************************************************************************ The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers, which is available to all those who subscribe to the printed magazine, International Viewpoints. Home Page: http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ - with extensive links to FZ! ************************************************************************ X-Authentication-Warning: gem.lightlink.com: majordom set sender to owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com using -f Received: from mx.lightlink.com (mx.lightlink.com [205.232.34.15]) by gem.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA03021 for Tue, 25 Jun 2002 01:53:22 -0400 Received: from imo-r06.mx.aol.com (imo-r06.mx.aol.com [152.163.225.102]) by mx.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA16478 for Tue, 25 Jun 2002 01:53:20 -0400 From: PJSpickler@aol.com Received: from PJSpickler@aol.com by imo-r06.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.21.) id q.15a.fd70847 (4068) for Tue, 25 Jun 2002 01:53:11 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <15a.fd70847.2a495f47@aol.com> Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 01:53:11 EDT Subject: IVySubs: Cognitions, bognitions, and other amusements To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0.1 for Mac sub 85 Sender: owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com Precedence: bulk ** ivy-subscribers relaying ** Good evening -- what follows is dedicated to past, present, and hopefully future IVy subscribers: One of the virtues of living in the generous confines of a fairly prestigious university is that along with its many symbiotes it is almost always engaged in pushing the frontiers of medical science to newer and even greater miraculous possibilities. This may in the long run turn out to be a double-edged sword, which in a freaky sense may work in the direction of making Planet Earth less habitable than it is now; or on the other edge of the sword, humankind may use this knowledge to re-perfect the planetary possibility. Many of the possibilities are so interesting and exciting, in many fleld of human endeavor, that it makes sticking around to see what's going to happen next much more interesting than the next installment of your favorite TV sitcom or soap opera -- not that anyone on the IVy list would ever be caught watching trivial TV! Anyhow, as mentioned in my last posting, life has once again been breathed into my corpus delicious, and this newfound energy has now become sublimated (a Freudian term) into writing to and for the IVy list. Looking at a dictionary, the word "cognition" has some connection with Latin "cognitio," knowledge; also, "the process of knowing in the broadest sense, including perception, memory, and judgment." And as many of you know, reaching cognition in Scientology processing was a most important outcome, as well as a signal of the end phenomena of any given process or procedure. As an auditor or as a preclear, it was always a great pleasure when, somewhere along the line in session, a fellow being would cognite, or have a cognition -- sometimes a very big one. And as this cognition or knowingness or degree of understanding would unfold for the being, you could see all the component parts of understanding (affinity, reality, and communication) zoom out the roof, and if someone was hooked up to an E-meter, you could observe for a fact that phenomenon known as a floating needle; and if the cognition was big enough for a lot of mental mass and/or other beings to leave the vicinity in a happy state, you could even get something called a "persistent floating needle." And all of this of course was evidence that the person had truly increased their degree of understanding, their degree of cognition, their degree of knowingness, and in Buddhist terms may have achieved enough enlightenment, enough sense of what the "cognitee" really is, enough conception of mind essence, to have achieved satori (a Japanese word for being blown completely out of your thinking mind) -- WOW! It's also possible for people to have cognitions outside of auditing rooms, outside of Dianetics and Scientology, outside of all the therapies, religions, spiritual and mental treatments that have ever existed. The person might just be making a bed in a cabin high in the mountains and listening to a stream of water making pretty rippling sounds as it flowed gently by the cabin, and to be hearing some birds singing, and certain patches of sunlight and shadow in the person's perception, and said person might at that moment become very enlightened, have a major mind-blowing nonverbal realization, become Clear, etc. etc. etc., all without anyone ever saying, "This is the session." What happens to people after they have major mind-blowing cognitions, which now afford them a much greater understanding, much greater perception and insight, is an interesting subject in itself. Another thing about these cognitions is, they are intensely pleasurable, spiritually, mentally, and physically -- terrifically pleasant. In other words, they produce a tremendous "high." The Orientals, thousands of years ago, learned that people, people such as thee and me, can become addicted to spiritual highs, in much the same way that people become addicted to some of the spectacular highs that different drugs make possible. So it's fairly important, unless you wish to spend a great deal of time and money pursuing bigger cognitions and bigger highs, to practice non-attachment to these momentous events, to treat them with insousciance, and avoid the beingness of someone who is overwhelmed by coming closer through cognition to what one really is, versus what for a long time one has thought one is. Unfortunately, most of the speedy express-trip systems that now abound for getting folks to big cognitions without any delay have very little philosophy to offer folks to help them to understand their understanding. But enough! More to follow in Part 2 of this 1-billion-part essay, in which I think we're all going to have a lot of fun looking at the subject of "bognitions" and the important part they play in keeping us convinced that we are what we aren't. Best wishes and good evening -- Phil ** Home Page: http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ - with extensive links to FZ! ** **************************************************************************** **************** X-Authentication-Warning: gem.lightlink.com: majordom set sender to owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com using -f Received: from mx.lightlink.com (mx.lightlink.com [205.232.34.15]) by gem.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA28841 for Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:37:48 -0400 Received: from imo-m03.mx.aol.com (imo-m03.mx.aol.com [64.12.136.6]) by mx.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA22199 for Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:37:47 -0400 From: PJSpickler@aol.com Received: from PJSpickler@aol.com by imo-m03.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.21.) id q.165.f47dbab (3959) for Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:37:36 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <165.f47dbab.2a4a9f10@aol.com> Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 00:37:36 EDT Subject: IVySubs: Cogs and bogs, part 2 of 1 billion To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0.1 for Mac sub 85 Sender: owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com Precedence: bulk ** ivy-subscribers relaying ** Dear Fellow-listers, I come to you this evening with many thanks to the kind few that acknowledged Part 1 of this sub-magnum opus. Having put some of my exceedingly small number of attention units on the subject of cognitions, I (or someone) has rediscovered quite a large cache of past cognitions that have been piling up for the past 50 years. That's right, I said 50 years, 'cause the magic started happening in 1952 -- seems like only yesterday, although I have to admit that my body was a bit leaner. Anyway, and all kidding aside, I thought I might go into the business of selling some of my surplus cognitions, for a reasonable price, to anyone that's short in that department or would like to get their hands, metaphorically speaking, on some of my more amazing cognitions. Anyway, if you send a self-addressed and stamped postcard to me at this address, plus 25 cents American, I'll be happy to return your postcard with a cognition carefully handwritten upon it. I don't mean to overcharge anyone, so I would probably be willing to accept less than $0.25, up to and including zero. All right -- that takes care of the serious part of tonight's communique; and now for some light-hearted silliness. Back in the 20th century, in the year 1952 or thereabouts, L. Ron Hubbard authored a book called _History of Man_; not a very big book, but it's filled with some wonderfully outrageous thoughts and theories and facts about humankind, its history, and what you can find out to audit. Anyhow, early on in this little book, Mr. Hubbard makes quite a point of giving an expanded look at what a human being consists of, and the information comes as quite a revelation to anybody that had been comfortably thinking that a human being consists of one body, one mind, and one thetan or spiritual being. Ah, wouldn't it be nice if we human beings consisted of such a simple composite! However, if things were that simple, it would probably be very difficult to keep the composite in one piece, so to speak. It would probably just keep falling apart with great frequency and very little persistence. No, the makers of human beings, in order to get something that would last more than 2 weekends, had to find and achieve a complexity level containing enough confusion and intricacy to guarantee a good deal of persistence and defy even expert efforts to sort out the puzzle. And of course, one of the shockers, real or imagined, is that there seem to be a lot more than one spiritual being present in that which we call a human being, and that numbers of these other beings have also generated or invented or mocked up all kinds of other subtext identities for various and sundry purposes in various and sundry games. Now, Mr. Hubbard gave us all a certain degree of hope that in the midst of this rather formidable but somewhat beautiful confusion there was someone called "the guy himself," and that among all these souls, this would be the only one spelled with a capital S, the big Soul; and that by getting this Soul clear of this giant confusion that it could have been sleeping in the midst of for who knows how long, and getting it all waked up and conscious and responsible again, you'd have quite an amazing spiritual being who is now de-confused and capable of wondrous and marvelous things. And needless to say, each one of us hearing about this thinks to themself or selves, "Well by gosh, that's who I really am -- I'm the big S." Now that may be a cognition or a bognition. I'm just here to say that in another one of these parts of a billion, that I would like to share with you my experiences and understandings of the last 50 years, and each of us can decide for themselves whether that 1952 model is spot-on or not. It certainly has a lot going for it compared to many other efforts to describe what a human being is made of, but we may have to do a little bit more in the direction of finding out as much as possible about just what an individual soul, spirit, or thetan is, or really is. Since brevity is the soul of wit, I shall close tonight's modest masterpiece with a very famous oxymoron, namely, a human being without a case. Believe it or not, there are quite a few people who believe that that is a possibility. And so good night, pleasant dreams; I hope to be with you again soon -- Your most obedient servant, No one in particular ** Home Page: http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ - with extensive links to FZ! ** ********************************** X-Authentication-Warning: gem.lightlink.com: majordom set sender to owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com using -f Received: from mx.lightlink.com (mx.lightlink.com [205.232.34.15]) by gem.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA02398 for Mon, 1 Jul 2002 01:39:18 -0400 Received: from imo-d01.mx.aol.com (imo-d01.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.33]) by mx.lightlink.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA28141 for Mon, 1 Jul 2002 01:39:17 -0400 From: PJSpickler@aol.com Received: from PJSpickler@aol.com by imo-d01.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.21.) id q.25.29d7de37 (4068) for Mon, 1 Jul 2002 01:39:12 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <25.29d7de37.2a514500@aol.com> Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 01:39:12 EDT Subject: IVySubs: Bognitions To: ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0.1 for Mac sub 85 Sender: owner-ivy-subscribers@lightlink.com Precedence: bulk ** ivy-subscribers relaying ** Good evening, and hello! Well, my little 20-volume dictionary gives the following information about the word "bog, bogged or bogging:" "to sink or become stuck in, or as in, a bog; mire; often with 'down.'" OK, then there's this word "bognition," which I believe but am not positive was coined at some point in time in the Church of Scientology and/or its many organizations. And if someone had a bognition, it was generally taken to mean they had reached a conclusion or some sort of consideration or opinion, etc. etc. etc., that was the opposite of a cognition. As mentioned in an earlier posting, cognitions, which is another name for an increase in understanding, are accompanied by what are called in Scientology "very good indicators," which auditors would write on their worksheets as VGI's. Somewhere in all the bulletins or tech volumes, if you care to search it out, there's a fairly sizable list of things called "good indicators." I don't remember all of them, but some of the more obvious ones were: the person having the cognition looking happy or even joyous, possibly laughing in a very free and happy way; the person's eyes getting bright; the person physically feeling warm or getting warmer, a release of heat; their attention extroverted; etc. etc. and last but not least, if they were hooked up to an E-meter, you would definitely be able to see a fine example of what was called a "floating needle." When a person has a bognition, good indicators, very good indicators, VGI's, F/N (floating needle) are not present. Bognitions, more often than not, do not occur in an auditing session; they might occur in a badly-delivered solo auditing session, but are mostly found in the life and livingness of a given person. A bognition does not truly increase someone's understanding, and is accompanied by a reduction in ARC, and really good (bad) bognitions generally have an introverting result. An examination of the various and sundry Service Facsimiles (a Dianetic and Scientology term that in one case has to do with making self right and others wrong) will show that that area of case is a veritable goldmine for bognitions. I'm embarrassed to have to tell you that the founder of Dianetics and Scientology, who in his more youthful period of creativity exhibited what might be called some very great talents, possibly even genius, in the fields of Dianetics and Scientology, later on in his life became a superior and moving force for the creation of bognitions, which unfortunately became translated into church policy, Sea Org marching orders, and even at times confused some of the rather beautiful technology that he had come up with. Some of these bognitions, if you're in a position where the Church can't crush you for speaking freely, are rather humorous. One of the ones that I thought was right up there in the ranks of Funny but caused more trouble in its time, and possibly still is, among and in the ranks of the Churchies, was the following famous bognition: "If it ain't written, it ain't true." That became, for Mr. Hubbard and many of his followers, one of the most deadly Service Facsimiles to ever grace the days of darkness in the Church of Scientology. But believe you me, folks and friends, all of us at one time or another have created or generated, sometimes with help, some heavy-duty bognitions that have stood out, or perhaps are still standing, in our lives as sad examples of thought that diminishes understanding, lowers ARC, and inhibits our ability to function among our own created dynamics. I have a number of cherished bognitions that I keep in my Bognition Diary, and occasionally, when I want a really unpleasant game, I haul one or more of them out and insist they ARE the truth. I hope someday to publish an expanded Dictionary of Bognitions, which could become an all-time classic of humor as well as an explanation for what appear to be the major tragedies and calamities that have occurred here on Planet Earth over the centuries. It would be possible to go on talking about bognitions, but I think I'd like to conclude by saying that anyone, at any time, can have a cognition about a bognition, which will then convert all that entheta (enturbulated theta, or enturbulated consciousness) and reconvert it to free and happy theta. Moving on to a new but very old topic or subject, I should like to say a few words about admiration. It's been a fair while since that topic got exercised on the IVy list, and I express admiration to both Michael Collins and Heidrun Beer for speaking on that topic. Even the gods and the super-gods and the creators of gods really and truly love admiration, even up to and including enforcing or making others give it to them. Going back a few millennia, the tribes of Israel, the Hebrews, found a god (or he found them, it's hard to say who found who) who made very heavy demands in the areas of obedience and adulation and appreciation and acknowledgment, and not the least, admiration. And woe betide any individual or the Jews en masse if they failed on a daily basis to let this monster, who came to be called Jehovah, receive a daily dose of admiration and propitiation. Any failures brought out the wrath of the creator, who by the way seems extremely deficient in admiring his creations, starting with Adam and Eve, and as you know, after setting them up in that sting game with the serpent, he was able to make himself, that is Jehovah, right, and Adam and Eve so wrong that this unforgiving god kicked them out of the Garden of Eden and made sure that they and their descendants ever after would suffer mightily for this terrible sin of the father and the mother of the human race. Talk about case! Well anyway, as I was saying, from the so-called highest to the lowest, whether you're moving vertically or laterally, anything that exists, even if it's in the Plutonium Zone or the Einsteinium Zone, desires admiration for being and creating, and if whatever it is is not too fouled up, is an excellent source of the same to others. If you have found the giving and getting of admiration a trap, and imagine getting into such good shape that you would never again need or want to receive it, and probably not to give it to others lest you entrap them, well, if I had that thought, I'd treat it as a gigantic bognition. But I could admire myself or selves for having such a giant bognition, and as I watched it dissolve and float away in the face of the universal solvent of admiration, I would then recover my wonderful perspective on giving and getting admiration, and with very good indicators in abundance would continue to saunter along and through the byways of existence, until on one cool clear afternoon I cognited (with Very, Very good indicators) that Samsara is Nirvana and that Nirvana is Samsara. Good night for now; hope to see you all again soon, Phil ** Home Page: http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ - with extensive links to FZ! **