Mockingbird's Nest: (3) Scientology and NXIVM

Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism

Influences on NXIVM beliefs and practices, sourced from Natalie et al (2019), rendered in the mode of W.S. Bainbridge, e.g. Bainbridge 1978. |NXIVM teachings drew upon diverse influences, including Ayn Rand ("parasites"), L. Ron Hubbard ("suppressives"), Milton Erickson's hypnosis, Isaac Asimov's science fiction, Rudolf Steiner, Tony Robbins, and neuro-linguistic programming. NXIVM incorporated elements of multi-level marketing and practices from judo, with colored cloth for rank and bowing.

This is the third post in a series that examines the book Scarred: The True Story Of How I Escaped The Cult That Bound My Life by Sarah Edmondson.

I recommend reading these posts in sequential order and have listed them in order to make reading them in order easy.

Unless noted otherwise, all quotes used in this series are from that book.

Now, we have something with a little more meat on the bone.

We can look at the Executive Success Program (ESP) at NXIVM and the twelve-point mission statement. It's something that students in NXIVM must recite at the beginning of each course.

They take a lot of courses and must recite this a lot of times, over and over and over until it's part of their own personality and something they automatically defer to.

This has several notable counterparts in Scientology. Most obvious is the reference Keeping Scientology Series One known as KSW in Scientology. It is at the beginning of every major course in Scientology and in Scientology indoctrination it is gone over routinely thousands and thousands of times with every word looked up and every principle demonstrated by a cult member during their indoctrination over and over and over.

Ronald Hubbard, Scientology founder

Additionally the Code of Honor, Way To Happiness, the materials on the Student Hat course, The Introduction to Scientology Ethics book, the note at the beginning of most Scientology books regarding misunderstood words and several other references have similarities to the twelve-point mission statement.

An entire very lengthy book could explore just that category and not cover everything relevant to the issue.

Twelve-point Mission Statement

By Keith Raniere

1. Success is an internal state of clear and honest knowledge of what I am, my value in the world, and my responsibility for the way I react to all things.

2. There are no ultimate victims; Therefore, I will not choose to be a victim.

3. I am committed to be successful. I understand each of us must raise ourselves – and thereby raise all others – as all others raise us. This is interdependence.

4. Success, in my own right is my earned success. True success can not be stolen, copied or received by happenstance. I will not masquerade as successful by these methods or by any other. I will earn my success.

5. Tribute is a form of payment and honor. It is to giving credit where credit is due. I will use the tribute to uphold others beyond my petty likes and dislikes. As a result, I will define my self and my true contribution to humankind.

6. Successful people do not steal and have no desire or need to steal. I will not steal anything. I will always earn what I need and desire. Copying without permission or tribute is not the highest form of flattery, it is theft. Theft is also taking or receiving something without fully earning it; it is always at the expense, no matter how small, of others.

7. Inner honesty and integrity are the highest human values and the foundation of human psychology. All other values arise from them. I will never trade my integrity or inner honesty for any other value. It is never worth it.

8. The methods and information I learn in ESP are for my use only. I will not speak of them or in any way give others knowledge of them outside ESP. Part of the condition of being accepted into ESP is to keep all its information confidential. If I violate this, I am breaking a promise and breaching my contract, but more importantly, I am compromising my inner honesty and integrity.

9. True success is never at the expense of others. As a successful individual, I will never envy another's success. I will rejoice because I realize that the success of others raises me up just a little bit more because I am also part of the human team. The actualization of human potential by anyone is a tribute to all team humankind. If others are successful, I will protect their success against those who envy them. I pledge to purge myself from all habits that are based on parasite and envy-based habits, and replace them with habits of effort and interdependence.

10. I will unreservedly accept the success I have earned. I will accept no more and no less; this is accepting with integrity. I will give unreservedly to those who have earned it; this is giving with integrity. I will accept with integrity as easily as I give with integrity. To not accept what I am worth, or what I have earned, is to devalue myself and thereby all others.

11. People control the money, wealth and resources of the world. It is essential for the survival of humankind for these things to be controlled by successful, ethical people. I promise to ethically control as much money, wealth and resources of the world as possible within my success plan. I will always support the ethical control of these things.

12. A world of successful people will undoubtedly be a better world indeed; a world devoid of hunger, theft, dishonesty, envy and insecurity. People will no longer try to destroy each other, steal from each other, down each other or rejoice at another's demise. Success, ethics and integrity are co-inspirational. I pledge to share and enroll people in ESP and its mission for myself, and to help make the world a better place to live. End quote by Keith Raniere

Keith Raniere, NXIVM leader

We have lots of vague and grammatically awkward phrases here. It's pretty complicated and frankly confusing if you don't walk in knowing the new terms and redefinition of familiar terms being used here.

In my opinion it's intentional.

I think someone at NXIVM involved in writing this whether Keith Raniere or Nancy Salzman or both were aware of what they were doing when they created this core doctrine for NXIVM. It is jam packed with loaded language and overly complex.

Keith Raniere reportedly had some familiarity with Scientology and Nancy Salzman reportedly studied Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and several other subjects.

Both Scientology and NLP feature efforts to use language and confusion to covertly execute coercive control.

I am going to include a bit here on these basic ideas.

Ronald Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, knew he was trying to control people by making overly complex material and manipulating language. How can I know this about a man I never met? Because he told us so!

Quotes from Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique:

[Quote]

Now, if it comes to a pass where it's very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.

The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, "But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees."

You say, "Your professor of what?"

"My professor of physics."

"What school? How did he know?" Completely off track! You're no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you're arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won't know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis.

The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they're not sure of their own name.

And at that point you say, "Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don't you?"

"Yes-anything!" And he'll go out and draw the water out of the well.

[End Quote]

Ron Hubbard Lecture, 20 May 1952 "Decision."

Also, even earlier, in 1950:

[Quote]

One error, however, must be remarked upon. The examination system employed is not much different from a certain hypnotic technique. One induces a state of confusion in the subject by raising his anxieties of what may happen if he does not pass. One then "teaches" at a mind which is anxious and confused. That mind does not then rationalize, it merely records and makes a pattern. If the pattern is sufficiently strong to be regurgitated verbatim on an examination paper, the student is then given a good grade and passed.

[End Quote]

Ron Hubbard lecture 29 August 1950, "Educational Dianetics."

ALTITUDE INSTRUCTION

“In altitude teaching, somebody is a ‘great authority.’ He is probably teaching some subject that is far more complex than it should be.

He has become defensive down through the years, and this is a sort of protective coating that he puts up, along with the idea that the subject will always be a little better known by him than by anybody else and that there are things to know in this subject which he really wouldn’t let anybody else in on.

This is altitude instruction … It keeps people in a state of confusion, and when their minds are slightly confused they are in a hypnotic trance.

Anytime anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion.

Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude. There are ways to create and lower the altitude of the subject, but if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject the same way, he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as hypnotic suggestion.” (Hubbard, Research & Discovery, volume 4, p.324) 12 source Jon Atack

From Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology, available for free at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology

Basic Introduction to Hypnosis in Scientology also recommended for further reading on this topic, also available for free at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology

For perspective, I want to include some ideas by others.

"If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague; and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable.”

― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Margaret Singer was a top cult expert and in her book Cults In Our Midst she described cults and Scientology in particular quite well:

First a quote that struck me instantly. It reminded me of an analysis of Scientology written by a class XII auditor (the highest level of training in Scientology). She said Hubbard's writings can seem contradictory and paradoxical. That is actually intentional.

"The more complicated and filled with contradictions the new system is and the more difficult it is to learn, the more effective the conversion process will be." (page 67, Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Singer)

"You affirm that you accept and understand the ideology by beginning to talk in the simple catchphrases particular to the group. This "communication" has no foundation since, in reality, you have little understanding of the system beyond the catchphrases." (page 69, Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Singer )

We can see the similarities in Scientology and NXIVM regarding using confusing terms intentionally and Margaret Singer explained this quite well as well.

"Loading the language. As members continue to formulate their ideas in the group's jargon, this language serves the purpose of constricting members' thinking and shutting down critical thinking abilities. At first, translating from their native tongue into "groupspeak" forces members to censor, edit, and slow down spontaneous bursts of criticism or oppositional ideas." (page 70, Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Singer)

The next quote obviously refers to Scientology:

"One international group, for example, has dictionaries for members to use. In one of these dictionaries, criticism is defined as "justification for having done an overt." Then one looks up overt and the dictionary states: "overt act: an overt act is not just injuring someone or something; an overt act is an act of omission or commission which does the least good for the least number of dynamics or the most harm to the greatest number of dynamics." Then the definition of dynamics says: There could be said to be eight urges in life...." And so, one can search from term to term trying to learn this new language." (page 70, Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Singer)

"Peer pressure is very important to this process:

If you say it in front of others, you'll do it.

Once you do it, you'll think it.

Once you think it (in an environment you do not perceive to be coercive), you'll believe that you thought it yourself." (page 76, Cults In Our Midst, Margaret Singer)

This is key to Scientology. Hubbard set it up so the new cult member practices in drills, including patter drills, then does many of the desired actions of a cult member. Hundreds of drills in fact practiced for hundreds or thousands of hours. Then the cult member feels Hubbard's ideas are their own and defends them as irrefutable deeply held personal convictions.

By having the ideas in Scientology never examined or verified by members they remain hazy. This is greatly compounded by the ideas being full of contradictions and endless word salad of words defined by piles and piles of related new terms. They function as the web of lies with the term engram related to the reactive mind and both linked to charge and secondaries and incidents and auditing and the tone scale and each tone level and on and on it goes. Most Scientology terms link to hundreds or thousands of other Scientology terms to fully define them. It's an entire language of unproven yet extreme claims.

I hope this is useful for comparing Scientology and NXIVM.

I want to add an observation that I made years ago about NLP. I examined several adds, books, and articles on NLP. I ended up calling NLP sort of a cult on training wheels.

It's got some of the qualities that most cults have but it is not as cohesive and fully developed as many cults.

One way in which it is lacking, among many, is that if you look at books on the subject for the general public and ads many openly say that you can use NLP techniques to get women to have sex with you, when they are not interested, which is rape or get someone to buy whatever you sell even if they don't want it, coercive control.

Usually cults either don't admit they use these methods or they have gradual step by step conversion of members and you don't get this kind of information until you are well on your way in the indoctrination and you have already committed to the cause.

I think it's extremely unlikely that Nancy Salzman NEVER heard the criticism of NLP which is that it by using covert hypnosis is an attempt to control people at a level below their conscious awareness and if you are changed without conscious awareness you can't give informed consent to the changes.

An honest hypnotist should say they don't know what changes hypnosis will make to the mind or personality or behavior of a person, because they really don't.

In this regard hypnosis is similar to quantum physics, if someone says they have quantum physics fully figured out and solved they most likely don't understand it, and if someone says they fully understand hypnosis and how it affects people they don't understand hypnosis. It has unpredictable and variable elements. It has harmful effects on some people and other undesirable results on some people.

I explored this aspect of hypnosis in several posts at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology.

Margaret Singer in Cults In Our Midst described how people in the East have known about hypnosis for centuries and understood some things that frankly most people in the West don't know. The practice is not effective to any degree apparently on some people, it is only temporarily beneficial if at all on some other people, it has definite limits, it doesn't make major structures change, for example it doesn't regrow lost limbs and doesn't revive the dead, among many other limitations.

One hypnotic technique might work on a patient today but not work tomorrow. One technique might work on a patient but not on another with apparently little to predict which will work and which won't or for how long.

Further, it may be as limited as a placebo regarding many issues, but perhaps not all. It is well known to produce unpleasant sensations and emotions and even may be traumatic for some people, without producing any benefits.

These limitations and the unpredictable nature of hypnosis are part of why many people reject it out of hand, since a psychologist or psychiatrist may not wish to upset or harm a patient and have no benefit come from treatment.

(Now, to be clear I don't believe hypnosis is entirely explained by the placebo effect because I have seen reports of scientific research showing results in very specific instances that a placebo is unlikely to produce, but that doesn't remove the risks it brings)

(For anyone truly interested I have several blog posts that dive into the topic and the evidence behind this position)

Did Nancy Salzman or Keith Raniere tell people this in NXIVM?

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(3) Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism

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