Comment by Anonymous0276 on Build Small Skills in the Right Order · 2011-04-18T14:57:57.394Z · LW · GW

I wrote that comment before I saw it. However, that update ("But please, don't take Scientology classes. They are highly Dark Arts. You can learn things on your own without playing with cult fire") is inaccurate. It seems to be saying that Scientology's classes teach those who take them to be manipulative (that is, to use the dark arts), but that is not what the problem is. The real problem is the opposite: they manipulate those who take them. And it doesn't stop at "manipulate", it's an escalating spiral that in some cases goes all the way up to "abduct and traffick".

And, um, I can't help but notice a disturbing connection - the document Gerard linked to says trainers should look for peoples' buttons, focusing on sexual perversion for men, and you were assigned the exercise of staring at a 12-year old girl for 20 minutes. It's eminently plausible that the instructor meant for that to happen and to be creepy. What was she even doing there, how were the pairings assigned, and did the instructor have the option of arranging the pairings in a non-creepy way?