I just saw the recent podcast by Chris Shelton in which he interviewed Daniel Shaw. It was Sensibly Speaking Podcast # 159. I wanted to comment on some of the issues that they brought up and give some referral to other ideas that flesh out what they discussed. They took on a lot of essential ideas regarding cults, abusive relationships and totalitarian groups. I wanted to add a bit and give both context to what they discussed and references to supplement their discussion for serious students of cults and human psychology.
I read the book by Daniel Shaw on Traumatic Narcissism and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand cults, cult leaders, abusive relationships, authoritarian regimes or psychology. It is expensive but worth the cost. It's truly excellent at focusing on many important aspects of the relationships between extreme abuser's like cult leaders and followers.
I actually wrote several blog posts on narcissism and Scientology and the book Traumatic Narcissism in the past.
I wrote Scientology's Parallel In Nature: Malignant Narcissism.
Chris Shelton and Daniel Shaw bring up several points worth commenting on. They bring up the fact that all sorts of people are recruited into cults, unlike the common prejudice that only especially gullible or stupid or insane people end up in cults, which cult experts like Margaret Singer who interviewed over four thousand ex cult members debunked. She realized all sorts of people are recruited into cults. She covered it in detail in her book Cults In Our Midst.
They also discuss narcissism and its origins. In his book Daniel Shaw covers the idea of narcissism resulting from abuse or idealization. It's important to understand the reality that some people appear narcissistic from an early age and never change and others develop narcissism after adulthood, either through abuse or excessive praise. Idealization involves treating a person as perfect or superior to others. It can be specific like telling a child they are better than one sibling or broader like telling them their race is superior or their religion or nation of telling them they are personally superior to everyone else in the world. In theory following this hypothesis or metaphor an adult can say become rich and famous and be surrounded by praise and late in life develop narcissism. Even after their twenties or thirties. Perhaps humans just should not be praised too highly.
They discuss recovery from narcissism and I believe that it can be recovered from to a significant degree for many, maybe even most, people. People often develop extremely narcissistic personalities in cults and often but definitely not always are able to achieve genuine humility and regret for their misdeeds and even gain empathy and compassion for others and long term marked improvement in behavior after leaving cults and realizing the ideology they used as dogma to justify their past behavior was false and that they were simply wrong in their previous attitudes and actions.
Shaw is correct in pointing out that some cult leaders are unsuccessful at adjusting to loss of power over others if they lose it. Charles Manson was observed to have gone insane in prison and Lafayette Ronald Hubbard reportedly has his sanity diminish severely near the end of his life, and it was not too good from the 1950s to start with. Numerous cult leaders go through a process Shaw described as florid decompensation. The leader of the Japanese cult Aum Shirikyo that pulled off the subway attacks Shoko Asahara was described as going through this process in court by Robert Jay Lifton. Lifton has written numerous books on cults and persuasion and is possibly the top living cult expert. If Margaret Singer were still alive I would say they are the top two in my opinion.
The process is described by Shaw in detail in his book and is the worst fear of a narcissist. Some commit suicide to avoid it. It is a complete breakdown of the separate parts of the fractured mind of a narcissist. In theory they have repudiated the negative aspects of self they have and through continuous and pathological denial ended up with a split mind. They have feelings of worthlessness, stupidity, incompetence, helplessness, need, shame, built and imperfection held away from themselves.
These feelings are externalized and projected onto others through narcissistic survival methods. They drive narcissists to be like ravenous beasts, knowing no mercy or compassion, only hunger. They hunger for narcissistic supply. That is something that will support and feed their delusions. Their delusions are the opposite of the repudiated aspects of self because in truth they are denials of them. Narcissistic supply is attention that supports the narcissistic delusions. Being able to dominate others serves to do this. Narcissistic delusions include feeling superior to ones that can be dominated, no matter how unethically or abusively. Power over others is proof to a narcissist of superiority and often the most desired supply. Sometimes dominance is not achievable but irritation is. Being able to annoy or upset people is proof of power to narcissists and is a form of supply. It's better than nothing.
The lowest supply may be sympathy and pity. The narcissist who cannot control people through dominance or covert persuasion or even irritate people is called a collapsed narcissist. They cannot maintain their illusion. Perhaps a big strong bully has aged and in his fifties or sixties or seventies cannot threaten and harass people. Or the wealthy executive that was caught embezzling and convicted very publicly cannot hang onto his power and image or the member of a church publicly exposed having an affair or being forced out of the closet if he condemned homosexuality cannot maintain a facade of self righteous hypocrisy.
It is often the man who pretended to be smarter and better than everyone else that arrives at old age and and has no record of success to support his boasts and is mired in mediocrity, undeniably. He may have has businesses fail, divorce, a poor career, financial failures or several of the above.
When no one humors the lies and boasts of a narcissist or fears their wrath or even will let them annoy them or everyone simply ignores their attempts at all of the above they often collapse. They have one last tactic to hold off the worst of choices. They can play the victim. They tell a tale of everyone and everything being unfairly against them. They have never caught a good break or met a good person and that is their one flaw. They are betrayed everywhere. Like Hitler when he blamed everyone else for his failures in the war.
Some narcissists fail even as collapsed narcissists and cannot get the sympathy they desire. They may then with no support or validation of any kind go through florid decompensation into schizophrenia or madness. Some sense that their fraying ends of sanity are about to be completely unraveled and rather than face this they commit suicide. It may be to escape the mental health consequences of their decline rather than any external ones.
So it follows that their delusions are of perfection, infallible character, conduct and knowledge. They are of a guilt and shame free past and superiority to everyone else. The highest narcissists see themselves sometimes as perfect servants of God or even gods themselves or superior to God. Faith or its absence does not indicate narcissism. But faith may shape the expression of narcissism to fit the faith. Their delusions are an escape from unbearable self images, not even reality.
Another issue that Shaw described is the method of a narcissist in denying imperfections and shame and projecting them onto others. This as pathological behavior becomes dissociation, a stronger separation mentally than denial. In denial the conscious mind is seen as not accepting or deceiving itself regarding unacceptable realities while the subconscious mind does not. Deep down a person knows what is being rejected but through self deception the conscious mind rejects the unacceptable. In dissociation the process is stronger and deeper.
People dissociate from trauma to survive it. We understand a person can dissociate from experiences like rape and combat and torture but many more experiences involve dissociation. Often cult indoctrination involves trauma and dissociation.
In cognitive dissonance theory conflicts between beliefs and reality create discomfort that can be confusion, blankness, reelingness, anxiety, panic, emotional discomfort like shame or self doubt. In any case it is unpleasant. ( An online article had this definition. · In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values.)
The reactions to this discomfort are often decisions or changes in beliefs, emotions or behavior intended to relieve the discomfort. In theory it is most important to protect the self or ego or if safe to pick a decision that validates the ego, it reinforces the self identity.
So when a person has a conflict like belief in self as a good person that only does good things coming up against a conflicting reality like the knowledge that they were unethical in their conduct, perhaps they lied and blamed an innocent person for their own mistake to avoid consequences and see that as evil. They can feel discomfort as cognitive dissonance and have the distortion of denying the truth consciously and deciding the person they lied about is bad and deserved to be ruined anyway. That is a cognitive distortion.
In cults members deny negative aspects of the cult and leader. This becomes habitual and these cognitive distortions result in dissociation. The cult members dissociate from the abuse and exploitation they suffer and the negative evidence against the leader. This accounts for why it is so extremely difficult to get people out of cults. Their own minds reinforce the prison of mind by merely thinking. Their own thoughts, emotions and behavior continuously create and bolster the elements holding them captive.
Through using the human vulnerability to both cognitive dissonance and trauma and the methods of coping via cognitive distortion and denial and dissociation the cult leader exploits the blindspots in human beings to covertly enslave them mentally.
The problem with telling them they are experiencing this is their mindset and habits. They will not see that they are being mistreated, that the cult leader is imperfect, or immoral that they are being abusive in serving the cult or that they are incorrect in automatically seeing enemies of the cult as doing what they accuse the cult leader of doing, including lying.
So in a mindset of pathological denial of abuse by the leader and dissociation from the trauma caused by the cult and cognitive distortions that support the cult leader and cult ideology while also projecting the negative traits into cult critics it is very easy to remain in the cult and extremely difficult to reject or even question or doubt the cult. A severe divorce from critical thinking has occurred, a severe divorce from independent thinking has occurred. Protecting the mind from cognitive dissonance and trauma has become sacred. It has made avoiding certain unpleasant thoughts, ideas, emotions and behavior unbearable. By having things that cannot be faced the mind puts them outside the realm of being doubted,questioned or criticized. Anything that is in that state is automatically outside critical thinking.
Cognitive Dissonance theory is a subject, not just a phrase or idea or paragraph. I recommend the book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger to get an introduction to the subject. I have written a long series of posts on the book and on and Cognitive Dissonance theory regarding Scientology.
Festinger covered this subject in extreme detail and used very clear and concise information to explain the subject at length.
Regarding charisma and cult leaders several questions came up. I think several important points regarding cult leaders should be brought up.
I want to close with a couple quotes from Robert Jay Lifton regarding charisma in cult leaders and the essential problem with the cultic mindset and any simplistic understanding or approach to cults. They are both from an interview with Bill Moyers done right after the 911 terrorist attacks. It is available free online.
ROBERT LIFTON: Well, you start out with the term charisma. It’s widely used, but people don’t really think of what it really means what I this it means, someone has charisma when he or she offers you new meaning in your life and new vitality. And as well as that, also immortality. So vitality and immortality are offered. That’s a lot. And if people feel that these are available to them, they will follow someone, not only to the ends of the earth, but to the ends of killing, as you said. And the killing of large numbers of people is not perceived as murder, it’s perceived as carrying out a necessary act for a higher purpose. So they block out from their minds the deaths of actual people, and they see that higher purpose as more important. It’s always dangerous when you block out human beings that you’re harming. What I call psychic numbing, or not perceiving them as human beings, and that’s what you can do when you become a disciple of a charismatic person.
ROBERT LIFTON: Well, I think the fundamentalist self is a combination of what I call followingism, all or none convictions, wanting to simplify everything and having little tolerance for nuance and for uncertainty, but also is past oriented. It imagines a past of perfect harm harmony that never was, that’s at the heart of the fundamental self. And it’s a very very dangerous mind set in the world, because this is a time when we need nuance, we have problems that we don’t understand. And that haven’t been ever presented to people before. And if you just close down with an absolute decision before you’ve even examined the problems, you have no chance of solving them.
WARNING : for any seeking recovery or any info on beneficial mental health practices , I do not have any formal education on this subject and in fact have no college education at all .
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Why Scientologists Are So Close Minded and Certain
I was recently asked about why Scientologists are so oblivious to contradictions in their own values. They hold opinions about themselves and Scientology that are contrary to the facts.
I think double think is the noticeable trait. The person simultaneously holds contradictory beliefs, emotions or behaviours.
In theory a person has conscious awareness and subconscious awareness and more. When I know consciously that I hold contradictory elements it can create cognitive dissonance. But to escape unpleasant truths I can deny them. That is consciously be deceptive to myself and others regarding reality. An even further separation of information called dissociation can occur. This in theory is promoted by trauma, which Scientology has no lack of.
By putting the contradictions out of my awareness I can temporarily and partially reduce the discomfort of cognitive dissonance. But it is not entirely eliminated.
By habitually responding to doubts, criticism and questions on a topic or particular issue I can make the process habitual and subconscious. I can get to the point where when I feel the discomfort, anxiety, reelingness and confusion begin I respond in less than a second entirely on a subconscious level and use denial, thought stopping cliches and techniques like projection to never consciously consider the potential disconfirming evidence.
I can have my ego defenses primed to protect me from counterevidence to my own sacred beliefs, emotions and behavior.
By holding something so sacred it cannot beat criticism, doubts or questions I render it resistant to criticism but also place it outside the realm of critical thinking. That is often a deadly self deception.
By holding something so sacred it cannot beat criticism, doubts or questions I render it resistant to criticism but also place it outside the realm of critical thinking. That is often a deadly self deception.
Scientology has two primary routes of indoctrination to consider and several secondary routes. The primary techniques used in Scientology are study tech and auditing. The techniques used in indoctrination rapidly and thoroughly use a pattern. The pattern involved casting aside doubts and awareness of contradictions in doctrine as all observations are denied in the practices and doctrine in Scientology. The fictional barriers to study, deficiencies in the understanding of the student, are always given attribution as the cause of perceived inconsistencies, contradictions or flaws in Scientology doctrine.
This habituates the student to a pattern. The student is studying Scientology materials in writing or on a tape and notices a contradiction or incorrect idea in the doctrine. The student is confused because the idea that Scientology is infallible and the observation that it is flawed are contradictions. This creates cognitive dissonance with accompanying discomfort, anxiety, reelingness, frustration and so on.
The student is told by Scientology doctrine and course supervisors and word clearers and virtually all Scientologists that the feelings of discomfort, confusion, blankness and anxiety they experience are proof that they have the fictional misunderstood words and skipped gradients and lack of mass Hubbard alleged.
The student through thousands and thousands of individual incidents comes to accept this framing as true. The student has the pattern of seeing a contradiction in Scientology or the contradictory evidence of an incorrect idea or part in Scientology going against the belief in the perfection of Scientology and has set aside that realization so many times the process mirrors double think. As Orwell described the student sees the evidence, is aware of it and immediately denies the truth, removing it from their own conscious mind. The discomfort subsides. They follow Hubbard's direction which becomes first nature as they think in his thought stopping cliches.
They ( the thought stopping cliches) direct the behavior, thinking and emotions of the Scientology student. It brings comfort. It casts out awareness of contradictions. The term for this type of receptive state is trance logic. It has a profound tolerance for contradictions, lack of logical consistency and magical thinking. It also has eradicated or greatly reduced critical and independent thinking.
One could even argue that any holding of something as too sacred to doubt, question of criticize has such thinking as its origin. It certainly is the same destination. It's not a beneficial state in my opinion, no matter how it is arrived at.
So, the Scientology student from thousands and thousands of times on course has established a pattern below conscious awareness. It reacts in a fraction of a second and has the effect of sabotaging independent and critical thinking regarding Scientology. It gets the student to deny contradictions, difficulties, and incorrect or even nonsensical elements in Scientology doctrine and to embrace them instead as somehow consistent, applicable and correct and sensible no matter what they are.
It's a stimulus response pattern. See the counterevidence of Scientology infallibility, then before the criticism is even consciously formed the discomfort prompts denial of the partially formed thought, the instinctive awareness of the phenomena Hubbard described as accompanying barriers to study prompts the thought that a barrier exists which has familiarity and seeming direction to alleviate blankness and indecision, effectively setting aside conscious cognitive dissonance.
This behavior is a cognitive distortion over time. Once well established it becomes an automatic action to protect the student, the ego of the student, like their identity is wrapped up in believing in the infallibility of Scientology, the lack of incorrect or contradictory elements in Scientology and the correctness of the idea that Scientology study technology and the alleged barriers to study with their purported phenomena are all correct.
As this is repeated thousands and thousands of times over hundreds and thousands of hours on course a student reflexively associates all criticism of Scientology with flaws in the critic.
Because they have denied that Scientology could be flawed to themselves tens of thousands of times and made rejecting doubts and awareness of flaws in Scientology a collection of deeply held habits it is now automatic.
Saturday, June 30, 2018
The Poisoned Heart
In leaving Scientology you can experience lots of different things. Many people go through stages of disillusionment with the organization and the leaders in Ronald Hubbard and David Miscavige along with the methods and ideas in Scientology as well to varying degrees.
Some ex cult members feel they were wrong and even controlling and abusive while in Scientology and used Scientology as a justification for this behavior. They can see their behavior with the justification stripped away as they dig through many subjects. Some look at the history of Scientology and Hubbard and realize the evil Hubbard displaced was mirrored to a degree in their own behavior.
Sometimes ex cult members explore literature on narcissism, sociopaths and abusive groups and relationships and psychology. Robert Jay Lifton has written extensively on human behavior in groups. He remarked on discovering that Vietnam veterans often needed to separate the experience of being both offender and victim. They described killing people, including innocent civilians including defenseless men, women and children. They described abusing people and raping girls and women. Unfortunately this is almost universal in war.
The veterans to Lifton needed to describe their being lied to, exploited and betrayed by the government and also the evil acts they chose to do as two separate paths of responsibility.
An ex Scientologist can occasionally get to a point where they have recognized bad acts they committed, then apologized to loved ones. Then they may have tried to change and improve their own behavior significantly.
But the path forward isn't perfect. All the bad habits that a person has don't evaporate upon leaving a cult. And I must confess all bad conduct isn't entirely inspired by a cult. So it all isn't addressed by looking at cults, even if you were in one.
So a cult member may be in for a long hard road, even if they leave a cult, even if they reject a cult. I consider changed (meaning improved) behavior is the best apology to be often important in looking at people.
A cult member can even have very significant changed behavior in definite empirical terms. I mean negative behaviors can be reduced in intensity and frequency or altogether eliminated. A
So you can do all these things, recognize and change negative behavior through both reductions and eliminations. But here's the kicker - none of the other people you know have gone through your journey. You can have family, friends and co-workers and managed to keep or try to repair relationships with.
So those people have a different perspective. They have experienced sometimes years or even decades of whatever negative attitudes and behaviors a cult member displayed. They may or may not have been estranged for years.
They can hang onto many negative feelings, impressions and behaviors from the past. Now the past isn't irrelevant or meaningless. They may have entirely accurate and legitimate ideas and feelings and grievances about the past.
But they can hang onto the past in an unhealthy way. They can hear apologies and accept them. They can fail to see changed behavior. They can fail to see improved behavior and eliminated behavior.
They can feel they have no obligation to learn about the journey of the cult member and didn't do anything wrong therefore they shouldn't work to fix anything.
So the ex cult member can feel lucky to get out of this situation and have or regain a relationship with someone. But the toxic behavior of years or decades may have poisoned the heart of the person that never joined a cult. The question then becomes what to do ? Can this be overcome ?
I know some people perhaps naively say love can overcome anything, but in real life it is a more difficult issue. Everyone isn't interested in or willing to study dozens of volumes on psychology, relationships or cult recovery.
Lots of people are entirely unwilling to look at anything serious or lengthy regarding these issues in any context, but especially regarding their own understanding or behavior.
So in reality many ex cult members in my opinion take on the difficult choice to leave their groups, renounce their old beliefs, personally apologize to others on an individual basis, read and try to learn about various topics, whether through reading books or digging through stories and posts online, or even get therapy and feel they both need and attain significant personal change. They take this long journey. Some see it as a life-long pursuit, whether described as recovery or lifelong learning or a different perspective.
Even with all these things behind him or her the ex cult member can endure the pain of being treated as if they have not changed, as if they have not improved or removed or lessened the frequency of negative behaviours. This can unfortunately come from the people they care the most about.
It's a tremendous challenge to try to overcome the past preserved in the memory of another person you are emotionally vulnerable to while still hanging onto your relationships. Loved ones may not realize that to them just stating simple facts or long established truths as still continuing is extremely upsetting or in Scientology terms invalidating to the ex cult member.
The question at some point becomes what can one do when the poisoned heart isn't your own ?
Some ex cult members feel they were wrong and even controlling and abusive while in Scientology and used Scientology as a justification for this behavior. They can see their behavior with the justification stripped away as they dig through many subjects. Some look at the history of Scientology and Hubbard and realize the evil Hubbard displaced was mirrored to a degree in their own behavior.
Sometimes ex cult members explore literature on narcissism, sociopaths and abusive groups and relationships and psychology. Robert Jay Lifton has written extensively on human behavior in groups. He remarked on discovering that Vietnam veterans often needed to separate the experience of being both offender and victim. They described killing people, including innocent civilians including defenseless men, women and children. They described abusing people and raping girls and women. Unfortunately this is almost universal in war.
The veterans to Lifton needed to describe their being lied to, exploited and betrayed by the government and also the evil acts they chose to do as two separate paths of responsibility.
An ex Scientologist can occasionally get to a point where they have recognized bad acts they committed, then apologized to loved ones. Then they may have tried to change and improve their own behavior significantly.
But the path forward isn't perfect. All the bad habits that a person has don't evaporate upon leaving a cult. And I must confess all bad conduct isn't entirely inspired by a cult. So it all isn't addressed by looking at cults, even if you were in one.
So a cult member may be in for a long hard road, even if they leave a cult, even if they reject a cult. I consider changed (meaning improved) behavior is the best apology to be often important in looking at people.
A cult member can even have very significant changed behavior in definite empirical terms. I mean negative behaviors can be reduced in intensity and frequency or altogether eliminated. A
So you can do all these things, recognize and change negative behavior through both reductions and eliminations. But here's the kicker - none of the other people you know have gone through your journey. You can have family, friends and co-workers and managed to keep or try to repair relationships with.
So those people have a different perspective. They have experienced sometimes years or even decades of whatever negative attitudes and behaviors a cult member displayed. They may or may not have been estranged for years.
They can hang onto many negative feelings, impressions and behaviors from the past. Now the past isn't irrelevant or meaningless. They may have entirely accurate and legitimate ideas and feelings and grievances about the past.
But they can hang onto the past in an unhealthy way. They can hear apologies and accept them. They can fail to see changed behavior. They can fail to see improved behavior and eliminated behavior.
They can feel they have no obligation to learn about the journey of the cult member and didn't do anything wrong therefore they shouldn't work to fix anything.
So the ex cult member can feel lucky to get out of this situation and have or regain a relationship with someone. But the toxic behavior of years or decades may have poisoned the heart of the person that never joined a cult. The question then becomes what to do ? Can this be overcome ?
I know some people perhaps naively say love can overcome anything, but in real life it is a more difficult issue. Everyone isn't interested in or willing to study dozens of volumes on psychology, relationships or cult recovery.
Lots of people are entirely unwilling to look at anything serious or lengthy regarding these issues in any context, but especially regarding their own understanding or behavior.
So in reality many ex cult members in my opinion take on the difficult choice to leave their groups, renounce their old beliefs, personally apologize to others on an individual basis, read and try to learn about various topics, whether through reading books or digging through stories and posts online, or even get therapy and feel they both need and attain significant personal change. They take this long journey. Some see it as a life-long pursuit, whether described as recovery or lifelong learning or a different perspective.
Even with all these things behind him or her the ex cult member can endure the pain of being treated as if they have not changed, as if they have not improved or removed or lessened the frequency of negative behaviours. This can unfortunately come from the people they care the most about.
It's a tremendous challenge to try to overcome the past preserved in the memory of another person you are emotionally vulnerable to while still hanging onto your relationships. Loved ones may not realize that to them just stating simple facts or long established truths as still continuing is extremely upsetting or in Scientology terms invalidating to the ex cult member.
The question at some point becomes what can one do when the poisoned heart isn't your own ?
Friday, June 22, 2018
Lessons From Leaving Scientology -The First Lesson
Lots of people who know me know I left Scientology after twenty five years in and upon discovering the fraudulent nature of the technology and dishonest nature of Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard rejected them both within a few weeks of learning about these disturbing realities.
The first difficult obstacle to face accompanying this was that I am gullible, I can and do hold completely incorrect beliefs. I can and do have extreme confidence in the accuracy of beliefs, regardless of the actual truthfulness of the beliefs.
And along with lots of other unpleasant revelations comes a time distinction. I don't think there is a transformative experience that changes this fundamental nature.
Lots of ex Scientologists and ex cult members and people who leave other groups learn different lessons. Many learn Hubbard or current Scientology leader Davie Miscavige lied to them and feel they are wiser and cannot possibly be duped again.
I have come to a different conclusion. I know of my profound gullibility. Perhaps it is a defining characteristic of myself. It is well established to me. But believing it has been transcended or erased is not something I feel sound evidence supports. I think it is wishful thinking.
I think it's human nature to often assume we hold correct beliefs, judge them using sound reason and have confidence in them proportional to the evidence and good thinking supporting them. That's a nice idea but far from reality.
I think many people discover to varying degrees the deception they experienced in Scientology and feel it was a special or unusual or even unique experience. They are seeing it as having duped them but perhaps it used exceptionally well developed covert persuasion, which I must admit might be actually true, or perhaps the social circumstances in Scientology were unusually suitable for cultic relationships, which they may have been, and so they see Scientology as being a sort of exception in human existence.
in other words seeing that they were gullible, were entirely and profoundly wrong regarding thousands of ideas, including the most fundamental and personal of values and were supremely confident in these false beliefs has not made them agnostic regarding their fallibility in realizing they can hold incorrect beliefs with high confidence.
Perhaps someone else is in a different circumstance than I am. But for me the first big lesson I got in leaving Scientology is my own gullibility. It would appear that to believe something as ludicrous as Scientology for many years of deep involvement one would need profound gullibility. I must say I am guilty as charged. But at least I learned this humbling and perhaps humiliating lesson.
The first difficult obstacle to face accompanying this was that I am gullible, I can and do hold completely incorrect beliefs. I can and do have extreme confidence in the accuracy of beliefs, regardless of the actual truthfulness of the beliefs.
And along with lots of other unpleasant revelations comes a time distinction. I don't think there is a transformative experience that changes this fundamental nature.
Lots of ex Scientologists and ex cult members and people who leave other groups learn different lessons. Many learn Hubbard or current Scientology leader Davie Miscavige lied to them and feel they are wiser and cannot possibly be duped again.
I have come to a different conclusion. I know of my profound gullibility. Perhaps it is a defining characteristic of myself. It is well established to me. But believing it has been transcended or erased is not something I feel sound evidence supports. I think it is wishful thinking.
I think it's human nature to often assume we hold correct beliefs, judge them using sound reason and have confidence in them proportional to the evidence and good thinking supporting them. That's a nice idea but far from reality.
I think many people discover to varying degrees the deception they experienced in Scientology and feel it was a special or unusual or even unique experience. They are seeing it as having duped them but perhaps it used exceptionally well developed covert persuasion, which I must admit might be actually true, or perhaps the social circumstances in Scientology were unusually suitable for cultic relationships, which they may have been, and so they see Scientology as being a sort of exception in human existence.
in other words seeing that they were gullible, were entirely and profoundly wrong regarding thousands of ideas, including the most fundamental and personal of values and were supremely confident in these false beliefs has not made them agnostic regarding their fallibility in realizing they can hold incorrect beliefs with high confidence.
Perhaps someone else is in a different circumstance than I am. But for me the first big lesson I got in leaving Scientology is my own gullibility. It would appear that to believe something as ludicrous as Scientology for many years of deep involvement one would need profound gullibility. I must say I am guilty as charged. But at least I learned this humbling and perhaps humiliating lesson.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Saturday, June 9, 2018
Scientology versus Critical Thinking - Extreme Contrasts
After I describe the lecture and it's content I want to focus on the differences between the Paul-Elder model and Scientology because it's almost a perfect opposite to Scientology. You will easily see this if you are familiar with Scientology, particularly if you spent decades in Scientology as I did. Understanding a sound model of critical thinking like this well immediately exposes Scientology as pseudoscience and an intellectual sham. The difference is night and day.
Paul-Elder Critical Thinking Framework
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking – about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them. (Paul and Elder, 2001). The Paul-Elder framework has three components:
- The elements of thought (reasoning)
- The intellectual standards that should be applied to the elements of reasoning
- The intellectual traits associated with a cultivated critical thinker that result from the consistent and disciplined application of the intellectual standards to the elements of thought
According to Paul and Elder (1997), there are two essential dimensions of thinking that students need to master in order to learn how to upgrade their thinking. They need to be able to identify the "parts" of their thinking, and they need to be able to assess their use of these parts of thinking.
Elements of Thought (reasoning)
The "parts" or elements of thinking are as follows:
- All reasoning has a purpose
- All reasoning is an attempt to figure something out, to settle some question, to solve some problem
- All reasoning is based on assumptions
- All reasoning is done from some point of view
- All reasoning is based on data, information and evidence
- All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, concepts and ideas
- All reasoning contains inferences or interpretations by which we draw conclusions and give meaning to data
- All reasoning leads somewhere or has implications and consequences
Universal Intellectual Standards
The intellectual standards that are to these elements are used to determine the quality of reasoning. Good critical thinking requires having a command of these standards. According to Paul and Elder (1997 ,2006), the ultimate goal is for the standards of reasoning to become infused in all thinking so as to become the guide to better and better reasoning. The intellectual standards include:
Intellectual Traits
Consistent application of the standards of thinking to the elements of thinking result in the development of intellectual traits of:
- Intellectual Humility
- Intellectual Courage
- Intellectual Empathy
- Intellectual Autonomy
- Intellectual Integrity
- Intellectual Perseverance
- Confidence in Reason
- Fair-mindedness
Characteristics of a Well-Cultivated Critical Thinker
Habitual utilization of the intellectual traits produce a well-cultivated critical thinker who is able to:
- Raise vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely
- Gather and assess relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively
- Come to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;
- Think open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and
- Communicate effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems
Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2010). The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools. Dillon Beach: Foundation for Critical Thinking Press.
Richard Paul pointed out many relevant issues regarding critical thinking in his lectures. One issue he dealt with is different degrees of understanding of issues.
One lecture in particular is worth serious examination.
It's on YouTube with the Title Prove: Why Intellectual Standards ? Why Teach For Them ?
From CriticalThinkingOrg published on April 23, 2015 with a length of fifty five minutes and nineteen seconds. This post addresses the content of that lecture.
He described sophisticate believers and vulgar believers. He said vulgar believers really don't understand the logic of the content, they don't understand the ideology.
He pointed out that a person could be what he called a vulgar believer. He gave the example of a person who claims to be a Marxist who has a handful of slogans like "seize the means of production, power to the people, down with the bourgeois" and so on. The person never read Marx or any related authors or contemporaries of Marx. The person doesn't understand ANY of the ideas of Marx besides these slogans in the barest manner possible. They don't understand the terms in the subject or anything else. They may be willing to die for Marx or Marxism but don't understand anything about it.
He described sophisticate believers and vulgar believers. He said vulgar believers really don't understand the logic of the content, they don't understand the ideology.
He said a step up from a vulgar believer regarding a subject is a sophisticate believer. The sophisticate believer understands the ideas in a subject far more than the vulgar believer. But they are predisposed to not understand how the subject they are aware of can be critiqued by other systems and interacts with subjects outside the one subject they defend. He gave the test that they don't see the flaws and weaknesses in their system and the answers that other systems can give to incorporate them and improve their system. They are aware of no flaws in their system. They see no other system as necessary. He described them as being able to recite six volumes of very narrow minded reasoning that never entertains another system. Crucially they try to understand the system outside their own system to negate it and defend their own system. He defined this as apologetics and said you ought to apologize for it.
This is worth strong emphasis. He described it as trying to show everyone why you are right and everyone else is wrong all the time.
He described the challenge of critical thinking as trying to get students to not be vulgar believers or sophisticate believers.
Huh ? The examples with this are plentiful in life. It's a defining characteristic of cultic groups. If you have a philosophy or subject that is only seen as superior to and in conflict with all other subjects that is a huge red flag.
We have various extreme sects that take virtually any religious beliefs and refuse to give any subjects whether scientific or medical or of any other kind a chance to be used to be seen as legitimate also then you have a cult.
In all major religions you also have sects that do not reject all other subjects and get called moderate that are not cultic, so the approach to thinking and degree of control that a subject is enforced with determine a lot.
A sophisticate believer knows enough to attack other subjects, but not usually enough to understand them really as anything other than something to attack and degrade, not really a deep understanding.
Imagine that you see physics as superior to everything else. And you see chemistry and biology as worthless and inferior. And teaching and study as things to not learn because they are not physics.
You would be less capable in physics than you potentially could be obviously because study and teaching are essential to learning physics itself. Other subjects that involve human beings like psychology and influence and our biases and behavior affect ANY subject we interact with as they affect how we do and learn EVERYTHING.
A sophisticate believer has such poor understanding of how subjects can interact and help each other with being applied to each other that they really don't understand their own subject completely.
Richard Paul described a thinker that understands a subject as itself and how other subjects can interact and be used to evaluate a subject as a critical thinker. If you can look at physics and use the subject of critical thinking to see the strengths and weaknesses in physics you have an advantage. If you can use logic to look at the logic within physics and see what is what you are free to be objective and not just defend orthodox beliefs.
A subject that is too sacred to be observed through the lens of other subjects is immune from criticism and critical thinking. Whatever beliefs one holds of a religious or spiritual or philosophical nature that cannot be treated as anything besides sacred cannot be critically thought of. I have also encountered the phenomenon of people believing in atheism or their idea of critical thinking (what Richard Paul would probably have called a pseudo critical thinker) or a physical science or political philosophy that also is seen as sacred and beyond criticism or evaluation by any other subjects. So, this is not limited to religion in any way.
I hope the three categories of vulgar believer, that really understands nothing and follows a few slogans to the sophisticate believer that understands a subject just as superior to others and might understand it from the inside better than the vulgar believer but not really fully to the critical believer who understands the subject they study and the content in the subject and that other subjects are worthwhile for analyzing the subject in question illustrate how approaches to subjects determine or prejudice understandings that are achieved.
Richard Paul also described indoctrination as producing people that just comply with feeding back what is told to people in indoctrination without even needing to really comprehend the subject or terms. He described indoctrination as producing no understanding of terms or a superficial understanding.
Richard Paul described content as something we produce by the reasoning mind, conceived and constructed by the reasoning mind and one hundred percent dependent on thinking.
People often say they have no time to foster thinking with the content they need to instruct people in. They are describing the rote memorization that is briefly used to just feed back information that is only fed back then forgotten.
In earlier systems like Bloom's taxonomy knowledge is meant to occur before evaluation. Richard Paul believes this is backwards and only results in brief memorization.
Thinking requires organization of information. All new ideas must fit the existing system of ideas and a mind must change its own content to adapt to needs.
Students must understand the logic of their thinking because it affects their ability to take on any content. To Paul the system in any subject isn't nature to the mind and so it takes discipline to take on the thinking required in any subject, it's difficult and not normal for people to seek the truth.
Paul sees his intellectual standards as naturally required for all thinking in all situations for all subjects, that is why they are universal. They are minimum criteria he feels are necessary.
We need clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, precision, logic, significance and fairness in our thinking. Imagine presenting something that is unclear, inaccurate, irrelevant, shallow, too narrow minded, imprecise, illogical, insignificant and unfair. It would have no logical cohesion.
Reasoning is the attempt to figure something out in a way that displays the intellectual standards. They are natural criteria.
He feels the standards come from the logic of language, which requires clarity and accuracy, he emphasized the importance of understanding terms that apply to reasoning that are relevant.
He emphasized that most words must remain unchanging if we make a case for changing some words. He says words must be used carefully like indoctrination and training and education, they don't mean the same thing.
He says you must use words carefully to think clearly.
He said discipline requires a standard to conform to. Whether it is a sport or art or other discipline. He said you wouldn't understand a language if you had your own private language.
He described the logic of questions as also being a part of the origin of the logic of the standards. A legal question has standards from the law while a moral question has moral standards as the standards for examination.
He described questions of fact as having right and wrong answers and questions of reasoned judgement have a better and worse answer while questions of personal preference have a different answer possible for each person.
He quoted a description of math instruction today as being fraudulent. It is just getting people to plug numbers in equations with no further understanding.
He described the logic of historical reasoning as never occurring in instruction in history.
The logic of reality is the third as being the third component of the logic of the student.
He described the contrast between chemistry which consults the logic of reality and depends on it and astrology which doesn't. Astrology consults it's own unverifiable internal non-reality based system and seeks to maintain that system.
He described the ultimate question for a critical thinker as do you confirm your system to the logic of reality or do you conform reality to your system.
He said if reality isn't what you are trying to conform to your thinking will be deeply flawed.
He said if you try to conform your thinking to reality you are a critical believer. Whether Christian, mathematician, sociologist, American, or whatever. They understand they can make mistakes and the system can make a mistake and they can make a mistake within the system. The system can be falsifiable.
He said if students don't see something to discipline their reasoning to then they won't be critical thinkers. He described the difference between beliefs and knowledge. He said educators should work to get students that can achieve knowledge through their reasoning and that anyone can believe but belief doesn't require reasoning and understanding.
He described disciplines as being constructed by reasoning. He referred to disciplines like anthropology and sociology and biology. He said there are many questions which no discipline has yet answered. There are many questions which have not even been asked yet. He said education is concerned with developing the mind to be able to answer the questions.
He said it is only the uneducated mind that is impressed with how much is known, "the more you know the more you know you don't know" was his description. He said it takes reasoning and precise use of language to see that.
He described getting students to understand and apply the intellectual standards of critical thinking as a tremendous challenge. It's a paradigm shift.
He said this is a lifetime endeavor. He recommended looking up the terms for the standards in a good dictionary. He emphasized the differences between the standards and the interrelationships between the standards.
He said the logic of learning is the logic of somebody's thinking. He said in teaching you should get lots of questions. No questions means no understanding because if you understand something you see unanswered questions not addressed.
He described using questions to encourage students to think more broadly within disciplines and stretching the breadth of what students think of, bit by bit and very gradually.
He said this paradigm is resisted by people that deeply believe in the other paradigm of giving information that is fed back with a little critical thinking thrown in and that critical thinking cannot effectively be taught by people that don't practice it.
There are people that assume critical thinking is always there when it isn't at all. Their only standard is memorization of material and feeding it back.
That concludes my summing up of the lecture. I give it my absolute highest possible recommendation. It has more sound reason than EVERYTHING in Scientology. It truly exposes the stark difference between a real critical thinker and Ronald Hubbard. I believe everyone can benefit from seeing this video.
The work of Richard Paul in critical thinking is top notch in my opinion. I endorse it and feel his books are worth looking at.
Okay, now for my two cents. Veteran Scientologists will see many if not all my points coming, bear with me, I am going to try to cover all my bases.
First off the indoctrination in Scientology obviously encourages vulgar believers at first. You are instantly taught that your difficulties or confusions regarding study are always due to no contradictions or errors in the doctrine in Scientology but always due to fictional barriers to study.
You get doctrine with hundreds of contradictions and unclear terms, unclear and contradictory definitions as well. You have extensive Orwellian reversals. Not mere euphemisms, these words and phrases say the opposite of what they describe in Scientology, of what actually is done.
There are dozens and dozens of slogans in Scientology. They function as thought stopping cliches as Robert Jay Lifton described. The loaded language from his eight criteria for thought reform serve as the language of non thought as Lifton put it. Exactly what you use to equip vulgar believers.
Long term Scientologists can achieve a degree of sophisticate belief as Richard Paul described it. It lacks the good cohesion believers in most other disciplines achieve because it has so many inconsistencies and lacks any logic of reality in many aspects. It has so many poorly defined terms and thousands of interconnected terms that all link one to another and another to form chains of hundreds of poorly and inconsistently defined terms that create a kind of fog of the mind.
The sophisticate believer level is really the highest level of thinking Scientology lends itself to. Scientology is presented as far superior to life itself. It's presented as being beyond criticism with criticism being automatically seen as irrefutable proof that the critic has hidden crimes of serious magnitude promoting all criticism. Doubt in Scientology is seen as a lower condition by Scientologists. Questions regarding doctrine are always interpreted as demonstrating something to address regarding the student having a deficiency in understanding or character.
The system is designed to defend itself preemptively by attacking all other systems. It has a method to invalidate and counter all ideas that disagree with Scientology including study technology and false data stripping. Of course subjects that contradict Scientology like psychology are even attacked in the materials preparing the student before they start the false data stripping procedure. Numerous experts in politics, economics, psychiatry, theology and many other subjects are thoroughly attacked in Scientology doctrine to establish that as the only subject far, far above all others.
It's not an exaggeration to say criticism of Scientology is sacrilegious to Scientologists. It violates what Robert Jay Lifton described as the sacred science, a doctrine that is treated as entirely logical and scientific by believers but if any inconsistencies or failures in logic are brought up the doctrine is immediately treated as too sacred to be doubted.
Hubbard designed it as an extension of his identity and incredibly defensive of itself and always attacking all other systems. Not an inch of room for critical thinking there.
Recall - We need clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, precision, logic, significance and fairness in our thinking. Imagine presenting something that is unclear, inaccurate, irrelevant, shallow, too narrow minded, imprecise, illogical, insignificant and unfair. It would have no logical cohesion.
Well Scientology lacks clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, precision, logic, significance and fairness. It is unclear, inaccurate, irrelevant, shallow, too narrow minded, imprecise, illogical, insignificant and unfair. It has no logical cohesion.
Outsiders that do not believe in and practice Scientology cannot understand why people believe in it. In several blog posts on psychology I have taken on how Scientologists interpret mental and physical phenomena as evidence that Hubbard's doctrine is true. Lifton in his system, the eight criteria for thought reform, described it as mystical manipulation.
Several systems outside Scientology can interpret or explain weaknesses and inconsistencies in Scientology far better than anything in Scientology. Aspects of psychology address this and seeing principles and techniques in Scientology as being plagiarized from hypnosis is a use of that system or cultic studies to understand Scientology. But Scientology preemptively discredited everything and everyone else.
Really from a critical thinking standpoint Scientology is a total mess. Richard Paul would easily point out the lack of reality based beliefs in Scientology. Scientology requires members to conform reality to fit Hubbard's system.
Regarding the logic of language Hubbard inverts it. He used his own made up language jam packed with contradictions and inconsistencies and thought stopping cliches as Lifton called it, the language of non thought as he termed it.
Hubbard was always extremely impressed with his own mind and knowledge and impressed this attitude upon Scientologists. Arrogance is deadly to critical thinking.
As the materials in Scientology inspire questions on course the Scientology student rapidly learns questions lead to word clearing and so students learn to stifle all questions which nips critical thinking in the bud. No independent thinking in Scientology.
In Scientology Socratic questions have no place, Socratic debate has no place. Everything is authority and obedience based. That's it.
Really if we look at all the concepts Richard Paul brought up for good critical thinking regarding instruction and teaching and the reality of Scientology point by point the critical thinking model of Richard Paul exposes Scientology as pseudoscience and inadequate as a serious subject of any kind.
if I just understood and really applied the ideas from the video by Richard Paul I would have been effectively inoculated from Scientology.
I am sure other people can think of other points that this description exposes. Scientology is just jam packed with them.
I hope lots of people from all different backgrounds look at the critical thinking framework by Richard Paul and his videos and books. I hope to make it first nature for the rest of my life.
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