Two Years Out Of The Scientology Cult

I am approaching my two year anniversary of looking outside and leaving the Scientology cult. As many people know I was in for twenty five years.

So leaving was a significant change and many other changes have come along the way. Tony Ortega, Tory Christman, Arnie Lerma and Jon Atack all provided a tremendous amount of help to me that made understanding the truth about Scientology possible and helped me tremendously in finding out how the cult harms people and hides it.

That likely saved me decades of digging to understand even what Scientology is and how it functions. Arnie Lerma and Jon Atack each personally both provided resources for examination that summed up probably over half a century of research and also each personally exchanged dozens of emails with me in which they helped me to find references for my own consideration. They both were quite generous with their information and time.

I will greatly summarize the subjects I studied and have since written on and say they included hypnosis, rhetoric, propaganda, cognitive dissonance theory, social psychology, abusive relationships, narcissists, sociopaths, malignant narcissists, traumatic narcissists, relational systems of subjugation, logical fallacies, critical thinking, cults, thought reform, doublethink, loaded language, recovery from cults, trauma and related subjects.

That was primarily initially for my own recovery from Scientology and now certainly includes that to a degree but is now focused on finding information to hopefully help others. Scientologists, ex Scientologists, critics, independent Scientologists, never ins all have value and worth as human beings and therefore are worthy of sharing information and opinions with. I never expect absolute agreement but do hope to have some degree of cooperation and hopefully benefit for an audience. And to benefit as an equal to others and to in turn be an audience myself.

But this post is primarily intended to reflect on the changes, particularly beneficial ones, that I have noticed taking place over these two years. Many of the things that were easily noticed at first are well documented by people like Margaret Singer, Steven Hassan, Robert Jay Lifton and Janja Lalich. All cult experts.

At first there was a progression that many experience. An overwhelming disruption in the smooth acceptance of cult indoctrination occurred. I went through decades of being lied to and seeing contradictions in Scientology doctrine and practices each within itself. Finally I looked outside the cult and within a few weeks realized Scientology was entirely a harmful fraud and within a few more weeks realized it was all deceptive and none of the technology actually is of any benefit whatsoever. A stunning reversal to be sure.

The usual result of near sanity shattering shock and trauma which many ex cult members experience predictably occurred. The loss of confidence in Scientology with the sense of deep personal betrayal by Ron Hubbard was easily all encompassing and emotionally and psychologically overwhelming. This resulted in several things. It created a deep anxiety and sense of confusion that was overcome by two factors. Time spent doing normal things was immediate in that I woke up each day. Remembered my situation anew and forced myself to get up, put one foot in front of the other and go to work and fulfill my basic obligations. That made me go on and discover how to do things for myself and make decisions independently simply to survive. A wealthy person who could sit idly might have a much harder time as necessity won't compel his actions.

Secondly I set out to learn about Scientology and discover what the relevant information for personal recovery for myself was and how to most quickly take it in efficiently. That has been an adventure in itself to put it mildly. I had to relearn how to read with some measure of critical and independent thinking. This is a stark contrast to the indoctrination and thinking within Scientology. After thousands of hours of cultic indoctrination methods over decades my thinking virtually entirely fit the heavily constrained and directed results from Scientology.

So to learn how to read I had to find a new approach. Under Scientology everything was under a filter of either agreeing entirely with it or rejecting it - based entirely on if it agreed with Hubbard. Simple criteria, simple results, no middle ground. Then after leaving the cult a new way of reading and observing has been implemented.

I started to read a book and take a notebook. On the pages of the notebook that were on the right I would write notes on the author's key ideas and points. (I underlined the lines in the book itself while reading it) Then on the left page next to the author's lines I wrote my own opinions and ideas. The contrast is clear. I can agree, disagree, be uncertain, be confused, be indifferent. But my ideas are separated from the author's. And we may both be wrong.

That is a way of thinking that is totally alien to Scientology. Accepting and thinking with Hubbard's ideas is the only acceptable way EVER.

And as I have gone on I have reframed my ideas not only on individual pieces of information but on entire subjects and even ways of thinking. I now don't see any subject as perfect, complete, all encompassing or infallible.

The subjects of hypnotism and social psychology and cognitive dissonance theory overlap. To me they compliment each other and examine the same and similar ideas with different language. The language guides and limits thought and so by studying the different subjects one can consider, hold, accept, reject and refine or combine the different ideas from the different subjects. An important idea for hypnotism may not be expressed in hypnotism but well expressed in cognitive dissonance theory and vice versa. That is just one example.

So understanding I can never learn it all is a humbling realization and limitation Scientology doesn't have. In Scientology one is taught underlying simplicities found in Scientology can explain everything. Literally everything that does or can exist. That ends up as thinking only in the phrases Hubbard used over and over and in variations he used within Scientology doctrine. His thoughts substitute themselves for his slaves thoughts. That was by intent and design.

Also understanding that as a human being I always have many thousands of beliefs and opinions with several thousand being incorrect is another humbling realization. It doesn't mean I was wrong and corrected it. It means I am always wrong, largely unknowingly and cannot escape it ever. Another total reversal from Scientology. In Scientology one expects to be more and more correct. And usually assumes they are far, far more right than normal people after a short time in Scientology. The cult self selects people that accept this and rejects people that don't accept this. So internally it socially supports this.

Many ideas and behaviors predictably changed. People like psychiatrists, normal people, gay people and poor people that are heavily demonized in Scientology became acceptable and even admirable as the Scientology influence fell off. Blaming people for their misfortunes has greatly diminished. Learning about social psychology has helped me to see how situations influence conditions and individuals are not entirely independent and self sufficient. Now I have not entirely abandoned notions of free will and individual responsibility but try to greatly broaden the picture to include many other factors.

Many, many factors can mitigate the blame I would have formerly placed on people. And I take into account I might not see them and if I see them I might not understand their significance. I no longer blame people for being poor, homeless, sick, uneducated or a number of other conditions that I see as certainly generally outside the direct control of human beings. In Scientology the reverse was strongly encouraged. People get blamed for every misfortune they ever suffer no matter what or how old they are. Pretty brutal.

The interesting thing this shows is an essential difference in thinking and feeling. In the way of thinking described it is natural to assume people are good, there may be exceptions such as Hubbard to be sure or times individuals who are generally good aren't on their best behavior but those are assumed to be the exception and not the norm. In the Scientology model increasingly people are assumed to be responsible for bad things as individuals and shown no compassion. So an assumption of evil, incompetence, stupidity and worthlessness grows as one progresses in Scientology. This cannot be stressed strongly enough.

Even further on this line is another contrast. As I study social psychology I see more and more social influence and institutional influence. In other words results of systems of power that are bad that the system produces - often with at least partially unaware participants. So as aspects of institutional evil emerge the participants often have individual responsibility mitigated. That obviously is not absolute. But in our social systems it is often taken for granted. A man without social support can kill one person and go to prison for twenty years. A person can bomb thousands of innocent civilians including non-combatant men, women and children with social support and face no judgement or penalty. That is institutional evil.

Countries are invaded and millions murdered routinely. And without even a pretense of self defense or supporting an ally. The narrative doesn't even include a lie of moral justification. Perhaps other lies but hardly good ones.

But the individual soldier isn't accountable, he trusts his government. The general or politicians aren't blamed. They were just doing their job or fulfilling a role. A role within a system. As the public fulfills there role of confused disaffection. The public as a whole actually holds the power within the country but doesn't know it and the individual politicians and soldiers don't hold power in their minds either. Everybody plays a role. Or the system removes them.

Notably to get populations to this point if they aren't invaded and occupied or subject to oppression or great deprivation it takes a tremendous and ongoing propaganda effort. And that is something worth always examining as an important factor in human behavior.

Now the point of that is that the dysfunctional system is largely to be blamed or restructured or torn down if necessary. So even oppressive and terrorist regimes get a certain degree of consideration, such as the United States. Certainly not a free pass, after all murder by governments needs to be discouraged and exposed. Or understood to be tacitly consented to which is a crime of conscience itself. Was it Plato who said silence equals consent ? If so he had a point. We all have it tough and are subject to human limitations and social pressures but passes for murder and other serious crimes shouldn't be tossed about. And the larger the scale the more people this impacts so the more seriously it should be considered.

But seeing issues as complex and worth examining from many aspects is not the Scientology approach. Finding something Hubbard said that seems right is the beginning and often end of the road. And not open to considering structural issues that could contradict Scientology doctrine and even worse lead to critical and independent thinking, totally unacceptable for Scientology.

Little changes in attitude and how I talk to people are also observable. I now generally accept dissenting views, but still may object to rudeness and insults. Though not as passionately as before. I just say that ad hominem and the genetic fallacy aren't conducive to good reason. Quite different to the Scientology approach. Then disgust was the effect disagreement created. Jon Atack explained that was actually Hubbard's intent. If Scientologists are disgusted at criticism they don't consider it and reject the critics. That serves Hubbard's desires quite well.

I now know disgust is conditioned in Scientology, much as it was by the Nazis against Jews and by Americans against Native Americans and by others in prior genocides. Currently it is ongoing with Americans and Muslims.

Disgust simply ends reason. The relationship cannot be overstated. Feel tremendous disgust for someone and good reason goes out the door. So by seeing that I try to avoid disgust or failing that realize I need to get rid of disgust to avoid extreme bias.

But lots of little progressive improvements are almost imperceptibly gradual. I now understand normal people have and want boundaries. They are natural and accepting subtle clues and cues is important. Normal people don't like to be stared at, it is too aggressive and dominant. So looking for a few seconds then looking a bit away is more comfortable. Giving people room to be comfortable is important too and it varies, so pay attention. Don't go too close. And that has been largely successfully achieved.

In contrast in Scientology staring into people's eyes is taught and often practiced habitually for decades. And boundaries are ignored and discouraged, abusively.

Similarly normal people don't want tons of extraneous information and attention. That means they don't want to be talked to or to talk endlessly. They often are content to just interact a little or even not at all and that is okay. It's nothing personal necessarily. There are exceptions but Scientology doesn't allow or express this. So a Scientologist may go on and on and upset or annoy people while a normal person would simply know better.

In Scientology more communication is encouraged and action without waiting is encouraged. This combination creates a compulsion for constant endless communication.

By being in the Scientology cult this is tremendously encouraged. So getting out and becoming comfortable in having limited or no communication with people without a poor relationship is a significant development.

It makes an ex Scientologist far more socially acceptable to be comfortable not talking all the time or always needing to greet and acknowledge everything people say. Normal people have a greater range of options for communication. So while TRs give quick answers they are greatly limited and artificial responses that feel unnatural to normal people. Particularly once they observe the extreme repetition of responses, actions and types of communication within Scientology the normal person finds this uncanny, odd, too artificial, and ultimately inhuman.

It is a bizarre simulation of and substitute for normal communication. It is rejected as robotic and inferior. It comes across as lacking empathy, humility, understanding and human attachment. It comes across as morally or intellectually deficient. It's not comfortable.

Throwing off the TRs and the comm formula is a slow process that is easy to see by the effects of the changes in reactions from people who were never in Scientology, particularly if they know nothing about Scientology or cults.  As the Scientology methods are removed people find normal communication to be more natural, comfortable and less creepy and gross. It may seem like too simple a description but it is accurate.

And all these changes can add up and have a cumulative effect. A person can look but not stare, talk without following Hubbard's rules and formula, accept being wrong, understand that acting out of disgust is poor reason, accept limits on others from social situations and structural effects and have an easier time accepting others and being accepted by others.

That is the kind of subtle changes I have experienced in my two years out of Scientology. They are to me a very strong argument for getting out and staying out of Scientology. And pursuing recovery as a lifelong pursuit.

Orders Of Magnitude Part 1

The phrase orders of magnitude means degrees of size. Specifically an order of magnitude is a multiple of ten.

So if you estimated a need for ten dollars to cover an expense and it turned out to be a thousand dollars you were two orders of magnitude off. Each multiple of ten was one order of magnitude.


I feel I am far enough into studying the nature of Scientology and cults to sort of step back and note an important fundamental observation: at different degrees of size of certain systems common qualities and traits reappear again and again. Technically these aren't exactly orders of magnitude. So it is a metaphor and not literal. It here means degree of size within several contexts I will elaborate upon.

The first degree of size I will start with is the single mind of a person. In several minds significant factors and differences are worth examining. First off there is the mind of Ron Hubbard himself. I have elaborated on his unusual mental, emotional, and behavioral traits in my post Scientology's Parallel In Nature Malignant Narcissism.

Simply put, I feel Hubbard was a cult leader as Margaret Singer described a con man, as Robert Jay Lifton said the guru (his term for cult leader) has a split mind, both believing his lies and simultaneously knowing they are lies the whole time. In my opinion the best description I have seen for Hubbard is the term malignant narcissist. That is defined by some psychologists as a person with both an extreme lack of humility as a narcissist and the traits of a sociopath of utterly lacking compassion and empathy toward other human beings.

In my opinion Hubbard fit a type of malignant narcissist doctor Daniel Shaw calls traumatic narcissist. I won't try to interpret all his work but will give a brief description here of Hubbard's relevant qualities.

Hubbard, in my best current estimate, was idealized as a child. He reportedly had aunts that protected and doted on him. His grandfather also was reported to treat Hubbard as a perfect being. Now I hate to have to break it you but human beings in my experience are never actually perfect, or even remotely close to perfect. Now lots of people are in my opinion more good than evil, probably the majority by a large margin. But being more good than bad is not perfection.

And a child being idolized knows as they grow up that they aren't really perfect. They know it emotionally, as we all experience emotions we don't enjoy and the child knows they make errors in judgment as they learn prior beliefs were wrong. So the idealized child has suffered a special kind of narcissistic abuse. By being placed upon a pedestal the actual child is ignored and grossly neglected.

The idealizing parents (or aunts and grandfather who raised Hubbard) are displaying a special kind of narcissistic abuse. A person can treat another as an entirely separate individual with different ideas, desires, feelings, abilities, wishes and unique strengths and weaknesses. A person can understand another has inherent qualities and is subject to influences from the environment and you never get exactly the same result. And most importantly a person can with humility, empathy and compassion recognize the equality, justice and brotherhood (and sisterhood) among all people.

That is NOT what the idealizing narcissist does. They want qualities in another person to reflect well on themself. Say one wants their daughter to be seen as the product of an obviously outstanding mother, then the image of the daughter is vital for the mother (in this example) to control. If the daughter isn't interested in dressing how the mother wants, talking the way the mother wants or having the interests the mother wants the narcissistic mother who idealizes doesn't care one bit about her daughter's actual needs and wants. When a narcissist idealizes another they actually project their own desires onto that person and don't really actually recognize that person as a human being or even accurately observe them.

She will either pretend to care and brush them aside, or brutally discourage them as improper or a personal attack or ignore them and perhaps withold approval or affection to the degree the child defies the idealized image the mother pushes. By repetition of rewards and punishment the child learns going along gets acceptance and doing anything else gets no love. A parent or child may be any gender in this model. The idealized child is often called a golden child.

So the idealized child may over time develop a coping mechanism with short term benefits but extremely harmful long term consequences. The child develops a split reality. Internally the child is alone, ashamed and has a self image of being truly worthless, useless, incompetent and undeserving of love, acceptance and even life.

After all the caregiver, which is usually a narcissistic parent, is seen as giving love and knowing what the child should be. So the greater the idealization, the higher the pedestal the child is put on, the greater the incentive to deny the inner image. After all the all too human being cannot live up to the infallible idealized image and so in being unable to accept the actual nonrecognition as an individual and utter lack of true love the caregiver displays the vulnerable child instead denies the flawed idealization to hold onto the illusion of love from the caregiver.

The child internalizes the conflict between reality and perception by holding themself unfairly as too inferior, which is actually untrue but not realized, and desperately avoiding this horrible double bind with a kind of permanent lie, an entirely false facade of being what the idealization portrays.

The mind splits into the inner self as an atrophied,  belligerent, petulant, worthless, honor-less, useless identity to avoid facing the true horrible conditions the child exists in and the concurrently developed false outer self which is Godlike, perfect, morally and spiritually above all others and all criticism, fully expert in all subjects and fields and an authority to be admired so completely as to never be doubted or disobeyed under any circumstances.

The outer facade is exemplified in Ron Hubbard's claims about himself and his creation Scientology. He portrayed himself as superior to God quite literally. And far, far above all humans.

This inhuman cruelty, unhealthy delusion and avoidance of reality repeats itself in different forms in different systems. Daniel Shaw writes about how traumatic narcissism is a relational system that uses trauma to continue through generations. An abused child in this manner may in turn carry on this abuse and their child may also, as the pattern in his hypothesis has the trait of encouraging recreation again and again with victim becoming abuser to tragically give traumatic narcissism the quality of continuing with further generations.

Similarly cult leaders in his terms also are traumatic narcissists and abuse the cult members who in the social setting of the cult are strongly obligated to abuse others and recreate socially on a larger scale the abuser in Hubbard then victims in cult members then further abuse in new or more vulnerable cult members.

So in an individual a split can exist which starts with one person being denied acceptance: the traumatic narcissist fails to accept their own circumstances and in turn fails to accept themself. To hold onto the lie that the abuser is good and possible acceptance and love from the abuser is better than facing no love from the abuser. Why ?

Imagine being a small child with a mother raising you, at say six or seven you could face that your mother is a monster incapable of love, and you for no fair reason will never have a good relationship with a close caregiver as a child, which seems like forever to a child. Or you could hope if you were a little better, a little smarter or a bit better student or athlete your parent would be satisfied and everything will be fine. Compromising your beliefs a bit, then a bit more becomes habit then lifestyle then identity. The child in attempting to cope with trauma builds the prison of their own mind, certainly unknowingly. The process involves lying, denial and dissociation. It creates doublethink and relies on cognitive dissonance. It relies on the double bind. It uses the intellectual double bind Jon Atack has written on and the emotional double bind others have described.

In my opinion double binds rely on lies and emotional trauma and cognitive dissonance to exist and to persist.

The trauma of knowing one is secretly ashamed and in need of love is held in place by simultaneously knowing one is evil and unworthy of forgiveness and love. One needs to open up to face the truth as an example but knows they don't deserve help, love, forgiveness, relief, friendship or even death in the self image of the inner child, so they dare not face this or tell others.

That is a double bind - one needs to thoroughly, rationally face the self image and circumstances of its creation to see the profound trauma the child is perpetually avoiding. Having been neglected and used to project idealized fantasies of the narcissistic caregiver is such a humiliating and total betrayal, such a cruel and unfair childhood it must be denied and dissociated from to preserve any illusion of love having occurred, of life being fair, of love being returned. Surely realizing one has been neglected, used and exploited with no love, affection or actual recognition as a person is shattering. It shatters illusions about life, fairness, the nature of families, the reciprocity of love and the ultimate nature of human existence.

After all standing up to an authority figure and rejecting their values when that figure has raised one and by implication all values one attained are interrelated to the legitimacy of the authority is an immensely problematic proposition. One must simultaneously throw off emotional bonds long held and relied on and intellectual values supported by a fallen leader.

I have focused so extremely on the mind of Hubbard and the hypothetical recreation of his traumatized mind in his victims and their inner world to make it very clear. A split occurs in which part of reality and equality and empathy and compassion is denied to one portion of a system - in this case a single mind. In a simple comparison some see an authority and submission based relationship as bringing on subjugation and a lack of empathy, compassion, humility, equality and honesty in certain circumstances.

Another model of relationships can theoretically occur with equality, compassion and basic human decency as fundamental values in which subjugation and traumatizing acts are seen as undesirable and strongly discouraged.

The two extremes are diametrically opposed. Relationships and groups can be examined against criteria including the universal declaration of human rights, Robert Jay Lifton's eight criteria of thought reform and similar lists by Margaret Singer and Steven Hassan. ICSA also has lists of cultic attributes.

This repeats in cults: the cult leader denies the cult members love, honesty, equality, basic human rights and empathy and compassion. Through the actual institutional structure and functions of the cult the abuse is perpetuated in a manner which is encouraged and hidden by the individual group members. The group overall doesn't recognize its abusive nature, just as the individual victim of traumatic narcissism internally doesn't recognize how they were abused and denied recognition by the abuser as an individual with full rights deserving of love, compassion, empathy and honesty in turn.

They in the terms some psychoanalysts use hold the trauma and are negatively impacted by this and in groups the group members are exploited and deceived by the cult leader and eventually the cult doctrine itself. The untrue ideas carried on by the cult indoctrination act to make a self protecting system of institutional evil which may be well hidden from individual cult members.

With small, uninspected assumptions and intellectual compromises compiled into fully accepted deeply held convictions the cult members one by one collaborate as unknowing accomplices in constructing their own prisons of the mind from Ron Hubbard's beautiful quite generous empty promises and the counterfeit dreams that seduce with vivid imagery and enthrall through euphoric ecstasy.

Doublethink occurs in an individual like Hubbard and is encouraged in others through the propaganda method of redefinition of terms explored in my blog post Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning. In other words Hubbard recreated his own way of thinking in others. His way was possibly chosen as an avoidance of reality, while his victims have choice taken away.

This is similar to the small acts a victim of narcissistic idealization takes to cope with traumatic narcissism. One by one they seem bearable, the long term cumulative effect is horrific. Similarly the cult uses small seemingly bearable compromises with the group. These mirror the coping acts by the individual victim. A small change, a bearable compromise in the short term occurs. But similarly the long term relationship is harmful.

So within the victim that will perpetuate traumatic narcissism a split occurs and is perpetuated against the victim, but seeming to help them cope. And in the relationship between individual abuser and victim in a one on one relationship such as husband and wife or parent and child the same split occurs. Now I am not saying every abuser had to be severely abused or idealized. There are other possible factors including genetics which I haven't addressed and will not dismiss as possibly influential.

 I am just bringing forward hypothetical components of several hypotheses which appear complimentary in terms of mirroring one another in certain qualities across differing orders of magnitude. These hypotheses address similar relational systems of dysfunction and perpetuation of dysfunction. Start with the individual malignant narcissist as a traumatic narcissist, then move to the highly abusive relationship as a one on one or family relationship. Then move up to a larger group such as a cult, perhaps as large as tens of thousands of members such as Scientology.

Some can extend this even further and apply it to even larger groups to examine how the authority and power holders treat others and how institutions adopt doctrine that has underlying false assumptions that lead to abuses.

Withdrawal Of The Horizon

 



I came across an idea several months ago in an exchange with Jon Atack that I was reminded of recently that is worth introducing as a part of recovery from Scientology and critical thinking and life really.

I was letting Jon know how in trying to discover what Ron Hubbard actually did in Scientology and how it affected people and even to a degree what people are really like and how they actually think a frustrating result occurred.

I kept thinking I had found a lot of major information that underlied his con and showed how it worked and kept finding the answers are not absolutes. And they lead to more ideas, relationships and even entire subjects and fields to explore to even try to form an educated opinion.

And unlike in Scientology in this pursuit one idea from a source can be right, part right, part wrong, all wrong, unclear or uncertain and have no bearing on my other ideas or claims by the same source ! It demands an entirely different way of thinking. A much more careful way, that is open to criticism and reexamination of ideas and understanding different degrees of certainty and verification can exist.

Lots of the ideas, like those from hypnosis are best considered hypotheses without strictly scientific proof, but strong relevance as Ron Hubbard studied hypnosis and to whatever degree he could get it to work it was quite often what he was trying to use covertly and make work. And much of the information on the subject fits Dianetics, Scientology and Hubbard's own quotes quite well.

Similarly many concepts from psychology also describe what Hubbard did, particularly cognitive dissonance theory and information on influence, propaganda and loaded language. Additionally information on rhetoric and logical fallacies also exposes the con.

But as these are examined they have to be taken with a touch of skepticism and a healthy dose of critical thinking in their own right. After all many of these ideas don't strictly speaking describe literal physical structures found with scientific research. They are what I call metaphors of the mind. Useful when accurate for describing ideas but not always completely true or right. Best guesses but often very useful ones.

 As I examined more and more ideas and took to finding similar ideas and parallel lines of thinking in different subjects I realized the different subjects start with different assumptions. Unproven assumptions to be entirely frank. Then based on what they look at and how they have their own language with distinct words and phrases to describe ideas. This inevitably guides thought and even emotion.

By examining different subjects approaches to the same types of ideas and experiences more perspectives and possible ideas are opened up for consideration, comparison, alteration, combination, acceptance and rejection.

As it becomes clearer that there is always more that can be known and today's acceptable or good understanding or idea can be replaced by tomorrow's better or far more accurate one a kind of cautious doubt and intellectual humility can grow. Any idea I have can be wrong and disproven down the road. Even if I am not smart enough to see it.

I recently saw an interview with Noam Chomsky, perhaps America's most famed intellectual, wherein he said on any subject he studies as he thinks he has it almost figured out he realizes he has far too many unanswered questions and actually the horizon he thought he was close to is now much further away than he ever realized.

I think finding that and finding clues on where to look, particularly if it leads to other subjects that bear fruit in investigation, is an excellent sign that one is conducting worthwhile study.

I must admit I have been frustrated from time to time when good,  intelligent people act like a tiny bit of the information on a very important subject is all there is to know worth finding and that for example reading a brief Wikipedia article should be all the investigation ever conducted. And that anything more is, say, overthinking.

 Learning doesn't end at a definition or Wikipedia article. Certainly not if it is in depth.

I hope lots of people who read my extensive and detailed information on Scientology at this blog use it as a collection of claims to be examined carefully and critically each one on its own merits. And as a starting point to research subjects and not an end.

I hope we find helpful ideas for understanding and recovering from Scientology to be sure, but that the horizon never ends and better and better learning and humbler thinking begins.

Ideologies And Critical Thinking

As a person working towards recovery from Scientology I have progressively been trying to develop an impaired capacity which Scientology atrophies by intent and design, actually Scientology doesn't function as its founder desired to the degree that this aptitude functions: critical thinking.

Critical thinking has a definition I will quote from an online article from the University of Louisville:
After a careful review of the mountainous body of literature defining critical thinking and its elements, U of L has chosen to adopt the language of Michael Scriven and Richard Paul (2003) as a comprehensive, concise operating definition:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

Paul and Scriven go on to suggest that critical thinking is based on: "universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions, implication and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference. Critical thinking - in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes - is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking."

This conceptualization of critical thinking has been refined and developed further by Richard Paul and Linder Elder into the Paul-Elder framework of critical thinking. Currently, this approach is one of the most widely published and cited frameworks in the critical thinking literature. According to the Paul-Elder framework, critical thinking is the:

Analysis of thinking by focusing on the parts or structures of thinking ("the Elements of Thought")
Evaluation of thinking by focusing on the quality ("the Universal Intellectual Standards")
Improvement of thinking by using what you have learned ("the Intellectual Traits") End quote

I must emphasize that critical thinking is often treated as a natural ability and to a degree it is. One learns to question and doubt some things and to spot contradictions or to accept ideas to some degree. But this capacity varies greatly from person to person and even situation to situation. The actual well developed academic subject exists, just like medicine or engineering or say, a martial art.

Any of these subjects have organized methods set for their study and it would be odd to have a surgeon or person designing a nuclear reactor or airplane or an instructor who actually never formally studied and practiced as a doctor or engineer or martial artist. The subject of critical thinking as a subject requires significant study and effort.

I am pointing this out in particular because several individuals who merely consider critical thinking to be smart thinking or good thinking are self proclaimed critical thinkers, and if you don't believe me you can just bring up critical thinking as a good subject or an unknown beneficial subject and unfortunately some folks instantly perk up, proudly say they already are critical thinkers and dismiss anything other than praise, awe and congratulations. Even if you point out the terms "clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness" and point out that in the academic subject of critical thinking these terms have quite exact and specific meanings and functions.

 The fact that a person doesn't even know these terms are part of the subject should certainly demonstrate that regardless of whatever other success one may have had in developing good judgment, and they certainly may have done so, they actually haven't learned and don't practice critical thinking in the academic sense.

In Scientology absolutely blind unthinking loyalty and submission to the doctrine of Ron Hubbard is the highest value and supreme guiding principle. All other ideas are inferior to this and must be made to align with this.

Quite a stark contrast to critical thinking and the greater one's submission to Scientology and the longer it continues the more significantly and generally critical thinking is diminished.

So as part of recovery from Scientology a strong emphasis on developing critical thinking and spotting and removing obstacles to critical thinking is a sadly a needed basic goal for continued and concentrated vigorous pursuit.

It has to be worked toward as an ongoing effort, hopefully with incremental improvements and rewards that far exceed the cost in time and effort employed.

In working toward this I have encountered many significant obstacles to identify, clarify and overcome, or at least become aware of and work towards handling.

This post is about one type of obstacle that is quite common in human thought and not one which Scientology has any monopoly on. Though Scientology certainly has it as a most extreme example.

Ideologies. Here is a very simple definition from Sparknotes:


An ideology is a set of beliefs that affects our outlook on the world. Our ideology is our most closely held set of values and feelings, and it acts as the filter through which we see everything and everybody. In fact, these beliefs are often so close to us that we do not realize that they are there. We simply think that our beliefs are natural and obviously true. Religion is one type of ideology, and religious belief affects a person’s views. End quote.

I was recently struck by seeing a pair of interviews in which the extreme danger and irrationality of ideologies was made profoundly clear.

Noam Chomsky was asked if he was a Marxist and surprised the interviewer by saying no and said you should examine ideas from someone, consider the ideas, take good ones and leave behind mistakes, which everyone makes as we are all human. Chomsky tried to discourage any worship of any person or doctrine, certainly politically. He went on to point out how an idea that might fit one society in one circumstance at one time might fit, but could be wrong in other situations.

Similarly John Ralston Saul, a Canadian author who has written on history and economic and social changes, in an interview said to be careful about taking on an ideology when examining a situation. By examining something with an ideology a person frames their observations prior to making them. In other words they have conclusions before beginning observations. Not ideal unbiased judgment.

From Saul's book Voltaire's Bastards.

[S]hould we attempt to use sensible words to deal with these problems, they will be caught up immediately in the structures of the official arguments which accompany the official modern ideologies — arguments as sterile as the ideologies are irrelevant. Our society contains no method of serious self-criticism for the simple reason that it is now a self-justifying system which generates its own logic.

A man who uses power to do evil is in theory judged to have been conscious of his acts and to be as fit for punishment as a perpetrator of premeditated murder. But the technocrat is not trained on that level. He understands events within the logic of the system. The greatest good is the greatest logic or the greatest appearance of efficiency or responsibility for the greatest possible part of the structure. End quote.

And from The Doubter's Companion

Which is ideology? Which not? You shall know them by their assertion of truth, their contempt for considered reflection, and their fear of debate. End quote

So he definitely also recognized the danger ideologies pose as methods to stop critical thinking and substitute slogans for considered thought. This idea has variations all through studies on cults, mass movements and control of human beings. Robert Jay Lifton noted the thought stopping cliche, George Orwell noted propaganda by redefinition of terms, which is a phrase Hubbard himself used to describe a method he used and used extensively, nearly constantly.

These terms all describe ideas that are assumed to be true before observations occur. How good can observations be if one knows essential infallible conclusions before the observations begin ? Biased at best.

I am not saying everyone needs to become very skeptical agnostics rejecting everything and never committing to any ideas. If one has a religion that is certainly acceptable. Judging what ideas prejudice oneself and removing the ability of those ideas to impair thought is ultimately a personal experience. Each of us has to judge for ourselves what ideas do or do not fit this description.

And I certainly recommend the academic subject of critical thinking to help with that, of course it may go against your ideology and I will have to leave you to work that out for yourself.

Unraveling Scientology - A Missing Vital Ingredient

 



I was a member of the Scientology cult for twenty five years. In about January 2013 I started examining information outside the cult about Scientology and Ron Hubbard. By March 2013 I had come to the conclusion Scientology was always a fraud and not helpful, and in fact highly harmful. I concluded Scientology had been conceived as a method of mental enslavement.

I found studying Hubbard's true past and methods he plagiarized led to examining them in their original forms to understand their actual effects.

Hypnotism was a subject Hubbard mentioned hundreds of times and was self contradictory on quite often. The result of that study was posts such as Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology, The Critical Factor, Basic Introduction To Hypnosis In Scientology, The Secret Of Scientology Part 1 control via contradiction, Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden , Varied And Repeated In Scientology To Control You As Hypnotic Implants. These explore hypnosis thoroughly.

I also saw that Scientology has a significant use of special language to control people. That was explored in Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning In Scientology, ARC And KRC,  and The Clear Contradiction.

I also went on to examine briefly critical thinking in Pissed ! It's Not Your Fault ! and rhetoric which Hubbard studied in college in Gib's Great Find Rhetoric and A Brief Rhetorical Analysis Of Keeping Scientology Working Series 1 : KSW Keeping Slaves Willing.

I knew there was far more to understand to explore other aspects of Scientology. I checked on Hubbard's plagiarism in OT III And Beyond:  Sources Plagiarized From parts 1, 2 and 3.

I also found social psychology a needed subject to study relative to Scientology, that was explored in the Pulling Back The Curtain series which consulted the book Age Of Propaganda, then the essential book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger in the Scientology Building The Prison Of The Mind series. Several other posts explore social psychology as well.

I found information on sociopaths, narcissists and malignant narcissists and abusive relationships -of which cults are a type- to be quite important, in fact to be a fundamental that cannot be skipped to understand Scientology or Hubbard himself. These were covered in Ron Hubbard's Twisted Mind Part 1 Pathological Lying, There Is No Irony In Scientology, Ron Hubbard's  Narcissistic Traits, Scientology 180 Degrees From The Truth, Scientology's Parallel In Nature - Malignant Narcissism and several other posts including Hubbard's Affirmations.

So I felt that the pursuit of compassion, empathy and humility as the opposite of Scientology was worthwhile.

I found from interacting with Jon Atack those values as well as critical thinking, rhetoric, skepticism, social psychology and knowledge of Hubbard's methods including hypnotism, thought reform including loaded language, and logical fallacies along with cultic studies with experts like Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Singer, Janja Lalich and Eric Hoffer to all be valuable. Along with information from Arnie Lerma as well.

I knew I could write a story describing a variation on the old "An x, y and z walk into a bar" joke as a hypnotist, a psychologist, and a critical thinker (who has studied classic rhetoric and Socratic debate with logical fallacies) walk into a Scientology org and interact with Scientologists and expose all the redefinitions, hypnotic techniques, mind control methods. and fraudulent and harmful practices in turn. With each one exposing Scientology in the language and concepts of their own field.

But a funny thing happened: I realized I was missing something important, something a bit more scientific than psychology, and far more scientific than hypnotism or even rhetoric and couldn't quite figure it out, I added studying narcissists and sociopaths and felt that was vital and invigorating. But it was still not quite right.

There was a portion of Scientology and life that wasn't fully covered even by all these subjects. And many of these subjects received dozens or hundreds of hours of study in my efforts to be thorough and seek out the most useful basic ideas for reframing Scientology.

 My studies are far less than those undertaken by serious academics or cult experts. But those people frankly spend tens of thousands of hours honing their craft and read usually hundreds of books. And interact with hundreds and thousands of cult members and ex cult members.

But I think I reluctantly may have found the missing piece of the puzzle. By accident as well: Neuroscience.

Medical News Today has the following definition: Neuroscience, also known as Neural Science, is the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure, and what it does. Neuroscientists focus on the brain and its impact on behavior and cognitive functions.

Looking at Wikipedia and the branches of neuroscience and the physical scientific branches of this subject was striking for me in a unique way. The subjects of Dianetics and Scientology utterly lack physical evidence that can be observed directly. Obviously this is because those frauds are entirely false and direct scientific evidence contradicts the claims Scientology makes. It is utterly dishonest and false.

So in remedying Scientology the subjects Hubbard used and others that can dissect and demystify Scientology are useful. But the exacting physical scientific evidence and methodology Scientology lacks is in my opinion to a very remarkable degree countered by neuroscience and its coupling with complimentary information from social psychology. Together the two can be a potential route to greater and more accurate knowledge on behavior, the mind and human nature than any previous subjects.

Earlier subjects like philosophy, Socratic debate and critical thinking have limitations, even much of psychology has this weakness (particularly if ideas are pursued without testing via experiments and peer review) , to say nothing of the lack of strict science throughout hypnotism.

 Television shows like  "The Brain With David Eagleman,” and his book The Brain: The Story of You explore these ideas in accessible ways. Some episodes of Beyond The Wormhole also examine this subject.

James H. "Jim" Fallon is also a neuroscientist who studies psychopaths and uses some scientific evidence. He wrote The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain detailing his research. Some good information for comparison from psychology is in The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout and Social Psychology For Dummies as well as Age Of Propaganda.

And of course the work of others such as Philip Zimbardo who conducted the famous Stanford Prison experiment and wrote The Lucifer Effect among other books.

This may frankly seem like a lot to take on to BEGIN to try to understand human minds and behavior. That's a valid point, but especially for ex Scientologists if you don't find your own educated opinion on your mind and life, who will form your opinion for you ?

Mass Murder In Scientology: Standard Tech

 

• Blog Archive by Topic

I have since leaving Scientology found an inescapable conclusion - Scientology as part of a massive fraud has convinced hundreds, perhaps over decades thousands, of people to skip conventional medical treatment and instead pursue Scientology and Dianetics for healing. This has included treatable deadly illnesses such as cancer. One might call this slow motion mass murder.

 I don't know the exact number of deaths this has led to, but cannot fathom it being less than hundreds and possibly even thousands of people.

Below is a collection of quotes to begin exploring this theme.

Imagine believing this wholeheartedly:

"There will always be a role for the medical doctor. But his role is not as broad as AMA advertising would like us to believe. The doctor is a handyman desperately valuable in the specific fields of emergency surgery and repair (as needed after accidents), in obstetrics, in orthopedics and as epidemic police. Further he ceases to be valuable. Almost any chemical engineer can administer antibiotics with better results than can a doctor. Any civil engineer knows more about sanitation. Almost all operations as in the field of surgery are needless. And in problems of psychosomatic medicine the doctor has been and is a rather miserable flop — and psychosomatic medicine comprises better than seventy percent of Man’s ills!" Ron Hubbard The Road Up 

The Journal of Scientology in March 1954, 

This [Scientology] is useful knowledge.  With it the blind again see, the lame walk, the ill recover, the insane become sane and the sane become saner.  By its use the thousand abilities Man has sought to recover become his once more.
Ron Hubbard, SCIENTOLOGY: A HISTORY OF MAN, 1952


Of all the ills of man which can be successfully processed by Scientology, arthritis ranks near the top. In skilled hands, this ailment, though misunderstood and dreaded in the past, already has begun to become history. Twenty-five hours of Scientology by an auditor who fairly understands how to process arthritis can be said to produce an invariable alleviation of the condition. Some cases, even severe ones, have responded in as little as two hours of processing, according to reports from auditors in the field.
 Ron Hubbard, "Journal of Scientology," Issue 1-G, 1952

Leukaemia is evidently psychosomatic in origin and at least eight cases of leukaemia had been treated successfully by Dianetics after medicine had traditionally given up. The source of leukaemia has been reported to be an engram containing the phrase ‘It turns my blood to water.'
Ron Hubbard, "Journal of Scientology," Issue 15-G, 1953

Arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases, asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalogue of illnesses goes away and stays away.
 Ron Hubbard, DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH, 1987 Ed., p. 72

Scientology is the only specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns.
Ron Hubbard, ALL ABOUT RADIATION,  p. 109

You are only three or four hours from taking your glasses off for keeps.
Ron Hubbard, "Eyesight and glasses," "Dianetic Auditor’s Bulletin," Vol. 2, No. 7, January 1952

The alleviation of the condition of insanity has also been accomplished now
Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Bulletin, November 1970, "Psychosis"

Additionally I found several applicable quotes in an article by Jeff Jacobsen.



Cure goiter - Dianetics Today (1975 Ed.), p. 280
"I've seen a goiter the size of a baseball visibly shrink and disappear in the space of one-half hour right after an engram was run."
Cure polio- Dianetics Today (1975 Ed.), p. 353
"A girl crippled by polio was able to throw away her crutches after my first session."
Cure arthritis - History of Man, p. 7
"Today, Eleanor has arthritis. She is audited... tonight she doesn't have arthritis"
Speed broke bone healing - Dianetics Today (1975 Ed), p.110
"A broken limb will heal (by X-ray evidence) in two instead of six weeks."
Cure effects of drugs - Dianetics Today, (1975 Ed.), p.481
"ONLY processing by Dianetics and Scientology can handle the effects of drugs fully."
Raise the dead - Magazine Articles on Level 0, Checksheet 1968, "Dissemination of Material" p.75
"A child had died, was dead, had been pronounced dead by a doctor, and the auditor, by calling the thetan back and ordering him to take over the body again brought the child to life."
Cure migraines - Dianetics Today (1975 Ed.), p.125; also see HCOB 15 Jan. '79 "Handling with Auditing"
Cure cancer - The History Of Man (1961), p. 20
"Cancer has been eradicated by auditing out conception and mitosis."
Cure skin cancer - All About Radiation (1979 Ed.), p.114
Cure radiation sickness - All About Radiation (1979 Ed.), p.109; also PAB no. 82
"Scientology is the only specific (cure) for radiation (atomic bomb) burns."
Improve eyesight - PAB no. 111 "Eyesight and glasses"; also Dianetic Auditor's Bulletin vol. 2 no. 7 January 1952 "An afternoon with Ron"
"You are only three or four hours from taking your glasses off for keeps."
Cure a broken ankle - HCOB 30 July 1973 "Scientology, Current State of the Subject and Materials."
Cure insanity - HCOB 28 Nov. '70 "Psychosis"
"The alleviation of the condition of insanity has also been accomplished now..."
Cure bronchitis - HCOB 14 Dec. '63 "Case analysis Health Research"
"12 days after this auditing the coughing was still in abeyance."
cure brainwashing - HCOB No. 19 Dec. '55 "The turn of the Tide"
"... in Dianetics in particular, we have the total antidote for the eradication of brainwashing."
Miscellaneous claims:
- DIANETICS (1987 ED.) p.72: "arthritis vanishes, myopia gets better, heart illness decreases, asthma disappears, stomachs function properly and the whole catalogue of illnesses goes away and stays away."
- HISTORY OF MAN P.13: "The GE has the record of past deaths. Auditing it alters physical structure, eradicates physical malformations."
- HISTORY OF MAN P.14: "Paralysis, anxiety stomachs, arthritis and many ills and aberrations have been relieved by auditing them."

Hubbard wrote that Scientologists taking courses were barred from visiting a doctor without express permission from the church "except in cases of severe emergency." (HCOPL 26 July 1965 "Release Declaration Restrictions, Healing Amendments)


I have reviewed the NOTs material posted to the internet and assume that it is the real thing, because 1) the church legally went after those who posted the NOTs for copyright violations, 2) former members vouched for the authenticity of the material, and 3) it is consistent with other church writings.

Basically, the NOTs series are auditing methods that use an e-meter purportedly designed to rid the Scientologist of a multitude of unwanted spiritual beings attached to his/her soul. These unwanted beings, called "Body Thetans" or "BTs", can allegedly cause physical problems for humans.

For example:

Series 2
Being a Clear but not having completed OT levels "doesn't necessarily affect the person himself, but it does affect the body - severely." Series 2 seeks to motivate Scientologists to take the next courses by stating that "Clears should be told they are at risk until OTIII" of "illness, possibly worse."
Series 12
This series deals with mis-auditing problems. NOTs mis-auditing can hurt the physical body "dangerously so" by stirring up dormant BTs.
Series 22
A cluster of BTs can shut off nerve channels which can cause deafness or blindness - "when a cluster suddenly mocks up mass, it shuts off nerve channels." Extrapolating from this, one could imagine many other illnesses caused by such a phenomenon, such as blockage of the urinary tract.
Series 27
BTs and clusters can effect a person's perception.
BTs are acting as various illnesses. Once audited away the illness supposedly is gone.
"BTs or clusters being 'negative'... probably are the root of sickness."
Series 32
"You can run into a cluster causing damage to the body."
There are several quotes within the series which clearly state that auditing can cure illnesses:
Series 2
"Clears should be told they are at risk (of illness) until OTIII."
Series 3
"If a guy has a bad secondary, or a bad injury, you handle that with Date/Locate [an auditing procedure using the e-meter]."
Series 26R
"If ill or injured handle [w]ith an Assist (NOTs 3)"
Series 27
"Body distortions" are cleared up.
Series 34
"The above are the full steps and sequences for handling a physical condition." [this is the series that Keith Henson posted, claiming it teaches medical fraud]
Series 48
"If the person is sick as well as being subjected to a dangerous environment, there would be no hope of recovery without auditing."
Particular cases of cures are documented within NOTs:
Series 48
"This cluster... was the underlying cause of the stomach pain and the stomach condition." "...a full recovery to health was accomplished."
"Most people are sick due to some out-rudiment scene."
Series 50
"He started recovering physically. Articulation handled and walking improved." "This case was... considered incurable by the medicos."

Hubbard wanted to impress people with a scientific background, and he inflated his training and experiences by vast proportions. Despite the fact that Hubbard only had 2 miserable years of college level courses at George Washington University, the church's books make the following claims:

" Ron Hubbard, one of America's first nuclear physicists, ..." [inside jacket of All About Radiation].
"...Ron Hubbard was trained in mathematics, science and engineering at George Washington University, in government at Princeton and has a Doctor of Philosophy degree." [inside jacket of A History of Man]
"I was a Ph.D., Sequoia's University and therefore a perfectly valid doctor under the laws of the State of California." [HCOPL 14 Feb. 1966 "Doctor Title Abolished"]. Sequoia University was a diploma mill where anyone for a small fee could obtain a diploma.
In Professional Auditor's Bulletin #82, "Scientology, Translator's Edition" 1 May, 1956, by " Ron Hubbard, Ph.D. C.E." we have the statement that Scientology "was organized by Ron Hubbard, an American, who has many degrees" (Tech. Bulletins, vol. 2, p.406).
Hubbard stated "That was the first and only time the government offered me a post as a nuclear physicist." ( Ron Hubbard Creating A New Civilization Tape Series Tape A Postulate Out Of A Golden Age December 6 1956).
Hubbard also stated "I happen to be a nuclear physicist; I am not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist nor a medical doctor" ("Dianetics: The Modern Miracle". February 6, 1952).
Obviously, Hubbard was puffing his academic background toward the scientific end. He wanted people to see him as a master of the physical sciences.
Hubbard claimed that his auditing process was scientifically valid.  Ron Hubbard constantly makes the claim that dianetics is a "scientific fact." In fact, he makes that claim 35 times in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. For example, "All our facts are functional and these facts are scientific facts, supported wholly and completely by laboratory evidence." (DIANETICS, (1987 edition) p. 96).

Both Dianetics and Scientology are declared to be precise sciences by Hubbard:

In the Scientology book All About Radiation is the statement that "Scientology has been called that branch of atomic science which deals with human ability" (p. 46, 1979 edition).
Hubbard wrote that "Scientology is... more exact than what are called the physical sciences" (Scientology 8-8008 p. 13).
"Scientology is the only workable system man has" (Introduction to Scientology Ethics, p.64 1976 reprint).
Scientology "is, indeed, the most validated science of mind Earth has ever known" (Journal of Scientology Issue 40-G, "Validation of Scientology").
"It is carefully observed here that the *science* of Scientology does not intrude into the Dynamic of the Supreme Being" (Professional Auditor's Bulletin No. 83).
"Dianetics is a science; as such, it has no opinion about religion, for sciences are based on natural laws, not on opinions" (Dianetics Auditor's Bulletin Vol. 1 No. 4, October 1950).
"Scientology, which includes Dianetics, is a workable system. The route is taped. The search is done. Now the route only needs to be walked" (Dianetics Today p.951).

All quotes above from: Medical claims within Scientology's
secret teachings by Jeff Jacobsen

I feel these quotes are accurate and worth understanding in the context they were actually used in. Hubbard clearly repeatedly stated Dianetics and Scientology healed people and did this in two distinct paths of information. The ideas he spread from Dianetics publication through Scientology auditing up to the level of clear and promoting the OT levels, particularly OT III and above to Scientologists had broadly distributed claims that virtually all Scientologists are exposed to. Certainly in Dianetics and basic books and courses.

Additionally the NOTS courses are part of materials that are hidden from the majority of Scientologists and definitely were hidden from the government and general public as long as Scientology could hide them. Only leaks online have changed that.

I feel Jeff Jacobsen demonstrated several points with Hubbard's own words that support my claims. Hubbard certainly claimed Scientology and Dianetics were sciences far superior to any others created by humanity. That is very exact: he left no room for seeing Scientology and Dianetics as faith based with the terms he used.

Hubbard claimed Scientology and Dianetics are literally capable of raising the dead and can heal a wide variety of illnesses and injuries including specific fatal diseases such as cancer.

Hubbard claimed he himself had credentials which he clearly never achieved. To establish a false air of authority. Scientific authority to be precise.

The cumulative results of all these claims in the context of decades of being presented to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Scientologists is important. Scientology despite claims of millions of members by the sixties actually likely never had more than about a hundred thousand members at any time. It certainly had far less than that between the Dianetics boom which fizzled once Dianetics was exposed as a fraud. From the fifties through much of the seventies hundreds of thousands of Scientologists came and went. From the late eighties through twenty fifteen the cult has had less than a hundred thousand members and likely fifty thousand or fewer members the majority of that time.

But in the heavy indoctrination Scientologists receive the ideas that Dianetics and Scientology heal far better than conventional medical technology is heavily promoted. The idea that Dianetics and Scientology are bona fide sciences is promoted. And probably most of all the idea that Hubbard was an authority on science of the highest possible level is a fundamental value in Scientology. In fact Hubbard is promoted as the greatest authority on the mind, science and life that has ever lived.

That is a core doctrine in Scientology.

All of these factors and claims by individual Scientologists of knowing others who got illnesses such as cancer and then due to being fooled by an elaborate fraud with actual lies - and not just statements within a faith - lead to one predictable result.  Those victims of fraud failed to use conventional medicine and many died as a result. I believe the number must be in the hundreds or thousands.

That is murder via medical fraud. I cannot see how any other conclusion is correct. In many places causing death of a human being in the commission of another crime is called felony murder. It sometimes is called depraved indifference homicide. Either can apply in this circumstance.

Additionally worth noting is that Scientology claims religious protection for its activities in the United States. I object to that but understand it is a legal obstacle.

But citizens of many countries practice Scientology and abandon  medical treatment and suffer consequences up to death as part of this fraud. Surely some of these people died whose countries of origin don't recognize Scientology as a religion. They can pursue legal action against Scientology for fraud and murder, among other charges.

I hope this article helps to show how Scientology is not a harmless fad.