ST83 | Information - Semmering Trip

This travel log will be my 4th trip to see Ralph in Semmering. My first trip was a long weekend of mutual assessment undertaken about 2 years ago. On my second trip I got debugged on my NOTs. Third trip I attested to NOTs and started OT8. We shall see what happens this time.

Subjectively I feel somewhat compartmentalized, maybe even a certain amount of disconnect - between the evolving certainties and perceptions I am finding spiritually, and my regular everyday life where I operate with apparent normalcy, maybe even with a touch of subdued reticence. Yes, I like to think of myself as a little more A to B, having a bit more enthusiasm for the task at hand - but by and large, people don't point at me going down the hallways and whisper at my differences. I tend to fit in without a lot of comment.

On the other hand, when I am relaxed and not trying to fit in - like when I'm driving to work, or just waking up, I get this half smile, sort of dazed/relaxed look on my face. So much is starting to fit together. Additional pieces fall into place spontaneously. The temptation to go into action on more fronts than I should, is intense. In my internal life, most noticed impulses are fleetingly examined for source, purpose and value - usually that is enough. Value is measured by alignment with goals. Goals are everything. Purpose is all. The rest is just problems and mass. Parts of the Game.

Oct 20, '03 - Home - planning

Since I've been to Vienna several times, I've decided to go by way of Venice this time. In my last Semmering trip I took a picture from the top of the world pointing down the valley toward Murzzuschlag, and mentioned that theoretically the valley ended down in Italy somewhere. I shall test that theory.

Oct 25, '03 - Home - waiting

Things are working out according to plan so far. I have tickets to Venice tomorrow early. Should be walking and boating around Venice by 10 or 11 am.

Oct 26 - Venice

I've arrived! Interesting place. As you exit the airport, pick up a "bus ticket" and report to the pier just outside the airport. October is a little chillier than I thought. I had to pull out my reserves and bundle up a bit.

Hotel, 20 min walk from the train station, a longer 30 min. meander from San Marco Square.

Oct 27 - Venice

Wow, nothing like 11 hours of sleep in a safe space to boost ones tone level. Another thing I'm noticing is that at home I have all these self-imposed incomplete cycles of action that leave me in a perpetual state of not being satisfied with my days accomplishments, and feeling like I'm sneaking time out for my vices. Well, now I know why vacations get such a good rap, I have nothing to do but walk around Venice, take some pictures and write this web log - feels quite liberating.

Hotel As I left the hotel I snapped this of the entrance to the hotel. Nothing special to look at. Venice is littered with small hotels. Off-season you really don't need a reservation. 80 Euros per night, clean room, they wanted me out by 11 but they were polite about it and let me leave my bag in the lobby till 2. We will see if it is there when I get back.
Flooding The tide is in. Venice is slowly sinking. Parts of an inch per year. People adapt. Here you see a vendor setting up his stand. He isn't crazy, the tide will be out in a couple of hours and some of the locals will get to take their wading boots off. Tourists look confused and walk on the platform walkways provided.
Flooding MPG file My digital camera takes short mpg files. I'm carrying it in my front pocket and I accidentally took this mpg file of the flooding. 344Kb isn't too bad. Maybe I'll do some more.

This last picture is an interesting one. I'm writing this on the steps of an old church across from the train station. I took this picture about an hour ago. The tide has gone 'out' or down about 4 inches and the sidewalks are getting more passable. Apart from the ambulance boat that passed by here about 2 min. ago, (and drove the tourists away from the sidewalks to prevent getting wet feet), this picture has 4 interesting pieces of Venice logistics in it. First, of course, the background is the main entrance to the train station. Second, the two cream colored boats passing one another are city buses. 3rd there is a construction boat with a mini crane dropping supplies off. 4th there is a mini supply boat on the right foreground. Busy Monday in Venice.

Nov 2 - Mestre Train Station

Mestre is the on-shore service town for Venice. Boarding the train for Vienna, (Wein), and the Train Table.

Italian countryside / Hills leaving Italy

The closer you get to Austria the more Italy begins to look like the rest of Europe, or Austria in this case. As you leave the Po valley, (Po river runs west to east through northern Italy), you rise into the hills that mark the Northern boarder of Italy.

7 pm

I'm on the train nearing Murzzuschlag and the train is on schedule. At the border the train crew changed from Italian to Austrian. Announcements are in English and German now. I have to change trains to a local one in Murzzuschlag, as Semmering is too small for this Euro City train to stop there.

8 pm

Well, I'll have to fill you in on what has transpired since Murzzuschlag. I boarded the local train for a 12 min. ride to Semmering. I arrived about 8:40pm and started walking up to the hotel. With true Germanic efficiency, the path through the forest had streetlights on it, plus signs pointing to the Hotel Belvedere.

Belvedere - Room 37

I arrived at the hotel around 9pm. It was locked for some reason and I and 4 other potential restaurant patrons stood in the rain to compare notes. In German. I got the impression that it being locked was a surprise to everyone. Sure enough, the English speaking family member of the hotel staff showed up and greeted me with a, "Room 37?", didn't even ask for my passport. I guess that qualifies me as a regular.

Semmering Map, Brochure for Belvedere Hotel

Nov 3 - Breakfast

There I was sitting, ok lying, in my room thinking about, among other things, Isaac Azmov's Foundation series. The basic story line is that this great mathematician / historian, (Harry Seldon I think), conceives of a mathematics that can predict and manipulate an approaching galactic social and economic depression, and shorten it by a factor of about 40, (or 90 some percent). Well, after several centuries of the plans' execution, a factor, an unpredicted factor, in the form of a mutant called the 'Mule' arises to take power and arrest the decline of galactic civilization. The emergence of a random factor throws "the plan" into disarray with only a teen's percentage of success for the plan. If the plan fails then galactic civilization faces a 40,000 year dark age instead of a "short" thousand year retrenchment under Seldon's plan. Now, I'm sure that went on a bit for you non Sci-Fi fans, but the 'art' of the book is that it obliquely asks the question, 'can change be planned for and predicted, or is it fundamentally a process of uncertainty and you can never know the outcome?'

Ron clearly planned, developed and crafted a vehicle to propagate the Scientology Religion or Philosophy. Did he plan a straight-line growth pattern? Can't be. The conditions formulas and qual form an internal corrective response to 'depressions' in stats. He couldn't have assumed a straight-line growth pattern for the whole organization either. Or maybe, I just don't know. The organization clearly lost the wind in it's sail the day Ron left the helm. My subjective eval is that the organization is in a cultural / statistical recession. (Personally, I think OTIII comps is the most important statistic and that we should have passed 6 figures by now).

Is David Miscavige the 'Mule', proof that change is inherently unpredictable, or is he the put upon regent at the helm trying to weather the inevitable recession caused by Ron's departure? I don't know, but if you think in other determined means for too long you'll just get a headache. Frankly, things aren't optimum, and until we conceive the game differently, they will stay that way. We are at a beginning, a leverage point in time, where the shape of what comes next is pretty much of our choosing. If you don't pattern your future, be there and communicate, well, then you just won't count, at least not in this game.

So the above is dedicated to FZ01's friend, because when I came down to have breakfast with them, he mentioned that the Foundation series was a recent favorite of his. Yeah, mine too. Powerful and convincing universe that Azmov created in those three original books. Art at it's best.

Ralph doesn't start till 2 on Sundays, so I had a walk-about. I did see a little bit of snow around, but I think this was mostly artificial. Fall colors were very pretty too.

Nov 3

I got to Ralph's about 2 and we talked till after 6. The thing I feel the most is relief. You see, I know what I know. All certainties are based on stable datum, generally one would say 'a stable datum' - which implies some uncertainty. I am and I know, I don't know everything, but what I know, I know. My stable datum is me, (or the lack thereof). What I didn't know was whether Ralph was still ahead of me or whether I had passed him up and was all alone running the Borg collective. Ok, that was a joke. But I can't help poking fun at all of you since you get so serious and complicated. It is really simple. You're it. You're there. Right now. Hi there. Mirror house at the amusement park.

Nov 4

Oh, gorgeous clear day outside, too many pictures already but the day is just begging a few more.

Nov 5 - Trouble Keeping Up

I'm at brunch again. I've been given some drills to do. I have to give priority to my purpose in being here, over writing this pseudo blog. I'm assimilating 3 different changes in the last 2 days.

Nov 7 - Denouement

Well I just c/sed myself to go home a day early. My real c/s is going to take a bit more tiding up than I'd like. Plus I have to find a PC. Actually one showed up last summer. Lucky dog. He told me that the Buddhist say that when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Ta da.

I was planning to spend a day tramping through the woods. Not. Balcony view this morning. C-Meters RULE! (by the way).

Success Story

I completed OTV in the church, and now, after 2 years in the FreeZone, have completed OTVII and VIII.

I find it disconcerting that anyone would consider the completion of NOTs and OTVIII particularly momentous, or difficult.

One myth is that NOTs is somehow flawed.

NOTs is just fine. I have, of late however, come to the conclusion that it's NOTs delivery that is creating the apparency of flaws and slow results.

OTI thru VIII form an integrated set of actions for gradually expanding your reach and awareness. OTI lets you know what is possible, II and III remove your hesitation, NOTs is a gradually expanding sphere of looking, assessing and communicating. By OTVIII you realize that the mest universe is your personal playground.

NOTs and the church technical lineup are probably fine, but the church has dropped looking and communicating from the entire upper bridge. As one advances upward through the church lineup, inhibition and duress increase rather than decrease. As one advances toward OT, communication, curiosity and looking should be increasing - not the reverse. This flaw in delivery makes NOTs a long, arduous and very solo journey. Environments and actions which inhibit and individuate mitigate against achieving the OTVIII EP.

I salute each and every OTVIII that the church has produced. Each one was as if the first. Figuring out everything for themselves the hard way, not able to compare notes, unable to view others speculations. The FreeZone is a Swiss cheese hodgepodge of speculation and attempted contributions. Most don't even measure up to the level of comparable magnitude to Standard Tech - but they do make you think. And there are a few pearls out there. If you have a firm grasp of the basics of Scientology and Standard Tech, then conceiving of a wider range of possibilities makes NOTs both easier and faster. Inhibiting both communication and looking, makes NOTs almost unworkable.

Conversely, FreeZone technical delivery is no paradise for the naive or unsuspecting. When Ron wrote KSW he had the FreeZone in mind. The issue makes him look positively prescient. The FreeZone is populated largely by rebels, misfits and compulsive individuators, (selves and others). Excessive individuation mitigates against achieving the OTVIII EP - even more than does repression and coercion.

Since finishing NOTs I have been asking myself: 'Why was it easy for me?", "In what way am I different?". I finally figured it out. I'm really average. I'm absolutely no one special. I fell for neither the repressive nor the unusual solution. I'm your average public PC that just wanted delivery without drama. If Ron looked the present scene over he would shake his head in sad wonder at how quickly beings of individual goodwill, could together, turn his life work into such a marginal and trifling nickelodeon drama.

Another myth is that the OTVIII materials in the FreeZone are fragmentary and inexact, and therefore results are suspect.

The EP is as obvious as: 'I am'. It is impossible to fake anything so simple. Ron reportedly left some notes for OTVIII, but didn't bother to write down an exact procedure? His thinking was probably on the order of: If you lead a thirsty man out from a vast desert, toward a cool pool of water - is it really necessary to utter the exact phrase: "Drink the water, please"? My feeling is that the church would be lucky to have Ralph's write up. With the church awarding OTVIII and OTVIII Expanded certificates, I can't believe they are having an easy time of it. The only thing I can figure is that the complexity and duress of church delivery is being used to attempt the creation of a simplicity, and all credit to the technology in general - occasionally it actually works.

I'm genuinely embarrassed to say how easy it was. On the lower bridge the PC is such a tangle that exactness of application plays a prominent role in success. After OTIII, expansion of reach, confidence and judgment become pivotal to eventual success. If FreeZone NOTs results are not 2x faster than church results, I will be surprised. On the other hand, so many FreeZoners are mixing practices, self c/sing - creating their own versions of complexity, that maybe the propensity of folks to turn everything into an unending game can only be escaped on an individual basis by beings looking for results rather than circus.

Since I own the soap box for this brief moment, I want to punch up one thing again:

The bridge to OTVIII is the pre-OT bridge. The EP of OTVIII is both the purpose and product of the whole. It's the simplest of simplicities. Ron may have been human in detail but he knew what he wanted when he started and he delivered what he promised.

Some Final Thoughts

I'm going to break a personal rule of mine to not criticize things I'm not an expert on. Which is just about everything, actually. I also realize I'm trading on Ralph's reputation since you probably wouldn't believe I'm OTVIII without his say so, (and some not even then). Also I've discussed the matter with Ralph and he has influenced me - but these criticisms and observations are largely my own.

I really don't think there is anything wrong with NOTs. I don't really care who wrote it, or if Bill thought it was flawed. It is an extremely, eloquently simple, technique for handling the gradient between OTIII and OTVIII. Its' very simplicity recommends it more highly over more complex approaches.

Bill Robertson, god bless him, saw NOTs results as short of expectation and came up with a gentler gradient that unfortunately included some additives that HE deemed important. He was a great guy, a friend of Ron, and he cared about the rest of us enough to take some thankless risks and DO SOMETHING. But his contributions need to be judged with the same critical eye as any other FreeZone contributions - despite the irony of him naming our 'sector' of the tech. (cheap shot - the fact he used the 'Excalibur' allegory suggests that Bill understood and embraced the correct OTVIII EP, but the MANY obvious political and technical additives need to be combed out and examined critically, and further, if you buy 'channeling' you have, flatly, not finished the pre-OT bridge. As the Catholics pointed out during the inquisition - anyone can talk TO God, but you have to be dead to talk FOR God. The two main reasons why those enamored with 'channelers' should maintain a skeptical eye are: since no two channelers ever report exactly the same result it becomes obvious that the channeler contributes a large portion of self into the result, and secondly, if you believe any idea is subject to exclusive ownership or a completely individuated source, then again, you need to finish the pre-OT bridge.

If you have ever read the English myth of King Arthur and Excalibur, the story ends where the secret of the grail is finally enunciated and understood by all. The secret was that 'The land and the King are one' if the King perishes, so does the land, (and vice versa). This is an allegorical myth approximating the OTVIII EP. It is probably not a coincidence that this particular myth was laid down in England a few centuries ago, nor that Ron and Bill alluded to it in their related efforts.

Ron reportedly wrote a short story, or book, called Excalibur. Supposedly it was a process in story form. My guess is that it was a combination of literary art and a one shot OTVIII process. After I EP ed OTVII I could see in 1952 tapes that Ron clearly understood the second to the last step on the bridge, subjectively. Now with the Excalibur clue and tie in, it seems to me that Ron had a good idea of where he was headed before he even started, and that Dianetics was just the first brick in a bridge of gradients. (That he spent a frustrating life adding to, so that the rest of us morons could figure things out with an ever-gentler gradient).

NOTs is just a final gradient brick. By itself it isn't much more significant than grade 0. It is a hell of a lot simpler. Yet there seems to be all this mass and significance that surrounds it, rendering it anything but simple and routine.

The church implementation of NOTs and OTVIII almost defies rational analysis. After all the gentle gradient of the lower bridge, that handles almost any conceivable exception, (and onward up through OTIII), is put in, the final two or three steps of the bridge, (which should be a cake walk with the long gradient ramp behind you), is put in with ferocity of ethics, extreme complications of tech and inhibitions to looking and communicating. The last few steps of the Standard Tech bridge could not possibly be presented with greater complexity, duress and inhibition, - without completely disappearing into a black hole, or being rendered into a 600 ft Buddhistic statue of Ron that we could all pray to while hoping for the second coming - to rescue us from our own incompetence. It is almost enough to turn one into a conspiracy theorist, (but not quite). What it is, is just collective or common bank resisting the final product of the pre-OT bridge. OT birth is evidently no easier than human. PUSH! Ok, now breathe... Welcome to the FreeZone.

Some final postcards from the Austrian front.

Since finishing the above I have been feeling unduplicated. I'm coming to the conclusion that effect beings want to see tricks, they can't quite believe a thing until they become the effect of it. Ron cut a wide swath during his lifetime. Reportedly, he did a few minor tricks and toward the end he was able to be someplace as the center of attention, or go pretty much unnoticed, at will. To my sensibilities this is probably one of the few 'tricks' that an OT can do without putting others grossly at effect. Being somewhat reticent myself - I kind of like it.

But most want to see something spectacular. They believed Ron because, even though he didn't do many 'tricks', he certainly was captivating, OT was always just around the corner, and in the end he did seem to have a half million or so of us, in thrall. Of course, putting a half million people at effect, in a positive way, is a pretty spectacular 'trick' in of itself.

So, basically, I believe that OTVIII is the end of the Standard Tech bridge. If the church has additional OT levels, at the very least they have never been tested on anyone and at best they will be only as good as the technical talent that the church has been able to retain after purging the politically incorrect. Church OT levels, will be Ray Mitoff tech. Church problems with putting in a stable OTVIII speak volumes. In my mind, this leaves them with only a slight advantage over the FreeZone, and if political correctness continues to be the primary requisite for technical acumen and OT, then whatever advantage they may currently have will eventually slip through their fingers.

The paragraphs above contain one glaring piece of illogic. How can the Standard Tech bridge have a Ray Mitoff, Ralph Hilton or Rey Robles OTVIII and still be called Standard Tech. My answer is that the OTVIII EP is such a full circle completion on the entirety of the whole Scientology bridge, and that to exclude it would leave one bereft of a usable anchor point from which to view the workability of Scientology as a whole. One thing I will assert, without reticence, is that the OTVIII EP is the OTVIII EP. It is such an altered point of view that it can't be anything but the end of cycle on the journey from effect back to cause and from cause on to pan-determinism.

I 'got' the OTVIII EP. I don't do 'tricks'. Honestly, other than always being at the right place at the right time, I can't. And if you are reading this, can do a trick or two, but don't have the OTVIII EP - enjoy it while you can, because it won't last.

'Tricks' are overt acts. Some other terminal needs to be the effect of your causation. Without pan-determism to underpin your 'tricks', you will eventually go effect of your own cause.

With the pan-deterministic point of view, the EP of OTVIII achieved, 'tricks' become part of play. Ambivalence to winning or losing removes the effect part of 'tricks' and the inevitability of the downward spiral of cause and effect.

As I have other points to express and debate on the various e-mail lists that I frequent, I'm going to start inserting them into this addendums archive.

Venice - Semmering Blog

Oct 19, '03 - Home - contemplating