Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Physics Guy »

A contrast to that is my impression of Scientology. I've never done any Scientology practices myself, and none of the ex-Scientologists whose posts I read on their boards came out and said it this way, but the theory I formed after reading a lot of those posts was that Scientology auditing fairly reliably delivers some kind of buzz, and that this was what was really keeping people in Scientology (insofar as anything was).

When I proposed this on the ESMB board some years ago, most people seemed kind of lukewarm, though a few of them had already been saying that Scientology auditing was hypnotic. Some had even been arguing that the weak electric current of the E-meter, running through people's arms for an hour or more a session, was probably having some kind of neurological effect. I was skeptical of the electrical theory and felt that whatever was happening was far enough from what we normally recognise as hypnosis that the label did not really fit. But even though most ex-Scientologists didn't really seem to buy my theory, to me it just seemed to fit with the things they all kept on saying.

Scientology takes a lot of time. Auditing is sold in blocks of 12-1/2 hours ("one intensive") and people buy many, many blocks. I think what Hubbard discovered is that if you sit for at least an hour or so rambling away while another human being listens intently and occasionally asks you solemn questions that are all about you, that much interest in you from another person triggers some kind of instinctive reward in the brain. You feel good. Scientology auditors are trained to watch for that feeling and end the session, as they say, "on a win".

I'm not surprised that people come back for more. Scientology doesn't really try to be a real religion in most ways but I think in that one way it's ahead of the pack. It has a gimmick that works.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by huckelberry »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 10:56 am

No dig at Mormonism or the warm fuzzies. Also not a downgrading of experience. Experience is how we interface with the world. I am to the contrary not in favor of reducing experience to something the body simply manufactures as a matter of will or for no intelligible reason at all. That seems like a satisfying explanation, but “the body does it” could be said of any sense perception. The big difference, it seems to me, is that we are so inured to certain perceptions that we grant their reality, whereas with rare ones we don’t because we don’t know what to do with them.
kishkumen, I think your point about experience is how we interface with things or people outside of us is important. It may be obvious enough that people brush by it thoughtlessly when saying religious experience is just something we generate in our bodies. All of our experience is something we generate in our bodies . To say a religious experience is something created by our body does not clarify whether or not it has a relationship to something larger than our bodies which has influenced or communicated with us.

People may have experiences which are unusual enough that it is not easy to know what to do with them as you noted. I think religions present a language that people use to make some sort of use of those experiences. Even if I think there are occasions that a real God presents some communication a person I would have to consider that a person would still have to use there own brain and its thought processes to be aware of and use such a religious experience.

There have been several times in my life when I have felt strikingly confronted by a call and invitation from what I sensed to be God. I am enough of a skeptically inclined mind to ask myself why I should make that association. I am pretty sure I have because the call addressed my own most central sense of self. I would or could interpret the call as a wakeup to search out authentic self or existence. I find that call to be of sufficient value that even if my God concepts are just masks of the experience I will keep them unless they are shown to be counterproductive. I am capable of thinking my experience was generated internally by my brain coming to a moment of realization that a change in living and thinking had become necessary. A better stronger level of personal existence beckoned,

I do not know a clear study or test but my general reading of religious literature would suggest that the kind of personal experience I am valuing is not uncommon for believers, may be the most usual kind. Feelings like one with infinity or universe called mystical strike me as secondary. In fact what I have read of mystics religious feelings are held in suspicion and are not a goal.

I have had various experiences of unity that might be called mystical. I have had such as an atheist and as a believer. Even one with LSD(one can also have mangled experience with that chemical) I think such moments of unity can be renewing and valuable. As far as I can tell (never having been inside anothers head) there is a variety of such mystical experiences. A person might construct various meanings for them or perhaps decline to construct anything about them. Just take them as they are.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Gadianton »

I think Scientology has a whole package of gimmicks, with auditing at center stage. It's packages around self-improvement. Increasing your capacity to learn, becoming calm and collected, becoming like Tom Cruise in a movie roll. People like to assess themselves, find out what personality color they are or what their strength is, and they like the idea of fixing weaknesses and having an advantage over other people that will ultimately translate to greater material success in life. And it's tangible stuff, not reading and praying about a verse in third Nephi. I read a bunch of my friend's books and it's not unreasonable if you don't know anything. Higher intellect, low education I think make the best targets. The self improvement gets really out there eventually, remote viewing and everything. DCP should try it.

In terms of REs though, where would I put it? That's a tough one.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Lem »

huckelberry wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 5:28 pm
[ All of our experience is something we generate in our bodies . To say a religious experience is something created by our body does not clarify whether or not it has a relationship to something larger than our bodies which has influenced or communicated with us.
I can appreciate your experience, but the scientific literature does clarify that it is our brains generating such perceptions, not some outside entity communicating in supernatural ways.
I have had various experiences of unity that might be called mystical. I have had such as an atheist and as a believer. Even one with LSD(one can also have mangled experience with that chemical) I think such moments of unity can be renewing and valuable. As far as I can tell (never having been inside anothers head) there is a variety of such mystical experiences. A person might construct various meanings for them or perhaps decline to construct anything about them. Just take them as they are.
That sounds like a plan. My version of taking them as they are is to appreciate the good feelings and results without ascribing anything to supernatural beings or events. in my opinion, the brain is capable of generating amazing feelings and experiences. I'll see if I can find the thread we had on this on the other board, it was massive and quite interesting.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Physics Guy »

Yeah, the great Scientology plum seems to be the "out of body experience" ("going exterior" in Scientology jargon). Very few people if any at all seem to have such experiences more than once in their lives, and they are a well attested psychological phenomenon far beyond Scientology, but enough people seem to have them one time in Scientology to keep the goal shimmering brightly for the others. Jedi-like psychic powers are also vaguely promised in Scientology and people seek those as well, but the OBEs seem to actually happen to some.

They happen, that is, as subjective experiences. The phenomenon has been studied a fair bit. No-one has ever seen anything, in an OBE, that they could not see with their bodily eyes either at the time or before. So there is no reason to think that anything actually leaves the body. Our usual behind-the-eyes viewpoint is something the brain constructs from nerve signals, anyway; with a little more processing it could presumably construct a different perspective, filling in guesses about things that haven't really been seen from that angle.

(The brain does do things like that, all the time. We're not aware of the blind spots in our visual fields even though if you're careful you can make things disappear just by looking slightly away from them at just the right angle. In spite of the fact that there's this spot that we literally don't see, we don't see a dark blur there.)

Anyway, in Scientology an OBE is considered proof that you are really an eternal spirit (a "thetan") and you only think you need your body to live. Some of the very repetitive Scientology practices might conceivably tend to induce OBEs in some hypnosis-like way, especially when everyone knows what they are and wants to have them. If it really works even somewhat it's almost as good a trick as hashish or ganja.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by huckelberry »

Physics Guy, you present a well reasoned description of out of body experiences. I am convinced of your view. In thinking about religious experiences I see your including the social expectations and leading suggestions as helpful clarification.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Themis »

Kishkumen wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 10:56 am
I am not sure what the issue is. The existence of God versus what kind of God you care about are different questions and the second was not really what I was talking about.
My OP which you responded to was my response to PG's post about looking to God for help in how to live. This kind of God would have to be one interested in how we live as apposed to the other ones you brought up that would either not be interested or not capable of that interest. I do agree that this kind of God would leave someone who believes God has no interest in us in the same boat as an atheist in determining the best way to live. The existence of God though has no good evidence and we see many theists who admit that they don't know. Those who think they do know cannot provide sharable evidence and those who share their experiences don't, in my opinion, provide anything that could not have other explanations then the existence of God.
No dig at Mormonism or the warm fuzzies. Also not a downgrading of experience. Experience is how we interface with the world. I am to the contrary not in favor of reducing experience to something the body simply manufactures as a matter of will or for no intelligible reason at all. That seems like a satisfying explanation, but “the body does it” could be said of any sense perception. The big difference, it seems to me, is that we are so inured to certain perceptions that we grant their reality, whereas with rare ones we don’t because we don’t know what to do with them.
Our main perceptions of what we define as reality is based on fairly reliable and consistent senses. This is of course more complicated then that, but we have almost universal agreement on some things we all see as part of reality. That doesn't mean we have it right. When it come to the mystical or spiritual experience that agreement falls apart. That doesn't mean they are all wrong, but it doesn't help. The body does it falls well within reasonable, and you would need some good evidence to eliminate it as reasonable explanations. We see DMT is able to replicate some of the rare experiences. Maybe it is opening the mind to unseen realities, but that is not very reasonable without better evidence, so the body did it remains very reasonable, and I don't know of any evidence that would suggest otherwise. I would also say the body did it also includes the natural environment and how it may interact with our body.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by huckelberry »

Lem wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 8:39 pm
huckelberry wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 5:28 pm
[ All of our experience is something we generate in our bodies . To say a religious experience is something created by our body does not clarify whether or not it has a relationship to something larger than our bodies which has influenced or communicated with us.
I can appreciate your experience, but the scientific literature does clarify that it is our brains generating such perceptions, not some outside entity communicating in supernatural ways.
I have had various experiences of unity that might be called mystical. I have had such as an atheist and as a believer. Even one with LSD(one can also have mangled experience with that chemical) I think such moments of unity can be renewing and valuable. As far as I can tell (never having been inside anothers head) there is a variety of such mystical experiences. A person might construct various meanings for them or perhaps decline to construct anything about them. Just take them as they are.
That sounds like a plan. My version of taking them as they are is to appreciate the good feelings and results without ascribing anything to supernatural beings or events. in my opinion, the brain is capable of generating amazing feelings and experiences. I'll see if I can find the thread we had on this on the other board, it was massive and quite interesting.
Lem, I remember Dr W discussions of experiments with creating experiences that could be called relgious experiences. I admit ambivalence about those threads. That ambivalence includes a genuine interest and respect for what he found and described. There is genuine contribution to understanding human experience. Sorry if I remain unconvinced that the whole range of human experience has been summed up and explained.

I hardly begrudge people from taking experiences of some religious sort simply as experiences without supernatural attachments. I was at least partially proposing that as a recommendation in my post. However to be open about my thought I can say that I doubt that either the electric acid koolaid test or the electric tinfoil god machine etc are complete explanations for all religious experience. I think God lurks behind some religious experiences in all cultures.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Themis »

Gadianton wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 3:52 pm
Themis wrote:The body appears to have the capacity on it's own to create powerful experiences. Experiences that can create the feeling of knowing or understanding. Psychedelics can reproduce many of these kinds of experiences. The best position may be to have a healthy amount of skepticism of what we think we know from them, but many do not.
Testimony = DMT? I don't really agree.
Not sure where I said anything close to that. I agree with most of what you say. Belief or thinking we know is based on a complication of many factors. While it may be somewhat unique that Mormons pray about a block of text and use calm feelings as part of how they believe they know, using feelings this way to think you know something is very common for humans to do.

My point I make in the post above is that the body seems very capable of producing powerful experiences, even sometimes like what DMT could do for us. Not that most spiritual/mystical experiences, LDS or otherwise, comes close to that.
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Re: Another Mopologist Bites The Dust, Bryce Haymond Edition

Post by Lem »

huckelberry wrote:
Sun Apr 11, 2021 8:42 pm
Lem wrote:
Sat Apr 10, 2021 8:39 pm

I can appreciate your experience, but the scientific literature does clarify that it is our brains generating such perceptions, not some outside entity communicating in supernatural ways.


That sounds like a plan. My version of taking them as they are is to appreciate the good feelings and results without ascribing anything to supernatural beings or events. in my opinion, the brain is capable of generating amazing feelings and experiences. I'll see if I can find the thread we had on this on the other board, it was massive and quite interesting.
Lem, I remember Dr W discussions of experiments with creating experiences that could be called relgious experiences. I admit ambivalence about those threads. That ambivalence includes a genuine interest and respect for what he found and described. There is genuine contribution to understanding human experience. Sorry if I remain unconvinced that the whole range of human experience has been summed up and explained.

I hardly begrudge people from taking experiences of some religious sort simply as experiences without supernatural attachments. I was at least partially proposing that as a recommendation in my post. However to be open about my thought I can say that I doubt that either the electric acid koolaid test or the electric tinfoil god machine etc are complete explanations for all religious experience. I think God lurks behind some religious experiences in all cultures.
I apologize, I didn't realize you had read the thread. But yes, I got that from your posts that you disagreed, I was just saying that I also don't begrudge anyone their belief, while at the same time, I think that what is ascribed to "religious experiences in all cultures" can be fully and completely explained without anything supernatural, by what they all have in common- the human brain.
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