Thursday, June 15, 2017

Scientology's Persistent Myths 3 - Sarge's E meter Story

In Scientology history one anecdote has taken on epic proportions of influence. The story Steve "Sarge" Pfauth (who was a caretaker for Hubbard in his final days) reportedly told Lawrence Wright which was described in his book Going Clear of Hubbard allegedly asking him to design a super strong E meter to rid him of his body thetans.

Tony Ortega has an excellent short article posted on this story dated July 11 2016 on his blog The Underground Bunker.

The incident described might have occurred as reported. It's possible.

I am not certain one way or the other. So, as a first point I want to say it is just one story told by one man.

That can be given too much weight in evaluating the meaning of this information. It is not to my satisfaction a well confirmed account.

Second, it is often used to fill in the blanks to complete or prove ideas on Hubbard's mental health and certain ideas on Hubbard's history.

Some people have the idea that Hubbard was more or less relatively sane when he started Dianetics in the late 40s and eventually went completely insane by the 80s or perhaps even earlier over a long slow decline.

That might be true or not. I don't know for sure either way. But it is in my opinion giving far too much value to this one anecdote, unless someone has a lot of other relevant information to support this idea and I have not seen that presented myself.

There are alternative theories on his sanity or deterioration. Some include insanity throughout his adult life, various illnesses like schizophrenia, narcissism, malignant narcissism, paranoia and a variety of others.

I personally like the malignant narcissism idea and the traumatic narcissist model Daniel Shaw created with aspects of Robert Jay Lifton's guru model.

But I just wanted to emphasize that the use of a single anecdote from a single source to make such an important evaluation is problematic in my opinion.

I think a very thorough examination of cult leaders in general and the types of personalities they may have is in order and no quick simple idea will be sufficient for that.

I would recommend watching the available YouTube videos on cults by Margaret Singer and Robert Jay Lifton and Daniel Shaw. Also reading the eight criteria for thought reform by Robert Jay Lifton (from his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, the eight criteria for thought reform are available free online), True Believer by Eric Hoffer, Traumatic Narcissism by Daniel Shaw, Cults In Our Midst by Margaret Singer and all the Scientology Mythbusting articles at the Underground Bunker by Jon Atack as well as his book Let's Sell These People A Piece Of Blue Sky.

For a more comprehensive examination of cults I would give my highest recommendation to Rick Alan Ross's masterpiece of cult curriculum Cults Inside Out. Also, Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich and Recovery From Cults and Steve Hassan's Freedom of Mind.

I have to emphasize that in my opinion in looking at cult leaders and their relationships with cult members one is dealing with abnormal psychology, the psychology of very unusual people with extremely unusual and unhealthy relationships with others. Thinking they think, believe, feel and behave as you and I do is in my opinion a fatal error. They don't and as a result their relationships aren't like ours.

To look at the psychology a lot of work can be done and can include the essential book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger, Age of Propaganda and The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout. Certainly a serious look at narcissism and malignant narcissism should be included too.




Scientology's Persistent Myths 2 - Scientology Can't Be Regulated

One thing that is really odd is the fact that a lot of Scientology critics and journalists say "I know everything in Scientology is fake and a fraud, and that it has harmed and deluded a lot of people, but it since it can't possibly be regulated, because people can believe whatever they want and will act on those beliefs. So if David Miscavige is stopped from disconnecting families, I don't care if people get auditing."

That's ridiculous to me in a few ways. It combines several false ideas. Just because people believe in something doesn't mean a behavior has to be legally allowed. There are millions of people that believe slavery is a good idea. In many countries their ideas are illegal as practices. Unfortunately there are probably millions of people that believe sex between adults and children is acceptable or desirable. Just because they believe and desire that doesn't make it legal. I am glad that practice is illegal in many situations and countries, and wish it was illegal in more situations and countries than it already is.

There are other practices like treating women and members of different races or religions as inferior beings that are unfortunately legal in some places but not everywhere that anyone desires.

There are several other beliefs that are regulated in practice and sometimes even outright denied under the law. It happens, people outlaw some behaviors.

With Scientology it would be difficult to enforce but it could be and importantly if say auditing and Scientology indoctrination were outlawed then actions taken with Scientology would be crimes and not able to hide behind the first amendment or legal protection reserved for legitimate business.

That would make a huge difference. Scientology could not require any contracts that support a criminal activity to be honored as such contracts are themselves illegal.

Furthermore a tremendous amount of evidence that auditing and Scientology indoctrination actually can be harmful to mental health while claiming to be a legitimate and scientifically validated therapy exists. There's tremendous evidence the alleged validation of Scientology never occurred and was all lies. That's a fraudulent claim. So, presenting this is false advertising.

Additionally, there have been numerous studies like the Anderson Report that consulted actual experts who time and again found Dianetics and Scientology indoctrination and auditing as dangerous, fraudulent and harmful.

In my opinion the presence of demonstrably false ideas like engrams, reactive mind, basic basic, locks, secondaries, overts, witholds, MUs, and hundreds of other ideas as the foundation of Dianetics and Scientology makes the use of it an activity in which a practitioner is doing things they don't understand in a framework that can't truly exist and is entirely fraudulent. This leads to beliefs that are delusional and the requirement of informed consent is to me impossible to satisfy.

How can an activity that is entirely framed by lies and represented with fraudulent claims be undertaken with informed consent ?

I don't think anyone understands all the harm such an activity can cause, but it has on occasion been significant. And is often noticeable. That's relevant and to me something journalists and Scientology critics should not ignore.

At the very least they should report the strong criticism actual psychologists and psychiatrists have given time and again. Both individual cult experts like Margaret Singer and Robert Jay Lifton and Jolly West, all of whom are experts on psychology or psychiatry, and panels and commissions of inquiry like the Anderson Commission have been extremely critical of Scientology auditing and indoctrination.

That's worth telling people as a fair warning.

Scientology's Persistent Myths 1 - Hubbard's Beliefs

In coverage of Scientology by media and online conversations on the subject many ideas have been brought forth and shared. Many ideas in Scientology doctrine have been thoroughly exposed as improbable and highly unlikely, if not impossible.

I have been very happy to see that and tried to make an admittedly small contribution to this effort. A lot of others have done much, much more work and reached millions of more people than I ever will.

But despite a tremendous amount of good and even great work in my opinion some points get lost or outright denied.

I understand people will have different opinions on some matters, but for some ideas a lot of evidence exists while for others far less than adequate evidence exists. Some of the ideas with a good amount of evidence aren't getting represented enough in my opinion while some others that lack strong or even moderate evidence are being taken as proven facts.

A simple example to start with is Hubbard's beliefs. On many matters it is easy to establish what he wrote in doctrine or said in taped lectures. But to say he believed it is another thing entirely.

Far too often his words are described as his beliefs. That's assuming he believed everything he said or whatever is being reported.

That's an indefensible leap. From his affirmations to a wide variety of his quotes on lying there is strong evidence he embraced lying and if you examine the contradictions in his doctrine and add them up it's clear he contradicted himself hundreds, probably thousands, of times that are easy to see. Together these two bodies of evidence with the accounts of Hubbard taking enormous efforts to hide his lack of results, to hide his plagiarism, to hide his abuses of Scientology cult members and many lies he told in his personal life clearly demonstrate that at any time Hubbard spoke or wrote it was entirely possible he was lying.

So, for any journalist or even mere blogger or Scientology critic in possession of this information to describe Hubbard's quotes as his beliefs is problematic. Perhaps this can be used to describe his affirmations and some personal letters or journals, if one sincerely believes Hubbard was entirely honest in those private personal communications, but that requires extraordinary confidence in that judgment.

To use that description for Hubbard's ideas in Dianetics and Scientology that are for public consumption or even for staff or just the Sea Org or even a portion of the Sea Org then honesty is extremely unlikely to be found, certainly beyond all reasonable doubt. So, I would never casually describe Hubbard's quotes in general as his beliefs.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Scientology's Judas - Marty Rathbun

Marty Rathbun has been a person well known in the Scientology watching world for a variety of reasons over the years. His tenure in the Sea Org and actions as the number two man in Scientology, subordinate only to Scientology leader David Miscavige is well documented.

Marty Rathbun and David Miscavige both have admitted Marty Rathbun committed numerous crimes including felonies for Scientology and it's well established as fact by everyone on either side.

Marty Rathbun helped OSA to harass and try to utterly ruin people which can be proven out by numerous documentaries on Scientology.

I know several people that can confirm Marty Rathbun has attacked and fair gamed them personally. You don't have to look far in the Underground Bunker or ESMB (ex Scientologists message board) or Sps R us Facebook group.

So, Marty Rathbun has plenty of firsthand knowledge of abuse due to having carried out plenty himself. And of course playing a part in ordering it regarding others and reporting on it to Miscavige as well. He likely knows more about Scientology crimes and abuses than almost anyone else living.

So, with that in mind look at his actions. He worked in Scientology committing crimes and abuses for years.

Then he had a fall from grace and left and ended up feuding very publicly with David Miscavige. He wrote several books, posted criticism of Miscavige at a blog and was in several movies and videos.

He ended up dropping a court case against Scientology. Really it was in his wife's name to be technical.

After he dropped the court case he went through a transformation. He stopped criticism of Miscavige and Hubbard entirely as far I am aware of.

He instead criticizing Ron Miscavige and tried to discredit him as an author. He said unkind remarks about several other Scientology critics.

He made an odd blog post that is covertly praising David Miscavige and attempting to discredit criticism of Miscavige.

An odd reversal certainly. Marty Rathbun has gone on to have odd and rambling blog posts since then.

He acts like there is an Anti Scientology Cult and they are obsessed with memes and narratives from meme farmers that make money. He says there is a troika leading the sheep.

I would prefer to avoid such pretentious and loaded terms that are puffed up emotional language to hide the utter lack of proof Marty Rathbun has.

Strong emotions to hide poor reason.

In plain language Marty Rathbun now in his defense of Miscavige is trying to covertly deny all his prior condemnation of Scientology crimes including those by Miscavige. He is denying the crimes he at length went on about for months or years.

He in plain English is saying three people repeat claims and get the ex Scientologist community and Scientology watchers to parrot these claims. He wants the credibility of these unnamed three people destroyed because they make money from their actions.

It's so ridiculous that without his loaded terms and cherry picking of facts it looks absurd. Let's try it without those two items.

His basic claim is "don't listen to the entire critic community because three critics make money", despite thousands of people coming forth with thousands of stories of personal experience and information they get outside the critic community either through personal experience or sources or research they do independently.

Some people just speak on their own experience in Scientology or with family members in Scientology, others get information from people and practice journalism and others read books on psychology and sociology and dig through Hubbard's doctrine itself for hours to find relevant information.

And he has made money off Scientology, independent Scientology, and criticism of Scientology himself and David Miscavige has made money off Scientology too.

So, how should anyone trust Marty Rathbun himself if he asserts that people that make money off criticism of Scientology can't be trusted ? He certainly has ? And he admitted to committing crimes and hurting people for Scientology as well.

But his biggest problem in my mind and the thing I really want to zero in on is simple and the reason he is the Judas of the survivors of Scientology is one thing that is an inescapable indefensible fact: he knows about the harm Scientology has caused through fair game, OSA dirty tricks and other crimes through both committing them and witnessing them and he now denies those crimes ever existed.

I'm going to share excerpts from an earlier blog post here:

Empathic witnessing is listening and displaying humility, empathy and compassion in communication with others. It is important in human relationships but holds particular value for ex cult members.

The experience of cult members has been described by Daniel Shaw as similar to the trauma experienced by victims of rape, incest and sexual abuse. This trauma is severe and a deep personal betrayal. It is an experience that involves the treatment of the victims as less than genuine individuals in relation to the cult leader.

The victims existence as individuals fully deserving human rights and subjective views is denied by the leader. They are reshaped or treated as objects to be used as seen fit by the leader. The leader may acquire, devalue then discard them at will as they see fit. This is the pattern of a narcissist.

Cult leaders in Daniel Shaw's hypothesis on malignant narcissists as cult leaders have very specific elements. He calls such abusers traumatic narcissists because they inflict trauma in their relational systems and use trauma to subjugate others.

The use of trauma to subjugate victims by denying the victims' subjectivity confuses the victim and creates anxiety and overwhelm which leads to denial, reversals, projection in the victims often which mirrors the conduct of the leader.

By having one's subjectivity undermined and denied the victim experiences such deep betrayal it can become a core part of their identity. They can feel simultaneously worthless and less than human as a result of traumatic subjugation and at fault for deep, deep feelings of wrongness, worthlessness, shame and an irredeemable abhorrent identity.

 They can see their own decisions to trust and love abusers as creating emotional vulnerability and within their own control. Like victims of sexual abuse, incest and rape the cult members can feel they must be responsible for their own trauma. They can feel less than human through the traumatic subjugation they experience. They can internalize the cruel and hateful malignant narcissist's denial of the authentic individuality and value of others.

The traumatic narcissist (aka malignant narcissist) has shown unimaginable cruelty and nonrecognition of authenticity of the victim as a person and the victim has felt let down by their expectations of genuine value and decency in the narcissist. The victim learns the abuser shouldn't have been trusted and the abuser certainly doesn't trust others. The abuser seems to win in the relationship as they get the upper hand and have their desires fulfilled as the victim must submit to their demands.

One of the easiest traps for a member leaving to fall into is a lack of empathic witnessing. Indifferent or uncaring witnessing is unfortunately quite common. It is traumatic in itself.

It is recreating the experience of being denied authenticity as a person. By denying the abuse that is disclosed by a cult member a witness denies the assertions that the victim deserves to be accepted as a genuine person and even if this denial is only by implications or tacit indifference it still inflicts trauma on the victim.

The victim can three times over learn to not trust. They can detest their trust and love of their abusers and hate themselves for having been vulnerable and see their abuser's lack of love and trust as superior to their attitude and then finally see the lack of empathic witnessing as showing they shouldn't expect trust or recognition as a genuine person from others.

It can become deeply ingrained and convince them trust and compassion are the essential weaknesses that lead to victimization. They can share this trait with some victims of incest, rape and sexual abuse.

For victims of these highly traumatic crimes denial of their experiences is extremely traumatic.

End quote from

After The Cult Part 1 Scientology Acceptance And Denial
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/...

Marty Rathbun in his roundabout way is trying to deny the crimes and abuses of Scientology, including his own and David Miscavige's.

That's completely unacceptable and morally repugnant. Indefensible isn't a strong enough word.

He is systematically denying the experiences of thousands of victims of Scientology all at once and he knows the crimes of Scientology quite well and id entirely indifferent to the suffering of those Scientology has committed crimes against.

He is uncaring about the families torn apart by disconnection, the people suffering on the Truth Rundown in the RPF and the people who have lost loved ones to Scientology. People lose family members to Scientology drug rehab scams and other horrible tragedies routinely. There are hundreds of victims listed online . There are thousands of people raised in Scientology with unresolved trauma and severe emotional and psychological problems. 

Marty Rathbun knows damn well about all these things. It's undeniable, not a narrative or meme or any other pretentious bullshit Marty Rathbun or David Miscavige want to call it. A clever turn of a phrase or slogan won't repair the harm including deaths Scientology causes. 

That Marty Rathbun knows this all so well, even contributed to these abuses and crimes himself for years and was forgiven and even supported by Scientology critics himself, and still has the callous inhumanity to deny the existence of the crimes against the victims of Scientology shows Marty Rathbun isn't merely a traitor to the victims of Scientology. He is a traitor to the basic decency all of humanity should have. And that is why I call him  Judas.