Applied Scholastics

The other day I had an interesting experience using study tech. I was reading something and I just totally didn't get it. I was very annoyed by the sentence and felt frustrated and like just putting the book down and forgetting it.

Then I remembered a bit of study tech, and decided to try out what it said. I looked for a word I didn't fully understand. There it was. In this case it was a physics term - something I had had trouble with in high school physics and college physics and "never needed to understand because I wasn't going to be an engineer."

I checked several dictionaries and finally found the right definition, and it was pure magic -- the section of the book that I disagreed with before now made total sense and I felt great!

As a Scientologist I've used study tech for many years. But study tech has application in studying anything, not just Scientology. Applied Scholastics was established by a Scientologist about 30 years ago to help make study tech available to schools, communities, businesses - anyone who needs to be able to learn and apply what they have learned - which is everybody in this day and age.

A little over a year ago a new campus for Applied Scholastics was opened in Spanish Lake, MO - a town that is part of greater St. Louis. This place is gorgeous. But it is not just the physical qualities of this Applied Scholastics campus that is important - it is the technology they offer.

When I think back to how painful it was to me to go to school -- and I was a good student -- and how much I love studying now, using study tech, I really want to share these techniques with everyone.

is some more information about Applied Scholastics

Delphian School
L. Ron Hubbard and Applied Scholastics
Applied Scholastics Successes
What is Applied Scholastics?
Applied Scholastics Grand Opening
More Information on Applied Scholastics
L. Ron Hubbard and Applied Scholastics - Study Tech
Applied Scholastics -- Improving the Quality of Education
Applied Scholastics - Effective Education with Study Tech
L. Ron Hubbard - Education and Applied Scholastics

Mission Earth

Reading Google news today reminded me of Mission Earth. Mission Earth is a very sardonic satire, written by L. Ron Hubbard 20 years ago. It's a 10-part series that starts on the planet Voltar.

The hero is one of the great heroes of fiction - Jettero Heller. He's 100% competent, compassionate, brilliant, athletic, responsible, trustworthy (and all without being a wuss). Oh. Did I say gorgeous? That too.

The heroine, the Countess Krak, matches him perfectly in all aspects.

The villains are overwhelmingly evil.

The books were written by L. Ron Hubbard who also composed rock music to accompany Mission Earth. The album of this music was recorded by Edgar Winter and it is great rock and roll.

One of the songs, Cry Out, was adopted as the anthem of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day International.

The premis behind Mission Earth is that Voltar, the seat of an intergalactic empire, maintains its economy through a series of planned conquests of planets. There is a plan that extends for many thousands of years into the future and this plan is inviolate. However it is threatened by the fact that planet earth, known on Voltar as Blito P3 (our sun being known as the star "Blito" and P3 standing for 3rd planet from the star) is going downhill so fast, with pollution, threat of nuclear annihilation and rampant drug abuse, that it threatens to blow itself up or destroy all life on earth.

Hence - Mission Earth. In other words a mission needs to be fired from Voltar to salvage Earth to guarantee it will still be there when Voltar is ready to invade.

And the mission? One Jettero Heller and his "Mission Operator" Soltan Gris who is really a member of the FBI-like "Apparatus" and whose real agenda is to sabotage Jettero, and continue the destruction of Earth.

The book is available in English and from New Era Publications in many other languages as well.

It is also available as an audio book series

Of course L. Ron Hubbard has written a great many different fiction books, all very worth reading.

Church of Scientology of Phoenix Aarizona

The Pluralism Project put up at page about the Church of Scientology of Phoenix, Arizona.

Phoenix is a very important in Scientology history. L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, lived in Phoenix for some time in the early 1950's. It was here that he created the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International (a precurser to the current membership organization - the International Association of Scientologists) and where he conducted a great deal of his research into the spiritual nature of man.

L. Ron Hubbard issued the Creed of the Church of Scientology from his office in Phoenix.

L. Ron Hubbard also recorded his famous "Phoenix Lectures" here. These have been described as follows: "In 1954, L. Ron Hubbard was living in Phoenix, Arizona, where he conducted a series of courses for advanced students. In this single year he delivered more than 450 recorded lectures. The object of this intense activity was the achievement of a goal as old as man himself — the freeing of the human spirit."

The first Narconon was established with the help of the Church of Scientology of Phoenix. Naroconon is a very effective (78% success rate in most cases) drug rehab program that uses the discoveries L. Ron Hubbard made into the cause of addiction xand how to help a person overcome drug dependency (not learn to live with it or "realize" that you will always be an addict - no -- change that condition.

The current Church of Scientology of Phoenix has found new premises which they will be moving to shortly.

Always happy to find something who thinks the same way I do:

http://www.cool-sites.net/scientology.asp :)

Scientology in Europe

Europe poses some unique challenges for a new religion, link Scientology.

To begin with, Europe has no tradition of religious tolerance. The source of the cruisades, burning witches at the stake, the Cathar extermination, Huguenot masacres, all the way to the present with the genocides of the jews in World War II and the genocide of the Muslims in former Yugoslavia in the 1990's.

Scientology has had its share of discrimination in Europe too - nothing as dramatic as burning Jeanne D'Arc at the stake but nonetheless behavior that is completely unacceptable int he 21st Century, more than 50 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Today, with the "enlightened" Chirac government,young islamic women have to chose between their religious convictions and their education as they are not permitted to wear their head scarves to school.

Despite this, and a general distrust of anything new (except MacDonalds and 7/11) Scientology is thriving in Europe.

I've posted about the grand opening of the Church of Scientology of Spain in Madrid. What a beautiful church that is!

Denmark, home to the Advanced Organization and Saint Hill

(AOSHEU or AOSH EU)

in Europe provides advanced spiritual counseling and ministerial training for people of all European languages and also serves as the AOSH for the middle east and Africa.

Our churches work to improve their communities and make a difference, with the Scientology volunteer ministers cavalcades in the heart of cities around the continent bringing the message to people that "something CAN be done about it."

The reason I blog is that I hope people who really want to help others or need some help themselves will find my blog and realize that things do NOT have to stay the way they are. Unfortunately things don't. Rather, if you don't do something about a bad situation in your life it will only deteriorate.

Here is some information about Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard that I'd like to pass along to help when help is needed.

Information on the Church of Scientology

Church of Scientology International Presentation on Religious Freedom in Russia: Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy and Bilateral Relations
About Scientology
Scientology Churches, Missions and Groups

Information on Dianetics

Dianetics books, courses and counselling, and their availability in the UK.
Dianetics: A Visual Guidebook to the Mind (great way to learn to use Dianetics, by the way!)
Guardian Limited description of Scientology and Dianetics
Buying Dianetics: Evolution of a Scientology
Religious Expertise on Scientology and Dianetics

Information on L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard's dedication to helping others through better education
Yahoo directory - L. Ron Hubbard category
Celebrity Scientologists like to let people know how much Dianetics has to offer

Vote NO on California Proposition 63

I'm reprinting this analysis of California Proposition 63.

Overshadowed by our US Presidential race, this proposition presents a real threat to the liberty of many thousands if not millions of California and, if passed, would creat the worst kind of precedent California could set.

It is an extremely destructive bill.

We are throwing billions more dollars at a failed system that doesn't work and is actually harmful to the individiauls it is supposed to help.

Here's the article. "No on 63"

I'm very interested in any comments you micht have about this proposition.

This sleight-of-hand substitute is a feel-good proposal that doesn't plan for the future and doesn't make sense. Our children and families require better.

Mental health care is important, and a good idea, but this initiative has problems. The bureaucratic allies of Steinberg have a narrow-minded approach to treating illness, and do not produce the results they claim. Medically, their approaches fill people with drugs, but do not give them a cure. Politically, they define 'mental illness' so broadly as to include nearly everybody. And scientifically, their methods are incomplete, and leave out of the equation the physical and environmental factors that impact a person's health and well being. All that aside, the goal of eliminating homelessness is noble, but the funding structure of the system propped up by this initiative will only perpetuate the sad cycles of dependency- and that helps no one. It just sounds good.

How does this affect me?

The funding mechanism (a marginal tax increase imposed upon personal incomes above $1 million in any given year) would have the inevitable effect of driving some location decisions, for both existing and prospective California residents, in ways detrimental to the state economy. This is the central reason that tax increases, particularly at the state and local levels, almost never yield the revenue increases assumed initially. It is inevitable, therefore, that political pressures will emerge to extend the tax increases downward in the income distribution; over time, the middle class will be hit because, as Willie Sutton perceived, that's where the money is. Alternatively, other programs will have to be cut.

If you REALLY want to know the TRUTH about psychiatry, visit CCHR's website