Unraveling Scientology - A Missing Vital Ingredient

 



I was a member of the Scientology cult for twenty five years. In about January 2013 I started examining information outside the cult about Scientology and Ron Hubbard. By March 2013 I had come to the conclusion Scientology was always a fraud and not helpful, and in fact highly harmful. I concluded Scientology had been conceived as a method of mental enslavement.

I found studying Hubbard's true past and methods he plagiarized led to examining them in their original forms to understand their actual effects.

Hypnotism was a subject Hubbard mentioned hundreds of times and was self contradictory on quite often. The result of that study was posts such as Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology, The Critical Factor, Basic Introduction To Hypnosis In Scientology, The Secret Of Scientology Part 1 control via contradiction, Burning Down Hell - How Commands Are Hidden , Varied And Repeated In Scientology To Control You As Hypnotic Implants. These explore hypnosis thoroughly.

I also saw that Scientology has a significant use of special language to control people. That was explored in Propaganda By Reversal Of Meaning In Scientology, ARC And KRC,  and The Clear Contradiction.

I also went on to examine briefly critical thinking in Pissed ! It's Not Your Fault ! and rhetoric which Hubbard studied in college in Gib's Great Find Rhetoric and A Brief Rhetorical Analysis Of Keeping Scientology Working Series 1 : KSW Keeping Slaves Willing.

I knew there was far more to understand to explore other aspects of Scientology. I checked on Hubbard's plagiarism in OT III And Beyond:  Sources Plagiarized From parts 1, 2 and 3.

I also found social psychology a needed subject to study relative to Scientology, that was explored in the Pulling Back The Curtain series which consulted the book Age Of Propaganda, then the essential book A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger in the Scientology Building The Prison Of The Mind series. Several other posts explore social psychology as well.

I found information on sociopaths, narcissists and malignant narcissists and abusive relationships -of which cults are a type- to be quite important, in fact to be a fundamental that cannot be skipped to understand Scientology or Hubbard himself. These were covered in Ron Hubbard's Twisted Mind Part 1 Pathological Lying, There Is No Irony In Scientology, Ron Hubbard's  Narcissistic Traits, Scientology 180 Degrees From The Truth, Scientology's Parallel In Nature - Malignant Narcissism and several other posts including Hubbard's Affirmations.

So I felt that the pursuit of compassion, empathy and humility as the opposite of Scientology was worthwhile.

I found from interacting with Jon Atack those values as well as critical thinking, rhetoric, skepticism, social psychology and knowledge of Hubbard's methods including hypnotism, thought reform including loaded language, and logical fallacies along with cultic studies with experts like Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Singer, Janja Lalich and Eric Hoffer to all be valuable. Along with information from Arnie Lerma as well.

I knew I could write a story describing a variation on the old "An x, y and z walk into a bar" joke as a hypnotist, a psychologist, and a critical thinker (who has studied classic rhetoric and Socratic debate with logical fallacies) walk into a Scientology org and interact with Scientologists and expose all the redefinitions, hypnotic techniques, mind control methods. and fraudulent and harmful practices in turn. With each one exposing Scientology in the language and concepts of their own field.

But a funny thing happened: I realized I was missing something important, something a bit more scientific than psychology, and far more scientific than hypnotism or even rhetoric and couldn't quite figure it out, I added studying narcissists and sociopaths and felt that was vital and invigorating. But it was still not quite right.

There was a portion of Scientology and life that wasn't fully covered even by all these subjects. And many of these subjects received dozens or hundreds of hours of study in my efforts to be thorough and seek out the most useful basic ideas for reframing Scientology.

 My studies are far less than those undertaken by serious academics or cult experts. But those people frankly spend tens of thousands of hours honing their craft and read usually hundreds of books. And interact with hundreds and thousands of cult members and ex cult members.

But I think I reluctantly may have found the missing piece of the puzzle. By accident as well: Neuroscience.

Medical News Today has the following definition: Neuroscience, also known as Neural Science, is the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure, and what it does. Neuroscientists focus on the brain and its impact on behavior and cognitive functions.

Looking at Wikipedia and the branches of neuroscience and the physical scientific branches of this subject was striking for me in a unique way. The subjects of Dianetics and Scientology utterly lack physical evidence that can be observed directly. Obviously this is because those frauds are entirely false and direct scientific evidence contradicts the claims Scientology makes. It is utterly dishonest and false.

So in remedying Scientology the subjects Hubbard used and others that can dissect and demystify Scientology are useful. But the exacting physical scientific evidence and methodology Scientology lacks is in my opinion to a very remarkable degree countered by neuroscience and its coupling with complimentary information from social psychology. Together the two can be a potential route to greater and more accurate knowledge on behavior, the mind and human nature than any previous subjects.

Earlier subjects like philosophy, Socratic debate and critical thinking have limitations, even much of psychology has this weakness (particularly if ideas are pursued without testing via experiments and peer review) , to say nothing of the lack of strict science throughout hypnotism.

 Television shows like  "The Brain With David Eagleman,” and his book The Brain: The Story of You explore these ideas in accessible ways. Some episodes of Beyond The Wormhole also examine this subject.

James H. "Jim" Fallon is also a neuroscientist who studies psychopaths and uses some scientific evidence. He wrote The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain detailing his research. Some good information for comparison from psychology is in The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout and Social Psychology For Dummies as well as Age Of Propaganda.

And of course the work of others such as Philip Zimbardo who conducted the famous Stanford Prison experiment and wrote The Lucifer Effect among other books.

This may frankly seem like a lot to take on to BEGIN to try to understand human minds and behavior. That's a valid point, but especially for ex Scientologists if you don't find your own educated opinion on your mind and life, who will form your opinion for you ?