Taking the counter-effort out of life

by Thoughtful

Much of Scientology is really directed toward reducing the amount of resistance you run into in trying to get things done. In 1952, LRH described a scale of energy:

Static
Aesthetics
Reason
Emotion
Effort
Matter

In the lower bands people run into counter emotion, counter effort, counter matter. These are the blocks and barriers of living. But higher on the scale, one can move out of the effort band and smoothly get things done. So how does one handle life’s counter effort?

In the 1960s at St Hill, LRH discovered that there were only a handful of factors powerful enough to prevent auditing. Ron dubbed them the “super barriers” since anything strong enough to prevent auditing is strong enough to prevent life.

It was this stroke of genius that gave us the formation of the Bridge.

These super barriers encompass the key types of aberration that bar life. When you know how to recognize and handle each barrier, why, it becomes easier to succeed in any environment because no matter where you go, you are always confronting the same five super barriers in the people around you.

With proper training, you can’t be thrown off course or stopped. You can deal with every type of aberration and dramatization without becoming enturbulated yourself. In short, you can be a tower of calm strength moving forward smoothly toward your goals. And having fun while you’re at it.

That is why living itself becomes easier from the first day you begin training in Scientology... at least in the safe environment of the Independent field (I wouldn’t give two nickels for services in the corrupt Church of Scientology).

And now I’d like to show you something about training that may astonish you.

Conquering the Super Barriers

The Super Barriers are the source of the counter-effort that makes life a struggle.

LRH isolated them as the only things that prevent progress in auditing, and deduced that they were the keys to human aberration. That they were also the keys to stops in living goes without saying. As LRH pointed out, “Anything that would stop auditing would ruin someone’s life because auditing is pretty powerful stuff.”

With proper training you can gain the skills to detect and handle each of these super barriers in the people around you. And that’s how and why life takes on a new simplicity and ease from your first day on course.

Communication Problems: Communication difficulties are their own kind of aberration, including the inability to recall certain things. And if you don’t know how to recognize them, you may think the person has a withhold or a fixed idea when they don’t. Such misconceptions are the basis of many arguments and needless misunderstandings that make life a jungle.

Problems: People can be so worried by a particular problem they don’t even hear what you are saying. They may appear to be “upset” with you, and an untrained person easily assumes the wrong conclusion. This can spark an argument or leave you feeling introverted, wondering why your wife, husband or friend is ignoring you. Another troubling entanglement in the jungle of life.

Overts and Withholds: Not knowing how to spot the manifestations of a withhold leaves one wide open to attack in the form of unpleasant criticism and fault-finding that can really enturbulate you, not to mention the danger of what someone may do behind your back. Your confidence and even your life can be disrupted. When you are trained, you will know how to spot and handle this super barrier with no trouble at all. In short, you can watch your own back.

Upsets: Breaks in ARC (upsets) can be easily confused with a withhold, yet they are decidedly different manifestations. And if you mishandle an upset, it just gets worse! An ARC break can be so bad it changes a person’s whole life for the worse. Many, many friendships and marriages have been destroyed simply because a person did not know how to spot and handle this super barrier.

Fixed ideas: Someone acting under the dictates of a fixed idea can block your ability to get any cooperation. Your communication falls on deaf ears and the person refuses to agree or even listen to you. It’s impossible to handle unless you know how. And the untrained person can easily confuse a fixed idea with an ARC break or an missed withhold.

Real-life experience

With the all the suppression at the Int base, even close friends would often go out of comm. One wondered, “Is she ARC broken with me?” It used to happen to me a lot. Yet when I asked, the only answer was “No.” Ask a bit more and it might make the situation worse. Finally, my Academy training kicked in and recognize the manifestations of each super barrier so I could tell them apart.

Here’s an example: ARC broken people won’t look at you -- she did -- so it was not an ARC break. So that’s why questioning as to “Are you upset with me about something?” never got anywhere. Observing indicators, my friend looked... distracted. Ah-ha! A problem!

So I asked her searchingly, “Do you have a problem?” She laughed and got in comm. I used this knowledge many times through the years. Thank God I could tell the difference between the super barriers.

“I said okay, there are certain things that, if you don’t pay attention to them, prevent all progress in auditing. Therefore they must be the keys to aberration. And that is how we got the Gradation Chart. In all those years of experience, and there have been a lot of them, only these factors have presented themselves. Factors that, each one separately, much less in combination, can totally prevent case gain unless given attention. These are the super barriers to the track. These are the girders across the bridge that have fallen down sideways...

“If it bars auditing it will bar living. There isn’t anything else that could happen to people that could bar the road out.” -- LRH from What Every Auditor Should Know, 1966

The Antidote for the frustrations of living

In a safe environment, Scientology doesn’t take long to learn. LRH wanted it to be fast and direct. When you study LRH’s discoveries within the formal guidance of a checksheet, the frustrations and problems melt away. As you learn the anatomy of each type of super barrier, you learn how to spot the people in your environment who are impinging on your life with that aberration. And you learn what to do about it.

By the time you walk out, you have the tech to handle the key types of aberration and so feel revitalized. The average person spends more time each day trying to solve their problems than it takes to get trained. So through training you not only solve life’s problems, but gain more time each day to pursue your real interests.

Training gives you the fundamentals to handle any type of problem in life. Ask yourself what is easier: getting trained and discharging life’s frustrations, or staying untrained and never rising above the counter effort?

Easy to do. All drills on the Independent checksheets are aligned to the correct gradient and purpose of the Academy Levels. “Perfection” is not the ideal on Levels 0 - IV because “perfection” is the goal of Class VIII. Consequently, courses are fast.

Easy to attend. You can study full or part time, days, evenings or weekends. You’ll discover being on course helps you get more done in life since the more you do, the more time you actually have.

Easy to learn. No arbitraries from a corrupt squirrel organization to distract you from your simple mission. No one is going to ask you for donations or reg you for anything.

Easy to understand. Streamlined checksheets laid out by Joe Howard (Dan Koon) comply with LRH’s original orders for the Academy Levels. Joe did it all as a gift to the Independent field so Scientologists can get trained outside the corrupt Church.

Easy to clear words. If you have a question, just ask. Perhaps many of the “study bugs” people developed in the Church trace to PTSness from studying in a hostile, threatening, dangerous environment.

Easy to get through. Correct courses are limited as to overall length by order of LRH thus it only takes 2 weeks to get through full time. Why not significantly improve your condition in life in the next two weeks instead of just collecting more gray hair?

Easy to handle life. From your first day on course, life gets easier to handle. By the end of your training you’ll feel there’s nothing you can’t do.

My own training credentials

In the early ‘80s and ‘90s I ran Book One workshops and got lots of people auditing. I’m also a Flag-trained auditor and worked several months in the Case Cracking Unit at Flag. I trained up through Class IV on LRH's 1978 Academy Checksheets. And I spent three years making OTs at Flag and cracking Solo auditors as the Solo I/C. Just as Flag inherits the world's worst cases, they also inherit the worst Solo auditors, and as Solo I/C it was my duty to figure out what went wrong and crack the back of their inability to solo audit. I mastered the job... in fact the Senior C/S (Richard Reese) used to call me "The Master."

After I got trained, I returned to my lifelong passion: marketing. During my tenure as Senior Writer CMU (Central Marketing Unit) at the Int base I wrote more than 100,000 words about nearly 300 different Scientology products and services. One has to know your product before he can write about it with any reality. So I literally had to study e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g in depth. I’ve read most LRH books 4-6 times, got trained as an executive and also trained extensively in ethics.

In addition to all that, my own insatiable thirst to understand all of Scientology led me to do the OT Doctorate Course and on my own time I studied more than 1,000 of what we used to call LRH’s “OT lectures” delivered between 1951 - 1961.

My secret? Training.

I. Study. Because Scientology deals in truth, just studying it changes you in remarkable ways. Training is fascinating, laying bare the mechanics of life and how to shift gears. You learning what makes people tick with all the highest-powered breakthroughs, the concentrated essence of LRH discoveries barreling into your life.

II. Practice. There’s no such thing as boot camp for living. But if there was, you wouldn’t be drilling how to overwhelm people or break their spirit. You’d have to learn what only Scientology training provides -- how to spot and handle the super barriers of life. LRH materials teach you the right moves delivering assurance and poise on how to surmount, circumvent or conquer human aberration.

III. Apply. After you’ve drilled what to do, you get to apply it to someone else and that does wonders for your pride. LRH said there is another route to OT: demonstration of competence. When you know what to do, it all becomes quite effortless. Things change in magical ways.

IV. Have. You learned how to recognize and deal with the super barriers to life. Where so-and-so really is on the tone scale. Who’s critical because of a missed withhold. Who’s got a fixed idea. And with new skills, you become a cause point in your world. Now you are moving forward easier and faster. Large hills shrink to minor bumps and nothing is insurmountable.

Whoever you are, you need training

Training is the answer for anyone who handles, solves, encounters, deals with, analyzes, or otherwise wrestles with problems, pressures, troubles, difficulties, stress, worries, challenges, objections, arguments, disputes, friction, opposition or obstacles.

Any obstacle. Big or small.

In other words, anyone who is alive.

If, for example, you are a parent, training offers you a magic window into the life of your kids so you know how to approach them.

If you are a student, training offers you an education in life itself and sets you miles ahead of the pack. Study Tech enables you to be your own teacher which is good because learning is part of living.

If you have your own business, training can mean the difference between coming home early and working all night. Many careers pivot on the ability to deal with people. You will spend more time getting things done and less time wondering what to do.

If you work for someone else, training helps you move more quickly up the income ladder. You’ll even learn how to effectively deal with your boss or difficult clients no matter their mood because you can identify the phenomena caused by a super barrier.

If you want to create a happy family, training is essential. Where else can you learn how to take a screaming child, blow the charge and get him laughing again? Or how to handle a family member who is holding a grudge? Training is the ticket to restful nights and successful interpersonal relationships.

In other words, wherever there’s a life, there’s a need for training.

And the more problems and obstacles you are inclined to take on, the greater the need for training.

The training facts of life

In 2002, I had a series of surveys conducted on Scientologists on the subject of training. The results of the research was never published because Adolf Miscavige was blocking the way. Yet for some strange reason, the security guards who secretly stole most of my papers and marketing materials I had produced over my career when I was routing out from the Int base on March 11, 2004 somehow missed my notes that I had compiled on training. So here I can publish them myself now.

Radically improved personality: Surveys revealed an average 400-point improvement in Oxford Capacity Analysis test results by students who had only trained and not received any auditing. And that was within the suppressive environment of the CoS.

Far more successful: By survey, personal income of trained Scientologists soars from 200 to 500 percent, making it easier to get up the Bridge, easier to acquire the wherewithal of life and easier to survive.

Save money: Through co-auditing trained Scientologists save money on their way to Clear and become more stable and effective in life.

Faster sessions: Trained Scientologists run much faster in session -- especially outside the threatening environment of David Miscavige’s Hitlerian Hate squad -- in the safe environment of the Independent Field.

More likely to attain OT: Better than 90% of OTs are trained Scientologists.

Faster progress to OT: The sooner you get trained, the sooner you’ll find yourself flying up the Grade Chart. Surveys demonstrated that with training, your chances are 5 times greater that you’ll make it up the Bridge to OT in less than 2 years.

More case gain: More than 50% of your case gains come from training. You make gains by the hour on course, and make discoveries that change your whole life.

Eternal knowledge: Be prepared. You’ll need the knowledge, skills and certainty only available through training no matter where you go or what “happens to you” up the track.

Stable relationships: With training you can more easily handle anyone no matter who they are with communication alone. It is the best way to ensure you’ll have a successful family, career and life.

Out of the jungle

You can’t really appreciate the full power of training until you discover how to handle the super barriers of life.

But the wins begin right away.

You’ll be elated with how much more effortless life becomes once you start your training. Remember, this is the most powerful technology that has ever existed -- total insight into basic elements for knowing and handle life: the keys to unlock the super barriers.

So here’s my personal suggestion. Take a course. I don’t make a dime from this; I just love to help.

My friend Jimmy Rebel has created The Courseroom, a safe, standard environment where people can study any checksheet using LRH Study Tech outside the corruption of the Church of Scientology. A number of Independent Scientologists are even moving to that area so they can train and audit up to OT.

Put the knowledge of the super barriers to work in your life. And if it works, get at least one other person on course.

Life is what you make it. Training is where you make it.

Written by Thoughtful