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Scientology nearly ready to unveil Super Power
St Pete Times ^ | 05/06/2006 | ROBERT FARLEY

Posted on 05/06/2006 9:40:54 AM PDT by devane617

CLEARWATER - Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry.

He heightened his powers of perception in 1995 when he went to Los Angeles and became the first and so far only "public" Scientologist to take a highly classified Scientology program called Super Power.

Where in L.A. did he do this?

"Just in Los Angeles," is all Feshbach will say. Super Power is that secret.

Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being prepped for its eventual rollout in Scientology's massive building in downtown Clearwater. That will be the only place worldwide where the program, much anticipated by Scientologists, will be offered.

A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one's perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard taught that people have 57 "perceptics." They include an ability to discern relative sizes, blood circulation, balance, compass direction, temperature, gravity and an "awareness of importance, unimportance."

Church officials won't discuss specifics of Super Power. But Feshbach and another prominent Clearwater Scientologist who, like Feshbach, is a major donor to Super Power's building fund, provided some details in interviews with the St. Petersburg Times. A group of former Scientologists who worked for the church on a campus in California where the program was in development also described elements of it.

Super Power uses machines, apparatus and specially designed rooms to exercise and enhance a person's so-called perceptics. Those machines include an antigravity simulator and a gyroscope-like apparatus that spins a person around while blindfolded to improve perception of compass direction, said the former Scientologists.

A video screen that moves forward and backward while flashing images is used to hone a viewer's ability to identify subliminal messages, they said.

Hubbard promised Super Power would improve perceptions and "put the person into a new realm of ability." He believed it would unlock abilities needed to spread Scientology across the planet.

For Feshbach it's like nothing he has ever done in Scientology.

"I got it. I loved it," he gushed.

Feshbach, 52, and his two brothers became famous in investment circles during the 1980s as the kings of short selling stocks - essentially betting which stocks will tank. At one point, the California-based Feshbach Bros. managed $1-billion for clients.

Feshbach now lives in Belleair, where his wife, Kathy, runs a Scientology mission. Because he donated millions to the Super Power building fund, he was invited to undergo the program.

It's geared toward creating a "more competent spiritual being," he said. "I'm not dependant on my physical body to perceive things."

He offered this anecdote:

He had just finished his perceptics training and was at the Los Angeles airport, preparing to fly home to the Tampa Bay area. He stood at a crosswalk with perhaps 20 others, including a woman and her son, an antsy boy 6 or 7 years old.

As the light turned green, the boy bolted into the street, ahead of his mother. Feshbach perceived a pickup bearing down on the boy, driven by a young woman.

He yelled and saved the boy's life by a quarter of an inch, he said.

Coincidence? Feshbach doesn't think so. No one else saw the pickup, he says. He believes that, through the Super Power program, he elevated his perceptive abilities beyond those of the others at that crosswalk. His enhanced perceptions have played out numerous times since, he said.

Super Power takes "weeks, not months" to complete, said Feshbach. He would not discuss the specific machines and drills that former Scientologists said are used to enhance perceptions.

The perceptics portion of Super Power is one of 12 "rundowns" in the full program, Feshbach said. But it clearly is a key aspect.

Details of Super Power training have been kept secret even from church members. Like much of Scientology training, details aren't revealed until one pays to take the course.

Asked about Super Power, church spokesman Ben Shaw provided a written statement: "Super Power is a series of spiritual counseling processes designed to give a person back his own viewpoint, increase his perception, exercise his power of choice, and greatly enhance other spiritual abilities."

Shaw would not say how much the program will cost. Upper levels of Scientology training can run tens of thousands of dollars.

He declined to provide further insight into Super Power. "It's not something I'm willing to provide to you in any manner," Shaw said.

Scientologist Ron Pollack, who donated $5-million to the Super Power fund after making millions in hedge funds in the 1990s, said he got a sneak peek. The head of fundraising for the project showed him a photo of "some high-tech thing" developed by engineers in Southern California that offers different aromas on demand. It's for a drill to enhance one's sense of smell, he said.

Pollack said he has no idea how Super Power will be set up, but is excited about the parts on ethics and perceptics, which he likened to a "trip to Disney."

Former Scientologists Bruce Hines and Chuck Beatty, once staffers at the church's international base in Hemet, Calif., said that while on punishment detail, they made chairs of various sizes - ones big enough for a giant, others too small even for a child - that were set up in a room designed to hone one's sense of relative sizes.

Hines also said the Super Power program, which Hubbard wanted rolled out in 1978, met with delays during the 20-plus years that it was being piloted on church staffers.

One setback occurred when the church checked back on the staffers who had been through Super Power. It turned out, Hines said, many had left the church - hardly the expected outcome.

"The fact that it was around in 1978 and it's still not worked out 28 years later, that's pretty significant," Hines said.

Hines, who said he once performed Scientology's core practice of auditing on celebrity Scientologists Kirstie Allie, Anne Archer and Nicole Kidman (she no longer is a Scientologist), worked at the California facility until 1993 and left the church staff in 2003. He and other ex-Scientology staffers are convinced that church brass delayed completion of the big building in Clearwater because the Super Power program was not finished. The exterior was completed three years ago, then construction stopped.

"The building was getting done faster than the tech program itself," said Karen Pressley, a former church staffer at the same California campus, who left the church in 1998.

"This is a flap of magnitude in Scientology management," Pressley said.

Shaw said those ex-members are just wrong.

"These people know absolutely nothing" about the Super Power pilot, he said.

Scientology processes are technical and cannot be understood out of context, Shaw said. "If someone is interested in Scientology, they should read a book and find out for themselves what Scientology is and thus begin their own spiritual journey," Shaw said.

Super Power is ready, he said, and 300 staff members are being trained to deliver it.

Construction delays in Clearwater, Shaw said, are due to a recent explosion of church expansion worldwide. The church has spent hundreds of millions to purchase and renovate properties. Last year, it purchased nearly 1-million square feet of buildings in 18 cities around the world.

That expansion, by far the largest in church history, diverted the church's attention, he said. Plus, he said, Scientology leaders have been compelled to redesign the building's interior repeatedly to make it a crown jewel.

The Super Power program will be ready to go the moment the new building is completed, he said. Scientology officials promise that will be 2007.

Scientology's 57 senses Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's list of 57 perceptics. Words in parentheses are his:

Timen Sight

Tasten Colorn Depth

Solidity (barriers)

Relative sizes (external)

Sound

Pitch

Tone

Volume

Rhythm

Smell

Touch (pressure, friction, heat or cold and oiliness)

Personal emotion

Endocrine states

Awareness of awareness

Personal size

Organic sensation (including hunger)

Heartbeat

Blood circulation

Cellular and bacterial position

Gravitic (self and other weights)

Motion of self

Motion (exterior)

Body position

Joint position

Internal temperature

External temperature

Balance

Muscular tension

Saline content of self (body)

Fields/magnetic

Time track motion

Physical energy (personal weariness, etc.)

Self-determinism

Moisture (self)

Sound direction

Emotional state of other organs

Personal position on the tone scale*

Affinity (self and others)

Communication (self and others)

Reality (self and others)

Emotional state of groups

Compass direction

Level of consciousness

Pain

Perception of conclusions (past and present)

Perception of computation (past and present)

Perception of imagination (past and present)

Perception of having perceived (past and present)

Awareness of not knowing

Awareness of importance, unimportance

Awareness of others

Awareness of location and placement (masses, spaces and location itself)

Perception of appetite

Kinesthesia

*Scientology's tone scale, as defined in The Scientology Handbook: A scale which shows the successive emotional tones a person can experience.Source: Scientology 0-8, The Book of Basics, by L. Ron Hubbard.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: clambake; cult; cults; emeter; freaks; haarp; hailxenu; highoncrack; losangeles; mi3; moonbats; raliens; religion; scientology; shazaaaaam; stupidcult; stupidity; tinfoil; tomcruise; wackocult
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To: SevenofNine

101 posted on 05/06/2006 11:07:01 AM PDT by JRios1968 (In memoriam...)
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To: devane617
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard taught that people have 57 "perceptics." They include an ability to discern relative sizes, blood circulation, balance, compass direction, temperature, gravity and an "awareness of importance, unimportance."

Perceptics??!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I've got some ocean front property in Nebraska I can sell to the folks who buy into this one...

My son says: Why 57? Because L. Ron was looking at a Heinz 57 ketchup bottle and bet himself he could come up with 57!

102 posted on 05/06/2006 11:08:54 AM PDT by fortunecookie
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To: devane617

ping


103 posted on 05/06/2006 11:10:02 AM PDT by maine-iac7 ("...but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." LINCOLN)
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To: eleni121
Superpower? Yeah like height impaired Cruise jumping up on the Oprah's couch.

And the couch on The View...

and the couch on The Tonight Show...


104 posted on 05/06/2006 11:10:24 AM PDT by JRios1968 (In memoriam...)
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To: Nowhere Man

It's almost a shame that Dana Plato passed away...is Margo Kidder still alive?


105 posted on 05/06/2006 11:12:05 AM PDT by JRios1968 (In memoriam...)
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To: devane617
*Scientology's tone scale, as defined in The Scientology Handbook: A scale which shows the successive emotional tones a person can experience.Source: Scientology 0-8, The Book of Basics, by L. Ron Hubbard.

Who measures these tonal ranges? What kind of device measures it? Who makes the objective decisions? My guess is that some 'technician' continues to make sure you keep paying until you reach the elusive 8th level. And further, only those out of money or at the highest level of hierarchy in the cult ever reach level 8. What a shocker.

106 posted on 05/06/2006 11:15:14 AM PDT by fortunecookie
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To: Mike-o-Matic
"Just in Los Angeles," is all Feshbach will say. Super Power is that secret.

Better living through chemistry!

Just in Los Angeles? Where all are wealthy Hollywood actors and producers and those in related professions just happen to live? Gee, another shocker. We won't have to worry about the young actors abusing illegal drugs or alcohol, they'll be too broke from having their tonal levels tweaked to have any time for drugs or alcohol or clubs. Or acting. Oh wait, Tom can get them all work in his films. Hahahahaha.

107 posted on 05/06/2006 11:19:58 AM PDT by fortunecookie
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To: devane617

Holy cow, when he hits OT VIII and learns teleporation and telepathy, he'll be unstoppable!!


108 posted on 05/06/2006 11:22:07 AM PDT by bobwoodard
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To: Vision
Check out www.clambake.org
109 posted on 05/06/2006 11:25:13 AM PDT by bobwoodard
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To: Vision

You could read Dianetics but have a friend lockup your wallet before you finish it.


110 posted on 05/06/2006 11:27:31 AM PDT by hford02 (we want indictments for NSA leaks)
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To: Vision
http://www.xenu.net/
111 posted on 05/06/2006 11:28:37 AM PDT by Liberal Classic (No better friend, no worse enemy. Semper Fi.)
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To: devane617
>Scientology nearly ready to unveil Super Power

I think most Freepers
have super powers. Freepers
can read someone's mind . . .

I am thinking of
a number somewhere between
one and a hundred --

112 posted on 05/06/2006 11:31:06 AM PDT by theFIRMbss
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To: JRios1968

Ha ha ha! Sczizoenlogy works!


113 posted on 05/06/2006 11:41:26 AM PDT by eleni121 ('Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!' (Julian the Apostate))
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To: MineralMan
"Well, I heard he was gay. Do you think he's gay?"

I dunno, you tell me.

However the fact that its a cult is well documented despite the arguments of its members.

Perhaps your skepitism might mean more if you weren't posting in an article where a Scientologist was claiming to have super powers.
114 posted on 05/06/2006 11:57:11 AM PDT by driftdiver
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To: devane617
Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people.

It's called "paranoia".

115 posted on 05/06/2006 11:58:48 AM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)
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To: fortunecookie
So you would be a PerSceptic ??? LOL
116 posted on 05/06/2006 12:00:46 PM PDT by Dust in the Wind (I've got peace like a river)
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To: driftdiver
"Perhaps your skepitism might mean more if you weren't posting in an article where a Scientologist was claiming to have super powers."

My skepticism is toward Scientology in general. I consider the entire thing to be a fraud, much like Tom Cruise, who is a member. For me, Cruise is a typical representative of Scientology. Like Scientology, he pretends to be one thing, while he is really another. I guess I don't understand your statement.

117 posted on 05/06/2006 12:03:38 PM PDT by MineralMan (non-evangelical atheist)
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To: JRios1968

Tom has been given the gift of The Powers of Upholstery.

Subpowers include a mastery of couch jumping as well as pillow biting.


118 posted on 05/06/2006 12:04:27 PM PDT by kenth
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To: MineralMan

"My skepticism is toward Scientology in general. I consider the entire thing to be a fraud, much like Tom Cruise, who is a member."

Hmm, perhaps I misunderstood. It appeared you were disputing my statements that Tom Cruise is a loon or that Scientology is a cult.


119 posted on 05/06/2006 12:06:58 PM PDT by driftdiver
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To: driftdiver

"Hmm, perhaps I misunderstood. It appeared you were disputing my statements that Tom Cruise is a loon or that Scientology is a cult. "

You did misunderstand. I consider Scientology to be, rather than a cult, a con game, designed to do nothing more that relieve people of their funds.

That idiots like Tom Cruise get involved with it is a mark of a lack of intelligence.

To call Scientology a cult is to assign it far too much credibility. It is simply a con game.


120 posted on 05/06/2006 12:10:47 PM PDT by MineralMan (non-evangelical atheist)
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