One, or more new things per week for the 2013 year...
Week 32 of 52 (August 5th 2013 to
August 11th 2013): Dianetics
This
week I stumbled upon the Church of Scientology in Portland, Oregon. Let me be
very clear about beliefs and religions… I am LDS (member of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints) I do not like judging other peoples beliefs or
religions. After all we are all entitled to our own opinions. I like to follow
one of the principle beliefs of the LDS church as defined under our “Articles
of Faith” which says;
“We
claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to
the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same
privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” (Articles
of Faith, 11)
With that being
said, please do not take anything I write to be an attack on any religion or
belief. I may have an opinion, but that does not mean that one person’s belief
or religion is better than another.
On Monday August
5th, 2013 I walked by the Church of Scientology in Portland, Oregon
where they were offering free “stress” tests. Out of curiosity I stopped to
find out more. One of the members of the church asked me to sit down and grab
two metal rods in both hands and then explained to me how one of their
“E-Meters” of (Electropsychometer) worked. He told me to think of negative
experiences in my past and then showed me that the meter would quickly move to
one side when negative thoughts came to mind and moved to another when positive
thoughts came to mind.
This caught my
attention as being kind of cool little device and my genuine interest in
learning about groups, religions and beliefs that people have made me explore a
little more. I stepped into the church and walked around. The building itself
is well laid out and they had some very informative videos and brochures to look
at. So that is what I did this week! But my curiosity kept me doing some
research, here is what I found:
The E-Meter (Electropsychometer):
The E-Meter is a
modified ohmmeter that is used during Dianetics and Scientology auditing.
The device measures resistance and skin conductance. From what I
read, I could not find any hard evidence or any clinical trials that have been
done outside of the church.
Dianetics:
Dianetics is
a set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship
between the mind and body which was created by L. Ron Hubbard and is
practiced by followers of Scientology. The word “Dianetics” comes from the Greek stems dia,
meaning "through", and nous, meaning mind.
Dianetics
divides the mind into three parts:
·
The conscious "analytical mind”
·
The subconscious "reactive mind"
·
The Somatic mind “the body”
The goal of Dianetics is to remove the
"reactive mind", which Scientologists believe prevents
people from becoming more ethical, more aware, happier and saner. In order to
achieve this, Scientologists have a system 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.
Ok,
so what are my thoughts… I believe that L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology)
was a good man, who truly lived a great life. If you look up the life of L. Ron
Hubbard you will find that he lived a pretty cool life and for the most part I
would absolutely agree with many ideas Scientology has… they believe that you
must live life to understand life and that you should rid yourselves of toxins
in the body and negative feelings. What is bad about that? Nothing. I believe
tha there are many good things with Scientology, but I also believe that it is
more of a club than a religion.
