Interview With Ex-Scientologist John Duignan

A few weeks ago, I conducted an interview with ex-Scientologist John Duignan, author of “The Complex: An Insider Exposes The Covert World Of  The Church Of Scientology“.

John was in the Church of Scientology for 22 years, and rose to become a respected member of the highly secretive Sea Org. In this extended interview, he tells his story in person for the first time. Among other topics, he speaks about the policies and teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, David Miscavige (the current head of the Church) and the hypnotic training routines (TRs) that Duignan himself underwent. He also discusses how the Church utilizes celebrities and their money to powerful effect, and the controversial death of Jett Travolta.

Here is Part One of the interview, click anywhere on the video while it’s playing to go to YouTube and see the full playlist.

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Tetris Cures Anxiety Disorders, And The Medical Community Doesn’t Want You To Know About It

Tetris

In a recent news article, it was revealed that people exposed to traumatic images and events could be spared the suffering of recurring, obsessive thoughts by simply… playing Tetris soon afterwards.

From arstechnica.com:

“…the brain has limited resources, and secondly, work on memory consolidation suggests that there is a six-hour window within which disruption of that consolidation is possible. Put another way, there’s only so much your brain can do at once, and if you distract it within that six-hour window, you can prevent the memory being fully formed.”

It sounds too good to be true. But then, so does the actual cure for any disorder along the anxiety spectrum, including Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Attacks, Depersonalization, Phobias, OCD, PTSD, etc etc. People who develop these types of conditions are often terrified when their initial research or trip to their doctor tells them that there is no actual specific cure for them; but that a course of SSRI anti-depressants and/or series of sessions in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy might just do the trick.

And yes, these approaches can certainly help and even cure people in some cases. But the actual structure and anxiety-related basis of these conditions means that if the patient does recover, it’s invariably a by-product of the therapy and not the therapy itself.

I’m speaking from experience; I suffered from chronic anxiety, panic attacks and depersonalization for almost two years. And I tried everything – you name it, I paid for it – Medication, meditation, Reiki, Yoga, etc etc. None of these approaches seemed to work. But in the end, I recovered, and what cured me was an intensive course of distraction. I kept my mind occupied 24/7: practicing the guitar, reading books, playing video games. I didn’t give myself one minute to accommodate the anxiety. Basically, I had to retrain my brain to not focus on obsessive, negative thoughts – and it worked like a charm. I’ve been telling people my story via an ebook, and have received almost universally positive feedback from readers. This stuff works, and it’s really as simple as it sounds. That’s not to say that it’s not hard work – it absolutely is – but it’s not complicated.

Doctor

I’m certainly not the first person to be aware of this. For example, Charles Linden’s anti-anxiety program basically says the same thing. And the fact is that anxiety research, when viewed through this lens, absolutely backs up the distraction theory. Indeed, it makes total sense that for something as purely self-perpetuating as anxiety disorders, treating them in the traditional sense is an exercise in futility. Most of these approaches just reconfirm to the individual that there is something ‘wrong’ with them, reminding their subconscious that it’s supposedly ‘ill’. But it’s not – it’s just addicted, temporarily, to one specific train of thought. And distraction can cure it.

The whole thing is basically an extension of the Tetris/PTSD phenomenon – If the events have been stuck in your thoughts for a few hours, then immediate, intensive distraction for a little while will push out them out as if they’d never been there in the first place.  If you’re unfortunate enough to have been stuck with these thoughts for months and even years, then it’s probably going to take a few months worth of constant distraction to achieve the same effect. But it always works. It works because the mind has been diverted (by trauma, drugs, grief etc) into an anxious, introspective state, and all you’re doing now is reversing that procedure. It works because it has to work.

People often fear that the trauma of the anxiety will be with them forever, or fear that their personality will be somehow different. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s because of a mental phenomenon known as state-specific memory. It basically means that once you are completely out of a state, or an experience, that it’s very difficult to remember the full extent or power of  your emotions while you were in it. It’s one of the most brutal things about depression, in that when you feel very down, you can actually ask yourself, “Was I ever really happy?”  Since you are not in anything resembling a happy state, it’s nearly impossible to remember when you had one. The same goes for anxiety (which is very much linked to depression). But the fact is that it works the other way too – so that when you get out of the anxious state, you actually wonder, “What the hell was I so worried about?”  So, I can clearly remember the time I spent feeling constant anxiety and panic attacks, but I can’t relate to it anymore. Which is a good thing.

I think that’s also the reason that when we have nightmares, in which we see  the most horrendous images dredged from the pits of our own subconscious, and tailored to terrify you specifically — we can still get up, have our breakfast, go to work and forget about it. Why are we not crippled by these images, why don’t they haunt us and stop us leaving the house? Because when we wake up we lose the dream state, we are immediately back in a normal, structured reality that is entirely different from the nightmare, and requires our full concentration to navigate. We don’t have time to focus on the fear, and so it disappears. (Interestingly, at the nadir of my anxiety disorder, I was actually having panic attacks in my dreams, waking up and having another panic attack. Great fun altogether…)

Unfortunately, this goes so completely against the standard medical view of anxiety disorders that it is seen by most doctors as baseless conjecture. All of these MDs who prescribe cocktails of medications to treat “separate” anxiety-related neuroses are following their training to the T, but they are missing the big picture. I’m not going to get into a rant about how so many of them are tied up in ‘sponsored dispensation‘ of medications, but the fact is that it’s far more beneficial for doctors to prescribe a long course of anti-depressants and follow-up appointments (which is all by the book) rather than tell a patient  that they might recover completely if they spend their money instead on a Nintendo with Tetris (which is definitely not by the book). It’s what happened to me; over the course of 12 months, I saw a doctor, one of the highest-paid in the country, who really had no idea how to deal with my condition and just gave me tablets and platitudes until I went away.

It just never fails to amaze me just how little doctors know about anxiety conditions in general. I have so many emails from people who, suffering from what are blatantly obvious symptoms of anxiety, are told by their doctors that they may be having a nervous breakdown, a manic-depressive episode, even a psychotic break. These poor souls, who are experiencing nothing more than an overreaction of their fight or flight response – something easily cured – are told that they may be looking at years of medication, therapy and brainscans, at the precise time when what they need most is distraction from their condition.

It’s a disgusting level of ignorance, perpetuated by both the pharmaceutical industry and avaricious, blinkered doctors, and it ruins lives. It needs to be addressed immediately.

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Why The 2009 CIE Fare Hikes Are a Slap In The Face To Irish People

CIE Train

Well, it’s another new year, another set of fare hikes for CIE. Everything’s going up, as usual: Bus, train and Luas users are all going to have to cough up that little bit extra for the luxury of these public services. Of course, this is nothing new – it’s been happening every single new year for at least the last decade. It’s as regular as the services themselves are not.

During the Celtic Tiger years, the excuse used by CIE for putting up prices was rising fuel costs, the added pressure on services to cater for immigrant commuter workers to the country, etc etc. Well, we can see now that those excuses were a load of rubbish – the workers are leaving Ireland in droves, fuel costs are at their lowest in years, and yet the fares still make their annual leap. Not only that, but many routes are going to have their services reduced, and some will be cut altogether.

This time, the explanation is that the CIE have made massive operating losses in the last year, due to a drop in demand for services.

So, let’s be clear: This company’s reaction to making operating losses is to increase fares. Now, I’m no business acolyte, but I am familiar with the concept of common sense. And there is no common sense in CIE’s explanation. It goes against even the most basic rules of commercial interaction. You attract customers by lowering the cost to them, right? But no, this insular, state-mollycoddled service can keep putting up  fares while issuing statements that defy logic outright. Why? Because they have a monopoly. Because so many people have no choice but to use them. (And like all good monopolies, CIE hate criticism. A few years back, I wrote an article for a college magazine that lambasted their quality of service. CIE promptly contacted the college’s students union and informed them that if they continued publishing this type of disparagement, measures would have to be taken. Legal action was not directly threatened, but the state of affairs was made very clear.)

CIE Logo

It’s actually cheaper now to run a small car on a week to week basis than it is to use the bus regularly. Certainly, for longer trips, there is no comparison. The fact is that in a world suffering an environmental crisis, where almost every other first-world nation is actively encouraging its citizens to get out of the car and use public transport, Ireland is swimming furiously against the tide. Increased fares, less routes and no improvement on what is, let’s be honest, a shite service…. what are they playing at? Our Government seems determined to put more people on the already-congested roads.

Also, despite CIE’s claims that they are hemorrhaging customers, we still see comments and headlines like these:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/cie-fare-hikes-cant-be-justified-1595255.html

or

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2008/sep/28/irish-rail-enough-empty-trains-to-get-to-the-moon/

in which we see a glimpse of the astonishingly wasteful practices of the company. When you read reports that say “…almost 20% of the empty mileage is attributable to Iarnród Éireann’s refusal to decentralise drivers to commuter centres…”, it’s difficult to feel sympathy for the huge losses that they manage to incur. These people have no idea how to run a streamlined business, and have no incentive to learn, either. Why should they? They know that no matter how much they run the company into debt (and the national transport infrastructure into the ground) that they will be bailed out in the new year. The commuter will pay the price, simply because they have to. No heads will roll, no individual will be held accountable, and no competition will be allowed to show them up for the shambles they are.

And all of this is occurring in the most difficult economic climate the country has seen in decades, where people are struggling to even find work to pay off their debts, and in which Fianna Fail responded to a national financial crisis by rolling out a Sheriff-Of-Nottingham budget that specifically targeted the middle classes, students and the elderly – the people least likely to fight back. But these would-be-victims surprised the whole country by organising their collective anger and making a difference. Specifically, the ageing population of the country took to the streets in their droves because of the withdrawal of free medical cards. Rarely have I felt more proud to be Irish than when I read reports of government ministers being shouted down by OAPs who had had enough and were not going to take it anymore. Fianna Fail got very scared and made budget backtracks faster than anyone had anticipated.

OAP Protests

But that was a rare high point in a situation that has seen Fianna Fail try to claw money back from the most vulnerable; the very money that the government wasted in the first place and continues to waste. Instead of blatant theft, the government has simply adopted a strategy of “testing the waters”. They see how far they can go before people freak out and protest. And yes, the OAPs and students put up a fight, but look at what wasn’t protested or repealed: A new ‘levy’ of between 1 and 2% on all incomes. Increased air travel tax, now a huge 10 Euros per flight (over 300km).  Alcohol tax is up there with the highest in Europe, and general VAT rates went up. So, when huge crowds of Irish shoppers crossed the border to the North to do their shopping with the much fairer UK rates, they were rebuked by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who said:

“When you shop in Northern Ireland, you’re paying Her Majesty’s taxes, you’re not paying taxes to the state that you live in.”

That’s right, folks – it’s your patriotic duty to get robbed. Forget about the myriad bank executives who receive little more than a slap on the wrist for deeply irresponsible – and often, illegal – financial activities. Forget the black hole of public funding that is the Health Service Executive. Forget the fact that Hoffa-esque unions have held this country to ransom for decades, and that noone in government has the guts to do a thing about it. Forget all that, because once you cross the border to actually get value for your money, you become a veritable dissident.

Funnily enough, “patriotic duty” was also the weak reasoning behind Fianna Fail’s campaign to get the Lisbon Treaty passed. Rather than present any cogent arguments, they told the country that it was our civic obligation to (a) not ask questions and (b) tick the ‘yes’ box. This “just shut up and do it” attitude extended to the point where Cowen admitted that he had not read the entire text of the Treaty.

And yet, in this catalogue of monumentally selfish and cavalier actions, the worst still seems to me the CIE price hike. Why? Because it targets the people who have no choice. Because CIE can’t come up with a single good excuse for their actions. Because every other country in Europe has a transport system that is at least somewhat affordable and dependable. Because, as someone told me the other day, the ticket machine in Cork Bus Station does not accept 50 Euro notes – and often, neither do the drivers. Because it’s an insult those of us who do our bit for the environment. Because it exemplifies the quagmire of bureaucracy and non-responsibility that has helped send this country into a recession. Because this shambles of a company, this paradigm of wastefulness and arrogance, continues to exist only because it exploits the people who have no choice but to use it. Worst, because it seems the most like a  slap in the face.

How can a government expect the citizens of a country to do anything for them in the name of ‘Patriotic Duty’ when there is so little patriotism being shown by the government themselves?

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Occupation 101: A Background to the Israel and Palestine Conflict

Anyone who had been following the news will have seen reports of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza. It’s often difficult to find a concise background for a current news story, but for anyone who is interested, this documentary, “Occupation 101”, effectively conveys the story of Israel and Palestine. It also outlines the seldom-reported funding of the Israeli state and military by the US, and why global powers have turned a blind eye to the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people for so long.

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The Genius Of “The Crucible”

The Crucible Poster

On the 22nd of January 1954, Arthur Miller‘s play “The Crucible” premiered at the Martin Beck theatre in New York City. Ostensibly, the piece was a dramatisation of the infamous Salem Witch Trials, and uses the names of actual people from historical records. It’s a rip-roaring work, filled with intense human drama; unrequited love, adultery, religious fervour and blatant, brutal injustice, all set against the haunting backdrop of 17th-century Massachusetts.

However, the piece also served as a brilliant, abstract condemnation of the paranoia of the McCarthy-era US. Miller himself was brought before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the Joseph McCarthy-led group which investigated alleged ties to the Communist party. The US’ fear of “Reds Under The Bed” had generated the preposterous idea that Communism could somehow attack and assimilate the culture from within. The retaliatory actions that this generated seemed to exclude few. Luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith and Orson Welles were investigated and encouraged to give up any contemporaries with alleged Commie leanings.

As the McCarthy Committee turned into little more than a witchhunt, Miller decided to write a play that would demonstrate the futility and injustice of such investigations – a play about the most famous Witchhunt ever, the Salem Trials.

In the play, the instigator of the trouble is Abigail Williams. A young teenager, she is infatuated with her married neighbour, John Proctor. Though they have had an affair in the past, Proctor

Joseph McCarthy

has realised the error of his ways and now wants nothing to do with the petulant girl. When Abigail and her friends are seen taking part in strange activities in the woods near the village, fears of witchcraft spread through the village. Abigail and her friends soon discover, however, that they can avoid repercussions by claiming they have been misled, and now want Jesus back in their hearts. They also discover that they can accuse others of consorting with the devil, destroying their lives and reputations without the need for any physical evidence whatsoever. The story concludes with a series of hangings, as the town becomes lost utterly to hysteria.

Though the story was written over a century ago, and created as a reaction to a contemporary event, it still resonates today. Miller’s genius was to create a work that was hugely critical of the injustices he saw around him, but also cut to the core of why those injustices become manifest at all in human nature. Abigail is a truly frightening creation; her adolescent fears and selfishness are loosed on society, respected because they are dressed up in the vernacular of piety. Her adept use of religious language allows her to abdicate responsibility for her childish actions; “I am but God’s finger, John”.

Bosch

Abigail’s actions don’t even represent some form of anarchic assault on democracy; rather, they are founded completely in her own vindictive nature. She’s the ultimate spoilt brat, a Jerry Springer horror who gets her way no matter what. With this character, Miller exposes the true nature of so much religious fervour and moral hyperbole – it’s almost all a scam, driven by fear and personal desires. Abigail’s youthful vacillations are even more destructive than those of the murderous children in Golding’s “Lord Of The Flies“, because she has managed to infect elders and social pillars with her vitriol. Trial By Jury, Habeus Corpus, all standard democratic legal procedure goes out the window because of  a horny teenager.

The story also illuminates beautifully the worldview of people in the 17th Century. In those days, there was little difference between the real world and that of the supernatural. Indeed, the veil between the two could fall away regularly. Demons like those of Hieronymus Bosch stalked the Earth, seeking souls to steal away. We seem to have come a long way since then; and yet, if you take a look at modern trends, such as that of self-help books like “The Secret“, we see ideas such as “The Law Of Attraction” – which is arguably just as real as any demons or angels. And yet, the fact remains that these avatars, these demons and intangible powers have yet consistent real-world effects in terms of how they are used and interpreted by people. Abigail uses imaginary demons to get John Proctor. Joseph McCarthy used them to attack a supposed Communist plot. Hunter S. Thompson used imaginary demons (chasing him across the Nevada desert) to illustrate his own nihilistic American Dream. The Bush Administration used imaginary demons (in the form of Weapons of Mass Destruction) to justify a war that continues today.

Miller seems to be asking us: In three centuries, have we really come that far?

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In this scene from the excellent 1996 film version, John Proctor, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, must decide whether or not to sign his name to a confession of witchcraft:

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This video of  the always-brilliant Stephen Colbert shows the reality behind many people’s religious bluster and their insistence on keeping religion a part of business, law and education:

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