I agree with this ‘devil’

“The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil.”

—C.S. LEWIS

By Alex P. Vidal


MY friend, Willie Andrew G. Branum, a "devil" who once threatened to swallow whole every priest he would meet in the road on his way home, once showed to me a book he spotted while we were busy ransacking a box full of second hand books in the ground floor of SM City in Iloilo City.
The Will the Devil exclaimed, "Gotcha! At last, I found it."
The book, American Caesar, was about the exploits of Gen. Douglas MacArthur by William Manchester.
Manchester paints a sympathetic but balanced portrait of MacArthur, praising the general for his military genius, administrative skill, and personal bravery, while criticizing his vanity, paranoia, and tendency toward insubordination. 
As the title suggests, Manchester's central thesis is that MacArthur was an analogue of Julius Caesar, a proposition he supports by noting their great intellect, brilliant strategic generalship, political ambition, magnanimity as conquerors, and shared tragic flaw of hubris.
"The problem is," bemoaned Willie the Devil, "this book, as well as other classical books, are beyond the reach of ordinary people. Very expensive if to be bought directly from regular bookstores. It is supposed to be the obligation of the government to make all those great books accessible to everybody—even to members of the society's hoi polloi."
Willie the Devil further thundered: "If those idiots in government can enrich themselves by committing graft and corruption while in office, why can't they do something to help alleviate ignorance in our country?" 


POVERTY


The Devil had a casus belli or cause for war. 
He pointed out that the root cause of poverty in the Philippines is “due to ignorance.” 
When citizens are ignorant, their opportunities to advance their economic well-being are limited if not stymied. They can easily be subjugated and mesmerized.
And because of ignorance, they elect fellow ignoramuses such as comedians, action stars, basketball three-pointers, and other ridiculous showbiz characters into higher office--only to add insult to their injury and rob them of their dignity down to their last cents.
Also, both the Devil and yours truly agreed that "there seems to be a conspiracy between the oligarchs and religious authorities to deny people the chance to have access on classical books -- books that will liberate the mind and open the floodgates of philosophical and scientific inquiries en route to searching for knowledge and truth."


EXPENSIVE  


Important books about science, history, geometry, psychology, astronomy, environment, physics, religion, sociology, biography, medicine, and philosophy are gathering cobwebs and decaying in bookstores not because nobody could locate them, but because they are too expensive. 
A low-income earner intending to read any of the books will have to prioritize first the food for his family and agonize that he can't even begin reading the first chapter of those books.
History shows that the educated man--the intellectual--has given the best government and achieved the best results when given the opportunity.
Alexander the Great was an intellectual. 
His teacher was Aristotle and he acquired all the learning of his day. 
After talking with Diogenes in his tub at Corinth he remarked, "Were I not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes."
Julius Caesar was a learned man. His Commentaries had not been excelled for two thousand years until another intellectual came along to make history and record it--Winston Churchill.


SCHOLAR


Marcus Aurelius was a great scholar and intellectual. He had a true conception of the universe and his idea of God would be acceptable to most people today above the second-year-high-school level.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a prodigious reader. It is recorded that in his headquarters in Waterloo, with the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, he had a mobile library of some 800 books--most of them on history, science, and philosophy.
Queen Elizabeth I, who ushered in the era of Britain's glory, understood the value of education and learning. 
Frederick the Great was a scholar. He kept Voltaire by his side and subsidized as many men of talent as his coffers would allow. England put emphasis on intellectuals, and elevated her educated men to positions of highest power--Burke, Disraeli, Gladstone, Balfour.


VICTORY


The victory of 600,000 Israelis against 12 million Arabs was won by a group of intellectuals who laid the foundation of the great nation. 
George Washington's greatness was due in no little measure to his tremendous respect for intellectuals. Benjamin Franklin, of course, stands out. 
Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, bitter political enemies, had one thing in common. They were both learned men in history, political science, and philosophy. 
It is interesting to read the titles of the books Franklin had in his library. 
There was the Bible, Euclid, Shakespeare, Homer's Iliad, Plutarch's Lives. 
A man could spend two lifetimes studying those five books.

EVEN A PHILOSOPHER FORGETS HIS AGE

EVEN A PHILOSOPHER 
FORGETS HIS AGE

By ALEX P. VIDAL

When asked by a lady, a fellow lawyer, how old is he, a living philosopher goofed, nay hesitated: "I'm seventy...sssssee-ven!"

If you were born in 1931 and the question about your age was asked in 2011, that means you are 80, not seventy...ssssee-ven! 

Nonetheless, I was so rude to laugh in front of the living philosopher while the lady guest was listening. It turned out the philosopher was nursing a fever and was coy to admit it. My apologies, Mr. Socrates!

Non-issue. Everybody forgets something; we all forget dates and mathematical figures. We either forget our age or we deliberately violate geometry if we can't avoid the question. A graduating mass communication student doing internship in our publication told me in 1999, "Sir, we have been told by our professor to refrain from asking about a person's age. I won't ask about your age but I figure you are in your early 20s."  I retorted, "I will neither confirm nor deny it because I don't find it comfortable talking about my age. Let's just talk about history instead." 

"Sure. Let's include also the topic about sex, about Sigmund Freud and the Oedipus Complex since I don't know my biological father," she snapped back smiling. 

THINKER

Plato, second greatest thinker in history of all time next to Confucius, according to Dr. Will Durant, died on his sleep after a night of dancing. He was 83. Since Dante wasn't yet born at that time and hadn't yet written his Divine Comedy, nobody could tell whether Plato, the precursor of dualism, went to heaven or hell. We can only surmise he died dancing in the clouds. 

Sophocles, the Greek tragic poet, cried out for joy on his 80th birthday: "Thank God it's over."

But perhaps Sophocles might not have written an Antigone, if "it" had indeed ended for him before he was 80, and perhaps Caesar might not have felt his mark on the Western world if his soldiers had not been able to use their old marching song: "Men of Rome, lock up your wives, our General has arrived."

It certainly did not affect the work of Emperor Justinian of Rome whose wife was Theodora, and quite a girl. The story of Theodora's sex life is not well known to us because it is all in Latin, written down by her biographer, Procopius, and unprintable in the English language, even in this age of Lady Gaga and iPod. But the amazing Theodora did not seem to affect the work of Justinian, who gave the Western world its legal code.

DEATH

As we grow older we are more and more concerned with death; the death of others, of course.

"What did he die for?"; "How long was he sick?"; and "How old was he?" This is the most important of all. When a fellow dies who was 55, and you are 56--that's bad. You feel that perhaps they are beginning to call up your class, and the only thing you can do is toy with the idea that maybe the guy was really more than the age given in the obituary.

Thornton Wilder, in his magnificent novel, Ides of March, quotes the great man of antiquity, "Let us welcome old age that frees us from that desire for their embraces--embraces which must be paid for at the cost of all order in our lives and any tranquility in our minds."

Caesar was assassinated long before he reached "old age," but would it really have made any difference? Of course not. The day that Caesar hoped for never comes for any man.

W.E. H. Lecky quotes from the writings of St. Gregory the Great. When celibacy was introduced into the priesthood it was not retroactive--those who had wives were permitted to remain married. St. Gregory the Great describes the virtue of a priest who, through motives of piety, had discarded his wife. As he lay dying, she hastened to him to watch the bed which, for 40 years previously, she had been allowed to share, and bending over what seemed the inanimate form of her husband, she tried to ascertain whether any breath remained when the dying saint, collecting his last energies, exclaimed, "Women, be gone, there is fire yet!"

WISH 

Before he died, Benjamin Franklin said to his wife, "Debbie, I have only one wish: I'd like to come back to earth a hundred years from now to see what progress has been made."

This, of course, may be said by every human being of every age, and at every hour. The "next hundred years" will always be momentous, no matter when it is your time to go. 

The most sensible attitude is to do our job and finish the thing out with as few complications as possible. Marcus Aurelius (180 B.C.) said: 

"Consider that the great universe, of which thou art only a trivial speck, is governed by fixed laws, and be therefore content in all things, and especially to die at any time, and abide God's will of thee, whether of individual future life, or dissolution into universal mind and matter."

Adultery as proof of 'loyalty'

"If Magellan did not Christianize the Philippines, we would have been ruled by Muslims and the most dominant religion today would have been Islam."

By Alex P. Vidal


WHEN the Spanish expedition led by Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippine archipelago on March 16, 1521, Reformation was already fast spreading in Europe. 
Rev. Martin Luther was the precursor of Protestant movement when he posted 95 Theses in the Cathedral that infuriated both Pope Leo X and King Charles V.
Luther was declared an outlaw by the emperor at the Diet of Worms in 1521 and was excommunicated by the pope.
If Magellan did not Christianize the Philippines, we would have been ruled by Muslims and the most dominant religion today would have been Islam.
Muslims, by the way, are allowed by their Koran to have multiple wives. 
If our national religion is Islam, many Filipino males today will have more than one wife--as long as they can afford to rear multiple families. 
No need to maintain a concubine.


RESTORED 


In Europe, when Charles II was restored to the throne after the death of Oliver Cromwell, the five judges who had sentenced Charles I to death were arrested and convicted of treason against the Crown. This was the final sentence:
You shall go from hence to the place from whence you came, and from that place shall be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution,  and there shall hang by the neck 'till you are half dead, and shall be cut down alive, and your privy members cut off before your face and thrown into the fire, your belly ripped up and your bowels burst, your head to be severed from your body, your body shall be divided into four quarters, and disposed of as His Majesty shall think fit.
Thus began a historic era, which interestingly enough has had its parallel in our own day. 
We have all seen how folks have become superpatriots and vigilantes out of fear that they may be suspected of subversion.


INTERESTING


This happened in a more interesting way at the beginning of the reign of Charles II. 
The Puritans (who were now the traitors) had imposed a very strict moral code upon the people, which brought in its wake the same old villainy which has oppressed people through all the ages; being reported by friends, neighbors, and their own children for violating Puritan taboos against sex, dancing, kissing on the Sabbath, play acting, and gaiety of any kind. 
Thus the best way you could show your loyalty to the Crown was--to have fun.
Adultery was the most convenient way to prove that you had never been a follower of Oliver Cromwell, and the folks went--all out. 
If a man and woman were on a journey and they suspected the coachman of being a Government agent, they went to all sorts of extremes to prove their "loyalty" and throw the fellow off the track.
And so when the coachman peeked, and saw what was going on back there, he shrugged his shoulders: "Those people are all right, they ain't no Puritans."

'RYAN REPORT' ON CHILD ABUSE INSPIRES IRISH NATIONAL TO SEEK JUSTICE

'RYAN REPORT' ON CHILD ABUSE INSPIRES 
IRISH NATIONAL TO SEEK JUSTICE

BY ALEX P. VIDAL

Although no one has been prosecuted over the discoveries made by the Ryan Report, Iloilo-based Irish national Thomas Patrick Joseph "Tom" Doyle said he will continue to wage a legal battle against those responsible for abusing him when he was a child and thousands of other victims of child abuse in Ireland.

The Ryan Report on child abuse cases in Ireland has been tagged as "cover up" in an article written by Steve James for Social Affairs.

"My priority for the moment is to pursue the complaint I filed against the solicitor (government lawyer) that represented me (in my case against the Congregation of Christian Brothers, St. Mary's Province in Ireland)," Doyle, 75, said in an exclusive interview.

The solicitor, Peter McDonnell & Associates based in Dublin, allegedly did not help him get the compensation that he deserves as alleged victim of child abuse.

In his complaint which he plans to submit to the European Court, Doyle, now a resident of Zone 8 Calumpang, Molo, Iloilo City, alleged that he suffered physical and mental abuses and sufferings he "endured when I was a pupil at the Artane Industrial School in Dublin sometime in the years 1945 to 1946 and 1947 to 1953."

APPLIED

"I applied with the Residential Institution Redress Board for damages and was represented by the above mentioned Solicitor before the Board," read Dolye's complaint.

"Through my said Solicitor, the Residential Institution Redress Board offered an award of 60,500 Euro to me which said Solicitor advised me to accept. I instructed said Solicitor to reject the offered award as I believe the amount is too low to compensate me for all my sufferings.

"My said Solicitor however, despite my avowed manifestation that I will not accept the proposed award, sent me correspondents which make me feel that I am being intimidated and pressured to accept the proposed award. Worse, I received correspondence, dated 24th April 2007, from my Solicitor with an enclosed cheque in the sum of 60,500 Euro, which is the offered award, which is an utter defiance of my very instructions given them that is to reject the said offered award.

"It appears to me that my Solicitor, in accepting the award and sending me the cheque, against and contrary to my very instruction, is not working for and in my behalf and favour. I believe that I am not being properly represented by said Solicitors before the Board."

Doyle has been asking for his medical expenses, among other expenses for the "permanent disability" he allegedly suffered from the torture incidents. He wanted 80,000 euro. 

REPRESENTATIVE

A representative of the Solicitor, Caitriona Cannon, had earlier informed Doyle that "the Redress Board shall not pay for any expenses for which receipts/invoices are not produced."

Cannon had asked Doyle to furnish them receipts/invoices "for medical conditions which occured as a result of your time in the school."

"A random figure on its own is not enough," Cannon told Doyle. "As already advised there will not be a second offer. You are now in a queue for a hearing date and I have requested money in advance for you to travel to Ireland for the hearing. I shall let you know as soon as I have a hearing date."

Doyle disputed Cannon on receipts/invoices saying he had already presented the "clinical case summary" report from his psychiatrist, Dr. Rowena G. Cosca of St. Paul's Hospital in Iloilo City which diagnosed him with "post traumatic stress disorder."

REPORT

In her report, Cosca stressed that when Doyle was about 9 and a half years old and studying religion at Artane Industrial School, "he was physically and emotionally abused by the religious brothers."

"He suffered injuries on most part of his bodies," reported Cosca. "He was not able to walk for a couple of months. There was no medical consultation because they kept the incident confidential. The abuse was repeated several times until he was 16 years old."

The psychiatrist observed that "after the abuse, patient was angry at the Catholic Church and refused to pray. He had repeated nightmares and flash backs even up to the present. Every time he had flashbacks, patient was irritable and had violent reaction. His irritability and violent tendencies had an effect to his job and wife. He wanted to shoot every priest he saw on the street. If he was not able to express his anger, the patient was anxious and restless. His wife had difficulty in controlling him after he had flashbacks."

"According to the Solicitor, I am not entitled to damages for my broken hip; but the Ryan Report says I'm entitled. There is a contradiction here," bewailed Doyle. 

SUE

Doyle said he is suing the Solicitor for 6.6 million euro. He also wants 2 billion euros "as a lump sum payment for all the sufferings I got since I was a child," he said. "I will let the European Court decide on this. They might award me more."

The Solicitor, Doyle said, is representing about 20,000 other victims. Each of them is also entitled to millions in damages, he said, and the Redress Board has set aside billions of euros for payment of damages.  

James, in his story entitled, "Irish child abuse: The Ryan report cover-up" reported that "For all the details of sadistic physical, sexual, emotional abuse, neglect and brutalization of children in Ireland's industrial school system, the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) is a cover up.

"Nine years of hearings, the probing of hundreds of childhood hells, have resulted in a huge report--five volumes and 3,000 pages--which will not lead to the prosecution of those individually or collectively guilty of crimes against thousands of children. Neither has political responsibility been attributed."

The report by Judge Sean Ryan reportedly continues to obscure the role of the Catholic Church, which is an essential element of the Irish state, "and successive governments in operating a cruel workhouse system through which at least 170,000 children passed through in the middle decades of the tweenteth century."

SIX REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS THAT CHANGE THE WORLD

SIX REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS 

THAT CHANGE THE WORLD

By Alex P. Vidal

In anticipation of the meeting in Iloilo City last Saturday (Oct. 15, 2011) between two lawyers from different ages--one a philosopher and the other a student of philosophy--I raided my small library two days earlier and picked from among my collection of books Paul Strathern's The Big Idea Collected, a book that contains six revolutionary ideas that changed the world.

I wanted to incorporate the scientific and philosophical ideas in the book with the "Socrates of Iloilo" and living philosopher, Atty. Ernesto Justiniani Dayot's subject matter on paradigm shift from Kepler to Copernicus to Newton to Einstein while Atty. Jen Baligat, a devout Catholic and philosophy student, was listening. 

The Big Idea series introduces the finest scientific minds in history--focusing on each scientist's one defining discovery or invention that permanently changed the way we live and view the world. 

Brief, entertaining, and informative, The Big Idea books, written by the same author of The Philosophers in 90 Minutes, provide readers with the keys to a better understanding of the universe.

SIX IDEAS

NEWTON AND GRAVITY. An often witty and always informative look at the father of physics--his work, his eccentricities, and his "Big Idea" about what keeps us all from spinning into space.

EINSTEIN AND RELATIVITY. A brilliant elucidation of the theory of relativity and a fascinating look at the man who changed the face of the 20th century.

HAWKING AND BLACK HOLES. An insightful look at the visionary work and iron will of Stephen Hawking--featuring an easy-to-grasp explanation of his monumental and important bestseller "A Brief History of Time."

CURIE AND RADIOACTIVITY. A detailed and fascinating account of the tumultuous, passionate life and works of Marie Curie, one of the most exceptional--and most misunderstood--scientists of the 20th century.

TURING AND THE COMPUTER. A clear and accessible explanation of the genesis of the computer, and a fascinating look at the man who helped develop it, only to be forgotten by the world he had transformed.

CRICK, WATSON, AND DNA. A witty snapshot of these two scientists' lives and work that brilliantly encapsulates how DNA changed our understanding of evolution--and, in fact, our entire conception of life.

London-based Strathern explains in the book that a good case can be for Isaac Newton being "the finest mind humanity has yet produced." 

He stresses that "William Shakespeare used language as no other, Napoleon (Bonaparte) used personality as no other--but no one has ever extended the limits of human understanding quite so drastically as Newton."

Newton's work represents an evolutionary advance in our thinking--one giant leap for mankind, stresses the author, who has lectured in philosophy and mathematics at Kingston University.

Here's what Strathern observes more about Newton: Long before we landed on the moon (or even considered doing so), Newton's mathematics paved the way for such a feat. Before Newton, the moon was part of the heavens, subject to unknown heavenly laws of its own. After him it became a satellite of earth, kept in orbit by the planet's gravitational pull. Humanity had its first glimpse of how the entire universe worked.

DISCOVERY

But the discovery of universal gravity was only the most major of Newton's many major discoveries. The concept of force, calculus, the nature of light, the theory of mechanics, the binominal series, Newton's method in numerical analysis--the list goes on and on.

More units, and scientific and mathematical entities, are named after Newton than after any other scientist. The newton (the si, or internationally agreed unit force), Newtonian fluid, Newton's formula (for lenses), Newton's rings (in optics), the Newton quotient (in differentiation) and many more--each the direct result of his work.

Yet all this was only possible because Newton arrived at the right moment in history. Just as Dante could only have written his Divine Comedy within the rigid all-embracing hierarchy of the Middle Ages, so Newton could only have made his discoveries after Copernicus and Galileo had freed the scientific mind from those same rigidities.

As Newton himself confessed: "If I have seen a little farther than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants." The chains of medieval restraint had fallen away, and the door of human knowledge had opened upon a new world. In Newton's view, he had achieved little. "I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

MODESTY

The modesty exhibited here is of course dwarfed by the oceanic vision--which he alone was in a position to see. An implication that Newton may well have intended. He was not by nature modest.

So what kind of man was the possessor of the greatest intellect in history? In general, Newton's contemporaries came to regard him much as we in the 20th century and new millennium regarded Einstein. 

"A tame eccentric, member of a rare protected species, the absentminded genius of unquestionable moral stature: a distant but faintly lovable figure--vouchsafed enormous gravitas by the sheer weight of his achievements," Strathern elaborates. In his time, Newton was the solitary scholar chosen by his peers as MP for Cambridge University, the revered president of the Royal Society reelected unopposed year after year, the Master of the Royal Mint feared and hated by the counterfeiters of the London underworld. 

"As is so often the case, it was the common people who recognized the man for what he was. For beneath the austere public facade lay a deeply disturbed and vindictive personality, harboring his own illicit secrets," concludes Strathern.

One of the most popular books about modern science and mental health

BY ALEX P. VIDAL

One of the most accessible and available books we always see when we go to the bookstores here and abroad is L. Ron Hubbard's "Dianetics". This book competes with the Holy Bible and Webster's Dictionary in terms of visibility and probably number of copies sold and displayed in bookstores.

In book sales, Dianetics is dominant and affordable; sometimes it costs an incredible P20! My friend, Atty. Ernesto Justiniani Dayot, got a copy, an "anniversary issue" for only P12 last September 28 in a book sale in Atrium Mall in Iloilo City. A brand new copy is priced at P375.

Dianetics is a set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body that was invented by the science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard and is practiced by followers of Scientology. Hubbard coined Dianetics from the Greek stems dia, meaning through, and nous, meaning mind.

Dianetics explores the existence of a mind with three parts: the conscious "analytical mind," the subconscious "reactive mind", and the somatic mind. The goal of Dianetics is to remove the "reactive mind", which Scientologists believe prevents people from becoming more ethical, more aware, happier and saner. The Dianetics procedure to achieve this is called "auditing". Auditing is a process whereby a series of questions are asked by the Scientology auditor, in an attempt to rid the auditee of the painful experiences of the past which scientologists believe to be the cause of the "reactive mind".

PERSONAL

According to Wikipedia, Dianetics grew out of Hubbard's personal experiences and experiments and has been described as a mix of "Western technology and Oriental philosophy". Hubbard stated that Dianetics "forms a bridge between" cybernetics and General Semantics, a set of ideas about education originated by Alfred Korzybski that was receiving much attention in the science fiction world in the 1940s. Hubbard claimed that Dianetics can increase intelligence, eliminate unwanted emotions and alleviate a wide range of illnesses he believed to be psychosomatic. Among the conditions purportedly treated against are arthritis, allergies, asthma, some coronary difficulties, eye trouble, ulcers, migraine headaches, sex deviations and even death. Hubbard variously defined Dianetics as "a spiritual healing technology" and "an organized science of thought."

Dianetics predates Hubbard's classification of Scientology as "applied religious philosophy". Early in 1951, he expanded his writings to include teachings related to the soul, or "thetan". Dianetics is also practiced by independent groups, collectively called the Free Zone. The Church of Scientology disapproves of Free Zone activities and has prosecuted them in court for misappropriation of Scientology/Dianetics copyrights and trademarks.

IDEAS

Hubbard always claimed that his ideas of Dianetics originated in the 1920s and 1930s. By his own account, he spent a great deal of time in the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital's library, where he would have encountered the work of Freud and other psychoanalysts. In April 1950, Hubbard and several others established the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey to coordinate work related for the forthcoming publication. Hubbard first introduced Dianetics to the public in the article Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science published in the May 1950 issue of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction. Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health at that time, allegedly completing the 180,000-word book in six weeks.

The success of selling Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health brought in a flood of money, which Hubbard used to establish Dianetics foundations in six major American cities. The scientific and medical communities were far less enthusiastic about Dianetics, viewing it with bemusement, concern, or outright derision. Complaints were made against local Dianetics practitioners for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. This eventually prompted Dianetics advocates to disclaim any medicinal benefits in order to avoid regulation.

Hubbard explained the backlash as a response from various entities trying to co-opt Dianetics for their own use. Hubbard blamed the hostile press coverage in particular on a plot by the American Communist Party. In later years, Hubbard decided that the psychiatric profession was the origin of all of the criticism of Dianetics, as he believed it secretly controlled most of the world's governments.

FINANCIAL

By the autumn of 1950, financial problems had developed, and by November 1950, the six Foundations had spent around one million dollars and were more than $200,000 in debt. Disagreements emerged over the direction of the Dianetic Foundation's work, and relations between the board members became strained, with several leaving, even to support causes critical of Dianetics. One example was Harvey Jackins, founder of Re-evaluation Counselling, originally a sort of discrete reworking of Dianetics, which L Ron Hubbard later declared suppressive to Scientology.

In January 1951, the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners instituted proceedings against the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation in Elizabeth for teaching medicine without a licence. The Foundation closed its doors, causing the proceedings to be vacated, but its creditors began to demand settlement of its outstanding debts. Don Purcell, a millionaire Dianeticist from Wichita, Kansas, offered a brief respite from bankruptcy, but the Foundation's finances failed again in 1952.

Because of a sale of assets resulting from the bankruptcy, Hubbard no longer owned the rights to the name "Dianetics", but its philosophical framework still provided the seed for Scientology to grow. Scientologists refer to the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health as "Book One." In 1952, Hubbard published a new set of teachings as "Scientology, a religious philosophy." Scientology did not replace Dianetics but extended it to cover new areas. Where the goal of Dianetics is to rid the individual of his reactive mind engrams, the stated goal of Scientology is to rehabilitate the individual's spiritual nature so that he may reach his full potential.

NEW ERA

In 1978, Hubbard released New Era Dianetics (NED), a revised version supposed to produce better results in a shorter period of time. The course consists of 11 rundowns and requires a specifically trained auditor. It is run (processed) exactly like Standard Dianetics (once very widely practiced before the advent of NED) except the pre-clear (parishioner) is encouraged to find the "postulate" he made before the incident occurred. ("Postulate" in Dianetics and Scientology has the meaning of "a conclusion, decision or resolution made by the individual himself; to conclude, decide or resolve a problem or to set a pattern for the future or to nullify a pattern of the past" in contrast to its conventional meanings.)

New Era Dianetics is really only a prelude to what is available at the high levels of the Bridge including the incidents: New Era Dianetics for OTs also known as NOTS. It is available after Xenu and the now well known First Wall of Fire. NOTS is also known as the Second Wall of Fire. Free Zone (Scientology) offers a version of it in the Internet

The procedure of Dianetics therapy (known as auditing) is a two-person activity. One person, the "auditor", guides the other person, the "preclear". The preclear's job is to look at the mind and talk to the auditor. The auditor acknowledges what the preclear says and controls the process so the preclear may put his full attention on his work.

STEPS

The auditor and preclear sit down in chairs facing each other. The process then follows in eleven distinct steps:

1. The auditor assures the preclear that he will be fully aware of everything that happens during the session.

2. The preclear is instructed to close his eyes for the session, entering a state of "dianetic reverie", signified by "a tremble of the lashes". During the session, the preclear remains in full possession of his will and retains full recall thereafter.

3. The auditor installs a "canceller", an instruction intended to absolutely cancel any form of positive suggestion that could accidentally occur. This is done by saying "In the future, when I utter the word 'cancelled,' everything I have said to you while you are in a therapy session will be cancelled and will have no force with you. Any suggestion I may have made to you will be without force when I say the word 'cancelled.' Do you understand?"

4. The auditor then asks the preclear to locate an exact record of something that happened to the preclear in his past: "Locate an incident that you feel you can comfortably face."

5. The preclear is invited by the auditor to "Go through the incident and say what is happening as you go along."

6a. The auditor instructs the preclear to recall as much as possible of the incident, going over it several times "until the preclear is cheerful about it".

6b. When the preclear is cheerful about an incident, the auditor instructs the preclear to locate another incident: "Let's find another incident that you feel you can comfortably face." The process outlined at steps 5 and 6a then repeats until the auditing session's time limit (usually two hours or so) is reached.

7. The preclear is instructed to "return to present time".

8. The auditor checks to make sure that the preclear feels himself to be in "present time", i.e. not still recalling a past incident.

9. The auditor gives the preclear the canceller word: "Very good. Cancelled."

10. The auditor tells the preclear to feel alert and return to full awareness of his surroundings: "When I count from five to one and snap my fingers you will feel alert. Five, four, three, two, one." (snaps fingers)

CONFIDENTIAL

Auditing sessions are kept confidential. This has come into question, though, that confidential information has been used to blackmail possible defectors. However, a few transcripts of auditing sessions with confidential information removed have been published as demonstration examples. Some extracts can be found in Dr. J.A. Winter's book Dianetics: A Doctor's Report. Other, more comprehensive, transcripts of auditing sessions carried out by Hubbard himself can be found in volume 1 of the Research & Discovery Series (Bridge Publications, 1980). Examples of public group processing sessions can be found throughout the Congress Lecture series.

According to Hubbard, auditing enables the preclear to "contact" and "release" engrams stored in the reactive mind, relieving him of the physical and mental aberrations connected with them. The preclear is asked to inspect and familiarize himself with the exact details of his own experience; the auditor may not tell him anything about his case or evaluate any of the information the preclear finds.

The validity and practice of auditing have been questioned by a variety of non-Scientologist commentators. Commenting on the example cited by Winter, the science writer Martin Gardner asserts that "nothing could be clearer from the above dialogue than the fact that the dianetic explanation for the headache existed only in the mind of the therapist, and that it was with considerable difficulty that the patient was maneuvered into accepting it."

Other critics and medical experts have suggested that Dianetic auditing is a form of hypnosis, although the Church of Scientology has strongly denied that hypnosis forms any part of Dianetics. To the contrary, L. Ron Hubbard expressedly warns not to use any hypnosis or hypnosis-like methods, because a person under hypnosis would be receptive to suggestions. This would decrease his self-determinism instead of increasing it, which is one of the prime goals of Dianetics. Winter (1950) comments that the leading nature of the questions asked of a preclear "encourage fantasy", a common issue also encountered with hypnosis, which can be used to form false memories. The auditor is instructed not to make any assessment of a recalled memory's reality or accuracy, but instead to treat it as if it were objectively real. Professor Richard J. Ofshe, a leading expert on false memories, suggests that the feeling of well-being reported by preclears at the end of an auditing session may be induced by post-hypnotic suggestion. According to Hubbard: "Laughter is definitely the relief of painful emotion."

According to Hubbard, the majority of the people interested in the subject believed they could accomplish therapy alone. "It cannot be done" and he adds: "If a patient places himself in autohypnosis and regresses himself in an effort to reach illness or birth or prenatals, the only thing he will get is ill".

Crying With Someone Is More Healing Than Crying Alone

Crying With Someone Is More 
Healing Than Crying Alone


By Alex P. Vidal

Let's listen to Regina Brett in her "Lesson 7" essay on "God Never Blinks." I love going to movies. You can sit in the dark and weep away anonymously. Sometimes I cry over the film, sometimes over anything I've needed to cry about in the past few weeks. I use a good sad movie to catch up on all the tears I've stifled and held in too long.
Anyone who knows me well has seen me cry. My daughter teases me because I cry over Kodak commercials, over sappy TV dramas where you can predict the ending even before they cue the schmaltzy music.
All my life I've been a crier. Every day of grade school I cried about something. If an injustice was done to me or to anyone else, I cried. My siblings teased me for being a baby; so did my classmates and a few teachers. I couldn't help it. When I felt something, it came out my tear ducts. For years I tried to hold in the tears. My goal was to get through a whole day of grade school without crying. I finally did it--in the eight grade.
I was in second grade when President John F. Kennedy died. The nuns at Immaculate Conception School held the First Lady up as a pillar of strength for not shedding a public tear. Jackie was the perfect widow, the perfect woman, the perfect Catholic. The world watched her in the black veil and saw a noble, dignified, and stoic widow who never broke down sobbing over his casket, not even when little John John saluted as it passed.

MARY


The nuns compared her to Mary, the mother of Jesus. They told us that Mary didn't cry. Not even when she stood at the foot of the cross. Not even when she held her dead son. Not at his tomb. Never. For years I believed them.
Decades later, I read that Jackie Kennedy used to spend time alone on a friend's boat grieving over her husband's death. She waited until she was far out to sea, looked out over the vast ocean, and wept over how much she missed him. By the time I was done reading the article, I, too, was crying. How sad to have to hide your years, especially tears of such deep sorrow.
I wonder what those nuns would say about her now. Come to think of it, I don't know if those nuns ever cried during my eight years of Catholic school. If they did, they never let us see it. Maybe tears were unholy under the old rules of the Church.
Many years after grade school ended, the movie Jesus of Nazareth came out. I love the scene where Mary stands at the foot of the cross in the pouring rain, crying over the death of her son. She's not crying, she's wailing and weeping. This Mary weeps like a mother who has lost her son, not a saint bowing to God's most holy will. She weeps like all of us would want to but are afraid to.

SIGN


Most of us were taught that tears are a sign of weakness. If you get upset at work, you go into the bathroom to cry. You hide in a stall and muffle the sobs with gobs of toilet tissue. Read any business article about how women can get ahead in the corporate world and they all warn: no tears. Don't ever let them see you cry.
If you cry out in the open, people try to stop you. It makes them uncomfortable. It's socially unacceptable. Worse than swearing. In fact, most people are more comfortable with someone swearing than crying. To cry openly shows a lack of control, a loss of power. In a culture that values strength, even tearing up is unacceptable.
All my life, I tried to become stronger by crying less. But whenever I held the sadness in, my face grew red, my cheeks hurt, and the tears escaped no matter how hard I tried to squeeze them back.
Then one day a counselor told me that those tears were an asset. Carol said they were part of me, just like my blue eyes and brown hair. "What a wonderful gift, to feel so intensely," she said.
The best advice I ever got on crying was to do it with someone. Carol told me that crying alone isn't as powerful as crying with another person. Cry alone and you'll keep crying those same tears over and over. Cry with someone and those tears have the power to heal you once and for all.

SAINT


When I was getting my master's degree in religious studies, I read a book about a saint who nearly lost his vision because he cried so much and so often. Saint Ignatius, who founded the Jesuits, considered his tears to be a great gift from God. He inspired me to write a 22-page paper on the gift of tears.
Ignatius was a macho military man bent on knighthood and the pursuit of happiness through women and power until a cannonball shattered his leg and he found God. He mentions tears 175 times in the first part of his spiritual diary and speaks of tears in every single entry in the second half. They weren't a few drops here and there, but great torrents so intense they left him speechless. Those tears brought him great gifs--humility, intimacy with God, greater devotion, peace, and strength. He considered tears to be a mystical grace.

REFUSE


Too bad so many men and women refuse to cry and boast of not doing it. I remember someone telling me after seeing the movie Schindler's List that he almost cried. Almost? Why did he hold it back?
Why did Jackie? Or the nuns? Why does anyone? I couldn't even if I wanted to. I let the tears flow and make sure all my mascara is waterproof.
One of my favorite verses in the Christian Bible is the shortest one of all: "Jesus wept." He showed his humanity. He shed messy, unmanly tears. He didn't do it in private. He did it in front of his friends and followers. In front of a crowd.
We need to stop hiding our tears and actually share them. It takes a strong person to cry. It takes a stronger person to let others see those tears. We need to be tough enough to be tender, no matter who is watching.