Scientology Reflections (4) 10 Years After Leaving-More Mistakes
This is the fourth post in a series that I am publishing in 2024. The series is on the journey I have been on AFTER leaving Scientology and Dianetics and what my experiences were, and mistakes I made, and things that I learned, some shortly after leaving Scientology and others further along the way, even up to the present day. Some of this involves Scientology and Dianetics. Some involves the process of leaving a cult. Some is just knowledge that I could have benefited from knowing sooner, that may even be unrelated to the cultic topic entirely.
For anyone who is unaware, I was in Scientology for twenty five years, between 1989 and 2014. I left in 2014 and discovered that Scientology is a harmful fraud and jam packed with lies and further it is composed of techniques plagiarized from other practices and sources. Ronald Hubbard had the ability to take a practice, file off the serial numbers and repackage it as his own in first Dianetics and later Scientology.
I have found several more mistakes in my journey into and out of Scientology to describe.
I have discussed a certain couple of mistakes that I made regarding falling for Scientology recruitment several times in the past, but a couple are so harmful in numerous situations, most of which don't involve Scientology and affect people every single day, so it is worth repeating these points, because they are so important.
Almost every person in Scientology gets there one of two ways. Either they are recruited or they are raised in Scientology as a child.
And almost every single person who is recruited and later leaves says the same thing. They say that if they knew the truth about the character and behavior of Ronald Hubbard they would never have joined Scientology.
They say that if they knew the abuse and betrayal they would experience in Scientology they would never have joined. They say that if they knew that they would be pressured thousands and thousands of times to disconnect from their family and loved ones they would never have joined Scientology. They say that if they knew that the result of the lower bridge was nothing but broken promises and the upper levels are the absurd Xenu story and exorcism of spirits from other planets and civilizations millions, billions, and trillions and quadrillions of years ago and they provide no real gains whatsoever they would never have joined Scientology.
They say that if they knew Scientology staff and The Sea Org would be mental slavery and the RPF and Truth Rundown are the most overt form of brainwashing ever attempted they would never have joined Scientology and certainly would never have joined staff or The Sea Org.
So, you can say, how did they not know? Well, depending on their age and when they were recruited they may have had limited or no access to criticism of Scientology. I certainly didn't know how to use the internet back in 1988 and 1989.
But even further the approach to examining the information is not something to overlook.
Frankly, I think that I should have had an entirely different approach to learning about ANYTHING.
“There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.
Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand.
In the case of any person whose judgement is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct.”
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, published in 1859
“the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
John Stuart Mill makes a persuasive case for hearing the best arguments for and against ideas before being able to properly form an opinion.
He also makes it clear that we need to hear about a subject from people of all types of opinions and backgrounds and from all different kinds of approaches to the subject.
I have heard of a professor who has classes on certain texts and he brings in people from different backgrounds to examine the topic from a historical perspective or a political perspective or another perspective in a different semester. Each year he tries to get one of several experts on different subjects to give their perspective.
People who have different philosophies and education on different topics give their own perspective on the subject to add more to the understanding of the professor and the class.
It's somewhat against human nature to look for the evidence against what we believe or the best evidence for arguments against our beliefs. But it's a foundation of good critical thinking.
I have seen efforts to explain phenomena in human behavior and sometimes information from a different subject is essential to finding a highly plausible explanation.
In psychology we have the difference between the Northern states and Southern states in the US in aggression and the hypothesis that the culture of the people who settled these areas and the honor culture of the people who settled the South is a highly plausible explanation and supported by empirical evidence from psychology research.
We also have the fact that since a peak in crime in America in the early nineties we had a huge decrease (by about half by some estimates). Research involving the harm leaded gas caused and the removal of lead from gas is recognized by many researchers and experts as extremely likely to be a major factor, if not the biggest factor, in causing the huge decrease in crime we have seen since the early nineties.
Without that information from another field we might never understand the huge reduction in American crime.
There are many other examples of information from a different perspective or subject being essential for understanding something important in a subject.
Without that you might have an incorrect conclusion. Now an important point to me is that you need a good basic grounding in a subject itself to form an educated opinion on the subject in general and specific ideas in particular.
I am not at all a fan of the "All you need to know is..." style of claims, regardless of the topic. That is anti critical thinking and anti looking at all the relevant information regarding a claim.
The opposite of this in some ways is something I have written about in the past that is worth mentioning to me.
I call it The Sixty Minutes approach. I saw an episode of the American news television show years ago and it introduced a way to evaluate something that's worth using.
A woman was an assistant coach at a college basketball team and the head coach retired. She was not offered the head coaching position. A man who was far less qualified got the job.
The attorney for the woman coach put up a big piece of paper and put the names of her client on one side and the name of the man who got the job on the other side and below each person she listed all the major qualifications they had. The man had two years experience as an assistant coach.
The woman had decades of experience and winning numerous awards and the team she coached winning a tremendous number of games and the players she coached winning various awards and on and on and on.
At the end the male coach had his two years as an assistant and the woman coach had the entire side filled with both individual and team accomplishments that she could be given the credit for.
The jury found that the team did discriminate against her, because no other explanation was offered and no one believed that the woman was less qualified than the man.
I realized that this is useful for weighing the evidence for and against claims.
There are many situations in which you can use this.
I would have done far better in my life regarding Scientology and a million other things if I had adopted this mindset and applied these principles with personal discipline religiously to my life.
I frankly have found it's especially useful for beliefs or an outlook that is strongly or deeply held. For most people this automatically includes religion, politics and similarly passionate or traditionally close minded beliefs.
Lots of incidents of hearing one thing from just one side and having beliefs that are not accurate can occur but if you look at the information from different sides in their best form you can often see that there is strong evidence that is credible for a different perspective or you might have an opinion that's not what Democrats or Republicans or most media say on a political issue, for example, if you have looked at information from a variety of sources.
Note: here is a link to my blog archive by topic which has almost all my older posts at the blog sorted into categories for your convenience.
I am going to include links to several articles at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology that have either been quoted in this post, or that expand on the topics introduced here.
Brainwashing: Standard Tech In Scientology
Scientology Reflections (4) 10 Years After Leaving- More Mistakes
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