Influences on NXIVM beliefs and practices, sourced from Natalie et al (2019), rendered in the mode of W.S. Bainbridge, e.g. Bainbridge 1978. |NXIVM teachings drew upon diverse influences, including Ayn Rand ("parasites"), L. Ron Hubbard ("suppressives"), Milton Erickson's hypnosis, Isaac Asimov's science fiction, Rudolf Steiner, Tony Robbins, and neuro-linguistic programming. NXIVM incorporated elements of multi-level marketing and practices from judo, with colored cloth for rank and bowing.
This is the fifteenth post in a series that examines the book Scarred: The True Story Of How I Escaped The Cult That Bound My Life by Sarah Edmondson.
I recommend reading these posts in sequential order and have listed them in order to make reading them in order easy.
Unless noted otherwise, all quotes used in this series are from that book.
"All successful people can see how effective this material is right away," (Scarred page 43)
Scientology similarly has a way of acting like the people who are in Scientology are more successful and frankly more aware and better people than everyone else.
Scientology doctrine has numerous references that state with repetition-with-variation that Scientology is attractive to the most intelligent and aware tiny fraction of humanity, an elite of the elite self select into Scientology is the common denominator of dozens of Scientology references on the different roles one may assume in Scientology from a Scientologist to an auditor to a staff member to a Sea Org member and on and on and on.
The effect quite often of successful repetition-with-variation in indoctrination is the result in the mind of an individual accepting the underlying principle as a self evident and irrefutable truth, in this case you accept that ALL Scientologists are more aware and intelligent than others, which is demonstrated by the "fact" that the individual was aware enough to find value in Scientology, which also makes the alleged "value" in Scientology also an unexamined assumption that is a self evident truth in the mind of the cult member and has the identity and personal confidence of the cult member tied to their perception that Scientology is valuable and so if they defend the perception that Scientology is valuable they are also defending their own identity as a person of awareness, intelligence, and good moral character.
So, by flattering the Scientology members Hubbard gets the result of people who feel admired and valued by him and in turn will defend him and his claims to their dying breath, because they are also defending themselves to a great degree because Hubbard made the world into an us versus them proposal and said we are the good guys, we are smart, we have good character, over and over and it's frankly appealing to be told that you matter, you have value, you are special, you are capable over and over in a hundred different ways.
Of course NXIVM has the same approach. By acting like the people who see value in the material immediately are successful you flatter them and give them an easy explanation why they have friends and family who don't like NXIVM. It is very tempting to see yourself as both right and smarter than people who disagree with you. It is very good at getting the pride of a person involved in just accepting that they are right and not looking at both sides.
"Then, she invited us to do an exercise determining our "values hierarchy," writing down the aspects of our life that were more important to us." (Scarred page 43)
"She taught us that many people can't make decisions because they aren't clear on what their priorities are, as they haven't been able to figure out which values are more important than others, causing a "values conflict." This resonated deeply for me. I was always having trouble making decisions, so this ranked list would be so helpful. But over time, I would eventually swap my numbers one and two. Through pressure to attend ESP trainings over family events, such as my grandfather's birthday, I received tacit suggestions that personal growth needed to be my highest value if I was going to advance in NXIVM. The Stripe Path had to trump all other values. Including family." (Scarred page 43)
Scientology is certainly similar to NXIVM in using repetition-with-variation to promote Scientology as the most important priority and value for members.
Both groups act like you don't know how to establish priorities and values and of course they tell you their group should be the highest priority in your life. Both groups act like you don't have understanding of ethics and proper ethics and the group of course can teach you proper ethics and they always tell you their group is ethical and therefore should be supported over all other groups.
I have given a few examples of Scientology doctrine that represent this and will put a few brief ones here to document it and for comparison.
“We’re not playing some minor game in Scientology. It isn’t cute or something to do for lack of something better.
The whole agonized future of the planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next endless trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.
This is a deadly serious activity. And if we miss getting out of the trap now, we may never again have another chance.
Remember, this is our first chance to do so in all the endless trillions of years of the past.”
(Ronald Hubbard HCO PL 7 February 1965 Keeping Scientology Working Series)
"The threat to us if we don’t make it is eternity.
One could ask a staff member that refuses to get hatted how he would like to spend all of the coming eternity blind, in the dark and in pain. He would probably say he wouldn’t like that. But if we don’t make it, that’s what we’ve got and that’s what he’s condemning this planet to.
He doesn’t realize that he himself, next life, is for it if we don’t make it.
If staff in our orgs don’t get hatted, they’re condemning themselves and the planet to death a thousand times over.
So understand that no matter how mild the environment might appear to you, we are actually fighting a full-scale war against ignorance and enslavement. But we do have the tech to win.”
(HCO PL 2 July 1984 HATTING AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Ronald Hubbard)
“I have been researching upper OT levels, and I can tell you this very plainly: If Scn doesn’t make it worldwide you’ve had it – yes, I mean you. One is not working for just this life. He is working for any future life at all”.
(HCO PL 14 March 1982 Financial Irregularities, Ronald Hubbard)
“If the Captain does not KNOW that Advanced Courses are the most valuable service on the planet he will not be able to understand HARD SELL. THEREFORE HE MUST REALIZE: That life insurance, houses, cars, stocks, bonds, college savings, are all transitory and impermanent and based on things not surviving, or on things that are in fact being destroyed.
Advanced Courses rehabilitate the Thetan to his OT abilities and last forever and give immortality.
‘Hard Sell’ is based on knowing and promoting in this line (TRUTH!) and not being reasonable about people who want ‘other things’ or ‘other practices’. There is nothing to compare with Advanced Courses. They are infinitely valuable and transcend time itself.” (Flag Mission Order 375, 14 August 1970, Ronald Hubbard)
Ronald Hubbard, Scientology founder
If you run into a group that tells you their courses are the most important and valuable things that can exist, it's a giant red flag. I am not saying that important subjects do not exist.
Literacy is important. Scientific method is important. Critical thinking is important. Medicine is important. Law is important. Psychology is important. The physical sciences are important. History is important. The arts are important. Music is important. Philosophy is important.
There are many subjects that are important in their own turn, but we shouldn't elevate them automatically above all others for EVERYONE in EVERY SITUATION.
It is in my opinion a huge red flag if someone says "My philosophy is the most important thing in the universe for EVERYONE, regardless of their background or experience or needs!"
Life is not a one size fits all experience. One person may have very different needs or interests than another, and it does not automatically mean either one is wrong or inferior.
Regarding "The Stripe Path had to trump all other values. Including family." (Scarred page 43)
Scientology has a similar value, but it is not introduced initially. Alexandra Stein in her superb book Terror, Love and Brainwashing describes many aspects of cults that most people don't. She describes the initial information that cults present to the outside and new members as propaganda which is designed to be more socially acceptable to the outside society and also to mislead the new recruits into believing he cult is an ethical and beneficial group. Stein goes on to describe the doctrine that a member is engulfed in as they proceed to a greater and greater degree of commitment and fanatical extremism as being quite different than the initial information and Stein calls the deeper information indoctrination.
In many cults the propaganda is not remotely close to the indoctrination that lies deeper in the group and the indoctrination is the true values and doctrine the leadership is executing.
A common example found in many political cults is an outer layer that claims to be liberal or far left that champions equality, brotherhood, and liberty but as you go deeper you find it may be fascistic, anti-Semitic, and in truth far right.
Scientology in many ways echoes this and an extensive examination of its origins and leadership reveals that it to a noticeable degree shares these traits.
Regarding the family issue Scientology has propaganda intended to placate and misinform.
The Way to Happiness for example has the following precepts:
"DON’T BE PROMISCUOUS.
LOVE AND HELP CHILDREN.
HONOR AND HELP YOUR PARENTS.
SET A GOOD EXAMPLE." (Way to Happiness, Ronald Hubbard)
That sounds downright wholesome!
But, sadly the reality in Scientology is quite different, especially for the Scientology staff and most of all for Sea Org members.
The extreme and constant emphasis on having more and more time and attention put on Scientology activities leaves no room for others and subsequently public Scientologists are often pressured to be on course or getting auditing every moment possible.
Many are pressured into joining staff or the Sea Org repeatedly and relentlessly until they give in.
Often if a Scientologist joins staff they find themselves immediately pressured to disconnect from any family members who are not Scientologists and this pressure is usually a constant and persistent problem.
I personally experienced tremendous pressure to disconnect from my wife and children literally hundreds of times while I was in Scientology for twenty-five years and the organization oddly doesn't acknowledge or admit to this practice even as they are doing it to you and everyone around you.
The Sea Org doesn't allow members to be married to people who are not Scientologists and in fact as David Miscavige transfers people around he requires them to divorce their spouse if they're not also in the same part of the Sea Org and since he can move people as he pleases with no rhyme or reason he effectively gets to break up people as he wishes for his own sick amusement. And to be clear there are many reports of him doing exactly that.
To understand the next reference one needs to understand that in Scientology there's a division of the human mind into distinct sections including an (inaccurate) analytical mind, a (fictional) reactive mind, and a somatic mind aka a genetic entity or GE. The genetic entity (GE) is a low level "mind" in Hubbard's system that he described as "formerly referred to as the somatic mind. It has no real personality, it is not the “I” of the body. This is the “mind” of an animal, a dog or a cat or a cow." (History of Man, Ronald Hubbard)
“THE GE IS A FAMILY MAN
The GE is a family man; the GE is lost without a family. It’s very strange, but Homo sap is a family unit. The GE is built on that basis. It’s fascinating, fascinating. It’s not important to know it but a lot of your urges toward families and so forth are not thetan urges at all, they’re the GE. The GE can’t survive at all without a family unit. He’s just as dead as a mackerel if he isn’t a family unit, whereas your thetan is just dead as a mackerel if he gets too mixed up in family units.
You can’t talk to GEs; they’re kind of psycho. And by the way, you can fall into this dreadful trap with a GE. You see, he uses the MEST universe with which to build. He’s gotten very, very bad off and he has to use MEST materials all the time.
So, you get this situation here with the GE, and your GE is busy: build, build, build, build, build. And, of course he’s got to have a family to build with.
You get this terrific family thirst. And you get your GE surviving best and being loused up the most because of interfamily relationships.
And your thetan, by the way, can much more easily go into a group. Families are not good groups; they’re bad groups.”
(taped lecture “Flows: Patterns of Interaction”
10 December 1952 Ronald Hubbard)
Hubbard described the "thetan" as the real individual, the spirit and as Scientology is ultimately a Gnostic system it has the idea that the "thetan" existed before the physical universe and was degraded by contact with the physical universe and is best in its "native state" which means the way it was BEFORE the spirit interacted with the physical universe and so if Hubbard is saying the thetan does best without a family he is saying YOU have a nature that is best served by not having a family!
Keith Raniere, NXIVM leader
