Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Thousand Deaths

 Image result for marty rathbun going clear



I recently saw Going Clear and was struck by the scene where Marty Rathbun spoke of dying so many deaths he doesn't know how many more he has in him . I also was reading the superb book Cults Inside Out by Rick Allen Ross and read of exits costs for leaving cults . Very similar concepts .

 Now I personally have been working on my recovery for over a year and can say I have run into something similar to Marty Rathbun's statement. I want to  reference something cult expert Margaret Singer said that explains what coming out of a cult is like . In one of her excellent video interviews on coming out of a cult she talked about how a cult member will talk about experiences , perhaps even compulsively , and disturbingly not show emotions appropriate to the content of their comments .

Now I' ve read enough about abuse and trauma to understand that trauma occurred and denial and dissociation and regression and projection can hide it theoretically in the subconscious away from the conscious mind . So , I was in complete agreement when Doctor Singer said those feelings people should be having are there and in the process of discussing this over time the feelings will come out and the cult members families should just encourage the recovering ex cultist to keep talking .

So , as part of leaving the Scientology cult and seeking recovery I have taken on many subjects and reinterpreted many , many experiences I had while in the cult , and even experiences from before my cult membership. And time and time again I can be struck by either long buried emotions or new emotions from the new perspective I now have . And for me there is no gradual slow process of seeing bit by bit that Scientology is bad that many exes experience.  By diving right in at Lermanet.com and reading Jon Atack's Scientology Mythbusting articles at the Underground Bunker right away I was convinced that Scientology is entirely without benefit and a terrorist mind control cult .

So , I had many startling realizations along the way of being wrong , foolish , selfish , harmful , immature and feeling crushed by it over time .

Over months the anxiety and confusion went down from immense for a couple of months then strong for a few months and now about a year and three months later severe anxiety and immense rage have both diminished to virtually nothing .  But occasionally some materials or information can still act as a trigger, but often that material or information is often the exact thing I need educationally and those emotions are ones I need to face .

While  reading about psychology I learned what happened to me and wince when I realized how I've inflicted trauma upon others .And when reading about narcissists I was  relieved to find thousands of pieces of evidence that support the idea that Ron Hubbard was a narcissist ( malignant narcissist to be exact in my opinion ) and that only perhaps one or two percent of people are in this category of sociopathic human beings. Meaning the vast majority are quite more compassionate, humble and of entirely different character.

But , as many ex Scientologists may , I additionally was disturbed to face my own choices more directly . While studying narcissists I found a list of eight communication tactics narcissists employ and how they harm victims . Then realized I have done all eight , and several before I ever joined Scientology , so trying to blame it entirely on the cult rings false.

There was similar information on abuse and trauma in the book Take Back Your Life which masterfully describes totalist cults and controlling abusive relationships as being essentially the same in nature with minor differences . The book is fabulous at describing the cult experience and severe abuse and was difficult to read as it brought up many unpleasant realities of cults and abuse . It also revealed unpleasant and certainly unflattering behaviors I engaged in in  my life and was like getting smacked in the face , sometimes with a frying pan and sometimes an anvil.

 Facing hundreds of hurtful , evil and antisocial acts without making excuses or projecting is a tough and debilitating process. It should probably be spread out over time  more than I've pursued it . But it can be pursued to some benefit by some . I recommend trying to follow Robert Jay Lifton's idea which Steve Hassan has echoed :  a person needs to balance worth  and humility . If you have horrible personal behavior and deplorable conduct to face from your time in a cult or even before cult membership don't let the immensity of the challenge or the unpleasant realities it reveals discourage you . Or make you treat yourself improperly. As impossible as it sounds try to keep perspective and act both honestly and compassionately toward yourself .

Learning a new way to consider people , behavior and the future may be needed for many . Plainly the immense evil an ex cult member may find in their conduct can for some lead them to conclude they have acted to a great degree like narcissists or malignant narcissists or sociopaths or at least assholes . Possibly hundreds of times over years .

This can raise difficult questions : is a person who is evil for years stuck being evil ? Can such long held behavior and the accompanying attitudes be changed ? Is redemption or salvation possible for such people ?

We live in a culture that often has simplistic black and white good and bad labeling without fine distinction. We see Mansons and Hubbards as immensely evil - properly in my opinion . But see many others as good or at least not brutally , unrelentingly evil. Often that distinction is close enough , but when a cult member or abuser through education realizes they have been wrong and sincerely seeks to improve they may strip away lies that encouraged their conduct and feel they have an entirety new start . And that throwing off cult membership or an abusive identity is a major accomplishment .

Now some can feel ever having an innocent or even good self image is impossible, but having less harmful and more compassionate and humble conduct may be possible . One can strive to be a decent person even after tremendous and longstanding evil behavior .

I cannot pretend there is any way to make up evil or be redeemed. I am not qualified to judge either . I am confident many people can improve their behavior and move forward with positive conduct . Some will have a lot of work to do to attain sustained humility and compassion. They may need to learn about psychological defense mechanisms and narcissistic behaviors and healthy boundaries and bit by bit change .

I know I have had to learn when I am projecting or denying or using the silent treatment or any of many other negative behaviors . And to stop and recognize the importance of another person and their feelings and boundaries. It is like trying to learn how to be a decent person after decades as an abusive person all at once . And in leaving Scientology one can reject thousands and thousands of formerly certain guiding ideas and practices at the same time . While suffering the thousand deaths along the way . But I would rather honestly have the thousand deaths than the lie of a perfect life and perfect character - it is definitely too high a price for my family and the people around me to pay .

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Boundaries , Bashing and Disorders

 Image result for relationship boundariesImage result for relationship boundaries
 Image result for relationship boundariesImage result for relationship boundaries


I have found some information regarding the idea of boundaries and certain negative effects on them that being in the Scientology cult can create .

 First I am going to use a few quotes from Wikipedia to define some terms and ideas I will refer to or offer for consideration .

Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for themselves what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave towards him or her and how they will respond when someone steps past those limits. They are built out of a mix of conclusions, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning.

Personal boundaries operate in two directions, affecting both the incoming and outgoing interactions between people.These are sometimes referred to as the 'protection' and 'containment' functions.

According to Nina Brown's self-help book, there are four main types of psychological boundary:
  • Soft - A person with soft boundaries merges with other people's boundaries. Someone with a soft boundary is easily a victim of psychological manipulation.
  • Spongy - A person with spongy boundaries is like a combination of having soft and rigid boundaries. They permit less emotional contagion than soft boundaries but more than those with rigid. People with spongy boundaries are unsure of what to let in and what to keep out.
  • Rigid - A person with rigid boundaries is closed or walled off so nobody can get close to him/her either physically or emotionally. This is often the case if someone has been the victim of physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, or sexual abuse. Rigid boundaries can be selective which depend on time, place or circumstances and are usually based on a bad previous experience in a similar situation.
  • Flexible - Similar to selective rigid boundaries but the person has more control. The person decides what to let in and what to keep out, is resistant to emotional contagion and psychological manipulation, and is difficult to exploit.
According to Hotchkiss, narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist will be treated as if they are part of the narcissist and be expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist there is no boundary between self and other.

Freud, following Gustave Le Bon, described the loss of conscious boundaries that could occur when an individual was caught up in a unified, fast-moving crowd.
 From the article :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_boundaries

TWO RULES FOR HAPPY LIVING
        
     “1. Be able to experience anything.
    
     “2. Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily.”

Ron Hubbard

Notably the two rules for happy living are actually the  concepts a victim of abuse who is taught to blame themself only and admire an other or others  only would follow . They would try desperately to always impossibly make another happy and accept any treatment without concern for self as acceptable . They are rules for a slave and victim who never fights back or demands any rights . Not my idea of happiness.

The TRs are obviously an attempt to among other things destroy and reset boundaries . The auditor becomes used to controlling the  victim to a degree that establishes improper dominance and boundary violation as the victim comes to believe their mind is laid bare and has no boundary of privacy . They also lose the right to define reality as Hubbard's reality supplants their own and not having requested incidents is not accepted and the assumption of the auditor , C/S and Hubbard knowing the victim's past  and present better than the victim is enforced over and over . The same is true in indoctrination where Hubbard's absolute infallible rightness is a firmly established boundary , but any doubt , disagreement or recognition of contradiction or error in Hubbard's doctrine is used to justify the violation of the intellectual integrity of the victim - there must be something wrong with them : a MU or Overt or something within the victim is improper NEVER Hubbard himself . Over time and thousands and thousands of repetitions this becomes the thinking of the cult member and deviating becomes completely unacceptable .

Hubbard wanted his victims to take on no boundaries regarding him and have his thoughts be senior in authority to theirs while having any conflicting thoughts fought viciously with rigid boundaries . And eventually any disagreement whatsoever to be removed .

Following is a statement that means for the cult member to at first knock out of their mind and the environment any ideas that conflict with Scientology and then knock out any ideas and thoughts that are not Hubbard's .  This is an absolute level of authority and when one understands Scientology's system of rewards and penalties in entirely built on rewarding upstsats and penalizing downstats a new dimension is added .

Remember in Scientology a stat is something measurable . And only that .


Let's look at the entire basis of the value Hubbard saw in others :

STATISTICS—WHAT THEY ARE

What is a statistic? A statistic is a number or amount compared to an earlier number or amount of the same thing. Statistics refer to the quantity of work done or the value of it in money.
A down statistic means that the current number is less than it was.
An up statistic means the current number is more than it was.
We operate on statistics. These show whether or not a staff member or group is working or not working as the work produces the statistic. If he doesn’t work effectively, the statistic inevitably goes down. If he works effectively, the statistic goes up. Ron Hubbard 

So , his entire idea of another person 's value is in if they generate income or perform labor FOR him .  That is entirely seeing others as objects and not people at all , slaves to be broken and trained  -  not even really people . Once you thoroughly understand the whole foundation of Hubbard's ethics and tiered caste system it is clear he has no regard for others as people but instead sees us as a kind of robot race that requires special deceptive programming to operate . He held no compassion for us and saw himself as entirely outside of and far , far more worthy of consideration than the entire human race . Our only value was in producing labor and money for him that he desired .



The purpose of ethics is to remove counter-intentions from the environment. Having accomplished that, the purpose becomes to remove other intentionedness from the environment HCO PL 18 June 1968  Ethics  Ron Hubbard




Boundaries - narcissists , malignant narcissists and sociopaths demand unrealistic or impossible boundaries for themselves and do not accept or respect anyone else's and are infuriated due to perceiving others boundaries as violations of their own . Non personality disordered individuals Npid , what might be called normal by some , generally can perceive, establish , recognize and respect boundaries for themselves and others , particularly over time - at least better than the disordered . Codependents cannot establish boundaries as well or perceive violations in their boundaries .They also may mistake abusive treatment that violates their boundaries as acceptable and the arousal from abuse as excitement and enthusiasm. They can become uninterested in attention from Npid as they mistake trauma and positive attention from boundary violators as desirable and even enjoyable .

This is epitomized in the smart women who make horrible choices in men over and over . Or the hot chick who could get any guy who only dates jerks or A holes that cheat or bikers that beat and rob her .

These women have families that beg them to go out with nice or decent guys and refuse .I don't mean they only give out with bikers - they only go out with guys with the same obvious exaggerated antisocial personality disorders and behaviors . And the women never learn .

The same behavior occurs in men , but it is less obvious socially as most men do not know as clearly if they are seen as attractive by most women or not .

But some men only seek groups or jobs that are abusive and treat more acceptable jobs and groups as actually being unacceptable and abusive .

There is some degree of individuality in picking jobs and mates but these patterns may in fact be true . This potential hypothesis would require extensive validation to be validated .

Abusive groups like Scientology create a tiered abusive system . It goes something like Hubbard plays the pure malignant narcissist God role who may violate and ignore any boundaries or set or change them for others in any way and he is always right . Next comes his proxies for some , for some a proxy may even equal or replace Hubbard in authority .

Next comes for completely submissive orthodox Scientologists DM , then via Scientology's convoluted caste system a certain degree if variation occurs .
Now it gets complicated , so I will use one hypothetical example . A member of RTC may act as a codependent toward DM and accept abuse but toward anyone below them in rank or status they may act narcissistic without question as long as it aligns with submission to Hubbard ( and his doctrine ) and DM and any other high status Sea Org members .

The RTC member may have a junior way down at a CLO level who does a complex dance involving dozens of seniors .

The seniors all are accepted as being allowed to be abusive and to violate juniors boundaries while demanding their own be firmly established and damn sure respected . This is complicated by people at undefined levels regarding which group is senior and conflicts between CMO and GOLD and IAS staff have occurred .

And further complicated by DM holding unrestricted power over all and being able to favor a low ranking person over others higher in rank . And many Sea Org members have friends and family at different levels within the Sea Org . So a low ranking member could sick a high ranking member on seniors as revenge .

And this is further complicated by many Sea Org members having relatives that are public and particularly wealthy whales and famous celebrities . The Sea Org doesn't want a movie star or millionaire to be infuriated to hear their kid was made to be broken with torture on the RPF for laughing when DM walked by .That is an offense that a normal Sea Org member may experience.

Really , the ethics protection idea is allowed to be thrown away at will by other authorities in Scientology ? Huh , that's because when the system has narcissists and sociopaths at the top and  they can ignore the boundary of the lower person at will .

That fits the agreement breaking and accompanying insecurity in abusive relationships . Scientology ultimately in my opinion is based very covertly through many redefenitions of terms on Hubbard's desires . He wanted to fool others into being willing even adoring slaves and as a malignant narcissist that fits the classic "I want to have the world and life itself conform to my very will - with no regard for others desire at all , I want to be God and have all of life respond as if under my control without reservation or hesitation " or  in the form an earlier sociopath used before Hubbard plagiarized it - The law of Thelema is "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will." The law of Thelema was developed in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley, an English writer and ceremonial magician.


These men had  only their own interests at heart and used thousands and in Hubbard's case millions of lies to twist and distort ideas to the end of controlling and distorting boundaries . I think many ex Scientolgists and Scientologists would do well to study boundaries and how the personality disordered , particularly narcissists , malignant narcissists and sociopaths take advantage of and encourage the creation of  borderline personalities and codependents . I feel Scientology has altered many individuals to partially or fully take on personality disorders .

To be clear a victim of Scientology may walk in without a personality disorder and by the gradual thought reform process in Scientology rewarding and encouraging the breaking down and resetting of boundaries they may act as codependents or narcissists or  if fortunate enough to not become disordered they may at the least have a wealth of false information adversely affecting their relationships . And that may manifest in unhealthy boundaries . I hope this helps and primarily want it to encourage further study as a bread crumb to show a possible worthwhile are for some to explore .


Friday, June 26, 2015

Hypnotism : Science Or Pseudoscience ? Not So fast .

 Image result for stroop effect hypnosisImage result for stroop effect hypnosis





 The following is a comment I wrote to express the idea that hypnosis is a subject that has some degree of phenomena to observe and reproduce , but honestly most of the use and research on hypnosis that has occurred has been done in a manner that has not met scientific standards or used strict scientific method . To some psychologists and scientists the easiest thing to do has been to simply disbelieve hypnosis as anything other than a put on or play act or a placebo effect and meaningless scientifically . But dislike is not debunking , certainly not scientifically .

There are thousands of anecdotes of people acting against their personalities while under hypnosis . There is a wealth of evidence that hypnosis is not a put on or placebo effect including experiments that are reproducible for psychologists particularly regarding the Stroop effect .

I will quote an article below to show some effort to demonstrate hypnosis reality scientifically has begun , but it faces stiff resistance from many psychologists who frankly wish hypnotism would just go away and stay away .

The famous "Stroop Effect" is named after J. Ridley Stroop who discovered this strange phenomenon in the 1930s. Here is your job: name the colors of the following words. Do NOT read the words...rather, say the color of the words. For example, if the word "BLUE" is printed in a red color, you should say "RED". Say the colors as fast as you can. It is not as easy as you might think!
 

Why?

The words themselves have a strong influence over your ability to say the color. The interference between the different information (what the words say and the color of the words) your brain receives causes a problem. There are two theories that may explain the Stroop effect:

  1. Speed of Processing Theory: the interference occurs because words are read faster than colors are named.
  2. Selective Attention Theory: the interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading words. 
  3. From the article : 
  4. https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html


 In several experiments researchers have found hypnosis , particularly of highly suggestible individuals has been found to have a very real and significant effect that can be measured and reproduced with scientific methods and equipment . Real science and not just anecdotes .

Here is the title of an article on this and selected quotes :

Hypnotic suggestion can reduce conflict in human brain

A new study using an old, misunderstood technique -- hypnotic suggestion -- finds the brain can override responses experts have long assumed to be ingrained and automatic, such as reading.

Thousands of studies have found that Stroop interference is difficult to overcome under conventional conditions, because reading is so ingrained," said Dr. Amir Raz, who led the research while a Research Fellow of Psychology in Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University's Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, in New York City. Dr. Raz is now Assistant Professor of Clinical Neuroscience at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

"We've always thought of the Stroop effect as almost automatic, and that's why this study is so important," he said. "Watching a participant's brain activity using both event-related potentials (ERP) and functional MRI (fMRI) during the Stroop test, we could see that not only was the brain's conflict-resolution center turned off as a result of hypnotic suggestion, but also those areas of the brain that may be involved in recognizing written words," Dr. Raz said.
The findings suggest that Stroop interference is not the automatic, immutable process experts have hitherto assumed it to be.
"This means that, using suggestion -- in this case post-hypnotic suggestion -- we were able to 'un-ring ' Pavlov's bell," Dr. Raz said.
In the study, Dr. Raz and co-researchers Drs. Jin Fan and Michael Posner used standard tests to identify healthy, "highly suggestible" individuals (experts believe that about 10-15 percent of us are particularly susceptible to hypnotic suggestion).

 

These individuals first took the Stroop test in practice sessions. Then, under ERP and fMRI observation, the participants underwent hypnotic induction. During this condition, Dr. Raz told participants that "Every time you hear my voice talking to you…you will immediately realize that meaningless symbols will appear in the middle of the screen."

"In other words, the symbols were placed in a special context where the simple English words 'Red' or 'Blue' in the Stroop test appeared as gibberish," Dr. Raz said.
The result: The Stroop effect disappeared. The power of suggestion essentially "de-automatized" the participant's reading response, causing them to view the words in the way a pre-lingual child or non-English-speaker might.

This removed the essential conflict that usually occurs within the brain during the Stroop test, allowing participants to identify the color of the characters on the screen as efficiently as if they were simple blocks of color.

"What's more, fMRI showed activity in exactly those brain regions important to the test – centers of attention like the anterior cingulated cortex and areas thought to relate to processing of visual word-form in the brain's occipital region," Dr. Raz said.

From :http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/08/hypnotic-suggestion-can-reduce-conflict-human-brain

  In my opinion hypnosis has never been as scientifically researched or validated as more mainstream science but it has not been disproven as some skeptics claim .


Being unproven is not the same as being disproven or debunked . I think hypnosis is part poor man's psychology of influence and part superstition . Hypnotists and many scientists will hate my answer but I believe it is the unpleasant truth .

I hope having the scientifically measurable and repeatable results from these experiments can force psychologists and neuroscientists to admit hypnosis is at least not disproven as mere superstition and worth examining and not dismissing out of hand .The fMRI results and changes in time to read items of conflicting messages ( the word with a color that disagrees with the word written ) are measurable repeatable phenomena which is what scientists need for testing and forming hypotheses.


Below is the answer I used to give to address the  "hypnosis has no scientific validation " claim used to dismiss it automatically - now that can change with research that continues to develop.

As hypnotism is primarily a collection of metaphors to explain mental and behavioral phenomena it is beneath scientific standards but a rough or scientifically unpleasant subject does not cancel out any actual behaviors and phenomena that it tried to encompass . That is a variation of the fallacy fallacy. That is the idea that if an argument contains a fallacy or error in reason that does not disprove the conclusion of the argument or other concepts within it .

That is a fancy way to say some ideas in hypnotism may be true or part true but the subject is not compiled or presented in an entirely scientifically proven manner : a lot more research must be done to get conclusive answers .
For some research on the Stroop effect you can look here.
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.co...

Why We follow Decisive Leaders

 Image result for decisive quotesImage result for decisive quotes


Image result for he who hesitates is lostImage result for you need confidence to win


 Image result for sociopaths have confidenceImage result for leaders need confidence
 The following is an answer to a question regarding why people gravitate toward the Ron Hubbards of this world and others with  strong certainty and decisiveness on how to run groups . She found Hubbard to not be attractive or classically charming . Many leaders are not nice lovable people but instead firm in their convictions , particularly their belief in their own rightness .

There's a hypothesis in social psychology I will butcher with oversimplification and have professionals ready to castrate me over . The super short version is that in evolution we have needed decisive , quick thinking and even more quick acting leaders . If thousands and thousands of years ago groups could act and react quickly and with a degree of unity and direction it could help them to live and function better than if they have an uncertain , too cautious and particularly too indecisive and either slow acting or even worse reluctant to act and unable to make any hard or important decisions leader .

Evolution paradoxically selects strong , confident , certain , fast acting leaders. But the most certain and confident people are narcissists and sociopaths. They present themselves as strong and assertive , confident and decisive. They do this easily as their sense of superiority frees them from self doubt and their lack of empathy makes tough decision making for others easy for them . They don't mind breaking eggs to get omelettes - or breaking promises , killing enemies or friends to get gains for themselves.
By being unfettered by morals or standards of human decency they play life as a very different game than others who can be constrained by morals , conflicted by consequences and conflicts of interest.

That is a natural dichotomy - we need strong decisive, clear leadership to live and thrive but we cannot survive well if we submit to totalistic , antisocial , abusive or narcissistic leaders .

We have to in my opinion recognize and address our desires , nature and needs honestly and as sensibly and logically as possible . I cannot pretend to know the best or any proven political system or solutions for this but I can suggest this as a starting point for consideration .

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Scientology And Margaret Singer's Six Conditions For Thought Reform



The following was a comment at the Underground Bunker on Hubbard's use of thought reform and professor Margaret Singer's work.

I think he saw Lifton's work on cults using rewards and penalties to control members and integrated that into his cult to dehumanize and degrade and enslave them .And Hubbard studied earlier totalistic movements and emulated Crowley and Hitler in his doctrine . Good old Hubby .

Professor Margaret Singer the late great cult expert wrote her own highly authoritative work in this field : Cults in Our Midst . In this, Prof. Singer set out 'six conditions' in which totalistic thought-reform can be achieved:
Quote :
1).Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how attempts to psychologically condition him or her are directed in a step-by-step manner.Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioural-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group. The goal may be to make them deployable agents for the leadership, to get them to buy more courses, or get them to make a deeper commitment, depending on the leader's aim and desires.
2). Control the person's social and/or physical environment; especially control the person's time.
Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the
group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.
3). Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person.This is accomplished by getting members away from their normal social support group for a period of time and into an environment where the majority of people are already group members.The members serve as models of the attitudes and behaviours of the group and speak an in-group language.Strip members of their main occupation (quit jobs, drop out of school) or source of income or have them turn over their income (or the majority of) to the group.Once the target is stripped of their usual support network, their confidence in their own perception erodes.As the target's sense of powerlessness increases, their good judgement and understanding of the world are diminished (ordinary view of reality is  destabilized).As The group attacks the target's previous worldview, it causes the target distress and inner confusion; yet they are not allowed to speak about this confusion or object to it - leadership suppresses questions and counters resistance.This process is sped up if the targeted individual or individuals are kept tired - the cult will take deliberate actions to keep the target constantly busy.
4).Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behaviour that reflects the person's former social identity.Manipulation of experiences can be accomplished through various methods of trance induction, including leaders using such techniques as paced speaking patterns, guided imagery, chanting, long prayer sessions or lectures, and lengthy meditation sessions.The target's old beliefs and patterns of behaviour are defined as irrelevant or evil.Leadership wants these old patterns eliminated, so the member must suppress them.Members get positive feedback for conforming to the group's beliefs and behaviours and negative feedback for old beliefs and behaviour.
5).The group manipulates a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group's ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviours.Good behaviour, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group's beliefs, and compliance are rewarded while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible
rejection. Anyone who asks a question is made to feel there is something inherently disordered about them to be questioning.The only feedback members get is from the group; they become totally
dependent upon the rewards given by those who control the environment.Members must learn varying amounts of new information about the beliefs of the group and the behaviours expected by the group.
The more complicated and filled with contradictions the new system is and the more difficult it is to learn, the more effective the conversion process will be.Esteem and affection from peers is very important to new recruits. Approval comes from having the new member's behaviours and thought patterns conform to the models (members). Members' relationship with peers is threatened whenever they fail to learn or display new behaviours. Over time, the easy solution to the insecurity generated by the difficulties of learning the new system is to inhibit any display of doubts—new recruits simply acquiesce, affirm and act as if they do understand and accept the new ideology.
6).Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order.The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.Members are not allowed to question, criticize or complain. If they do, the leaders allege the member is defective, not the organization or the beliefs.The targeted individual is treated as always intellectually incorrect or
unjust, while conversely the system, its leaders and its beliefs are always automatically, and by default, considered as absolutely just. Conversion or remolding of the individual member happens in a closed system. As members learn to modify their behaviour in order to be accepted in this
closed system, they change—begin to speak the language—which serves to further isolate them from their prior beliefs and behaviours. End quote

Now I want to focus on a few concepts here but have strong opinions on all of this material .

The concept of Hubbard using rewards and penalties to control members ties into points 4 and 5 exactly . It is conditioning for covert slavery . Spending more time doing cult behaviors leaves less for old behaviors and eventually none . There are only 168 hours in a week - the cult takes them bit by bit until your old life has zero . Covert annihilation of your old identity - it is erased .
  Welcome to Scientology .

Regarding the scheduling and getting people in more , it is not ultimately only financially based - THAT is a lie to cover a more wicked intent Hubbard had all along .

In point 2 controlling time is established . To remold someone having them once in a while consider an idea and essentially live independently does not work for thought reform . They must have their decision making entirely taken away .

Point 3 is helped by gradually taking away old groups and social support by asking more and more time be devoted to the cult , whether in course or session or as staff .

From point 5 quote - The more complicated and filled with contradictions the new system is and the more difficult it is to learn, the more effective the conversion process will be End quote

Both Jon Atack and I have already written about how Scientology is jam packed with contradictions to confuse , overwhelm and ultimately enslave you mentally . He has an excellent piece here and at my blog is the Secret Of Scientology part 1 by myself .
Jon Atack: At the heart of Scientology is L. Ron Hubbard’s paralyzing use of contradiction
.http://tonyortega.org/2014/11/24/jon-...
The secret of Scientology part 1 control via contradiction
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/201...

But to look at Professor Singer's idea - the cult has an incredibly complex and difficult system of thirty five million words of doctrine , courses that can last countless years to complete , a level of difficulty that may be matched by no other group's indoctrination , the aforementioned use of thousands and thousands of contradictions in the doctrine and practices AND consequently the most effective conversion process of any cult ever developed to my knowledge . And that is Scientology 101.

Mockingbird's Greatest Hits
I have reached nearly two hundred posts online and thousands of comments as well. In looking back at all that I realized a very small number of posts have been consistently the most viewed and likely most helpful for people seeking to understand Scientology.

I certainly hope they are helping people. Here I will try to present the short list of the posts that best explain my ideas and can introduce you to information that I hope will help begin beneficial examination of Scientology.

1)Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/i...ology.html?m=0

2)Basic Introduction To Hypnosis in Scientology

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/b...is-in.html?m=0

3)Pissed It's Not Your Fault !!!

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/p...fault.html?m=0


4)The Secret Of Scientology Part 1 Control Via Contradiction

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/t...art-1.html?m=0

5)Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden, Varied And Repeated To Control You As Hypnotic Implants

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/02/m...-hell.html?m=0

6)Why Hubbard Never Claimed OT Feats And The Rock Bottom Basis Of Scientology

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/02/m...never.html?m=0

7)A Million Years In Hell

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/02/a...-hell.html?m=0

8-10)OT III And Beyond: Sources Plagiarized From Part 1, 2 and 3
Part 1
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/03/o...rized.html?m=0

Part 2
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/03/o...ed_14.html?m=0

Part 3
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/03/o...ed_17.html?m=0

11)Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning In Scientology

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/03/p...ng-in.html?m=0

12)Scientology's Parallel In Nature - Malignant Narcissism

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/05/s...ure_3.html?m=0

13)OT VIII Delusion Fulfilled

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/05/o...ed_30.html?m=0.

14)There Is No Irony In Scientology

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/08/t...ology.html?m=0

15 - 16)Why Lying And Murder Are Justified In Scientology part 1 and 2

Part 1
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/10/w...ed-in.html?m=0

Part 2

http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/10/w...in_26.html?m=0.

Why Lying And Murder Are Justified In Scientology part 3
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/...



17)Unraveling Scientology - A Missing Vital Ingredient


http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/11/u...vital.html?m=0.

18)Loving A Lie


http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/12/loving-lie.html?m=0.

19)Two Roads


http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/12/two-roads.html?m=0.

20)Orders Of Magnitude Part 1


http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/11/o...art-1.html?m=0.

These twenty posts have been both popular and give a very good grounding in many of my ideas on Scientology

Good Cult Victims And Evil Cult Villains



The following post is here to address the tendency of people to demonize cult members but then cheer ex cult members and sympathize with them .  I hate to burst any bubbles but for some this is too extreme an all or nothing proposition. Either pure good or pure evil with no judgement and unbiased examination of individuals .

Some people are roped in and skeptical, but through a series of deceptions and hypnotic experiences that are falsely labeled proof of Hubbard's technology they get certainty Scientology and Hubbard are miraculous. Because euphoria and ecstasy are so misunderstood that it's quite easy to convince a tiny percentage of people that they are having mystical experiences.

The misinterpreted experiences are essential to fool the cult victim . It is merely a very convincing way to lie to people. It also increases suggestibility in some cases to a tremendous degree.

Blaming cult victims is essentially blaming victims of betrayed trust , victims of elaborate systemic deception utilizing elements of social psychology and individual mental vulnerabilities .

I advise not letting frustrations with Scientology's crimes inspire condemnation of his victims. They are certainly not perfect , but to act like there is a line or date that everyone on one side of must "be knowingly choosing this" or something along those lines is simply false .

There is no black and white demarcation of "good duped Scientologists"and "bad you are informed of Scientology's fraudulent nature and not fooled at all or should know better Scientologists".

It is a matter of different individuals and case by case . But a fundamental concept to consider is that cults are abusive relationships spread out over groups and have the components of abusive relationships.

It would be wrong to blame a battered woman , victim of rape or child abuse and say " you were asking for it" or " you should've known better " .
Similarly in cultic abuse it is wrong to blame the victim . This doesn't provide an absolute abnegation of responsibility for any and all conduct committed while in the cult. It is never going to be a black and white issue.

Now , there are some genuinely abusive and even criminal acts that must merit consequences such as prison terms . Certainly for adults who knowingly ruin and end lives . No cult deception mitigates to the point where adults committing murder and other tragic traumatic felonies should entirely avoid criminal prosecution.

Even some of these terrible crimes may in some cases be judged to warrant reduced sentences due to undue influence. Trying to balance influence and justice will be a challenge worthy of the wisdom of Solomon. I am very glad I will never bear that terrible burden .

OT VIII Delusion Fulfilled part 2



This is a post with more information from an exchange between another ex Scientologist and myself regarding OT VIII . I am not using the other person's name here as I do not have permission . I will just call her Songbird .

Songbird comment below.
This brings to mind when I spoke to Dr Megan Shields a while ago. She is an OT 8, $cientologist for years and an M.D. $cio doctor the church sends people to see for medical care. Megan let me know that both her children ( while in $cientology ) had committed suicide ( which is a very sad thing ) I feel for her. The wild part was she had found a couple who agreed to conceive for her and they did. Megan has the female child and fully believes that this is her daughter that committed suicide reincarnated. Megan said to me she couldn't understand why there wasn't a program within the Church for the children who weren't doing well as there were too many suicides with $cientology children. I was taken back by this comment as I hadn't heard of this happening. But then again you wouldn't because it would be covered up or a shore story passed around among the $cientology public. End Songbird quote.

Mockingbird's response.
She has attained OT VIII Truth revealed - it is delusion replacing sanity . from Hubbard's use of reversals .If you tear apart all of the bridge and read psychiatrist's evaluations of people from the OT levels they find them to induce severe hallucinations and delusions .

And OT VIII is intentionally designed to eradicate any vestige of sanity and the ability to distinguish reality from delusion - truth suppressed . With no more bridge the cult member is meant to completely surrender to delusion . I am not exaggerating as  I have met OT VIIs and heard of their wins and realizations .

They are fully immersed in Hubbard's lies . Examples ? Okay , I have heard of their completions and they often realize that EVERYTHING that happens is in their control . Not everything they do or think or feel - EVERYTHING ever anywhere .

I have heard of a woman who comped and she said  she would fix the United States by becoming president !!! No political experience or allies or funding - by postulate alone  . She believed it .

Next a common win for OT VIIIs - a guy realized that the things he postulated a certain way ALWAYS were exactly how he decided and everything he did not care about was outside his control - for randomity !!! So ,every abuse of a child , every rape , every crime and injustice in his mind was either not real or not something he cared about ! To maintain the illusion of his godhood .  This was around from a concept early in Scientology of an OT beyond the influence of the physical universe . The OT VIIIs felt they achieved this .

For a while they  had a meme other Scientologists emulated - they would whenever they saw or had to deal with something unpleasant say " Well , in my universe.."meaning they believed that Scientology restored them to being a literal god with a capital G of their own home universe where they are the supreme being and create EVEYTHING by will alone .

They were sold the idea that long ago we each had our own universe as an illusion we created by decision and had total supreme control of . Equivalent to being a monotheistic God within that universe - eternal , immortal ,all knowing ,all powerful with no need for a body .

They felt that they could regain access to and control of that universe and make it better than this one . They would say "Well , in my universe there is no pain" or "in my universe there are no lies" or "in my universe that never happens" . And the funny thing is they would not face the thing they denied in their universe in real life !! I mean they literally just acted like because they did not agree to create it that meant it no longer exists in real life !!!

Despite it obviously being exactly the same as before they made their speech .

Anybody think Scientology is not harmful now ? It makes the sane insane .

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Criteria For Thought Reform

Any ideology -- that is, any set of emotionally-charged convictions about man and his relationship to the natural or supernatural world -- may be carried by its adherents in a totalistic direction. But this is most likely to occur with those ideologies which are most sweeping in their content and most ambitious or messianic in their claim, whether a religious or political organization. And where totalism exists, a religion, or a political movement becomes little more than an exclusive cult.
Here you will find a set of criteria, eight psychological themes against which any environment may be judged. In combination, they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time pose the gravest of human threats.
(a brief outline)

MILIEU CONTROL

  • The most basic feature is the control of human communication within an environment
  • If the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication
  • Control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control) creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
  • Groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure
  • Often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly isolated, making it extremely difficult-- both physically and psychologically--for one to leave
  • Sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's "us against them"
  • Closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)


MYSTICAL MANIPULATION (Planned spontaneity)

  • Extensive personal manipulation
  • Seeks to promote specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that it appears to have arisen spontaneously from within the environment, while it actually has been orchestrated
  • Totalist leaders claim to be agents chosen by God, history, or some supernatural force, to carry out the mystical imperative
  • The "principles" (God-centered or otherwise) can be put forcibly and claimed exclusively, so that the cult and its beliefs become the only true path to salvation (or enlightenment)
  • The individual then develops the psychology of the pawn, and participates actively in the manipulation of others
  • The leader who becomes the center of the mystical manipulation (or the person in whose name it is done) can be sometimes more real than an abstract god and therefore attractive to cult members
  • Legitimizes the deception used to recruit new members and/or raise funds, and the deception used on the "outside world"

THE DEMAND FOR PURITY

  • The world becomes sharply divided into the pure and the impure, the absolutely good (the group/ideology) and the absolutely evil (everything outside the group)
  • One must continually change or conform to the group "norm"
  • Tendencies towards guilt and shame are used as emotional levers for the group's controlling and manipulative influences
  • Once a person has experienced the totalist polarization of good/evil (black/white thinking), he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality
  • The radical separation of pure/impure is both within the environment (the group) and the individual
  • Ties in with the process of confession -- one must confess when one is not conforming

CONFESSION

  • Cultic confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself
  • Sessions in which one confesses to one's sin are accompanied by patterns of criticism and self-criticism, generally transpiring within small groups with an active and dynamic thrust toward personal change
  • Is an act of symbolic self-surrender
  • Makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility
  • A person confessing to various sins of pre-cultic existence can both believe in those sins and be covering over other ideas and feelings that s/he is either unaware of or reluctant to discuss
  • Often a person will confess to lesser sins while holding on to other secrets (often criticisms/questions/doubts about the group/leaders that may cause them not to advance to a leadership position)
  • "The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you"

SACRED SCIENCE

  • The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic doctrine or ideology, holding it as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence
  • Questioning or criticizing those basic assumptions is prohibited
  • A reverence is demanded for the ideology/doctrine, the originators of the ideology/doctrine, the present bearers of the ideology/doctrine
  • Offers considerable security to young people because it greatly simplifies the world and answers a contemporary need to combine a sacred set of dogmatic principles with a claim to a science embodying the truth about human behavior and human psychology

LOADING THE LANGUAGE

  • The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche (thought-stoppers)
  • Repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon
  • "The language of non-thought"
  • Words are given new meanings -- the outside world does not use the words or phrases in the same way -- it becomes a "group" word or phrase

DOCTRINE OVER PERSON

  • Every issue in one's life can be reduced to a single set of principles that have an inner coherence to the point that one can claim the experience of truth and feel it
  • The pattern of doctrine over person occurs when there is a conflict between what one feels oneself experiencing and what the doctrine or ideology says one should experience
  • If one questions the beliefs of the group or the leaders of the group, one is made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to even question -- it is always "turned around" on them and the questioner/criticizer is questioned rather than the questions answered directly
  • The underlying assumption is that doctrine/ideology is ultimately more valid, true and real than any aspect of actual human character or human experience and one must subject one's experience to that "truth"
  • The experience of contradiction can be immediately associated with guilt
  • One is made to feel that doubts are reflections of one's own evil
  • When doubt arises, conflicts become intense

DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE

  • Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist
  • "Being verses nothingness"
  • Impediments to legitimate being must be pushed away or destroyed
  • One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group
  • Fear manipulation -- if one leaves this group, one leaves God or loses their transformation, for something bad will happen to them
  • The group is the "elite", outsiders are "of the world", "evil", "unenlightened", etc.
Excerpted from: Thought Reform And The Psychology of Totalism, Chapter 22, (Chapel Hill, 1989) & The Future of Immortality, Chapter 155 (New York 1987).

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism

The University of North Carolina Press/Chapel Hill and London
By Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.

Below is an edited excerpt from Chapter 22 of Robert Jay Lifton's book,"Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China." Lifton, a psychiatrist and distinguished professor at the City University of New York, has studied the psychology of extremism for decades. He testified at the 1976 bank robbery trial of Patty Hearst about the theory of "coercive persuasion." First published in 1961, his book was reprinted in 1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. Scroll down to the read the chapter.

First I will give you an abridged description.

Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform


  1. Milieu Control This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
  2. Mystical Manipulation.  There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes. 
  3. Demand for Purity The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection.  The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here. 
  4. Confession.  Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group.  There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders. 
  5. Sacred Science.  The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute.  Truth is not to be found outside the group.  The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism. 
  6. Loading the Language.  The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand.  This jargon consists of thought-terminating cliches, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking. 
  7. Doctrine over person.  Member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group. 
  8. Dispensing of existence.  The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not.  This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology.  If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the  members.  Thus, the outside world loses all credibility.  In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also.  (Lifton, 1989)



Chapter 22: Ideological Totalism

Topics
A discussion of what is most central in the thought reform environment can lead us to a more general consideration of the psychology of human zealotry. For in identifying, on the basis of this study of thought reform, features common to all expressions of ideological totalism, I wish to suggest a set of criteria against which any environment may be judged - a basis for answering the ever-recurring question: "Isn't this just like 'brainwashing'?"
These criteria consist of eight psychological themes which are predominant within the social field of the thought reform milieu. Each has a totalistic quality; each depend upon an equally absolute philosophical assumption; and each mobilizes certain individual emotional tendencies, mostly of a polarizing nature. In combination they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time poses the gravest of human threats.

Milieu Control

The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual's communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads or writes, experiences, and expresses), but also - in its penetration of his inner life - over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.
Such milieu control never succeeds in becoming absolute, and its own human apparatus can - when permeated by outside information - become subject to discordant "noise" beyond that of any mechanical apparatus. To totalist administrators, however, such occurrences are no more than evidences of "incorrect" use of the apparatus. For they look upon milieu control as a just and necessary policy, one which need not be kept secret: thought reform participants may be in doubt as to who is telling what to whom, but the fact that extensive information about everyone is being conveyed to the authorities is always known. At the center of this self-justification is their assumption of omniscience, their conviction that reality is their exclusive possession. Having experienced the impact of what they consider to be an ultimate truth (and having the need to dispel any possible inner doubts of their own), they consider it their duty to create an environment containing no more and no less than this "truth." In order to be the engineers of the human soul, they must first bring it under full observational control.

Mystical Manipulation

The inevitable next step after milieu control is extensive personal manipulation. This manipulation assumes a no-holds-barred character, and uses every possible device at the milieu's command, no matter how bizarre or painful. Initiated from above, it seeks to provoke specific patterns of behavior and emotion in such a way that these will appear to have arisen spontaneously, directed as it is by an ostensibly omniscient group, must assume, for the manipulated, a near-mystical quality.
Ideological totalists do not pursue this approach solely for the purpose of maintaining a sense of power over others. Rather they are impelled by a special kind of mystique which not only justifies such manipulations, but makes them mandatory. Included in this mystique is a sense of "higher purpose," of having "directly perceived some imminent law of social development," and of being themselves the vanguard of this development. By thus becoming the instruments of their own mystique, they create a mystical aura around the manipulating institutions - the Party, the Government, the Organization. They are the agents "chosen" (by history, by God, or by some other supernatural force) to carry out the "mystical imperative," the pursuit of which must supersede all considerations of decency or of immediate human welfare. Similarly, any thought or action which questions the higher purpose is considered to be stimulated by a lower purpose, to be backward, selfish, and petty in the face of the great, overriding mission. This same mystical imperative produces the apparent extremes of idealism and cynicism which occur in connection with the manipulations of any totalist environment: even those actions which seem cynical in the extreme can be seen as having ultimate relationship to the "higher purpose."
At the level of the individual person, the psychological responses to this manipulative approach revolve about the basic polarity of trust and mistrust. One is asked to accept these manipulations on a basis of ultimate trust (or faith): "like a child in the arms of its mother." He who trusts in this degree can experience the manipulations within the idiom of the mystique behind them: that is, he may welcome their mysteriousness, find pleasure in their pain, and feel them to be necessary for the fulfillment of the "higher purpose" which he endorses as his own. But such elemental trust is difficult to maintain; and even the strongest can be dissipated by constant manipulation.
When trust gives way to mistrust (or when trust has never existed) the higher purpose cannot serve as adequate emotional sustenance. The individual then responds to the manipulations through developing what I shall call the psychology of the pawn. Feeling himself unable to escape from forces more powerful than himself, he subordinates everything to adapting himself to them. He becomes sensitive to all kinds of cues, expert at anticipating environmental pressures, and skillful in riding them in such a way that his psychological energies merge with the tide rather than turn painfully against himself. This requires that he participate actively in the manipulation of others, as well as in the endless round of betrayals and self-betrayals which are required.
But whatever his response - whether he is cheerful in the face of being manipulated, deeply resentful, or feels a combination of both - he has been deprived of the opportunity to exercise his capacities for self-expression and independent action.

The Demand for Purity

In the thought reform milieu, as in all situations of ideological totalism, the experiential world is sharply divided into the pure and the impure, into the absolutely good and the absolutely evil. The good and the pure are of course those ideas, feelings, and actions which are consistent with the totalist ideology and policy; anything else is apt to be relegated to the bad and the impure. Nothing human is immune from the flood of stern moral judgments. All "taints" and "poisons" which contribute to the existing state of impurity must be searched out and eliminated.
The philosophical assumption underlying this demand is that absolute purity is attainable, and that anything done to anyone in the name of this purity is ultimately moral. In actual practice, however, no one is really expected to achieve such perfection. Nor can this paradox be dismissed as merely a means of establishing a high standard to which all can aspire. Thought reform bears witness to its more malignant consequences: for by defining and manipulating the criteria of purity, and then by conducting an all-out war upon impurity, the ideological totalists create a narrow world of guilt and shame. This is perpetuated by an ethos of continuous reform, a demand that one strive permanently and painfully for something which not only does not exist but is in fact alien to the human condition.
At the level of the relationship between individual and environment, the demand for purity creates what we may term a guilty milieu and a shaming milieu. Since each man's impurities are deemed sinful and potentially harmful to himself and to others, he is, so to speak, expected to expect punishment - which results in a relationship of guilt and his environment. Similarly, when he fails to meet the prevailing standards in casting out such impurities, he is expected to expect humiliation and ostracism - thus establishing a relationship of shame with his milieu. Moreover, the sense of guilt and the sense of shame become highly-valued: they are preferred forms of communication, objects of public competition, and the basis for eventual bonds between the individual and his totalist accusers. One may attempt to simulate them for a while, but the subterfuge is likely to be detected, and it is safer to experience them genuinely.
People vary greatly in their susceptibilities to guilt and shame, depending upon patterns developed early in life. But since guilt and shame are basic to human existence, this variation can be no more than a matter of degree. Each person is made vulnerable through his profound inner sensitivities to his own limitations and to his unfulfilled potential; in other words, each is made vulnerable through his existential guilt. Since ideological totalists become the ultimate judges of good and evil within their world, they are able to use these universal tendencies toward guilt and shame as emotional levers for their controlling and manipulative influences. They become the arbiters of existential guilt, authorities without limit in dealing with others' limitations. And their power is nowhere more evident than in their capacity to "forgive."
The individual thus comes to apply the same totalist polarization of good and evil to his judgments of his own character: he tends to imbue certain aspects of himself with excessive virtue, and condemn even more excessively other personal qualities - all according to their ideological standing. He must also look upon his impurities as originating from outside influences - that is, from the ever-threatening world beyond the closed, totalist ken. Therefore, one of his best way to relieve himself of some of his burden of guilt is to denounce, continuously and hostilely, these same outside influences. The more guilty he feels, the greater his hatred, and the more threatening they seem. In this manner, the universal psychological tendency toward "projection" is nourished and institutionalized, leading to mass hatreds, purges of heretics, and to political and religious holy wars. Moreover, once an individual person has experienced the totalist polarization of good and evil, he has great difficulty in regaining a more balanced inner sensitivity to the complexities of human morality. For these is no emotional bondage greater than that of the man whose entire guilt potential - neurotic and existential - has become the property of ideological totalists.

The Cult of Confession

Closely related to the demand for absolute purity is an obsession with personal confession. Confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal, and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself. There is the demand that one confess to crimes one has not committed, to sinfulness that is artificially induced, in the name of a cure that is arbitrarily imposed. Such demands are made possible not only by the ubiquitous human tendencies toward guilt and shame but also by the need to give expression to these tendencies. In totalist hands, confession becomes a means of exploiting, rather than offering solace for, these vulnerabilities.
The totalist confession takes on a number of special meanings. It is first a vehicle for the kind of personal purification which we have just discussed, a means of maintaining a perpetual inner emptying or psychological purge of impurity; this purging milieu enhances the totalists' hold upon existential guilt. Second, it is an act of symbolic self-surrender, the expression of the merging of individual and environment. Third, it is a means of maintaining an ethos of total exposure - a policy of making public (or at least known to the Organization) everything possible about the life experiences, thoughts, and passions of each individual, and especially those elements which might be regarded as derogatory.
The assumption underlying total exposure (besides those which relate to the demand for purity) is the environment's claim to total ownership of each individual self within it. Private ownership of the mind and its products - of imagination or of memory - becomes highly immoral. The accompanying rationale (or rationalization) is familiar, the milieu has attained such a perfect state of enlightenment that any individual retention of ideas or emotions has become anachronistic.
The cult of confession can offer the individual person meaningful psychological satisfactions in the continuing opportunity for emotional catharsis and for relief of suppressed guilt feelings, especially insofar as these are associated with self-punitive tendencies to get pleasure from personal degradation. More than this, the sharing of confession enthusiasms can create an orgiastic sense of "oneness," of the most intense intimacy with fellow confessors and of the dissolution of self into the great flow of the Movement. And there is also, at least initially, the possibility of genuine self-revelation and of self-betterment through the recognition that "the thing that has been exposed is what I am."
But as totalist pressures turn confession into recurrent command performances, the element of histrionic public display takes precedence over genuine inner experience. Each man becomes concerned with the effectiveness of his personal performance, and this performance sometimes comes to serve the function of evading the very emotions and ideas about which one feels most guilty - confirming the statement by one of Camus' characters that "authors of confessions write especially to avoid confessing, to tell nothing of what they know." The difficulty, of course, lies in the inevitable confusion which takes place between the actor's method and his separate personal reality, between the performer and the "real me."
In this sense, the cult of confession has effects quite the reverse of its ideal of total exposure: rather than eliminating personal secrets, it increases and intensifies them. In any situation the personal secret has two important elements: first, guilty and shameful ideas which one wishes to suppress in order to prevent their becoming known by others or their becoming too prominent in one's own awareness; and second, representations of parts of oneself too precious to be expressed except when alone or when involved in special loving relationships formed around this shared secret world. Personal secrets are always maintained in opposition to inner pressures toward self-exposure. The totalist milieu makes contact with these inner pressures through its own obsession with the expose and the unmasking process. As a result old secrets are revived and new ones proliferate; the latter frequently consist of resentments toward or doubts about the Movement, or else are related to aspects of identity still existing outside of the prescribed ideological sphere. Each person becomes caught up in a continuous conflict over which secrets to preserve and which to surrender, over ways to reveal lesser secrets in order to protect more important ones; his own boundaries between the secret and the known, between the public and the private, become blurred. And around one secret, or a complex of secrets, there may revolve an ultimate inner struggle between resistance and self-surrender.
Finally, the cult of confession makes it virtually impossible to attain a reasonable balance between worth and humility. The enthusiastic and aggressive confessor becomes like Camus' character whose perpetual confession is his means of judging others: "[I]…practice the profession of penitent to be able to end up as a judge…the more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you." The identity of the "judge-penitent" thus becomes a vehicle for taking on some of the environment's arrogance and sense of omnipotence. Yet even this shared omnipotence cannot protect him from the opposite (but not unrelated) feelings of humiliation and weakness, feelings especially prevalent among those who remain more the enforced penitent than the all-powerful judge.

The "Sacred Science"

The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic dogma, holding it out as an ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. This sacredness is evident in the prohibition (whether or not explicit) against the questioning of basic assumptions, and in the reverence which is demanded for the originators of the Word, the present bearers of the Word, and the Word itself. While thus transcending ordinary concerns of logic, however, the milieu at the same time makes an exaggerated claim of airtight logic, of absolute "scientific" precision. Thus the ultimate moral vision becomes an ultimate science; and the man who dares to criticize it, or to harbor even unspoken alternative ideas, becomes not only immoral and irreverent, but also "unscientific." In this way, the philosopher kings of modern ideological totalism reinforce their authority by claiming to share in the rich and respected heritage of natural science.
The assumption here is not so much that man can be God, but rather that man's ideas can be God: that an absolute science of ideas (and implicitly, an absolute science of man) exists, or is at least very close to being attained; that this science can be combined with an equally absolute body of moral principles; and that the resulting doctrine is true for all men at all times. Although no ideology goes quite this far in overt statement, such assumptions are implicit in totalist practice.
At the level of the individual, the totalist sacred science can offer much comfort and security. Its appeal lies in its seeming unification of the mystical and the logical modes of experience (in psychoanalytic terms, of the primary and secondary thought processes). For within the framework of the sacred science, and sweeping, non-rational "insights." Since the distinction between the logical and the mystical is, to begin with, artificial and man-made, an opportunity for transcending it can create an extremely intense feeling of truth. But the posture of unquestioning faith - both rationally and non-rationally derived - is not easy to sustain, especially if one discovers that the world of experience is not nearly as absolute as the sacred science claims it to be.
Yet so strong a hold can the sacred science achieve over his mental processes that if one begins to feel himself attracted to ideas which either contradict or ignore it, he may become guilty and afraid. His quest for knowledge is consequently hampered, since in the name of science he is prevented from engaging in the receptive search for truth which characterizes the genuinely scientific approach. And his position is made more difficult by the absence, in a totalist environment, of any distinction between the sacred and the profane: there is no thought or action which cannot be related to the sacred science. To be sure, one can usually find areas of experience outside its immediate authority; but during periods of maximum totalist activity (like thought reform) any such areas are cut off, and there is virtually no escape from the milieu's ever-pressing edicts and demands. Whatever combination of continued adherence, inner resistance, or compromise co-existence the individual person adopts toward this blend of counterfeit science and back-door religion, it represents another continuous pressure toward personal closure, toward avoiding, rather than grappling with, the kinds of knowledge and experience necessary for genuine self-expression and for creative development.

Loading the Language

The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. In [Chinese Communist] thought reform, for instance, the phrase "bourgeois mentality" is used to encompass and critically dismiss ordinarily troublesome concerns like the quest for individual expression, the exploration of alternative ideas, and the search for perspective and balance in political judgments. And in addition to their function as interpretive shortcuts, these cliches become what Richard Weaver has called "ultimate terms" : either "god terms," representative of ultimate good; or "devil terms," representative of ultimate evil. In [Chinese Communist] thought reform, "progress," "progressive," "liberation," "proletarian standpoints" and "the dialectic of history" fall into the former category; "capitalist," "imperialist," "exploiting classes," and "bourgeois" (mentality, liberalism, morality, superstition, greed) of course fall into the latter. Totalist language then, is repetitiously centered on all-encompassing jargon, prematurely abstract, highly categorical, relentlessly judging, and to anyone but its most devoted advocate, deadly dull: in Lionel Trilling's phrase, "the language of nonthought."
To be sure, this kind of language exists to some degree within any cultural or organizational group, and all systems of belief depend upon it. It is in part an expression of unity and exclusiveness: as Edward Sapir put it, "'He talks like us' is equivalent to saying 'He is one of us.'" The loading is much more extreme in ideological totalism, however, since the jargon expresses the claimed certitudes of the sacred science. Also involved is an underlying assumption that language - like all other human products - can be owned and operated by the Movement. No compunctions are felt about manipulating or loading it in any fashion; the only consideration is its usefulness to the cause.
For an individual person, the effect of the language of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction. He is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, his capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed. This is what Hu meant when he said, "using the same pattern of words for so long…you feel chained." Actually, not everyone exposed feels chained, but in effect everyone is profoundly confined by these verbal fetters. As in other aspects of totalism, this loading may provide an initial sense of insight and security, eventually followed by uneasiness. This uneasiness may result in a retreat into a rigid orthodoxy in which an individual shouts the ideological jargon all the louder in order to demonstrate his conformity, hide his own dilemma and his despair, and protect himself from the fear and guilt he would feel should he attempt to use words and phrases other than the correct ones. Or else he may adapt a complex pattern of inner division, and dutifully produce the expected cliché's in public performances while in his private moments he searches for more meaningful avenues of expression. Either way, his imagination becomes increasingly dissociated from his actual life experiences and may tend to atrophy from disuse.

Doctrine Over Person

This sterile language reflects characteristic feature of ideological totalism: the subordination of human experience to the claims of doctrine. This primacy of doctrine over person is evident in the continual shift between experience itself and the highly abstract interpretation of such experience - between genuine feelings and spurious cataloguing of feelings. It has much to do with the peculiar aura of half-reality which totalist environment seems, at least to the outsider, to possess.
The inspiriting force of such myths cannot be denied; nor can one ignore their capacity for mischief. For when the myth becomes fused with the totalist sacred science, the resulting "logic" can be so compelling and coercive that it simply replaces the realities of individual experience. Consequently, past historical events are retrospectively altered, wholly rewritten, or ignored, to make them consistent with the doctrinal logic. This alteration becomes especially malignant when its distortions are imposed upon individual memory as occurred in the false confession extracted during thought reform.
The same doctrinal primacy prevails in the totalist approach to changing people: the demand that character and identity be reshaped, not in accordance with one's special nature or potentialities, but rather to fit the rigid contours of the doctrinal mold. The human is thus subjected to the ahuman. And in this manner, the totalists, as Camus phrases it, "put an abstract idea above human life, even if they call it history, to which they themselves have submitted in advance and to which they will decide arbitrarily, to submit everyone else as well."
The underlying assumption is that the doctrine - including its mythological elements - is ultimately more valid, true, and real than is any aspect of actual human character or human experience. Thus, even when circumstances require that a totalist movement follow a course of action in conflict with or outside of the doctrine, there exists what Benjamin Schwartz described as a "will to orthodoxy" which requires an elaborate facade of new rationalizations designed to demonstrate the unerring consistency of the doctrine and the unfailing foresight which it provides. But its greater importance lies in more hidden manifestations, particularly the totalists' pattern of imposing their doctrine-dominated remolding upon people in order to seek confirmation of (and again, dispel their own doubts about) this same doctrine. Rather than modify the myth in accordance with experience, the will to orthodoxy requires instead that men be modified in order to reaffirm the myth.
The individual person who finds himself under such doctrine-dominated pressure to change is thrust into an intense struggle with his own sense of integrity, a struggle which takes place in relation to polarized feelings of sincerity and insincerity. In a totalist environment, absolute "sincerity" is demanded; and the major criterion for sincerity is likely to be one's degree of doctrinal compliance - both in regard to belief and to direction of personal change. Yet there is always the possibility of retaining an alternative version of sincerity (and of reality), the capacity to imagine a different kind of existence and another form of sincere commitment. These alternative visions depend upon such things as the strength of previous identity, the penetration of the milieu by outside ideas, and the retained capacity for eventual individual renewal. The totalist environment, however, counters such "deviant" tendencies with the accusation that they stem entirely from personal "problems" ("thought problems" or "ideological problems") derived from untoward earlier influences. The outcome will depend largely upon how much genuine relevance the doctrine has for the individual emotional predicament. And even for those to whom it seems totally appealing, the exuberant sense of well-being it temporarily affords may be more a "delusion of wholeness" than an expression of true and lasting inner harmony.

The Dispensing of Existence

The totalist environment draws a sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognized, and those who possess no such right.
Are not men presumtuous to appoint themselves the dispensers of human existence? Surely this is a flagrant expression of what the Greeks called hubris, of arrogant man making himself God. Yet one underlying assumption makes this arrogance mandatory: the conviction that there is just one path to true existence, just one valid mode of being, and that all others are perforce invalid and false. Totalists thus feel themselves compelled to destroy all possibilities of false existence as a means of furthering the great plan of true existence to which they are committed.
For the individual, the polar emotional conflict is the ultimate existential one of "being versus nothingness." He is likely to be drawn to a conversion experience, which he sees as the only means of attaining a path of existence for the future. The totalist environment - even when it does not resort to physical abuse - thus stimulates in everyone a fear of extinction or annihilation. A person can overcome this fear and find (in martin Buber's term) "confirmation," not in his individual relationships, but only from the fount of all existence, the totalist Organization. Existence comes to depend upon creed (I believe, therefore I am), upon submission (I obey, therefore I am) and beyond these, upon a sense of total merger with the ideological movement. Ultimately of course one compromises and combines the totalist "confirmation" with independent elements of personal identity; but one is ever made aware that, should he stray too far along this "erroneous path," his right to existence may be withdrawn.
The more clearly an environment expresses these eight psychological themes, the greater its resemblance to ideological totalism; and the more it utilizes such totalist devices to change people, the greater its resemblance to thought reform. But facile comparisons can be misleading. No milieu ever achieves complete totalism, and many relatively moderate environments show some signs of it. Moreover, totalism tends to be recurrent rather than continuous. But if totalism has at any time been prominent in the movement, there is always the possibility of its reappearance, even after long periods of relative moderation.
Then, too, some environments come perilously close to totalism but at the same time keep alternative paths open; this combination can offer unusual opportunities for achieving intellectual and emotional depth. And even the most full-blown totalist milieu can provide (more or less despite itself) a valuable and enlarging life experience - if the man exposed has both the opportunity to leave the extreme environment and the inner capacity to absorb and make inner use of the totalist pressures.
Also, ideological totalism itself may offer a man an intense peak experience: a sense of transcending all that is ordinary and prosaic, of freeing himself from the encumbrances of human ambivalence, of entering a sphere of truth, reality, and sincerity beyond any he had ever known or even imagined. But these peak experiences, carry a great potential for rebound, and for equally intense opposition to the very things which initially seem so liberating. Such imposed peak experiences - as contrasted with those more freely and privately arrived at by great religious leaders and mystics - are essentially experiences of personal closure. Rather than stimulating greater receptivity and "openness to the world," they encourage a backward step into some form of "embeddedness" - a retreat into doctrinal patterns more characteristic (at least at this stage of human history) of the child than of the individuated adult.
And if no peak experience occurs, ideological totalism does even greater violence to the human potential: it evokes destructive emotions, produces intellectual and psychological constrictions, and deprives men of all that is most subtle and imaginative - under the false promise of eliminating those very imperfections and ambivalences which help to define the human condition. This combination of personal closure, self-destructiveness, and hostility toward outsiders leads to the dangerous group excesses so characteristic of ideological totalism in any form. It also mobilizes extremist tendencies in those outsiders under attack, thus creating a vicious circle of totalism.
What is the source of ideological totalism? How do these extremist emotional patterns originate? These questions raise the most crucial and the most difficult of human problems. Behind ideological totalism lies the ever-present human quest for the omnipotent guide - for the supernatural force, political party, philosophical ideas, great leader, or precise science - that will bring ultimate solidarity to all men and eliminate the terror of death and nothingness. This quest is evident in the mythologies, religions, and histories of all nations, as well as in every individual life. The degree of individual totalism involved depends greatly upon factors in one's personal history: early lack of trust, extreme environmental chaos, total domination by a parent or parent-representative, intolerable burdens of guilt, and severe crises of identity. Thus an early sense of confusion and dislocation, or an early experience of unusually intense family milieu control, can produce later a complete intolerance for confusion and dislocation, and a longing for the reinstatement of milieu control. But these things are in some measure part of every childhood experience; and therefore the potential for totalism is a continuum from which no one entirely escapes, and in relationship to which no two people are exactly the same.
It may be that the capacity for totalism is most fundamentally a product of human childhood itself, of the prolonged period of helplessness and dependency through which each of us must pass. Limited as he is, the infant has no choice but to imbue his first nurturing authorities - his parents - with an exaggerated omnipotence, until the time he is himself capable of some degree of independent action and judgment. And even as he develops into the child and the adolescent, he continues to require many of the all-or-none polarities of totalism as terms with which to define his intellectual, emotional, and moral worlds. Under favorable circumstances (that is, when family and culture encourage individuation) these requirements can be replaced by more flexible and moderate tendencies; but they never entirely disappear.
During adult life, individual totalism takes on new contours as it becomes associated with new ideological interests. It may become part of the configuration of personal emotions, messianic ideas, and organized mass movement which I have described as ideological totalism. When it does, we cannot speak of it as simply as ideological regression. It is partly this, but it is also something more: a new form of adult embeddedness, originating in patterns of security-seeking carried over from childhood, but with qualities of ideas and aspirations that are specifically adult. During periods of cultural crisis and of rapid historical change, the totalist quest for the omnipotent guide leads men to seek to become that guide.
Totalism, then, is a widespread phenomenon, but it is not the only approach to re-education. We can best use our knowledge of it by applying its criteria to familiar processes in our own cultural tradition and in our own country.