OT Phenomena: Scientology ghost stories for the dog days of summer!

TONY ORTEGA
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The new batch of OT Phenomena has arrived!
Our regular readers know that we have been highly critical of what was once one of the most popular things Scientology published, its monthly stories about what its “OT” members were able to accomplish with their hard-won super abilities: Moving things with their minds, saving people from accidents, and encountering free thetans at the cemetery.
For years, we enjoyed reading these ghost stories Scientologists pass off as evidence that they are gaining superpowers in Scientology’s “Operating Thetan” levels, which they can only get to after years of dedication and hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain.
In order to keep the pilgrims on the hook, Scientology’s Advance! magazine has been publishing the “OT Phenomena” column for decades, and former editor Jefferson Hawkins told us it was always the most popular feature in the publication. In the 1970s, when Jefferson was running it, the claims of super abilities were really something. We’ll never forget, for example, the OT supplicant who described leaving his body, traveling across the country in ethereal form to a hospital, and then participating in his friend’s surgery to help him pull through. Now that’s a creative use of occult prowess!
Sadly, more recent examples of the column have become rather tepid, with OTs claiming to have experienced the most trivial of coincidences. One tired example: The OT who thinks of a missing item and then it turns up.
Keep in mind, Scientologists are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for these meager superpowers.
Anyway, here is the new batch. Give us your own grades!
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OT Phenomena: Scientology ghost stories for the dog days of summer!

The new batch of OT Phenomena has arrived!

tonyortega.substack.com

I guess those 'teasers' are not permitted anymore. They tend to offer promises of future fantasy circumstances.....or winning the lottery. The dullness is probably deliberate. Nobody would remain on those OT levels offered, if these cats weren't actually still weaving stories over their communal lattes. The bloviating has become more or less clandestine. It could be a legal matter.

Seems stupid to me to publish such lame stories. They are hardly inspiring or "OT" at all. Why even bother?

PirateAndBum said:

Seems stupid to me to publish such lame stories. They are hardly inspiring or "OT" at all. Why even bother?

Click to expand...

Perhaps to subtly lower expectations, and to indoctrinate Scientologists to celebrate and overhype their marginal "wins" and "cognitions" so as to stay in the fold, be moved to continue, suppress their cognitive dissonance, and maintain "good PR". I can remember, in course rooms and at staff musters, announcing and celebrating some hardly impressive or meaningful "wins", mostly things that could only be called "wins" within the context of validating or supporting Scientology. And not very different from the irritating peer-enforced "hip hip hoorah"s that had me cringing at Scientology "events" even when I valued "the tech". Its all part of a culture of constantly trying to reinforce "how right and special what we have is". Of course, if there was much substance to that, the reinforcement would superfluous and unnecessary.

It's a consequence of yesteryear's court cases from Italy and France where family members gave evidence of how their deceased loved one became deceived. Actual promises from registrars and affidavits with claims by close friends who were told firsthand by the deceased, that with enough intensives of NOTS, any illness would go away.

There never did come any award from the Academy of Sciences for the Advanced Healing Technology.

When children and spouses discover they've been deprived of what could have been family inheritance, they go to court. Deluding a sick or aging person out of money through misrepresentations and other manipulations is taken seriously. In the case of the cherch, they started hiding profits calling them donations, and not fees paid following many D of Ps. Case programs were in writing and linked to any health condition stated in the folders. It would have a tech estimate of what was needed to resolve the 'issue'.....since All Is Mind. The C of S got its forty lashes and more, for such pie in the sky. For Miscavige, the sting is probably still there.......a very expensive warning.