Monday, September 28, 2015
Ron Hubbard's Twisted Mind Part 1 Pathological Lying
One of the very first things anyone who studies Dianetics, Scientology or Ron Hubbard should understand is the inner core of all three: Hubbard's mind and the mental conditions he was exhibiting for much of his life.
In examining him and his choices, information on cult leaders from Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Singer, Daniel Shaw and information on narcissists, sociopaths, malignant narcissists I have begun to form an opinion.
I obviously after being in Scientology for twenty five years and having spent thousands of hours being indoctrinated in the cult environment had a large amount of information on Hubbard to examine. In the exit counseling process a very simple fact was the first and most obvious aspect of his mind and behavior to understand: his pathological lying.
Pathological lying is not the same as normal lying. I cannot stress that enough, it can't be overstated. Pathological liars lie quite differently than normal people. Even other personality disordered individuals don't use lying in the same way as pathological liars.
First off there are two major issues to examine - how pathological liars lie and how it affects their victims, selves and society.
Both are different from normal lying. For most of us we have automatic responses to the revelation that we have been lied to, particularly if we are certain it occurred. We become angry and resentful toward the liar, decide to throw away everything they convinced us of and swear off ever believing them in the future. Then shun them, unless we are bound to them by social, familial or other bonds.
That has pluses and minuses for normal people but is less than adequate for pathological liars for several important reasons. Many pathological liars create subtle and layered effects that cannot be simply dismissed all at once.
Many ex Scientologists for examples decades after leaving the cult still wonder at issues such as "Do I have an overt ?", "Am I PTS or an SP ?", and "Did those incidents in auditing really occur?".
Part of that is due to a lack of understanding how the tools Hubbard plagiarized work such as hypnotism, thought reform and propaganda techniques. But a significant part is simply due to not understanding how he lied.
Much literature on malignant narcissists discusses how they have two defining features - a lack of empathy and humility, both in the extreme. I believe Hubbard fit this concept quite well. He wanted to be seen as superior to God and cared nothing for others. He saw others as only a tool, like a mirror, to fashion a beautiful reflection of himself in to reflect back to give him the admiration he insatiably craved. He cared nothing for their happiness, sanity, freedom, human rights or very lives.
The key aspects to understand about pathological lying are that it is a driven behavior. It is not like normal lying done out of desperation or for convenience or avoidance of negative consequences.
Most people, possibly nearly all, occasionally lie. Honestly, I believe that. But crucially most of us do it rarely or only on certain aspects of our lives or subjects where we have fallen into hiding or altering something habitually.
But there are several key differences in our lying and Hubbard's. We just don't do it constantly and don't get anywhere near as good at it as Hubbard was.
PLs ( pathological liars ) have to get much better at it through trial and error, and find aspects we never do. They learn to satisfy their need to appear to be good and simultaneously discredit anyone who would or could expose them with a series of tactics. Hubbard actually used them for decades and incorporated them into his plagiarized doctrine. When he found others' ideas that mirrored his natural inclinations he focused on those methods and adopted them as his own.
To effectively paint himself as innocent, honest, helpful and altruistic and his potential threats via exposure as untrustworthy, guilty, harmful and self serving he consistently told complex lies interwoven into all his doctrine that asserted him as being the role his opponent held and simultaneously stated his opponents were as absolute fact doing what he himself did.
By stating the one hundred eighty degree lie he made the degree, audacity and perseverance of his lying so extreme they are difficult to comprehend, let alone accept.
There is a simple reason for this: most of us would never dream of decades of constantly lying as first nature, really only nature, as a permanent survival mechanism. It literally was as natural to Hubbard as breathing. He did it all the time without even considering stopping. Just as we breathe.
He found out how lying to people like this ultimately confuses them and that if he changed his lies, but kept authority over his slaves rather than revolt many became confused and more obedient. Why ? Because once you see someone as infallible and unquestionably superior you second guess yourself instead of them when their claims seem contradicted by evidence. It goes back to childhood when you learn usually that mommy and daddy know more than you and are right about things that seemingly don't make sense. They are proven right time and again.
We are to a degree designed to conform to authority and replace reason with blind obedience. Hubbard exploited that relentlessly and ruthlessly.
So picture a person constantly motivated, really driven, to assert his authority, then his great benevolent nature while knowing all of it is lies. And to protect those lies he projects his own undesirable, abominable qualities onto those who do or could expose his other lies. Then on top of that he realized changing his lies so they cannot be pinned down further increases their effectiveness. Things like changing the definition of fundamental concepts such as clear, auditing, OT, Scientology and many other terms over time are redefined over and over so his victims are never quite sure what Hubbard meant. By not knowing what he meant you can't dispute or disprove it.
And finally Hubbard learned from studying propaganda that taking a term and applying it to its opposite he could hide it. The auditing he defined as removing mental content added hypnotic commands. The clear state instead of removing an undesirable mind was intended to add a hypnotic identity, entirely subservient to Hubbard. The bridge to total freedom in truth is a route intended to lead to permanent slavery. Study technology actually destroys the ability to use critical, independent, logical, rational and linear reasoning as an attempt to turn students into slaves whose ability to study is obliterated. Ethics technology is meant to knock out morals that prohibit Hubbard's absolute control. People who do or could expose Hubbard's lies or resist his authority, which is essential to his lies working, are labeled suppressive persons. In truth he was suppressive and they failed to submit to his authority. They are resistant or heroic in the face of his suppression.
There are many, many other examples. His purification rundown relies on poisoning people to fool them. The OT levels switch delusion and truth and one is called truth revealed . He knew the method of switching places, one hundred eighty degree lies and reversals of meaning could effectively enslave some people, often temporarily.
As they say he fooled some of the people some of the time but never all. But unfortunately the consequences were and are unfortunate and all too often tragic for his mentally enslaved victims.
That is the first thing to understand about Ron Hubbard's mind in my opinion.
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