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I`ll include for your review a lengthy account of someone`s encounter with, and thoughts on, the Scientology organisation.
I think you will notice a lot of the criticisms that both you and Briggi have brought to the fore, plus more besides.
However I have highlighted a claim by the author that, I think you will agree, is very bold ( no pun intended) regarding the "treatment" that is undertaken.
I`d be interested in your thoughts.
However in the meantime two things I would like to ask of you;
*Firstly, could you please respond directly to the previous post on L.Ron Hubbard's communication that I posted previously.
*Secondly, could you possibly give me the citation (i.e: where you found) this analysis you have posted.
No problem.
Time is not of the essence, and sometimes has the advantage of dulling the emotions (at least for me), if you get my drift.
I think you will find Hubbard`s communication addressed (at least indirectly) in the author`s analysis. (Which to me seems, in general, well founded).
As to your second request (and you may think me evasive), but do you consider the messenger to be of greater importance than the message ?
*Where the author makes claims to how Scientology has been useful to him/her (gender is unclear because I don't know the author), they do not present evidence for this (i.e: how it works, which treatments helped and how so specifically).
*This text, as far as it is possible to tell (it doesn't cite any sources in the sense that you could go directly to the body of work being referred to) does not engage with present psychiatric medicine and practice. It makes several forays into the chequered history of psychiatric medicine, but these are almost entirely archaic examples.
The status of psychiatry as having taken painful turns or being used in questionable treatments, is not in dispute and indeed within its field this is not a contested idea.
Also, where you have used specific examples you appear not to obey the rule of your own logic; you have stated that we should not judge Hubbard by his beliefs but look dispassionately at evidence for his claims. You then go on to quote ideological statements attributed to Kinsey and a Dr. Chisholm (again not cited) and then proceed to use this as evidence against the whole of psychiatry.
Preliminary Conclusion
While the one redeeming feature of this article is its professed belief in the freedom of knowledge, this in no way counters previous criticisms that evidence for the superiority of scientological treatments over modern, contemporary psychiatric practice, and so again there is no reason to believe it.
The inability to produce this through standard research proceedures such as producing experimental reports and citing sources, can legitimately be viewed as a cause for doubt. This is especially true given the (by the authors admission) secretive and authoritarian sector from which it emanates.
Until you can produce demonstrable proof, relating to specific treatments and show clearly their superiority over contemporary comparable psychiatric practice, I remain wholly sceptical and completely unconvinced.
Supplementary Remarks
This paragraph does not make any sense.
Apart from the fact that these are sweeping and somewhat suspect statements with little evidence. Oh and by the way, on counts one and two this takes the Bible as the ultimate source of all authoritative knowledge, a claim which just doesn't bare rational scrutiny.
Small point; McLuhan wasn't a 'student of language' he was clearly a media analyst (and certainly he was no linguist, such as Chomsky is).
No i don't, but because the author is taking on specific scientific treatments that have been subject to research publications and review, i expect to be able to give his claims and the evidence he uses to back them up, the same scrutiny.
I do think your initial intent of taking some time over the statement may have helped.
I don`t want to "pick holes" in the reply because I feel certain that you have read the article TOO quickly and not understood it. Especially who is actually saying what.
As I said earlier, the time factor isn`t important to me.
Please do seeker, as I'm now getting enough complaints about your postings from other users that make it clear if you don't change, you won't be posting here at the end of the week.
But if you WERE affiliated, you would have no compulsion to be honest about that anyway ...
Are you suggesting someone with a connection to the Church of Scientology might be economical with the truth
I`ll accept that there are no corroborating witnesses that I know of that the actual treatment took place. The author has supposedly undertaken numerous neurological treatments/experiments. I am not aware of refutations.
The article was written in 1970.
The status of psychiatric practice and control has been challenged much more recently but that seems like a slight tangent to this topic.
Is this addressed at me, or the author ?
It is written as if it is addressed to me, but surely to make any sense it should be the author ?
However your misreading of the article is clear to me since the quoted statements to which you refer are actually made by Hubbard, and the author is highly critical of Hubbard for doing so.
The author actually defends Kinsey and Chisholm:
Fair enough,and some of your reasons are shared by the author but you seem to be completely closing your mind to the possibility of benefits because his evidence does not fit someone`s arbitrary standard.
I`ll suggest that the author is differentiating between someone like Pound producing "beautiful poetry" and "anti-semitism" simultaneously (presumably writing the cantos while supporting Mussolini), and Hubbard setting himself up as the "saviour of all known universes".
Another misinterpretation on your part, I fear.
The author is actually quoting ( and criticising) Hubbard once again.
What`s in a name ?
It seems like he was very much a student of language.
Fair point, it was directed at the author whereas I probably should have referred to him in the third person, but this is not the point. But that being the case, you still have not taken on the crux of the point, which is that the author (who I presume you are supporting) is not judging them equally.
At the core, is the simple premise that though he makes a critique of the authoritarian tendencies of Scientology and Hubbard in this, he does not provide ANY evidence for his support of Hubbard's 'discoveries'
...and there has thus been plenty of time for such evidence to arise.
Arbitrary standard? Evidence based assertions are the very definition of theory, otherwise they are just pure speculation.
This article is horribly out of date, which explains why so many of its observations are similarly so.
I put to you a single question; can you produce, or do you know of, ANY contemporary demonstrable evidence that Scientology treatments (any will do) are;
1) Effective.
2) Effective enough to warrant their combative stance against psychiatry.