John Brownlee has had a long Scientology-related history, including having audited between 10,000 and 12,000 hours “in the chair” as an Expanded Dianetics Specialist between 1972 and 1982. Between then and now, John experienced related modalities of processing, such as Alan Walter’s Knowledgism.
Not long ago, John came onboard as a client of mine, for the dual purposes of “handling his case” to satisfy his own spiritual needs and to prepare himself to get back into the game of processing others (remember his name, if it’s new to you, he’s going to be very effective, and I can’t process everyone all by myself! ☺)
Here is what John would like to share so far:
Dexter,
Thanks to you, I am one of the very few people who can say they finally got handled what they came into Scientology to get handled (!) And in rather spectacular fashion, too.
Of course you were there to witness this, so this is not news to you, but in writing up my wins it occurred to me that others might benefit from hearing my account, especially if they might be considering starting processing themselves.
I am not saying that my case is typical, that others would experience the same thing, but rather, wonderful things are indeed possible in processing.
As you know, I am not a stranger to processing and many other forms of experimentation. One would think that this latest result should have happened far sooner, but it didn’t. The area got touched on for the first time when I did Alan Walter’s training, but I was a trainee rather than a client and didn’t pursue things further back then.
Before contacting you, life was beating me up pretty badly. Despite that, when you asked me what it was I wanted to get handled, I truly could not come up with a definite answer to the question. I just couldn’t. I knew I was suffering but that suffering was so much a part of me, and my existence, I couldn’t name or define it.
Indeed, I believe that was one of the first things we took up handling- the feeling or attitude “I can’t get it”. And things progressed from there.
This is where your approach is so different from the “standard tech” of Scientology. You take up what the client has their attention on. Funny thing is, Ron says too that the idea of processing is to parallel the PC’s mind-to handle what they have their attention on. He says that if you do this, the PC will be wildly interested and will run like a dream. But we know that this simply is not done in the church.
Whatever, I can tell you Ron was right. We did exactly what he suggested and things ran great!
So…. here’s my story as best as I can recall it now:
(a lot of what you did was ask for moods, or sensations, etc connected with items or areas that would come up and I can’t remember precisely all the items we ran, but certainly salient or pivotal ones. Some of those I will relate here.)
For instance, a feeling of “death” came up .. Running that (or an item connected with it), I found myself going into a drowsy state and realized I must be encountering a past death-which one I didn’t know. At first, I felt it must be recent, and then later concluded that, that it was, in fact, at the end of my last lifetime.
Thereafter, in session, the same area would keep on coming up.
I would have amazing realizations about it, about events related to it, the people involved, locations, details, etc. At one point I suddenly realized that it felt like I was harbouring a secret shame, a family secret, but as to what that might be, I had not a clue. Still, it was a cognition, and as with so many others, I would state the realization, come up to present and, when the win was a good one, we would end off until the next session.
Ron Hubbard talks about children often being stuck in a recent death. In my case, though largely unknown to me, I spent the better part of my life triggered into exactly that. For the first time, we were examining it, digging things out of it. I was learning more and more about what had happened.
I began to see how so much of who I have been being this lifetime might have come directly out of my experience then. And it was an horrific one. Extremely traumatic, involving family members, some of whom I knew again this life-a perfect storm in terms of triggers
Of course, a skeptic (myself included) could say that this is all make-believe, that this could all be the result of an overactive imagination. Through my own experience in the church, for instance, I concluded that the general practice of writing success stories, attesting, having to get F/Ns, etc, created a culture where PCs tended to manufacture good indicators. And with the overrunning of Dianetics, especially, incidents became unreal, constantly changing, sounding more and more bizarre. Many wins sounded hollow; quite frankly, people generally did not appear to be doing any better in the real world.
In this round of processing, therefore, I was determined not to make this mistake. I wanted confirmation that my wins were real, not just wishful thinking.
What happened next, blew me away.
You asked me if there was a shock, and I immediately teared up, signaling to me that this was indeed the case. But when you told me to “return to the moment of shock” it was like you had thrown a switch and I found myself suddenly in full-blown revivification! My assailant was attacking me, overwhelming me, and I heard myself mentally shouting, over and over, in horror and disbelief, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS??!!. WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”
I was a crying, blubbering mess. And it took me a long time to finally come out of that.
But I did. I had a realization about what had happened, mopped up, we finished the session.
But next session, the same thing would happen again. You’d say “return to the moment of shock” and I would. Right back into that horror and shock and chaos, the whole event more real than anything in my room.
And again and again. Each session the same or similar, each time discovering more and more, but each time feeling that the grief and sadness would never end.
Of course, I would come out of that each time, feeling better for having learned more, but each time knowing that there was yet more to confront.
You had me describe the shock-it’s size, it’s colour, etc. Indeed, it felt like it was as big as my world, that it included everything in my world, and was a burden the size of my world.
I have to digress here. As our processing took place over the space of a few months, life happened too, between sessions.
Interestingly, I noticed that much of that drama taking place in my life seemed to be directly related to what we were running! How cool was that?
It was like life kept handing me more and more triggers, tossing me back into that other lifetime. I began to see how I had been living though all this suffering, attempting to deal with life from this viewpoint of suffering. In short, it seemed that my whole life situation now might be a direct outcome of the trauma from my last life. Who can you tell this to apart from your processor?!
Between sessions, especially when we would have no processing for a week or more, it felt like I was walking around on emotional eggshells, all this grief and emotion sitting just under the surface.
Not a bad thing, however. I say that because I began to also see how I had adopted an entire persona of stoicism in order to deal with my emotions. I had always thought that I had managed quite well despite a rough childhood, for instance. Then it began dawning on me that exactly the opposite was true. I hadn’t escaped unscathed. Not at all.
Quite a startling revelation that was, occurring outside of session while writing a journal describing my feelings.
So things were percolating, unraveling. Charge was peeling off in layers, like an onion.
And again, each session, I would flip into that experience of shock and grief, thinking that it was never-ending. Until one morning I tried to describe exactly what personality I had become through that experience-the personality I would slip into every time I had a big loss, or a major falling out with someone. And it was eerie. And nasty. I was discovering I could really look at myself for the first time. At my worst, projected cold, harsh, silent, uncompromisingly rigid and unbending, cruel, self-righteous, all-encompassing and vengefully dismissive disdain. Ugh.
The self-righteous part kind of clued me in. This was beginning to sound curiously like a service facsimile. Could I be using this suffering as a make wrong, make myself right, etc. kind of thing?
The very next session, again, I went right into revivification upon hearing “return to the moment of shock”. But this time, it was short, and it seemed like I bounced right out of it. Upon hearing the command again, I couldn’t contact the shock at all.
Surprised, and a little curious, I offered that it seemed like something had blown. Not something major, but something had changed, somehow. It was like a string to a large balloon had been cut, and something was floating away.
It seemed unreal that something so huge and so significant could just disappear without the least of fanfares.
Then, quite suddenly, my body started to hyperventilate. Then this truly bizarre sensation began moving over and through me. I was stunned – I couldn’t figure out what was happening. And happening it was!
I started to laugh. And I began laughing harder and harder. It occurred to me that you may not know that I was laughing this time and not crying, as, to me at least, it sounded much the same ☺
So I managed to gasp out to you that I was laughing, but at what I didn’t know (!) Truly, it wasn’t funny, but I was laughing so hard my stomach was hurting. That was weird!
But then I began to see that it was relief. It was the last vestiges of that which I had been holding onto that had been cut. All that shock, that pain and suffering, was now dissipating and I was in the throes of incredible relief and release.
I was going wow wow wow in my head! And I started moving up and out, and away.
I kept thinking how unique it was that so much of the experience was happening before the realizations. Usually, it works the opposite. I have a realization and THEN I start experiencing the release. This time it was all in reverse. How wild is that?!
And all the time I was laughing harder than I have ever laughed in my life-with the exception of one other time I won’t go into here, LOL!
And I began to see how I HAD used this suffering as a make wrong. It was like I wanted others to know and understand how much I was suffering and if they didn’t, then I would try to make them suffer as I did. I mean, why should I be the only one suffering? LOL!
And of course, THEN, I found this to be uproariously hilarious.
Yes, I could see how people everywhere in their suffering used exactly this.
So on some level, I was holding onto this as a survival thing. It was the cutting of that last tie that ended the need to keep on holding onto this any longer.
And then, of course, more and more cognitions kept coming.
I could see how all that crying was simply the process of arriving at viewing the incident in its entirety, at which point it vanished. As-is-ness at work. It was such a validation of the whole process, of the axioms.
And then I got all gushy with appreciation and the tears came again. But not bad ones, just tears at the magnitude and profundity of my experience.
I was releasing all my suffering. It was not that I was released from suffering. I was releasing suffering from me!
I had been holding onto that all my life!
I could see suffering from a completely different perspective.
And I realized that this was my purpose in coming into Scientology in the first place. I wanted to help people in their suffering. I was not such a bad guy at all☺. And of course, I came in too because I wanted relief from MY suffering.
This is what I meant when I said I have handled what I came into Scientology to handle.
On the Grades Chart is says about moving out of fixed conditions as a state on Grade IV, I believe. Grade IV has to do with Service Facsimiles. How apt.
So I have a new state now….moving out of fixed conditions, see?
I listed tons more wins from this in my last email to you, but this is my summary.
What fun☺
Oh yes, the other thing is I feel this profound sense of appreciation for you and for what you are doing.
And of course, one of my goals in processing was to revitalize my desire to work with others, to help them in the same way I have been helped. I have that too, now.
All this took place via Skype, over a period of a few months (but about 2 intensives-24 hours-in total) That’s it. No wasted time. No bogging down in endless repair actions, endless ruds, etc etc. It’s been a joy throughout. And what a bargain!
Take this success story and do anything you want with it☺
It’s been just so great.
You’ve been wonderful.
John B