Critical Q&A #118

The weekly show where I answer questions from viewers left in the comment sections of my Q&A videos or sent to me by email to AskChrisShelton@gmail.com. This week, the questions I answer are:

(1) In your talk with Aaron Smith-Levin, you mentioned memory recall (ARC Straightwire) not thinking of any possible down side. I would be curious if it could lead to false memory construction. Is it supposed to be real memory recall or do the people involved know that you are reconstructing a “memory”?
AND
Hi Chris, really love your show and thank you for always answering my questions. I just read this article on ‘false memories’ and ‘memory hacking’ on www.motherboard.vice.com and I instantly thought of you. I wondered what you might make of it and any possible implications it has on the memories recovered during an ‘auditing’ session.

(2) When I watched a DC television station’s broadcast of ABC 20/20’s report on Ron Miscavige, I saw a Scientology ad during one of the commercial breaks. Why would Scientology buy a TV ad in the middle of a program that good Scientologists are not supposed to watch? I thought Scientology’s rare TV ads (eg, during the Super Bowl) are designed to impress existing Scientologists about how far-reaching the Church’s PR is. Broadcasting an ad that few good Scientologists would see seems contrary to that purpose. How do you explain this contradiction?

(3) The International Association of Scientologists bilks millions of dollars when building Ideal Orgs, but once they are opened, there’s no chance they will ever be financially self sustaining. So they must be subsided by the Church of Scientology and cannot be closed, sold or repurposed for profitable business. So isn’t the Ideal Org program counterproductive?

(4) First off, I find it painfully obvious that Fair Game (or something like it) is alive and well to this day. However, the “church” claims that it was cancelled as early as 1968. Hubbard apologists would take the position that any Fair Game practiced today is “Captain” Dave’s doing and can be in no way charged to Hubbard, while critics claim that Hubbard did NOT cancel Fair Game itself but that he cancelled only use of the term for PR reasons.
To your knowledge, was the practice and/or terminology in use after 1968 or did they re-brand the harassment of persons non grata? As recently as in the Monique Rathbun lawsuit, the Church defended harassment as a religious practice that should be, as they claimed, outside of the purview of US law. Were they defending their right to Fair Game or something else entirely?

(5) You mention the “spirit of play” as an element of running an Org. How does this coexist with the dim view Hubbard took (and modern Scientologists take) of “Joking and Degrading” (J&D)? Is this another instance of the cognitive dissonance that is used by many destructive cults to keep their members off-balance?

(6) Chris, question for you since you brought up OT8 on the ship. Have you ever heard of a situation where a Scientologist had sea sickness and was allowed to do OT8 on dry land?

(7) What Linux distribution do you use?

(8) Are there an infinite number of thetans? I mean Hubbard would never have predicted that the world’s population would expand the way it has, right? Do thetans multiply?

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