By Scientologirl
March 29th, 2024
Contrary to what I think most Scientologists believe, LRH didn’t disregard the human brain in its entirety, and neither should we.
This blog post aims to explore the relationship that can be found to exist between Scientology principles such as auditing, the reactive mind, the dynamics, consciousness/awareness and unconsciousness, and neuroscience which includes the primitive brain, neuroplasticity, and an interconnectivity of all things (which has nothing to do with "being one with the universe").
There’s an interview of L. Ron Hubbard where he states two things: first, he says "brain is just brain," which I feel gives Scientologists the impression that it’s just a ball of mush floating about in our heads. Just because LRH doesn’t necessarily mention the brain much in his work, doesn’t mean it’s not important, it’s just SECONDARY to the mind, which is different to the brain (as considerations are senior to the physical universe and the brain is entirely physical).
The second and more important part that people may glance over is that he said "the brain is like a switchboard." This means that he himself knew that the brain had certain functions. The brain can be thought of as a switch board in three different ways: either he meant that individual parts had their respective functions, or he meant that the switchboard had functions akin to neuroplacticity, or both. Whichever way, it isn’t a useless organ.
Humour me by exploring the sciences of the brain for a moment (I do have a point). Of course, it’s not all black and white and it’s important to remember that many parts of the brain work collectively to execute a desirable result or avoid an unpleasant one -but the primary one we are looking at is the primitive brain which is the portion of the brain from the brain stem and a bit further up. This part of the brain is associated with unconscious effort -heart rate, breathing and so on. It’s also responsible for our flight, flight, freeze reactions, or "reactivities" if you will. Now I know LRH says "reactive MIND" and not "reactive BRAIN" but continue to humor me for a minute.
When this part of our brain is activated, the conscious parts of our brain are neglected -little to no rational thought is present as much of the energy expenditure is used on the primitive unconscious. This serves a good purpose when running from lions, not so much when living day to day life. Stress, anxiety, anger and other emotions reduce our ability to make conscious, survival decisions that come from other areas of the brain.
We have to remember a lot has changed in the field of neuroscience since when LRH was around. Neuroimaging for example, has been very useful, but even if you don’t believe in their tests, one can’t deny the many studies there are on how people have lost their ability to feel pain, empathy, and recall things, etc since having a head injury or tumor pressing on a particular area of the brain. If the mind was an absolute answer to all problems and the brain had nothing to do with it, why does it?
The purpose of this post isn’t to make LRH wrong though, it’s to expand on his research, if for nothing else, than humoring this Scientologirl with her theories.
To digress, when looking at neuroplasticity and LRH’s "now I’m supposed to’s" and "A equals A’s," if one links the two concepts up, they could easily explain each other. If the primitive brain never had any traumas (engrams, locks, etc), then it would not have the issue of reducing consciousness in order to maximize survival potential by computing incorrectly in other areas of the brain (now I’m supposed to’s). So for example, an engram of getting bit by a dog and seeing all dogs as dangerous through the A=A lens and thus avoiding all dogs as a now I’m supposed to, is akin to a primitive traumatic response after getting bit by a dog and avoiding all dogs because of neuroplasticity. The brain has been proven to change its size and adapt to environments rather than remain static.
The reason why auditing works is because one is essentially rewiring neural pathways (neuroplasticity) by changing one’s mind about a given situation. It doesn’t disprove Scientology, it enhances its credibility and authenticity by being backed by a science-based study.
It neither attempts to remove the concept of the mind because of the fact that there is a proven electromagnetic field around our head and body. Thoughts and postulates are energetic particles and they are senior to the squishy interior of our skulls, ultimately. If we can change our thoughts, we can change our lives. The only thing I’m trying to get across is that we like to think that we as spiritual beings are detached from very real physical universe things.
If you take it a step further and have control over the primitive brain through new neuro-networking from auditing, our more conscious parts are free to learn and grow, and survival isn’t this urgent and dire need to fulfill. You start moving away from the self and include awarenesses of your space, the people around you, and the interconnectedness of those physical universe life. From there, you can make rational choices and postulates on a pandetermined level on the 8 Dynamics, including on upper level Scientology stuff.
Where this gets spiritual, is that by gaining awareness/consciousness we are able to experience our own salvation, and if explored further, our consciousness expands to include the willingness to help others experience their own salvation.
I guess in the end, it doesn’t really matter, but it’s interesting to identify commonalities in the sciences that reject our tech. And of course, these are just theories and perhaps not even remotely accurate, I’m ok with that! One thing is for sure, it’s impossible to reach the proverbial "gates of heaven" through unconsciousness, regardless of what one believes, and there are no quick fixes. The only way out, is through :)
