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 .
Scientology's Most Obvious and Overlooked Crime - Inurement
I am going to quote an article by Jeramie Fortenberry to explain the legal term inurement.
Non-profit organizations are subject to what is known as the nondistribution constraint. Simply stated, this means that non-profit organizations cannot distribute profits to those who control it. The nondistribution constraint is the fundamental distinction between non-profit organizations from for-profit organizations.
In the Internal Revenue Code, the nondistribution constraint is embodied in the prohibition against inurement. “Inurement” is an arcane term for “benefit.” The inurement prohibition forbids the use of the income or assets of a tax-exempt organization to directly or indirectly unduly benefit an individual or other person that has a close relationship with the organization or is able to exercise significant control over the organization.
The essence of the inurement proscription is found in the language of Code § 501(c)(3), which provides that no part of a 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings can inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. Although this would clearly prohibit the distribution of dividends to those in control of the organization, the inurement prohibition is much broader than that in application. Most exempt organizations – including 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) organizations – are subject to the inurement prohibition.
The goal of the inurement prohibition is to prevent siphoning off of an exempt organization’s assets by insiders – those in control of the organization. In this context, “control” may be direct (as in the case of formal directors) or indirect (such as control over others who are officers or directors). Any time assets of the organization flow through to benefit the organization’s insiders, whether directly or directly, inurement is an issue.
The inurement restriction is absolute: An organization that violates this prohibition will not qualify (or will cease to qualify) for tax exemption regardless of whether it otherwise meets the appropriate statutory requirements for exemption. Because of the harsh nature of this rule, it has historically been enforced only in the most egregious circumstances.
Because the inurement prohibition was rarely used, Congress enacted a related set of rules that would provide an “intermediate” sanction. The intermediate sanction rules are “intermediate” in the sense that it is not as severe as outright revocation of tax exemption but does penalize the organization. The intermediate sanction regime is discussed in our section on excess benefit transactions.
In cases involving inurement, the IRS may impose the intermediate sanction penalties in lieu of or in addition to the revocation of tax exempt status. The IRS has published standards to determine how it will decide whether to revoke the 501(c)(3) status of an organization that has engaged in a transaction that constitutes both inurement and excess benefit. These standards provide that the IRS will consider all relevant facts and circumstances in making a determination of whether to revoke the tax exempt status of an organization that engages in an excess benefit transaction that constitutes inurement. Factors the IRS will consider include:
The size and scope of the organization’s regular and ongoing activities that further exempt purposes before and after one or more excess benefit transactions occurred;
The size and scope of one or more excess benefit transactions relative to the size and scope of the organization’s regular and ongoing exempt functions;
Whether the organization has been involved in repeated excess benefit transactions,
Whether the organization has implemented safeguards that are reasonably calculated to prevent future violations, and
Whether the excess benefit transaction has been corrected or the organization has made a good faith effort to seek correction from the disqualified person or persons who benefited from the excess benefit transaction.
This system effectively gives the IRS two options to enforce the nondistribution constraint. In blatant violations of the inurement prohibition, the IRS can both revoke tax exemption and impose monetary penalties under the intermediate sanction regimes. In less severe cases, the IRS may seek to correct the situation through intermediate sanctions alone.
That's a legal explanation of inurement, the CRIME of a person who controls a charity BENEFITING PERSONALLY from the charity, in the United States.
I recently listened to an episode of the Fair Game podcast with Leah Remini and Mike Rinder. Their guest was Kate Bornstein. Kate was formerly a person under a different name while in Scientology but I am not going to use that name as I am going to avoid deadnaming. If Kate or someone else chooses to use that name that is their choice, but I am simply going to make the note that Kate had a different name earlier and identified as male and now no longer identifies as male or uses that name.
So, the story goes that Kate was sent on a trip by Scientology executives to a foreign bank and a bank executive mistook Kate (who at the time could pass for male, in other words most people would assume Kate was a biological male, meaning born with male sex organs) for Ronald Hubbard and remarked that it was an honor to have Ronald Hubbard in their bank in person.
Kate Bornstein reportedly felt this was odd and after leaving the bank immediately called Scientology executives in the United States and reported that the banker had mistaken Kate (who, again probably looked like a man to the banker) for Hubbard and said it.
The reaction of the Scientology executives was reported as having Kate return to the United States and go to a Sea Org organization and get grilled by numerous executives. Kate was reportedly given the two options of either going to the RPF or being eternally expelled from Scientology. Kate was told that for eternity Scientology would be unavailable, how this could be enforced in future lives in different bodies with different names is beyond my understanding, but that is the punishment offered. Someone really wanted Kate to submit to the RPF. Kate, incidentally did not and left Scientology.
The RPF is essentially a gulag and reeducation program in which one becomes a prisoner doing hard labor, is literally fed scraps, forced to get by on four hours sleep, treated as less than human, subjected to the most overt attempt at brainwashing available in Scientology.
This is the Truth Rundown in which they are subjected to hundreds or thousands of hours of being indoctrinated with the central idea that whenever they have seen Scientology executives, particularly David Miscavige, do anything wrong, they were hallucinating and in fact the "truth" is that they have hidden crimes that cause these hallucinations!
I can't overstate the extreme control used to brainwash the subject into not believing their own eyes and ears and to readjust their minds to see Scientology and David Miscavige as ALWAYS right and anyone else who disagrees, including themselves and their own memories as WRONG if they hold any criticism of David Miscavige or Scientology or any information that David Miscavige doesn't want shared!
Now, understanding that the RPF and specifically the Truth Rundown brainwashing program have the purpose of burying and hiding or erasing and replacing information that is harmful or dangerous to Scientology as an organization is in my opinion the key to understanding WHY the fact that Kate Bornstein was mistaken for Ronald Hubbard when interacting with the foreign banking executive was something that inspired such a panic and extreme reaction.
I believe that the foreign banking executive had the evidence that Ronald Hubbard benefited personally from the vast majority of donations to Scientology and that if this was revealed then Scientology would face tremendous legal and public relations consequences.
Most people in Scientology thought that Scientology was benefiting the world and still do today. If they knew the real way the funds were and are allocated most people would stop donating money and leave simply based on this one fact.
And the results would be catastrophic for the survival of the Scientology organization on a national and international level.
Here's a quote to put the issue in context historically:
"Vicki Aznaran, who was one of Scientology's six key leaders until she bolted from the church in 1987: "This is a criminal organization, day in and day out. It makes Jim and Tammy [Bakker] look like kindergarten." To explore Scientology's reach, TIME conducted more than 150 interviews and reviewed hundreds of court records and internal Scientology documents. Church officials refused to be interviewed. The investigation paints a picture of a depraved yet thriving enterprise. Most cults fail to outlast their founder, but Scientology has prospered since Hubbard's death in 1986. In a court filing, one of the cult's many entities -- the Church of Spiritual Technology -- listed $503 million in income just for 1987. High-level defectors say the parent organization has squirreled away an estimated $400 million in bank accounts in Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Cyprus." End quote.
From Time Magazine, The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power by Richard Behar 1991
Additionally we have a quote from the historian and top expert on Scientology author Jon Atack. This is from an article entitled What Motivated L. Ron Hubbard? Historian Jon Atack Follows the Clues published at The Underground Bunker blog on August 26, 2013 by Tony Ortega.
"When Hubbard dropped his body, almost fifty years later, he had failed to spend $648 million of the monies he’d extracted from the Dev-OTs. A paltry million went to the wife who had endured prison to protect him, far less to his surviving children. But half a billion dollars went to the Church of Spiritual Technology, which lists as its corporate purpose, “To perpetuate the name L. Ron Hubbard.” Not the “technology,” just the name, please note." Jon Atack
Jon Atack pointed out that Hubbard had amassed a fortune of six hundred and forty eight million dollars back in 1986 and his Sea Org slaves often worked a hundred hours a week or more, maybe once or twice a year had a day off, were frequently not paid or paid pennies an hour, literally making perhaps thirty dollars a week on the weeks in which they were paid, often packed into filthy, cramped communal living in bunk beds jammed into crowded rooms and often fed rice and beans and given the cheapest possible living conditions including a lack of toilet paper and being encouraged to take quick showers to save money on water.
Hubbard also had a very extensive camera collection and lived a lifestyle quite different from the Sea Org members and the staff of his local organizations. David Miscavige reportedly lives a lavish lifestyle as well. His meals, clothes, living conditions and on and on are in an entirely different stratosphere from those of the vast majority of Sea Org members.
So, my ultimate point is that in my opinion, the reason that the Scientology executives panicked and wanted the fact that Kate Bornstein spoke with the foreign bank executive, however slightly and briefly, to be hidden as a secret was because Kate could potentially have been a link in a chain of EVIDENCE.
Evidence that is damning for Scientology regarding the inurement that Ronald Hubbard and now his successor David Miscavige engage in.
I have been around Scientology a long time, having been a Scientologist myself for twenty five years and left the group in 2014 and studied and written about the group since then.
I have seen that the Scientology organization has an odd habit of hiding and burying information and subjecting people to the RPF and Truth Rundown brainwashing program. By odd I mean that ONLY SOME PEOPLE are treated this way.
I have been in orgs including Sea Org orgs in Los Angeles and New York City and seen for myself that when some people try to leave Scientology or the Sea Org they are chased after, monitored, pursued and strongly discouraged, even coerced into staying. But some are just told "If you want to leave, just leave."
Some get the blow drill (blow means unauthorized departure in Scientology) and staff drop everything and in a mad panic try to find, catch, and regain physical control over a person.
It has been described by many people in accounts of escaping Scientology.
But the weird thing is that some people don't get that. In fact some are just told to sign a couple forms and they leave, get assigned a condition of doubt or something like that and told to pay a freeloader debt and go about their lives. No RPF or lengthy process to get out.
We can see that people who have been discouraged from leaving sometimes could embarrass David Miscavige, like Jenna Miscavige Hill, who was hidden, or his father Ron Miscavige who had to escape and was monitored by private investigators for years.
Debbie Cook was sued by Scientology, then when she began testifying in court as to the actual conditions under which she was held as a prisoner in the Scientology gulag, the RPF as a prisoner and when she said she was guilty (during her Scientology imprisonment on video) for the Scientology interrogation to be released from the RPF in court, Scientology immediately dropped the lawsuit and reportedly paid her a huge sum (estimates are in the six to seven figures range) and had her sign a non disclosure agreement, where just days earlier they were suing her!
Scientology (meaning the executives, Ronald Hubbard, and now in his turn David Miscavige) is willing to do just about anything to hide damaging secrets! That's well established!
I think if we look at the people hidden or imprisoned and subjected to reeducation in Scientology the pattern becomes clear. When we add the ones that a lot of time, effort, and money are used on and contrast them against the ones who are allowed to just walk away the fact that they have two or three kinds of treatment becomes obvious.
The ones who have no information, no connection to the leaders, no knowledge of crimes, no fame or anything that is a threat to Scientology organizations or David Miscavige can be turned loose without a second thought, the ones who know what could be damaging information or were connected to the upper echelon in Scientology or could embarrass or humiliate David Miscavige or know the crimes of Scientology or even bits of information that could be combined to form a threat? Those people have to be controlled by Scientology!
I think Kate Bornstein was such a threat by having knowledge that could expose the inurement committed by Ronald Hubbard and that lots of people who were in Scientology have information, sometimes without even realizing it, that if it were to be combined with other information by good investigators, attorneys, and possibly law enforcement officers or ex officers, could lead to severe consequences for Scientology as an organization and David Miscavige as an individual
I think that's the reason that David Miscavige has the internet monitored and OSA works endlessly to disrupt critics of Scientology and to cut our communication with each other.
I think David Miscavige KNOWS that lots of us have bits of information that alone, and without knowledge of the law and how law enforcement proceeds, are not effective, especially if we don't share them or just make an isolated post or comment without context or supporting evidence, but that he has millions of bits of evidence for thousands and thousands of crimes that are out in the world, in the memories of thousands of ex Scientologists, that could if the right combination of pieces ever were put together in the right way, whether by a journalist or a FBI agent or attorney or prosecutor or official in the IRS or someone else, could result in the end of life as he knows it, it could take him to a new condition defined by the revelation of information and the subsequent actions that a government takes.
I don't think he is worried about losing individual parishioners or Scientology shrinking or the technology not being applied. I think the whole ideal org program is designed to prevent charges of inurement and simultaneously fool people in Scientology into thinking it is expanding. It is meant to con two different groups of people.
I think Kate Bornstein has exposed what David Miscavige fears and is actually all about. I also think that a group of people who want the crimes and abuses of Scientology to be reduced or ended should devote some of their time, attention, and resources to gathering the bits and pieces of evidence available that David Miscavige, Hubbard, and other Scientology executives have worked to keep hidden, and having qualified experts in the appropriate fields, including forensic accounting, law enforcement, fraud, human trafficking and on and on be involved in collecting and evaluating the evidence. I think this effort could pay tremendous dividends.
Scientology's Dark Messiah Ronald Hubbard-The Mystery, Myth, and Method Behind His Madness part 1
I have just finished reading a post at The Underground Bunker blog by Tony Ortega.
Why does Scientology lie about founder L. Ron Hubbard’s supposed war wounds?
By Chris Owen | December 13, 2021
Chris Owens has written many superb articles on Scientology and I recommend that anyone interested in the subject read as many as you can find.
Chris Owens brings up the myth that Ronald Hubbard was injured in combat in World War II and developed Dianetics and Scientology as a direct result of his miraculous recovery from his alleged war wounds which left him crippled and blinded.
The myth is a central idea in Scientology. That can't be overstated. But, it's not the only one, by far and not the most important one regarding the sacred status that Hubbard holds in the minds of his followers.
I want to point out the beliefs that were described to me by the Scientologists that I knew personally in my own twenty five years in Scientology. I was in from about 1988 to 2014.
I started out at a local organization called commonly an org. These are the organizations in major cities and often have in theory the ability to deliver services to the level right below the services exclusive to the Sea Org organizations that deliver services. In reality they often lack both the number of staff and the training necessary for those staff to deliver everything they are intended to deliver. The staff in these organizations were usually on either two and a half or five year contracts during my time in Scientology. There are exceptions but I won't get into all the details here.
This is being written to add a bit of perspective that I see expressed rarely by most ex Scientologists, certainly in most biographies and articles.
Hubbard played the role of a messiah to many Scientologists. Messiah has an origin and definition from Jewish religion and culture, it also has a definition that is broader that means a savior or promised or foreseen leader. Hubbard was not Jewish, he was treated as the savior of humanity by many Scientologists. This is not an exaggeration.
In Buddhism there is the idea of a person who has achieved personal spiritual awareness great enough to transcend the material plane and move on who has chosen to remain here to save others.
Scientology has a corresponding role for Hubbard. It was explained to me by several people. I want to emphasize this is what several Scientologists believe in, not exactly what you might find in the doctrine.
You can find many parts that imply that the beliefs that these people held are the natural conclusions that anyone should draw from studying Scientology doctrine and connecting the dots for yourself.
This in my opinion is actually by design.
Hubbard over and over explained numerous superhuman abilities that are supposed to be regained as one goes up the Scientology bridge and that he pioneered the bridge himself, so it's a natural conclusion for people to believe that Hubbard gained all these abilities for himself and in fact has even more that he either has not revealed or only discussed in confidential issues that he has restricted to unreleased upper level courses that are intended to be released at some point in the future.
I remember a person who was at one time a Sea Org member and the executive director at a local org. She explained to me her outlook which seems to have been held by a couple dozen or so Scientologists that I knew at the time, as a rough guess. This was back around 1990 or so.
She believed that Hubbard was an unusual being who recently arrived in this universe. Scientology has a very Gnostic core idea that spirits came to this physical universe and through existing here over the course of the equivalent to perhaps a billion human lifetimes deteriorated from a state of being a God, that had its own universe before coming to the physical universe and in that prior universe was all knowing and all powerful and that back in that universe was creating everything that existed by decision. If that universe was of a size comparable to the physical universe it could have had billions of galaxies with billions of stars and planets in each galaxy and living creatures and plants and everything else in this or any possible physical universe and been entirely the creation of the spirit that had that universe to itself. The idea is that each individual spirit served as the God of the entire home universe it had to itself. I use the pronoun "it" because Scientology doctrine has the specific claim that spirits have no gender and in fact any gender is either just a trait of a body or an assumed identity and not the true identity of a spirit.
The idea goes that through a particular series of misunderstandings and misadventures the spirit lost its God level abilities and awareness. But Hubbard is seen as far more recently arrived in this universe and far more capable than most people, as in very close to God in power and it is implied that he was much closer to this than the rest of us.
The Executive Director (ED) explained that Hubbard was blinded and crippled from his war wounds and in his research he cured himself from his wounds, restored his sight and took himself to clear in his research that would result in Dianetics.
The story goes that Hubbard gained more insight as he delivered Dianetics and from 1950 to 1952 he somehow magically had researched the abilities of a spirit and attained a godlike state and he could have left the physical universe in his enlightened state and instead chose to stay among us mere mortals to teach us how to get the results he did.
We are talking about the myth of Hubbard being able to leave the physical universe permanently and go back to being a God for eternity in his own universe, free from human flaws and suffering forever but choosing to stay in our universe that has pain and suffering, out of pure kindness and compassion and the kindness he has for everyone else.
So, right there he takes on the role of savior of humanity. He proposed that this universe is set up to trap spirits and cause them to become so degraded that they forget that they are Gods and most of their abilities and past and further to get trapped into being human over and over, perhaps a billion times, and finally to get so degraded they can't even be reborn as a human anymore and to be in amnesia, blind, and in pain, for eternity.
Yep, he warned that you are not only trapped in a cycle of pain and suffering as a human being, which some earlier religions have already proposed, he took it a step further, giving anyone who is not saved by Scientology a kind of personal hell to be afraid of, as it's hard to imagine any fate worse than being disembodied, blind, deaf, in pain and lacking awareness of who you are, what you are, and why you are suffering. And of course you have no way to escape this doom, other than Scientology. Convenient for his marketing!
So, the story goes that by 1952 Hubbard was able to discover within himself a way to regain Godhood.
Now the story gets kind of far fetched, but I personally don't believe in it at all now, though I like the people around me did for many years. So, just try to follow it and think of it as a fiction that other people believe in and just realize that those people may be thousands of Scientologists. No guarantees and I never got an exact number of people who believe all this.
So, supposedly Hubbard was auditing people and could see the thoughts of other people ( I know it's not easy to understand that lots of people believed this whole story) and he could telepathically awaken their spiritual abilities, so he had a walk in the park when he tried to get other people to reawaken their superhuman spiritual abilities. I remember that ED, we can call ED 1, told me that Hubbard could "see" the mental images (thoughts) of other people naturally, so he could do things in auditing that normal people couldn't.
So, his development of Scientology was explained as an effort to get other people to be able to get results in auditing and training comparable to what Hubbard himself could do by 1950 to 1952. Yep, the God maker was supposed to be both a God with a capital G himself and capable of personally making Gods out of others but realized that due to time constraints he would need to get others up to the job and routinely succeeding at both auditing people up to this state and up to training others to in turn do the job, making it so that people separated from Hubbard by several degrees of separation could do what he (allegedly) did.
The whole development of Scientology training, auditing, administration, was meant to be the heroic story of how the extra competent supreme being of Hubbard was overcoming the challenge of getting us lesser beings to be able to replicate his miracles and through an organization get others to do it as well.
The difficulties with Scientology were not attributed to Hubbard or his technology, both far too sacred for criticism, and instead it was to be understood that the poor quality of humanity was the obstacle, never any flaws in Hubbard as he was described as having none, and never any in his technology, as it would reflect poorly on him to suggest that his creation deserved criticism of any kind. No, none of that would have been acceptable. His students were blamed for any lack of results, conveniently for Hubbard.
In her estimation, ED 1 believed that Hubbard originally developed a path he followed from disabled man to superhuman in the years before 1950 as he recovered from his blindness and war wounds and that from 1950 to 1952 he ascended from superhuman to God and with Scientology sought to raise others to this state and to create a system that mere human beings could use to replicate his results.
The story goes that all the work from 1952 and on had this direction as Hubbard tried to develop a system so idiot proof that humans who Hubbard described as far, far, far, far beneath himself could have the tiniest fraction of the smartest and most aware fraction of humanity work as hard as they possibly could and bit by bit, on a gradual scale work themselves up to a level of ability, education, and awareness where they could follow Hubbard's directions and create the miraculous results that he did.
Look at it as saying that you are trying to get a person to do something reasonable, say you have a very drunk friend who is drinking far too much far too often and you are trying to help them to do beneficial things, like go home, take a shower, put on clean clothes, have some coffee and breakfast to help them wake up and sober up and the whole issue is that they are so drunk, so out of it, so oblivious that they are not capable of clear thinking and even listening to you. You are perfectly reasonable and your instructions are reasonable, the sad state of the poor wretch you are trying to help is the whole problem.
That's a core belief in Scientology. What makes Scientology hard is not any flaws in Scientology technology or indoctrination or Hubbard or his ideas or methods, but in the low state of the human beings and the society that he has to work with. It is a convenient excuse for any difficulties or failures in Scientology!
It's also an excuse for endless amounts of doctrine and method after method to sell to people, the problem is not the methods, it's that people are so severely degraded and out of it that more and more technology has to be developed to pull us up out of the depths of delusion that we are buried in. Of course it portrays us as almost hopeless and our savior Hubbard as more and more giving, devoted, effective, and heroic the more he extends the runway of courses and services we must purchase and complete in Scientology!
The story goes that Hubbard came to the degraded physical universe relatively recently and in this current lifetime as Ronald Hubbard he was able to pioneer recovery and develop Dianetics in the 1940s and Scientology initially to regain Godhood in 1950 to 1952, and further development was to help others and create organizations that are capable of recreation of his own results.
The myth goes that Hubbard in 1966 and 1967 carefully looked at portions of the whole track (entire memory of the spirit, which may go back hundreds of quadrillions of years to many earlier universes in the Scientology cosmology) to help others and he discovered a trap of hidden and booby trapped portion of the past, many millions of years ago and in other incidents that are linked to each other in some way and that Hubbard faced this hidden trap that was designed to cause everyone to behave in certain ways and never remember the past as well as either die or go insane if they were able to contact or recall these incidents to any degree.
This in essence describes the promotion of the upper courses, the confidential secret doctrine in Scientology called OT III and to get to this one must complete many other courses and get a lot if Scientology auditing usually, there are rare exceptions, but most people don't ever get to this point in Scientology and in fact probably 95 to 99% of the people in Scientology NEVER see the OT III materials while in Scientology.
The explanation that I gave is in part the promotional material that is allowed to be seen by all Scientologists and it is used to promise something that is essentially a mystery and encourages the individual Scientologist to use their own imagination to inspire them to reach for the mystery.
ED 1 believed that Hubbard overcame the traps that were placed in our distant past and she imagined that the only thing that could be on the upper levels was in her opinion whole track overts. Overts in Scientology represent evil acts, called sins in many other practices. Whole track overts would include things like blowing up planets, wiping out universes, destroying species and races, enslaving worlds and intergalactic empires, torturing spirits for billions or trillions of years and similar acts. Genocide and atrocities of unimaginable scale are on this list, things like destroying a galaxy with hundreds of worlds that each have billions of sentient beings are on the list. Star Wars and Dune and Star Trek have the idea but in Scientology it is on a far grander scale, for each individual spirit in their own history. And portrayed as cold blooded fact, not fiction.
Now the actual content of the upper levels, the OT levels from OT III to OT VIII are as far as I know primarily concerned with disembodied spirits from earlier planets and civilizations that are subject to telepathic exorcism and removed from the individual in Scientology. The introduction of these spirits from alien civilizations gives Hubbard a way to keep on selling more and more services to people who have supposedly removed the barriers to mental perfection in themselves and to endlessly find more and more of these things to remove.
After all, you can have an unlimited number of spirits tied to a person and an unlimited number of past incidents to overcome in your nearly eternal spiritual past.
But I must emphasize that the vast majority of people that I knew in Scientology never got to these secret, confidential, upper levels and so we had the odd situation of a couple dozen Scientologists who actually did OT III to OT VIII who know about the exorcism of ancient spirits from earlier civilizations on other planets and the majority of people at the org who were only guessing (incorrectly) what waits on the upper levels. They could listen to hundreds of taped lectures in Scientology on the OT abilities and whole track space opera stories and guests that this is the material taken up, but they were way off base if they didn't have the idea of exorcism as the main activity that awaited them.
So, you have the vast majority who think that Scientology is one thing and the elite who know that from OT III on you are getting into the exorcism of ancient spirits from alien civilizations and they interact in odd ways.
ED 1 believed that Hubbard overcame special traps to create OT III and it is called the wall of fire in Scientology and There is a second wall of fire on OT V and finally a third on the original OT VIII called the Anti Christ edition.
The promotional materials in Scientology describe the three walls of fire as special traps for spirits created long ago that you have to do the Scientology OT levels to overcome and regain your abilities as an immortal spiritual being and escape the fate of becoming a disembodied spirit that is permanently, eternally, blind, with no memories, no hearing, in pain and deaf and unable to ever escape that fate.
In Scientology the material covered in OT III was described as so dangerous that in researching it Ronald Hubbard almost died and his body barely survived the ordeal. In truth, he was a drug addict and alcoholic and had a motorcycle accident and inured himself but could not admit that was hurt riding a motorcycle, which happens to mere mortals.
The funny thing is that a drunk and drug addict who was already in poor health had a motorcycle accident and injuries that would take several months to recover and he retreated from reality into fantasy and portrayed himself as a hero and literally a savior of the human race, a savior from spiritual ruin and in fact one who would make us into Gods and give us an eternity as Gods! Pretty impressive as false promises go, if you are going to give empty promises why not go big?
The contents of OT III and much of the upper levels has a remarkable resemblance to the occult and in particular the work of Aleister Crowley and the occult text the OAHSPE and comic books about a character named Xemnu.
I must remark that I was skeptical about Scientology being based on the OAHSPE but ended up reading a very extensive analysis of the OAHSPE and the upper levels of Scientology and realized from that information and my own twenty five years in Scientology that the amount of similarities between Scientology and the OAHSPE and the strength of the similarities including concepts take verbatim such as the phrase wall of fire and many, many, many others that it is extremely likely that somehow Hubbard got ideas whether directly or indirectly that were already in the OAHSPE before Hubbard was born. The fact that over fifty concepts appear both in the OAHSPE and in Dianetics and Scientology and these are very specific and unusual ideas is well worth examining at length in my opinion. To be precise, these are ideas in the official doctrine of Dianetics and Scientology itself.
I published the series of blog posts OT III And Beyond: Sources Plagiarized From Parts 1, 2, and 3 at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology diving deep into this topic.
So, in 1967 Hubbard created the myth of himself as the literal savior of humanity who bravely crossed the wall of fire in his research and nearly died, but persisted through the pain and torment, so others would not have to face this obstacle out of pure love for others.
In this way Hubbard took on a Christ like image in Scientology, but Hubbard of course is a petulant, belligerent, immature and ultimately jealous wannabe God and so-called God maker.
He has said both that there was no Christ in a taped lecture and on OT VIII the Anti Christ edition Hubbard claimed that Christ was a lover of men and young boys. I am no religious expert but believe it's difficult to both not exist and to be a paedophile.
But the people in Scientology that I knew genuinely saw Hubbard as a messiah. I recall one tape in which Hubbard said the closest he came to quitting was admitting that God himself couldn't do the job that Hubbard has done in Scientology! Quite modest to admit that you are superior to God! If that is not being humble, what is?
I recall another Executive Director that I knew who explained his perspective on Hubbard. Like many, many people in Scientology he considered Hubbard the smartest person who ever walked the earth, which is a sentiment echoed by tens of thousands of Scientologists, they routinely consider Hubbard the most brilliant, kind, and ethical person to ever live.
Executive Director 2 had the same idea that Hubbard had about Hubbard being superior to God. He explained that he believed that long ago, billions of years or longer, some spirit created this universe and had it as a kind of shared universe with multiple spirits having access to it, as opposed to different kinds of earlier universes and of the course the original universe that each spirit started out in as the only spirit present in which they were God, for how long? No one knows, it could have been an eternity or near eternity or it could have been a universe that was so different from our physical universe that all time was different from how we experience it.
A lot of Scientologists believe that either one powerful spirit, God, or several spirits together, long ago made this physical universe and somehow it got away from their control and degraded into a place that is extremely inhospitable to spirits and that they are trapped in and suffer greatly in.
ED 2 said that he thinks of God as the creator of this universe and that he believes God at some point got bored or disappointed with how this universe turned out and left. He sees God as sort of like a slum lord that has given up on his property and left the inhabitants to suffer whatever fate befalls them.
He sees it as a situation in which God abandoned his responsibilities and left everyone and everything in the universe. Of course in his eyes Hubbard came here to save everyone and pick up the hat that God dropped. He also oddly revered Hubbard as a perfect being. We have Scientology doctrine that describes the fact that other religions have told people to not do evil and that beings make mistakes and they need to know what to do when they have done this. He made it clear that all beings commit evil acts and they need to know how to deal with this afterwards, quite explicitly. Of course ED 2 had a different view.
I pointed out this to ED 2 and he simply said that there is no way Hubbard will ever do anything wrong. EVER. FOR ALL ETERNITY. If that's not blind devotion, I don't know what is.
Imagine if Jesus said that every single being does evil, and didn't exclude himself from that category and a loyal Christian said that he disagreed with Jesus Christ and knew that Jesus would never do anything wrong! That would be a pretty devoted Christian!
That's the mindset of numerous Scientologists.
We had a group of staff, maybe a half dozen to a dozen and a half over a period of a year or so and if you have ever seen the American version of the TV show The Office and seen how Dwight and Andy try to outdo each other at flattering their boss Michael Scott then you can see the same thing taken to absurd lengths in Scientology.
We would have a person say that Hubbard could clear anyone! Meaning cause a transformation in that person to a saner and more enlightened state! Then another person, not to be outdone another staff member said Hubbard could instantly transform ALL the people on earth and remove their reactive minds BUT they would be so disoriented by the sudden change that they would be confused, so they need to go through Scientology auditing and training to gradually change, so they can accept and understand the changes they are creating for themselves. This would go on and on with people recalling lectures in which Hubbard described various abilities that OTs are meant to have eons ago like moving planets and stars and creating them and creating life and causing evolution to occur and on and on and just about anything that any God or character in mythology ever did becomes an ability that we could assume Hubbard has attained and surpassed.
It really is hard to get across quite how powerful, perfect, brilliant, infallible and above human was seen as being.
Now, you might think that a few people felt this way and the vast majority of people in Scientology didn't feel this way. But it doesn't make sense. Lots of people used the same extreme terms and concepts to describe Hubbard and the same extreme black and white thinking about how great and never wrong, never limited by ignorance or experience or any other human limitations Hubbard was in all their speeches and written communication on Hubbard and I found this in several different regimes of a local org and we had different EDs and executives and course supervisors and auditors, at various times the staff turned over entirely with new people coming in and old leaving and in group after group after group the idea of Hubbard as messiah was taken for granted as a given, again and again and again.
I found this to be even more true in New York City in the Excalibur building, which is filled with Scientology Sea Org executives at the Continental level, and the same thing was true in Los Angeles at the International Training Organization and the Big Blue Building. I was there during a training for hundreds of students who were being trained to deliver a couple of courses and they have Sea Org members who are the most zealous and fanatical members.
You can look at the terms and framing used to describe Hubbard and the more familiar you are with Scientology terms and practices the more clear it becomes that Hubbard is revered by many thousands of Scientologists as a genuine messiah. They often balk at the description and say that they know Hubbard never said he was a messiah but he over and over and over IMPLIED that he must be the savior of mankind as he says that he alone created Scientology and that Scientology is the only hope for humanity and the technology is his exclusive creation. A creator and presenter of the only way to save mankind would by definition be a savior.
But Hubbard rather than say "I am a savior!", "I am God! Worship me!" took one step away from that and repeatedly described Scientology as infallible, always working when applied correctly, as raising the dead literally, as making the insane sane literally, as solving virtually every problem, as finding the real underlying truth in ever situation and being more true and more relevant to every single situation that anything or anyone can ever possibly experience, with no exceptions and you are left to connect the dots between the miracles that Scientology is supposed to provide and the status of the miracle maker himself in Hubbard!
We have quite a few ex Scientologists and ex Sea Org members who deny ever seeing Hubbard as a messiah but honestly you should not be on Scientology staff or in the Sea Org and should have quite a bit of trouble passing Scientology courses if you don't believe that Hubbard via Scientology is saving humanity. If someone is literally saving humanity by giving them a unique and miraculous technology then by definition that person is a savior.
If they are hesitant to use the term messiah because of an association with Judaism or Christianity they have to accept that a word can have more than one definition and messiah does.
I think that part of the reluctance comes from having to admit that you believed a pathological liar and con man was the messiah makes you look bad and that some people frankly are in denial about how thoroughly they were duped by Scientology.
I have seen numerous exchanges between ex Scientologists who claim they just "tried" Scientology without ever "really believing any of it" and were never fooled like other people! If you ask these people about their time in Scientology they may have spent five to ten to thirty years in Scientology.
One guy might have spent a half million dollars and hundreds of hours in Scientology auditing and hundreds of hours in Scientology indoctrination as part of his "skeptical trial" of Scientology!
Another person may have disconnected from their family, quit their career and spent fifteen years as a Scientology staff member and given up the love of their life, all their friends, their hobbies, even their pets and favorite music are set aside for Scientology, but remember, they "never really believed!"
We have many other similar examples, people endured horrible treatment, no pay, low pay, virtual slavery and on and on and after leaving say they were not really devoted and never really believed! I have to call bullshit for some of these people!
Only you know your own thoughts but it is not believable that ALL these people coincidentally gave up everything and devoted themselves completely to a cause and a leader they never believed in as a "skeptical trial!"
These people gave years of their lives, thousands of hours of labor, endured terrible treatment, and lost their families and their lives very often for Scientology and if they believed in Scientology enough to do that then why wouldn't they believe in Hubbard as well? It just is the only sensible explanation!
So, to sum up, a lot of people in Scientology believes in Hubbard as a savior, a man who transcended human limitations and chose to selflessly stay in our universe of pain and suffering that is highly inhospitable to spirits and dangerous to deliver eternal salvation to everyone.
He is portrayed as overcoming human limitations to heal himself from war wounds after serving heroically in World War II and finding a miraculous way to overcome being crippled and blinded. This sounds pretty good, but why not double and triple down? Hubbard additionally added the idea that he heroically faced something from the far past in his research on the OT III materials and faced the wall of fire and went through it, nearly dying and overcoming death itself to bring back a sacred method to free others eternally as spirits, this is his step into really overly being described as messianic by his deeds. He stepped it up in the materials for OT VIII the Anti Christ edition and obviously tried to both degrade Christ as a child molester AND elevate himself to be the real savior in a Lucifer role that saves humanity.
Ultimately his affirmations in my opinion are essential to decipher his intentions as these were his private self hypnosis commands for himself meant to only be seen by himself.
Ultimately I wanted to provide information to express how we in Scientology had a genuine belief that Hubbard was a messiah and that the belief was not centered on his alleged miraculous recovery from fictional war wounds, it is centered on his alleged transcendence of human limitations and his choice to stay mortal and further face and cross the three walls of fire on OT III, OT V, and finally OT VIII and his denigration and replacement of Christ as the savior of humanity. In his mythology, healing himself is merely the first of many alleged miracles, it's just a warm up to far bigger things that are the core of his identity in Scientology.
Is Scientology a cult? Why is it not classified as a cult, and why or why not?
There are several helpful models put forth by cult experts and Scientology fulfills them quite well.
Here are a few.
Scientology Viewed Through The BITE model by Steven Hassan
Taking A BITE Out Of Scientology Part 1 The BITE Model
“Mind control is the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition and/or behavioral outcomes. It is neither magical nor mystical, but a process that involves a set of basic social psychological principles. Conformity, compliance, persuasion, dissonance, reactance, guilt and fear arousal, modeling and identification are some of the staple social influence ingredients well studied in psychological experiments and field studies. In some combinations, they create a powerful crucible of extreme mental and behavioral manipulation when synthesized with several other real-world factors, such as charismatic, authoritarian leaders, dominant ideologies, social isolation, physical debilitation, induced phobias, and extreme threats or promised rewards that are typically deceptively orchestrated, over an extended time period in settings where they are applied intensively.” ― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults
“Psychotherapy/educational cults, which have enjoyed great popularity, purport to give the participant “insight” and “enlightenment.” Commercial cults play on people’s desires to make money. They typically promise riches but actually enslave people, and compel them to turn money over to the group. None of these destructive cults deliver what they promise and glittering dreams eventually turn out to be paths to psychological enslavement.” ― Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults
"I’d like to state that I believe that people involved with destructive cults are as a generalization, intelligent, idealistic, kind, warm, loving, creative, wonderful people. And I resent the kind of blame-the-victim mentality that exists in the media, exists in society today, that “Oh those crazy people in Waco, they wanted to be controlled, they wanted to be raped, they wanted to have their liberties curtailed.” Nonsense! These people were, in my opinion, mind-controlled by David Koresh.
I want to give you my definition of a destructive cult: “a pyramid-structured authoritarian group with someone or some group at the top that has total power, and that uses mind control techniques to recruit and indoctrinate people to be dependent and obedient.” I define mind control in terms of four components or B.I.T.E.: control of behavior; control of information; control of thoughts and control of emotions.."
I’d also like to say that it doesn’t matter what the belief system is. My focus is on the methodology of practices of groups. And so a group could be a religious destructive cult. It could be a political destructive cult. It could be a therapy destructive cult. It could be a business destructive cult. If these controls of behavior, including control of sleep, food, privacy, rules and regulations, not allowing people to be alone, not allowing people to see their families, not allowing people to read letters of critics, of seeing people outside, inculcating thought-stopping techniques." Steven Hassan
"For example, with Scientology, this is an organization that says, “We are a religion! We are a religion!” But you can’t know what the upper level beliefs are, what the OT beliefs are, until you’ve gone up through all of the courses, because if you find out that information before you’re ready, you will die. That’s what they teach. So you’re getting involved with an organization, whose upper level of the pyramid, you don’t even know what their beliefs are. And by the way, one of the big ones is, that 75 million years ago, there was a galactic confederation of planets, with Xenu, a despotic dictator, who was trying to solve the overpopulation problem, so he was brought many beings to the planet Earth ? then called Teageak? and dropped them into volcanoes. Then hydrogen bombs were dropped on them, separating their thetan (or spirit) from their physical form. That is why “Dianetics” has a volcano on the cover, to supposedly stimulate our memories of past lives. What sane person, intelligent person, would join a religion with that belief? But you see, nobody knows that until years later, and tens of thousands of dollars later, but I’m telling you this story as related by the documents from former top officials who’ve left. And I think that makes it a very different animal from the Catholic Church or other so-called mainstream religions. But I abhor any totalitarian system that undermines people’s spirits." Steven Hassan
" The government exists around laws, and if a group isn’t breaking laws, then the government shouldn’t be involved. Do I think the law needs to be updated, to include the fact that there is hypnosis, for example, that people can be manipulated without the use of a gun, or without the use of external force, to do things that are destructive? Yes, I think the law should be updated to include that, but not until there are universal methods for evaluating that, that can be applicable in order to preserve freedom. And by the way, I think the baseline document to read is the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And if destructive cults supported the human rights in that document, I wouldn’t be up here criticizing them. Because they don’t." Steven Hassan
Three quotes above from Branch Davidians - WACO: The Government’s Failure to Understand Destructive Cults Transcript of Lecture at Harvard University Science Center February 27th 1994 by Steven Hassan From Freedom of Mind Resource Center
I have often been asked about how to evaluate if a group is a cult and how can anyone distinguish what is or is not a cult ? It's not all religions or any big religion. What makes a cult a cult is not the presence or absence of religious beliefs or unusual ones.
Cults are groups that use abuse and deception and try to completely or nearly completely control the thoughts, beliefs and emotions of their members. In past posts I have discussed how the eight criteria for thought reform by Robert Jay Lifton are an excellent resource for evaluating and understanding cults. His work is very informative and concise.
I have also referred to
Dr. Margaret T. Singer's
6 Conditions for Thought Reform and recommend her book Cults In Our Midst and her videos.
In addition to those two great references I should add the BITE model by Steven Hassan. BITE stands for Behavior control, Information control, Thought control, and Emotion control. Cults use control of the behavior, Information, thoughts and emotions of their members. I have quoted the bite model and put it in blue. I will describe some of the ways the model is accurate in describing the Scientology cult as an example. For one reason the Scientology cult has many, many thousands of cult methods combined and it makes an easy choice as a cult that epitomizes the methods such groups use. Additionally I was in Scientology for twenty five years and have in two years since leaving the cult spent hundreds of hours examining it. So it's what I know best of any cultic group.
BITE model by Steven Hassan Quoted from Freedom of Mind site
Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Cult Mind Control
Many people think of mind control as an ambiguous, mystical process that cannot be defined in concrete terms. In reality, mind control refers to a specific set of methods and techniques, such as hypnosis or thought- stopping, that influence how a person thinks, feels, and acts. Like many bodies of knowledge, it is not inherently good or evil. If mind control techniques are used to empower an individual to have more choice, and authority for his life remains within himself, the effects can be beneficial. For example, benevolent mind control can be used to help people quit smoking without affecting any other behavior. Mind control becomes destructive when the locus of control is external and it is used to undermine a person’s ability to think and act independently.
As employed by the most destructive cults, mind control seeks nothing less than to disrupt an individual’s authentic identity and reconstruct it in the image of the cult leader. I developed the BITE model to help people determine whether or not a group is practicing destructive mind control. The BITE model helps people understand how cults suppress individual member's uniqueness and creativity. BITE stands for the cult's control of an individual's Behavior, Intellect, Thoughts, and Emotions.
It is important to understand that destructive mind control can be determined when the overall effect of these four components promotes dependency and obedience to some leader or cause. It is not necessary for every single item on the list to be present. Mindcontrolled cult members can live in their own apartments, have nine-to-five jobs, be married with children, and still be unable to think for themselves and act independently.
1. Regulate individual’s physical reality 2. Dictate where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates or isolates 3. When, how and with whom the member has sex 4. Control types of clothing and hairstyles 5. Regulate diet - food and drink, hunger and/or fasting 6. Manipulation and deprivation of sleep 7. Financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence 8. Restrict leisure, entertainment, vacation time 9. Major time spent with group indoctrination and rituals and/or self indoctrination including the Internet 10. Permission required for major decisions 11. Thoughts, feelings, and activities (of self and others) reported to superiors 12. Rewards and punishments used to modify behaviors, both positive and negative 13. Discourage individualism, encourage group-think 14. Impose rigid rules and regulations 15. Instill dependency and obedience
Information Control
1. Deception: a. Deliberately withhold information b. Distort information to make it more acceptable c. Systematically lie to the cult member 2. Minimize or discourage access to non-cult sources of information, including: a. Internet, TV, radio, books, articles, newspapers, magazines, other media b.Critical information c. Former members d. Keep members busy so they don’t have time to think and investigate e. Control through cell phone with texting, calls, internet tracking 3. Compartmentalize information into Outsider vs. Insider doctrines a. Ensure that information is not freely accessible b.Control information at different levels and missions within group c. Allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when 4. Encourage spying on other members a. Impose a buddy system to monitor and control member b.Report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership c. Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group 5. Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including: a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies and other media b.Misquoting statements or using them out of context from non-cult sources 6. Unethical use of confession a. Information about sins used to disrupt and/or dissolve identity boundaries b. Withholding forgiveness or absolution c. Manipulation of memory, possible false memories
8. Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism 9. Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy allowed 10. Labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful
Emotional Control
1. Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings – some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish 2. Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt 3. Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault 4. Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as a. Identity guilt b. You are not living up to your potential c. Your family is deficient d. Your past is suspect e. Your affiliations are unwise f. Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish g. Social guilt h. Historical guilt 5. Instill fear, such as fear of: a. Thinking independently b. The outside world c. Enemies d. Losing one’s salvation e. Leaving or being shunned by the group f. Other’s disapproval 6. Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner 7. Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins 8. Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority a. No happiness or fulfillment possible outside of the group b. Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc. c. Shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family d. Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll e. Threats of harm to ex-member and family End quote by Steven Hassan
Note: Cult expert Rick Ross recently made the following comment on the origin of the bite model:
FYI -- The BITE model is taken from other earlier sources. BITE represents B for behavior as already identified through the academic writings of Singer, Ofshe and others. I is for information as identified by Conway and Siegelman in "Snapping," which they called "Information Disease" (1978). T is for thinking identified by Lifton as thought reform (1961). And finally E is for emotional control, which was identified by Conway and Siegelman in their book "Holy Terror" (1982). I find that acknowledging and using the original material is much better, more precise and useful than spinning it with a new label without proper attribution. It's very important when writing to include footnotes that give proper credit to the originators of ideas and theories by recognizing their hard work and research.
Behavior Control
1. Regulate individual’s physical reality In Scientology this is practiced to a degree with all types of members. The public cult members have rules that escalate over time. The staff have stricter control and the Sea Org members have extreme control. 2. Dictate where, how, and with whom the member lives and associates or isolates. For public they are forbidden from associating with outcasts from the cult or critics which the cult labels Suppressive Persons. Inevitably the family members of cult members that don't completely agree with the cult are treated as Suppressive Persons and almost all Scientologists are pressured to disconnect from them. The extent escalates for staff and Sea Org members must comply or be expelled. 3. When, how and with whom the member has sex Scientology practices very extreme sexual control and judgment of all members. The members are convinced the E-meter can find any thoughts or secrets they have and so normal privacy is eradicated. In Scientology doctrine all sexuality is ultimately condemned. Masturbation is treated as evil. Homosexuality is treated as evil. Both are treated as perverted. Some public Scientologists are encouraged to only have sex with their spouses if married.
Staff are forbidden from being promiscuous or homosexual. Sea Org members can be ordered to get divorced by executives or transferred to separate organizations which require their members to only have spouses in the same organization. 4. Control types of clothing and hairstyles For public the cult has at times encouraged looking professional and successful to make Scientology look good. I remember several times as a public student being told to wear nice clothes.
The staff face more control and have limited hairstyles and many now wear uniforms. The Sea Org members as usual have even more extreme control and usually must wear uniforms and look very professional. 5. Regulate diet - food and drink, hunger and/or fasting Public members have some dietary restrictions. They have to pass a metabolism test when receiving auditing. The test is on the E-meter. To pass it one must consume a lot of calories. Drinking alcohol is best given up as one can't study or receive auditing with any alcohol in them.
Sea Org members due to extreme poverty and being virtual slaves must depend on the cult for all food. If the cult punishes them with just beans and rice for months they must make do. 6. Manipulation and deprivation of sleep Here's where the control is turned way up. Public are told to be well rested and usually encouraged to get at least eight hours of sleep. Staff often get less rest as they sometimes work sixty to a hundred hours a week for the cult. And as most of them receive little or no pay many work an additional forty hours a week at another job to pay their bills. The Sea Org members often get four hours sleep a day for months at a time. In particular members on the internal prison RPF often reported working shifts of thirty hours on with three hours off.
Some reported being in a haze for months at a time due to extreme sleep deprivation. 7. Financial exploitation, manipulation or dependence The signature of Scientology. Public are routinely pressured to donate savings, max out credit cards and even sell possessions including houses, businesses and cars to donate money to Scientology. Many go bankrupt to keep getting accepted by the cult. Staff get exploited by being tricked into working for no pay, or a pittance. Sea Org members get very low or no pay and become entirely vulnerable to further exploitation. They require housing and food which they are told only the cult will provide. Total dependence to enslave them until death is the goal. 8. Restrict leisure, entertainment, vacation time This varies within different groups. Scientology ultimately is a slave caste system with only the leader meant to actually be free. For wealthy and famous Scientologists lots of leeway is given. For many public Scientologists the experience is a progressive encouragement to give the cult more and more time. Entertainment is limited to discourage anything that ridicules or criticizes Scientology.
Staff have their time extensively limited. And Sea Org members have extreme control and get virtually no leisure time usually. They often go many decades without vacation. 9. Major time spent with group indoctrination and rituals and/or self indoctrination including the Internet Scientology cult members usually spend many hours in cult indoctrination through courses and auditing. Public are encouraged to spend at least twelve to forty hours a week receiving indoctrination. Staff are encouraged to spend twelve hours on course or forty to eighty hours if they are in full-time training. Sea Org members can be required to spend even more time on indoctrination. 10. Permission required for major decisions Public have to clear changes in schedule or leaving the cult with the cult. Staff are rigidly controlled and find leaving virtually impossible. Sea Org members find almost all major decisions require permission. 11. Thoughts, feelings, and activities (of self and others) reported to superiors Here Scientology really excels. Because the cult members believe nothing can remain hidden from the E-meter and they are required to tell on each other for hundreds of offenses. They have to write up themselves and others in very detailed reports. They often don't hide anything as they see that as another offense. 12. Rewards and punishments used to modify behaviors, both positive and negative Again a stark contrast is found. In Scientology the leader is the only person immune to punishment. Wealthy and famous Scientologists get extreme rewards. They get gifts, praise and giant trophies for donating fortunes and getting positive press for the cult.
In Scientology someone who is in favor with the cult is forgiven virtually anything, including crimes and murder. They are strongly rewarded. But if one is out of favor the punishment can be severe, in fact brutal. People out of favor are often cast aside and expelled. The cult ruins them utterly as a matter of course. 13. Discourage individualism, encourage group-think Scientology is often unfortunately very effective at discouraging individuals from using independent and critical thinking.
In the most central and important doctrine within Scientology (the series of policy letters called the Keeping Scientology Working series) there is the key policy Keeping Scientology Working which demands exact and total compliance with the doctrine of Scientology in submission to the authority of Ron Hubbard.
There are hundreds of drills, procedures, auditing methods and policies designed to support and enforce this. The entire body of qualifications, ethics and study technology is designed to fulfil this intention. Several books would be required to describe the full scope of this in Scientology. Hubbard focused on this and tried again and again to control the thinking of his followers to the extent that it's not at all an exaggeration to say he sought to mentally enslave his followers and ultimately mankind. 14. Impose rigid rules and regulations Scientology has very, very strict rules for all members. Only the leader is entirely exempt from the rules. To a degree wealthy and famous public Scientologists are given a free pass to violate many of the rules, as long as they don't endanger the leader or the entire cult. Most public Scientologists have very strict control of who they can associate with and how. They have very exact rules regarding schedules and are strongly discouraged from discontinuing Scientology courses and auditing. The staff get more rules and the Sea Org members live under so many rules it's comparable to being in the military or prison, but members of those groups often have more rights. 15. Instill dependency and obedience Scientology is extremely gradual and insidious in how it very incrementally through repetition and very deceptive and slowly shifting language nudges the members bit by bit towards further and further isolation and extreme rejection of any other beliefs and values. This leaves them out very far on a limb with almost no way back.
It's even worse often for members raised in the cult as they have no earlier identity and beliefs to return to. They must sort out what to do and be without the aid of already established ideas.
Information Control
1. Deception: a. Deliberately withhold information b. Distort information to make it more acceptable c. Systematically lie to the cult member Scientology really, really scores high here. Almost all the information about it's past and the past of Ron Hubbard is hidden from members. The actual doctrine is released in a very controlled way and over ninety five percent of cult members never see secret upper level doctrine. And much of the doctrine is only revealed to members of specific caste levels for their own functions. The information is routinely distorted so members never realize how much is demanded from them or how they will hurt and deceive others. They get words and ideas twisted with reversals and redefinition so they see evil done for the cult as good and good done against the cult as evil. And they are constantly lied to. The terms engram, reactive mind, dynamics, auditing, and even Dianetics and Scientology themselves have lies in their very definitions. So in using them cult members lie to each other over and over. Lies are the entire foundation of Scientology. 2. Minimize or discourage access to non-cult sources of information, including: a. Internet, TV, radio, books, articles, newspapers, magazines, other media b.Critical information c. Former members d. Keep members busy so they don’t have time to think and investigate e. Control through cell phone with texting, calls, internet tracking Scientology again epitomizes cult practices to the extreme. At first it subtly uses deceit and stereotypes to plant a false history of the media and to make cult members self censor. Online activities are often monitored and rigidly controlled. In Scientology all critical information is forbidden. Completely.
Members have to avoid it as much as possible. They are threatened with both expulsion and eternal irrevocable spiritual damnation if they merely look at Facebook posts and like them. Or if they pursue any negative information at all online or through former members. Merely leaving Scientology publicly leaving Scientology is considered a suppressive act and warrants an automatic permanent expulsion with total severing of all relationships to members in good standing. If they don't comply then they too are declared and cut off from all cult members. This sets up huge cascades of entire families being kicked out and losing their friends, jobs, homes and any relatives who stay in the cult. Many people have to pick between a son who leaves the cult and a daughter who stays or half a family that decides to leave the cult and half that stays within.
Many members who are staff or especially Sea Org members are kept far, far too busy to invest time in looking for the true history of Scientology or Ron Hubbard. They never look at the subjects Hubbard studied or other therapies or schools of philosophy or on the mind. That's entirely intentional. Sea Org members in particular have very extensive surveillance of their online activities and many message boards, Facebook groups and blogs that are critical of Scientology are constantly monitored by the Office Of Special Affairs, aka OSA, the espionage wing of the cult. 3. Compartmentalize information into Outsider vs. Insider doctrines a. Ensure that information is not freely accessible b.Control information at different levels and missions within group c. Allow only leadership to decide who needs to know what and when Scientology has a near total isolation of doctrine into different degrees of access. Many introductory doctrine are very watered down bland versions of much, much more extreme ideas that are gradually revealed and as the cult member progresses the degree of compliance escalates. The meaning is redefined from initial innocent seeming ideas into more fanatical and zealous specific applications.
Information is difficult to get and separated into information for new members and more experienced ones. Then further for staff and public. Then to staff in and out of OSA. OSA members know lying is required and suborning perjury and manufacturing evidence against enemies to destroy them utterly. They also know that driving enemies to madness or suicide is a routine practice in the cult. Most cult members never see that.
Sea Org members learn other doctrine that further condemns everyone not in Scientology or the Sea Org. Different parts of the Sea Org have their own doctrine as well. Of course Hubbard reserved the authority over who gets which doctrine for himself. David Miscavige as the new leader has taken absolute power in Scientology for himself and now holds this authority. 4. Encourage spying on other members a. Impose a buddy system to monitor and control member b.Report deviant thoughts, feelings and actions to leadership c. Ensure that individual behavior is monitored by group Scientologists are required to constantly spy on each other. Familial relationships or bonds are irrelevant. By convincing the cult members that their highest loyalty must be to the cult and Ron Hubbard it is obvious that this must occur. Also the cult members are convinced the E-meter can detect and find anything hidden in their mind. So they give up privacy and report on each other. In the cult failing to report any of hundreds of acts by another is punishable by their policies.
A rigid hierarchy with reports being forward up to leaders is in place. Members often are teamed up as twins for courses or auditing as a way to make them monitor and report on one another. The group always evaluates the behavior of members.
Allegedly confidential ethics and counseling folders are actually used to collect intelligence on cult members. The members are told these folders have the protection of a priest penitent privilege like a confession to a priest. Under those circumstances the contents are collected and then shared among others. The ethics section, OSA and higher organizations all may see them and use the information in any way they choose. 5. Extensive use of cult-generated information and propaganda, including: a. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audiotapes, videotapes, YouTube, movies and other media b.Misquoting statements or using them out of context from non-cult sources
Scientology uses all of the above methods of propaganda. The cult has internal and external videos, magazines, movies, tapes, policies, and other media. They do misquote non-cult sources and take information out of context to make Scientology seem more accepted by outsiders than it truly is. 6. Unethical use of confession a. Information about sins used to disrupt and/or dissolve identity boundaries b. Withholding forgiveness or absolution c. Manipulation of memory, possible false memories Scientology uses confession in multiple forms to tear down the self confidence of members. The confessionals and overts and witholds write ups are used to destroy the egos of the members. Their entire pasts and values are thrown into doubt by being buried in the emotional discomfort of intense focused attention entirely on their misdeeds and regrets. In this state of diminished confidence and extreme confusion the cult members are vulnerable to suggestion and exploitation. In Scientology sympathy is strongly discouraged. Members are told to be willing to experience anything and to never seek to be liked or admired. Forgiveness is very, very rare and unfortunately usually insincere.
Regarding creating false memories Scientology likely is more successful and thorough than any other group. In the training routines and auditing a false hypnotic reality is used to induce extreme suggestibility. Members are encouraged to find memories with repetitive questions and extensive doctrine which interprets what they should recall and how recalling it should affect them. They have imagination and recall blurred and mixed. They have hypnotic experiences with euphoria, trance logic and states such as dissociation and care free ecstatic from hypnosis intentionally reframed to deceive them. Then reframed hypnosis is used to alter their memories and recast their entire lives in the concepts of Scientology, particularly for establishing and building the authority of Ron Hubbard over their lives and minds. Most methods such as auditing, the training routines and even the basic study technology use very covert methods that require a good grounding in the foundation of hypnosis and cognitive dissonance theory along with particular concepts in social psychology to even examine with an educated opinion. The methods are intentionally well hidden. Some of the methods are more easily revealed. The Truth Rundown mind control method as an example is perhaps one of the most obvious methods of reshaping memories ever created. Thought Control1. Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth a. Adopting the group's ‘map of reality’ as reality b. Instill black and white thinking c. Decide between good vs. evil d. Organize people into us vs. them (insiders vs. outsiders) Here through multiple methods Scientology succeeds. In indoctrination the study technology functions as a form of self-hypnosis that creates an intense focus of attention. In this state from repeated direction to never doubt the doctrine of Scientology from Ron Hubbard the cult members develop habitual behavior. They learn to sharply focus on taking in Hubbard's information without deviation and to be able to instantly define all terms in their studies. The distinction between their beliefs, conventional definitions of terms from dictionaries and the new ideas and definitions Hubbard buries them in by the hundreds is lost. It's simply far too much information to keep separated while memorizing it. So the cult members learn to cast aside critical and independent thinking. This is covertly remaking study into a very stressful and anxious activity. The cult members must have instant perfect recall of definitions for anything in their materials for surprise spot checks, examinations or check outs so they become incredibly anxious and uncertain. This too heightens suggestibility and creates the habit of never questioning the doctrine or Hubbard's authority. When this faith becomes absolute then all capacity for judgment is severely impaired or shut off. Additionally in this state a kind of childlike state occurs. In this state magical thinking occurs and all contradictions or paradox actually help to strengthen the confusion and dependence of the cult members.
They have cognitive dissonance result which has a moment of distinct hesitation and this is a mental blankness. In Scientology study technology they are deceived by the statement that this blankness is from lack of comprehension. What's not comprehended is not a term as Hubbard claims, but instead the contradictions in Scientology doctrine itself. Or how Scientology has untrue concepts and false statements. A cult member may know through direct observations or past life experience that some Scientology doctrine is simply incorrect. Rather than being allowed to simply disagree the cult members are repeatedly told ALL disagreements with the doctrine are due to THEIR lack of understanding terms. Over time they either conform to this position of inferiority to Hubbard's authority or leave the cult or are cast out. By using the false concepts of misunderstood words and skipped gradients and lack of mass Hubbard covertly reshapes study into blind hypnotic submission.
Words to be learned do exist, but Hubbard attaches hundreds of lies to that to come up with his misunderstood word doctrine. By carefully comparing his description of phenomena that accompany misunderstood words and lack of mass and skipped gradients it becomes clear that the phenomena of hypnosis and cognitive dissonance are repackaged to convince cult members that they are actually learning while in fact they are being cognitively restructured covertly. That means what they think, feel and do is being changed in a hypnotic method without their consent or knowledge.
But Hubbard tricks them into seeing anxiety, confusion, blankness, reelingness, slipping into and out of trance states, getting bored all as signs they have his fictional barriers to study he sets them up. When they experience many of these they feel dull or not quite there or blankness, these can be from cognitive dissonance or the not there feeling can be dissociation. Then the cult member takes their attention off as an example a part of the doctrine that had contradictions either with other doctrine or past beliefs or observable reality. This creates cognitive dissonance which has anxiety and confusion and is uncomfortable. By taking their attention off this and in effect suspending their own critical and independent thinking they escape the cognitive dissonance and focus on a word to learn the definitions of and make sentences with.
By entirely refocusing their attention they escape the dissonance and discomfort, at least temporarily, this results in a feeling of relief which Hubbard redefines as "brightening up". It feels better to not think about something confusing and upsetting, but the cult members are taught this is an improvement when actually it is avoiding the very confusion Hubbard's own ideas and methods created. And it's done by increasing the submission to him while avoiding that he contradicts both himself and reality.
He creates confusion then "solves" the confusion by having it falsely redefined, then avoided to seem to be resolved. The pattern when successful creates a state that is best described as mental slavery. It's a prison of the mind created with the very thoughts of the cult member.
Through extensive reshaping of reality in auditing, ethics and study technology the cult's reality often entirely replaces that of the cult member.
Scientology has a rapid progression into black and white thinking. Even introductory doctrine like the Dianetics book contains the very pure good fictional tone scale levels above two and pure evil tone scale levels from two down in particular the tone level of 1.1 is labeled covert hostility and treated as absolute evil.
In Science Of Survival and further Scientology doctrine the cult is further defined as good and all enemies as evil and literally deserving of being disposed of quietly and without sorrow. In Keeping Scientology Working, the most repeated and central core doctrine Scientologists are taught they are a higher and more aware order of being than all others. This is expanded upon until they are taught that most humans are degrade beings and incompetent and wandering through life in a state of hypnotic delusion. So of course only Scientologists can make valid decisions in their view as they are the only ones who even are awake and see the world as it truly is.
Scientologists call themselves the most ethical group on the planet. Staff are elevated above public and Sea Org members are the highest of all in prestige. Though in truth Sea Org members are the most exploited and completely enslaved.
Their is extensive stratification in the cult with virtual automatic competition between each other. This is by design.
Specific doctrine that requires the black and white thinking and treating others as disposable enemies is something I covered here: Why Lying And Murder Are Justified In Scientology part 1 and 2
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/t...art-1.html?m=0 4. Encourage only ‘good and proper’ thoughts Scientology requires only proper thoughts from members by a variety of methods. First off it is worth repeating that Scientologists usually believe the E-meter can find any thoughts they have in the hands of a skilled practitioner despite any and all efforts to hide them. So they police their own thoughts. As a step up from the totalitarian methods in 1984 thought crime is a real fear for Scientologists.
Additionally, through repetition the idea that only happy and positive thoughts about the cult are acceptable is made a core value of Scientologists. In many key doctrine which are the foundation of Scientology this is reinforced from a variety of angles. In the ethics technology the condition formulas condemn doubt and treats it as a lower condition. Staff are taught to not have human emotions and reactions and Scientologists in training routines are drilled to be able to experience anything without reactions.
In their doctrine is the two rules for happy living which includes being willing to experience anything. Perhaps a better rule for a slave who has no personal boundaries or recognition as a person deserving any consideration or rights. 5. Hypnotic techniques are used to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking and even to age regress the member Once again Scientology towers over other cults. Many cults use two to six hypnotic techniques but Scientology has been described as using literally perhaps two thousand hypnotic methods. I have written possibly more than anyone else on this. In addition to the posts listed above I also covered that in many others, here are a few: Basic Introduction To Hypnosis in Scientology
Why Hubbard Never Claimed OT Feats And The Rock Bottom Basis Of Scientology
http://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/02/m...never.html?m=0 6. Memories are manipulated and false memories are created As I pointed out in earlier points and posts Scientology excels at creating false memories and reframing the past. 7. Teaching thought-stopping techniques which shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts, including: a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking b. Chanting c. Meditating d. Praying e. Speaking in tongues f. Singing or humming In the above listed post Pissed It's Not Your Fault I described fourteen logical fallacies which Hubbard used extensively. He packaged them as mottos and phrases in his doctrine and through repetition and variation actually implanted them in his victims. They come to think in fallacies. They enter dissociative states and deny the negative aspects of Scientology. It's an actual avoidance of trauma as a survival mechanism.
Daniel Shaw extensively describes how Hubbard has cult members deny the abuse and trauma they experience in his book Traumatic Narcissism. It perfectly describes how Hubbard as a malignant narcissist uses trauma to control others.
I elaborated on this in detail in: Scientology's Parallel In Nature - Malignant Narcissism
8. Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism With many methods and doctrine Hubbard ensured that rational analysis never occurs. The standard of judging Scientology involves accepting Hubbard's authority as verifying Scientology and Scientology in turn as verifying Hubbard's authority. A circular argument of an expert being proven by a subject which is proven by the same expert validating it. He disparages critical thinking as being hypercritical which he equates to being covertly hostile. He entirely condemns constructive criticism in KSW. And an entire body of supporting policy that declares Scientology always works and merely doubting it can get a member labeled suppressive and cast out.
In the policy letter Indicators Of Orgs Hubbard makes it perfectly clear that any deviance from enthusiastic support of Scientology should result in a Suppressive Person declare or several. 9. Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy allowed Of course these are entirely forbidden and discouraged. 10. Labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful Scientology at first seems to accept other faiths. But as one progresses through the cult it becomes clear that Scientology isn't really compatible with any other belief system. In the upper levels of the cult indoctrination tapes and policies clearly disparage other faiths and calls them implants and false. This information is on the OT levels. Emotional Control1. Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings – some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong or selfish Scientology as described above makes only certain emotions acceptable. In the cult negative emotions are only allowed in auditing or against the acceptable targets of the cult's enemies.2. Teach emotion-stopping techniques to block feelings of homesickness, anger, doubt Scientology through extensive reshaping of the minds of the members makes emotion stopping a normal feature of cult members. By merely thinking in the terms and phrases of the cult emotions, thoughts and behavior are all guided. 3. Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault Scientology uses extensive methods to make members feel all their problems are always their own fault. In Keeping Scientology Working and much of Scientology policy the emphasis is on describing both Hubbard and his technology as infallible. The failures are assigned to the individual practitioners and they are described as always altering Scientology if it fails, as it's assumed to always succeed if applied as intended. Further Scientology has ideas such as intention is cause and a thetan only gets what they postulate and in the ethics technology the idea that a bad thing that happens to someone is pulled in by someone because they have unhandled overts and witholds. 4. Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as a. Identity guilt b. You are not living up to your potential c. Your family is deficient d. Your past is suspect e. Your affiliations are unwise f. Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish g. Social guilt h. Historical guilt
In Scientology every form of identity guilt is used and induced repeatedly in subtle ways. In the training and auditing the idea that the individual Scientologist is at fault for their own hardships and that their past actions are insufficient because those actions led to their unhappiness. It cannot be overstated. 5. Instill fear, such as fear of: a. Thinking independently b. The outside world c. Enemies d. Losing one’s salvation e. Leaving or being shunned by the group f. Other’s disapproval In Scientology Ron Hubbard uses fear of life without his knowledge and methods countered against his false promises of perfection of self and group which is always in a perfect future that's just out of reach. Thinking independently is discouraged thousands and thousands of times in a multitude of ways. The study technology has all confusions, contradictions and inconsistencies or failures found by a student in Scientology doctrine in the training methods always, always addressed by asserting that Hubbard and his doctrine are without flaws or errors and work 100% of the time without fail and that the perception or experience of difficulties with Scientology are due to something lacking in the practitioner of Scientology and never due to flaws in Scientology or Hubbard. That instills a lessening of independent and critical thinking regarding Scientology and Hubbard.
The outside world is portrayed as a barbaric hell of savages with hidden evil insane purposes and a place of cruel brutality. The enemies of Scientology are all grouped together as insane, evil and utterly depraved. They are portrayed as murderers, rapists, sadists, and psychs who drive victims to insanity and evil and ultimately amnesia and eternal spiritual damnation. That's about as evil as it gets.
Leaving and being disapproved of by the Scientology cult is entirely equated with a very specific fate in Scientology. A Scientologist is taught that if Scientology fails the world will be certainly destroyed in a nucleic holocaust. They are taught over and over that they are eternal spiritual beings and if they submit completely to Scientology they will get salvation but if they don't then they will over multiple lifetimes accumulate more and more trauma and negative experiences and decline until they lose the ability to pick up bodies, meaning being unable to be reincarnated. In this horrifying state the Scientologists are taught they will lose all their memories and as blind and deaf disembodied spirits they will experience eternal irrevocable insanity and pain.
Hubbard's version of hell which he claimed is far worse than anything anyone has ever imagined. If that's not using fear nothing is. 6. Extremes of emotional highs and lows – love bombing and praise one moment and then declaring you are horrible sinner Scientology inflicts trauma with extreme and sudden vacillation between praise and effusive encouragement when a person is first joining or increasing commitment to the group by starting a course or auditing program or joining staff or the Sea Org or of course making any large donations. Scientology loves you in these moments but only for a very brief moment. There are exceptions for the extremely wealthy or famous but they are a tiny minority.
But for everyone else in Scientology approval is a rare experience and usually very brief. And so much of the doctrine states and reinforces that people are irrational, unaware and out of touch with reality that self condemnation is a natural result. And many staff and Sea Org members rush to assist in any condemnation of members and to position Hubbard as the only one free of error, irrationality, and bad character.
7. Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins In Scientology several cult rituals are used for confession. There is confession heavily pursued in the auditing methods and focused on in highly detailed and extensive programs. It's also used in the truth rundown brainwashing program and the false purpose rundown. It's used for hundreds of questions on grade 2 and on the L rundowns.
A variation on confession is used in writing up overts and witholds as well as ethics conditions. Public confession has been reported as occurring rarely as well. 8. Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority a. No happiness or fulfillment possible outside of the group b. Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc. c. Shunning of those who leave; fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family d. Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll e. Threats of harm to ex-member and family Extensive, repeated and highly varied phobia induction occurs in Scientology. It comes to rule the lives and minds of cult members. Scientologists come to believe no happiness is sustainable if they leave and as I described above the most terrible consequences Hubbard's imagination could conjure up await anyone who leaves Scientology. Disconnection is Scientology's version of shunning and practiced quite widely.
Scientologists are taught the only reason they would leave is because they have hidden evil acts and secrets they are reluctant to confess. So when anyone does leave they are instantly discredited by the act of leaving itself. So only members in good standing can speak on the cult, but will lose good standing if they criticize the cult, it's doctrine or Hubbard or Miscavige at all so the only information that is listened to in the group.
A variety of threats are used against members who leave. Often Scientology strives to ruin them utterly and remove them quietly and without sorrow. Exes have been stalked, sued, harassed and bern driven to insanity or suicide. If you Google Scientology criminal convictions and what do judges say about Scientology mountains of evidence can be found.
In conclusion by looking at Scientology through my twenty five years in the cult then hundreds of hours afterward studying the true practices, purposes and history of Scientology against the BITE model by Steven Hassan several things are quite clear.
Scientology epitomizes virtually every idea that can be within a high control and abusive group. It strongly shows over ninety five percent of the traits that the BITE model lists to very extreme degrees, sometimes more than any other group.
The BITE Model is accurate and comprehensive in my opinion for describing and evaluating cults. With it many groups can be thoroughly analyzed to see if they are cult like and to what degree. Scientology is certainly a bona fide cult, perhaps to the highest degree possible.
I hope this is helpful and encourage others to take the BITE model and do their own analysis of Scientology if they are or were in the group and to use it on other groups if they have any doubts or concerns.
Scientology And Margaret Singer's Six Conditions For Thought Reform
The following was a comment at the Underground Bunker on Hubbard's use of thought reform and professor Margaret Singer's work.
I think he saw Lifton's work on cults using rewards and penalties to control members and integrated that into his cult to dehumanize and degrade and enslave them .And Hubbard studied earlier totalistic movements and emulated Crowley and Hitler in his doctrine . Good old Hubby .
Professor Margaret Singer the late great cult expert wrote her own highly authoritative work in this field : Cults in Our Midst . In this, Prof. Singer set out 'six conditions' in which totalistic thought-reform can be achieved:
Quote :
1).Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how attempts to psychologically condition him or her are directed in a step-by-step manner.Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioural-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group. The goal may be to make them deployable agents for the leadership, to get them to buy more courses, or get them to make a deeper commitment, depending on the leader's aim and desires.
2). Control the person's social and/or physical environment; especially control the person's time.
Through various methods, newer members are kept busy and led to think about the
group and its content during as much of their waking time as possible.
3). Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person.This is accomplished by getting members away from their normal social support group for a period of time and into an environment where the majority of people are already group members.The members serve as models of the attitudes and behaviours of the group and speak an in-group language.Strip members of their main occupation (quit jobs, drop out of school) or source of income or have them turn over their income (or the majority of) to the group.Once the target is stripped of their usual support network, their confidence in their own perception http://erodes.As the target's sense of powerlessness increases, their good judgement and understanding of the world are diminished (ordinary view of reality is destabilized).As The group attacks the target's previous worldview, it causes the target distress and inner confusion; yet they are not allowed to speak about this confusion or object to it - leadership suppresses questions and counters resistance.This process is sped up if the targeted individual or individuals are kept tired - the cult will take deliberate actions to keep the target constantly busy.
4).Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behaviour that reflects the person's former social identity.Manipulation of experiences can be accomplished through various methods of trance induction, including leaders using such techniques as paced speaking patterns, guided imagery, chanting, long prayer sessions or lectures, and lengthy meditation sessions.The target's old beliefs and patterns of behaviour are defined as irrelevant or evil.Leadership wants these old patterns eliminated, so the member must suppress them.Members get positive feedback for conforming to the group's beliefs and behaviours and negative feedback for old beliefs and behaviour.
5).The group manipulates a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group's ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviours.Good behaviour, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group's beliefs, and compliance are rewarded while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible
rejection. Anyone who asks a question is made to feel there is something inherently disordered about them to be questioning.The only feedback members get is from the group; they become totally
dependent upon the rewards given by those who control the environment.Members must learn varying amounts of new information about the beliefs of the group and the behaviours expected by the group.
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.Esteem and affection from peers is very important to new recruits. Approval comes from having the new member's behaviours and thought patterns conform to the models (members). Members' relationship with peers is threatened whenever they fail to learn or display new behaviours. Over time, the easy solution to the insecurity generated by the difficulties of learning the new system is to inhibit any display of doubts—new recruits simply acquiesce, affirm and act as if they do understand and accept the new ideology.
6).Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order.The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.Members are not allowed to question, criticize or complain. If they do, the leaders allege the member is defective, not the organization or the beliefs.The targeted individual is treated as always intellectually incorrect or
unjust, while conversely the system, its leaders and its beliefs are always automatically, and by default, considered as absolutely just. Conversion or remolding of the individual member happens in a closed system. As members learn to modify their behaviour in order to be accepted in this
closed system, they change—begin to speak the language—which serves to further isolate them from their prior beliefs and behaviours. End quote
Now I want to focus on a few concepts here but have strong opinions on all of this material .
The concept of Hubbard using rewards and penalties to control members ties into points 4 and 5 exactly . It is conditioning for covert slavery . Spending more time doing cult behaviors leaves less for old behaviors and eventually none . There are only 168 hours in a week - the cult takes them bit by bit until your old life has zero . Covert annihilation of your old identity - it is erased .
Welcome to Scientology .
Regarding the scheduling and getting people in more , it is not ultimately only financially based - THAT is a lie to cover a more wicked intent Hubbard had all along .
In point 2 controlling time is established . To remold someone having them once in a while consider an idea and essentially live independently does not work for thought reform . They must have their decision making entirely taken away .
Point 3 is helped by gradually taking away old groups and social support by asking more and more time be devoted to the cult , whether in course or session or as staff .
From point 5 quote - 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 End quote
Both Jon Atack and I have already written about how Scientology is jam packed with contradictions to confuse , overwhelm and ultimately enslave you mentally . He has an excellent piece here and at my blog is the Secret Of Scientology part 1 by myself .
Jon Atack: At the heart of Scientology is L. Ron Hubbard’s paralyzing use of contradiction
But to look at Professor Singer's idea - the cult has an incredibly complex and difficult system of thirty five million words of doctrine , courses that can last countless years to complete , a level of difficulty that may be matched by no other group's indoctrination , the aforementioned use of thousands and thousands of contradictions in the doctrine and practices AND consequently the most effective conversion process of any cult ever developed to my knowledge . And that is Scientology 101.
Mockingbird's Greatest Hits
I have reached nearly two hundred posts online and thousands of comments as well. In looking back at all that I realized a very small number of posts have been consistently the most viewed and likely most helpful for people seeking to understand Scientology.
I certainly hope they are helping people. Here I will try to present the short list of the posts that best explain my ideas and can introduce you to information that I hope will help begin beneficial examination of Scientology.
