Because of various problems with Blogger, I've copied everything as of November 26, 2012 over to WordPress. The new location is Ask the Scientologist. I am not deleting this blog and will still accept comments and answer questions here too, but any new articles will appear at the WordPress location. I apologize if this causes any problems.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Scientology Belief

When speaking of the processing levels of Scientology, you will hear Scientologists say that the levels are designed so that one's confront is improved at each level. When one completes one level, one can then confront the next level. Eventually, they "have enough confront" to handle the upper, confidential levels.

A very smart person I know heard that description and said, "No, it isn't confront that is increasing, it is belief. As a person's ability to believe increases, they are ready to believe the next level."

Very smart. Let me give you a very specific example.

One of the lowest processing levels in Scientology is "Grade 0". The "end phenomena" (EP) of the level is something like
Able to talk with anyone on any subject. Willing for others to talk to anyone on any subject.
and so on.

As this is a very beginning level, most Scientologists have completed it and have attested that they have gained those abilities.

But.

It is obvious and easily provable that while Scientologists can talk to a few people on a few subjects, they cannot talk to anyone on any subject. The list of people that they cannot talk to is huge: Psychiatrists, people antagonistic to Scientology, "suppressive persons", devout followers of other belief systems, those who know about Church of Scientology crimes, "wogs", reporters, and on and on. The subjects they cannot talk about is likewise endless. In fact, Scientologists are only comfortable talking with other Scientologists.

As for being willing for others to talk to anyone about anything, well, others saying anything different from the Official Church Storyline cannot be tolerated and must be stopped!

So, although Scientologists attest to having the abilities that Grade 0 promised, they obviously don't. They are very careful of whom they talk to and what is being said. They will quickly "disconnect" if the people or subject matter is "wrong". But, at the same time, they will continue to insist that, as a Grade 0 completion, they can "talk to anyone on any subject"!

Obviously, what they attested to and what they really attained does not match, so let's fix that. Let's reword the Grade 0 ability gained:
Ability to believe I can talk to anyone on any subject, despite obvious evidence it isn't true.
Ability to believe I'm willing for others to talk to anyone on any subject, even though it's just not OK.
There, fixed it. Now it makes total sense. At each level, the Scientologist gains a better ability to believe things which are observably false. As they attain the higher levels of belief, they finally become able to believe absolutely anything Hubbard and the Church of Scientology says, without question or concern.

This is how they can believe that people who have completed the highest level in Scientology, OT 8, have amazing powers -- when the OT8s they actually see are, to all appearances, ordinary people.

However, this level of blind-faith belief is difficult to attain, and only a small number of people have what it takes to make it to these elite, upper levels.