Since some of the materials which describe the $cientology cult could be
considered to be copywritten materials, I have censored myself and The
Skeptic Tank by deleting any and all possible text files which describes
the cult's hidden mythologies. I have elected to quote just a bit of the
questionable text according to the "Fair Use" legal findings afforded to
those who report. - Fredric L. Rice, The Skeptic Tank, 09/Sep/95
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From news.interserv.net!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!lamarck.sura.net!darwin.sura.net!mother.usf.edu!luna!council Mon Jul 10 17:00:32 1995
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From: "M. Council" <council@luna.cas.usf.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: anthropologist's view of auditing
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 15:09:33 -0400
Organization: University of South Florida
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Harriet Whitehead is a respected anthropologist who studied Co$ in the
alte sixties and early seventies, using the 'participant observer'
methodology of early cultural anthropologists who lived among their
objects of study, as one of the group. She says of her research:
"The research for this book was conducted in the US and UK primarily
between 1969 and 1971 under an anthropological field-training grant from
the National Institute of Mental Health." [Whitehead, p. 10]
"My participation in Scientology at the formal level enbded as the
outcome of a review auditiing session in which I admitted to enrolling
in a course at the Los Angeles Org without having notified the Org
executivews that I was conducting research. THus brought into the matter,
these executives asked me to leave. Individual friendships survived this
rupture for some times, but knowing that I would eventually publish my
research and that my viewpoint would inevitable disagree with that of my
firends if only by virtue of being that of an academic and not a
committed practitioner, I took my departure from the Org as an occasion
to diminish and soon cease my inquiries." [Whitehead, p. 43-44]
Her interest lies in the nature of religious experience and the problem
of symbolic efficacy, so her book does not come from the perpective of a
disgruntled ex-member, nor does it *directly* address the inconsistencies
of Scientology[tm] and the life of LRH.
Whitehead has a *most* interesting commentary on auditing:
"Since in the auditing session the preclear's productions are
denied the status of anything other than manifestations of Reactive Mind
-- even attempting to leave the session or falling asleep is treated as a
dramatization of one sort or another--there is no way in which he or she
can fail to conform to the patterm anticipated by Dianetic theory and, in
practice, usually little he or she can do to avoid coming up with and
running incidnets. Dianetics as a therapy, however, may come to have its
validity questioned if the preclear fails to improve or benefit from the
funning of incidents. As his suystem developed, Hubbard learned to
forestall this potential invalidation by pointing to auditor error and by
elaborating more and more nuanced rules for correct auditing. In this
way, auditing failure like "ritual failure" could be ascribed to the
violation of some minutia of the rules. Such a strategy, like the clever
turning of the preclear's objections into engrammic phrases, wwould help
to make the particular construction of reality out of which the therapy
proceeded proof against any puncture."
Whitehead, Harriet
Renunciation and Reformation: a study of conversion in an American sect.
Cornell University Press, 1987. ISBN 0801418496.
This book is part of a series "Anthropology of Contemporary Issues"
edited by Roger Sanjek.
The book is dispassionate and objective, but full of insights. In the
introduction, Whitehead notes that Hubbard ahd dies only a few months
previous to publication; she suspected many other books would be
published about Scientology[tm] at this time [implying lotsa folks
waitin for him to pop his last balloon so they can tell their stories].
SHe used a tone that suggested she thought that Scientology would die
with Hubbard, maybe not as quickly, but it woudln't live too much longer,
anyway.
[insert woody's "expansion" response here]
Interesting reading.
--------------------------------------m. council, human being
Hell, if you understood
everything I say, you'd council@luna.cas.usf.edu
be me. -Miles Davis
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