From what I’m reading in this thread, it sounds as though Scientology can cause people to become delusional, obtaining certainty that they were Jesus, JFK, or some other famous person in a previous life. They might be left in that state for decades, or forever, if they don’t have the additional hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to get through OT VIII to discover that that’s not who they are.
How many would actually start on the “Bridge” if they knew all this up front?
When I first encountered Scientology, over a period of a few months, I purchased all the books and read them. One of the books was
History of Man, originally titled
What to Audit. In this book Hubbard presented the idea that a human being was a composite being.
The composite consisted of individual cells, collective cells/protoplasm, synthetic entities, the Genetic Entity, and the theta being. Each of these was considered to have its own time track and, as a composite, a shared time track.
The "I" was the theta being.
Per this way of thinking, a picture contacted during auditing might not be one's own. It was just a picture. It was usually obvious as to whose picture it was.
In many cases, IMO, these pictures were simply imagination. That an e-meter may have responded, IMO, means very little, although the e-meter responding, typically, would impress Scientologists greatly.
While Hubbard gave lip service to warning about over dependence of the e-meter, he, in other writings, assured Scientologists that the unreality of implants would disappear once they saw the e-meter reads and, generally, that their e-meters would tell them.
Scientologists' views changed as the view presented to them by Hubbard changed.
In 1958, the book,
Have You Lived Before This Life? was published. It consisted of case histories of sixty two people. It reflected the view presented by Hubbard circa 1958.
When Hubbard's condition worsened dramatically in the mid 1960s, and he invented explanations to account for the worsening, and provided seeming remedies, Scientologists went along.
When Hubbard told them they were engulfed in "Body Thetans" then they were engulfed in "Body Thetans."
On New OT 8, "Hubbard" told them something again, and with their e-meters, which would also "tell them," the Scientologists, as usual, cooperated.
If Hubbard had lived another ten years, he likely would have told them something else, and Scientologists would have gone along with that.
Which returns us to those lines from Hubbard's 'Affirmations' cited on this thread.
