How Cults Work 3 - Totalist Group Structure

This is the third post in a series dedicated to the book Terror, Love and Brainwashing by Alexandra Stein.

This post picks up at the topic of the totalist group structure.

Alexandra Stein described the totalist group in these words:

"The totalist group grows by replicating the dynamics of relationship zero as recruits are drawn in. The pattern of relating to the leader set in this initial relationship remains, modeled by the existing members and so transmitted to new recruits. Structurally, the totalist group is dominated by the leader in all regards. In order for the leader to maintain control of followers, the structure must facilitates several functions: it must maintain the single point of dominance of the leader, isolate group members and, in most cases, provide controlled access to and from the outside world.
    The group structure must serve the process of coercive persuasion, which requires an isolating environment. " Page 16


This is so matter of fact and clinical it makes cult members sound like Borg from Star Trek, spreading like a disease of the mind from victim to victim, a memetic virus.

Stein goes on:
"The emotional and physical energies of the group members must be fully engaged to keep them from external relationships and influences.
      The structure must be one in which the alternation of love and threat can take place, while severely limiting the group member's access to "escape hatch" relationships with persons outside of the group or its sphere of influence. " Page 17

"The structure must also allow the transmission downwards of the leader's orders and ideological pronouncements while simultaneously funneling resources followers back upwards to the leader. Levels of hierarchy may exist for this purpose." Page 17

"A rule-bound bureaucracy is not well-suited to the domination by one individual of a group and so a flexible, non-bureaucratic structure is needed that can easily adjust to the leader's whims, changes of plans and changes, even, of beliefs or ideologies. So although the group is closed and steeply hierarchical, usually this hierarchy is fluid and fluctuating. There is generally a lieutenant layer in such groups, but as the leader must prevent alternative power bases developing he or she ensures that life as a lieutenant is insecure with frequent promotions and demotions In these ranks." Page 17

 Now I should point out the obvious fact that in my twenty five years in Scientology I encountered everything described here. Whether on staff or especially in the Sea Org Scientology cult members are strongly encouraged to be doing Scientology activities every waking moment and if possible commit to a hundred plus hour per week schedule. Even public Scientologists are often encouraged to spend every second not at work or sleeping in a Scientology activity, whether it be auditing, or on course or volunteering to help the local org.

The alternation of being screamed at and encouraged is difficult to explain. It starts out gradually and if you join staff or the Sea Org often escalates. Even public get boundaries violated as part of indoctrination in the guise of training.

Scientology has always had a totalitarian structure with orders and policy only coming from above and money getting sent up. Many layers of hierarchy exist. There are levels of accomplishment in training and auditing and authority in local orgs then higher orgs run by the Sea Org at numerous levels including continental and international and above with numerous management orgs.

Ron Hubbard ran Scientology as a dictatorship with rules set in stone then cancelled them then brought them back as if they were never cancelled and even some publicly cancelled but privately kept remaining in force and with thousands and thousands of policies that contradicted each other.

Hubbard changed fundamental ideas and procedures capricously. He in my opinion plagiarized whatever struck his fancy and gave it a try. It didn't matter if he said the opposite yesterday, he would try this out today and forget it tomorrow. It was all a con anyway.

He picked up and dropped people routinely. He never wanted any rivals for admiration, so he expelled people frequently and labeled them suppressive persons. By 1965 with the advent of the Keeping Scientology Working policy Hubbard claimed himself the sole source of Dianetics and Scientology, despite having plagiarized hundreds of ideas from others often including his own students and employees.

Next Stein took on the totalist ideology.

"Whether an ideology or belief system is totalist is not determined by its content as such but by its structure and function. The structure of such a belief system is total: closed and exclusive, allowing no other beliefs, no other truths, no other affiliations and no interpretations, proposing to be true for all time and under all conditions." Page 18

In a footnote Stein stated: "Although, as Arendt also pointed out, the ideology changes at the leader's whim, and sometimes the group must go through extraordinary contortions to keep up with these changes." Referring to Hannah Arendt author of Origins of Totalitarianism

I found this to have been true in Scientology. Hubbard and now his replacement in David Miscavige have consistently been inconsistent, both change important ideas and procedures in Scientology in direct contradiction of longstanding and clear basic principles. And pointing this out frequently leads to expulsion or if in the Sea Org assignment to their reeducation camp and prison the RPF.

She went on:
 "The key element of the totalist ideology its focus on a single truth. This single truth, the sacred word, is the word of the leader, or sometimes, that of a deity to whom the leader is the only one to have a direct line. All knowledge comes from the leader. While the leader may change their mind as new "insights" appear , followers may never do so, although they must ever be on the alert to jump to the leader's sudden ideological shifts.
     The functions of the totalist belief system are to shore up the totalist structure, ensuring the leader's absolute control; to justify loyalty to the group; to establish a rigid boundary between the group and the outside world; and to prevent the formation of alternate escape hatch relationships. Not least amongst these functions is that of maintaining the dissociation of the followers created by the traumatic relationship, preventing them from being able to adequately reflect on the reality of the situation in which they find themselves. " Page 19

"This  encouragement to sacrifice the distinction between truth and lies allows the leader to foist upon the isolated and traumatized follower his own opportunistic interpretation of the follower's experience. Thus day is actually night, and black is clearly white. Boxer, the super-exploited horse in Orwell's classic Animal Farm, demonstrated this internalizing of the leader's view as he bravely repeated, in response to his exhaustion and misery: "Napoleon is always right" and " I will work harder. " This, however, is a powerful vulnerability of totalism: that is, the frequently extreme contradiction between its heavenly or freedom-touting pronouncements and the grimly oppressive reality of life within the system. " Page 19

In Scientology your truth you know is thoroughly destabilized and invalidated in a hundred ways. Your doubts and memories are disputed and your understanding of what you read, see, hear and know can be disputed.

It certainly has a realm where most staff and Sea Org members are living like overworked servants or even slaves or prisoners, especially in the Sea Org, but fed propaganda that they are so lucky to be there and allowed the honor and privilege of being in Scientology.