbard gave you to think with?
Some of them helped.
For a while.
Until they didn’t.
Watch Ruth telling everyone in The Plan to FUCK OFF:
On telling off the culties who are imposing simplistic metaphors and stupid slogans on your thinking!
I think the questions a person should ask themselves after Scientology are:
1. Can I tell when I am using a metaphor or some other Scientology construct to think with?
2. What reality is being represented by that metaphor or construct? And how accurate is it in describing that reality? Where does the metaphor hold up? Where does it fall down in relation to the reality?
3. Why don’t I just think with the reality instead?
If you haven’t seen the HBO series “6 Feet Under” I really recommend it.
It’s even worth a subscription to HBO to be able to have access to it.
It’s only $15 per month.
Be sure to tell them that Alanzo sent you so I can get my FSM commission.
Alanzo
Excellent post!