Origins of Deception In Scientology

It's been said Scientology founder Ron Hubbard was not truly the "source" of anything in Dianetics and Scientology. There's an extensive body of evidence to support the claim Hubbard plagiarized hundreds of ideas from many people, many subjects and in many ways.

Lots of good articles about plausible links to establish plagiarism by Hubbard from a variety of authors like Jon Atack exist. A simple examination of works on hypnosis and by occultists like Crowley and the book OAHSPE demonstrate a case for establishing plagiarism as a routine practice by Hubbard.

Additionally there's been a longstanding history of Hubbard taking ideas from people in his immediate vicinity and claiming them as his own. Books and policies at one point had attribution including contributions by other people but that was eventually removed and the sole source myth has been grown.

A history of having aides read books and articles has been reported. Hubbard allegedly had several associates read about various subjects and report the main points back to Hubbard in a very concise and heavily abridged version. Cliff notes type synopsis at best, sometimes oversimplifying something.

Hubbard then took the ideas he just pilfered and integrated them into Scientology. He took for example the idea that watching T.V. contributed to making people feel disconnected emotionally from life and repackaged it into his own pseudoscience fraud of Scientology. No real evidence of a scientific nature is produced of course, but it served Hubbard's purpose to discourage T.V. watching by Scientology cult members, particularly staff and Sea Org members. Why ? Because he could emphasize a kind of isolation and information control by censorship of communication he didn't create or approve. No T.V. equals no pesky alternative views coming into the cult from T.V. shows.

Another interesting example is possible. In the most frequently referenced policy in Scientology Hubbard used an idea that may have had its origins in psychotherapy. In KSW, Keeping Scientology Working, Hubbard referred to having auditors in Scientology follow his techniques exactly as Hubbard required.

Hubbard claimed the techniques are of paramount importance and no deviation is acceptable. He gave an alleged example of an auditor that reportedly got great results but had poor technique.

He explained that the auditor actually did poorly and was not being properly observed or corrected regarding errors.

Hubbard's point was there are no outstanding individuals who have talent in Scientology auditing, there is only adherence to orthodoxy and that guarantees results, nothing else.

Now, to be perfectly clear I don't believe auditing works to benefit human beings. I don't believe Hubbard was sincere in his claims in KSW. I believe he was trying to create a product of propaganda to control people via lying.

But I think I may have discovered what Hubbard meant to emulate. I recently ran into a description of studies of psychoanalysis. The study claimed an examination of various types of analysis and looked at therapists who adhered to various styles or had no model they stuck to and looked at how the therapists communicated to their patients.

The study found that loyalty to no school or philosophy of psychoanalysis was more successful than the practice in general.

It didn't matter which model a therapist used or if they even adhered to one model at all. Other factors affected the results far more.

If Hubbard ran into that study or a similar one and an aide explained it to him Hubbard could have easily seen he could reverse the findings (switching adherence to doctrine as fundamental to success rather than irrelevant as the real study found regarding psychoanalysis) and applied it to Scientology and rather than pretending it involved a study claim it was an anecdote or series of anecdotes, so it couldn't be falsified.

I think finding individual examples of ways Hubbard could plausibly have cooked up Scientology propaganda is informative, obviously for ex Scientologists seeking recovery, but furthermore to inform us how lies of a variety of types are constructed and used.