How Cults Work 10 - Totalist Indoctrination

How Cults Work - Totalist Indoctrination

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

This post is on chapter four - Totalist Indoctrination.

Stein starts with a Quote from Hannah Arendt:
 "It has frequently been said, and it is perfectly true, that the most horrible aspect of [totalitarian] terror is that it has the power to bind together completely isolated individuals and that by doing so it isolates these individuals even more.

Only isolated individuals can be dominated totally." Hannah Arendt, Essays in Understanding

In Scientology I always felt like I never quite knew where I stood in the group and always felt like things were chaotic and insecure. I kept thinking that stability was around the corner or required a change that never seemed to arrive. Now I understand we were isolated from deep and meaningful relationships but packed together with no time or room to explore anything else and certainly no time to consider what we were doing or even use reflection to integrate our thoughts. 

Stein wrote "The two elements of isolation of the follower and positioning of the group as the new safe haven as discussed in the previous chapter, have prepared the follower for indoctrination in the totalist system. There is continued, and now nearly complete, isolation from prior friends and family (unless they are in, useful to or confirming to the group). The follower's life becomes almost totally swallowed up by the group. And finally, with the follower isolated from prior sources of support, the group arouses threat, fear or stress in some form. This sequence is not necessarily a linear process, and can take many forms - all, however, can result in a relationship of disorganized attachment and chronic dissociation that is at its heart. Whatever form they take, these three elements - isolation, engulfment and fear arousal - are fundamental to the brainwashing process.


       This process takes place within a totalistic organization, and so, to understand it, the organization as an entity, an organism itself, - its structure, the  processes that keep it going, its birth and death - must be understood. And at the same time the experience of the follower who is subjected to brainwashing, their journey into and through the organization, must also be understood. There are, then, these two interrelated processes to grasp. It is at the nexus of these two entities that the core mechanism of brainwashing takes place: the action of the organization upon the follower to induce a relationship of disorganized attachment whereby the leader can gain and maintain control of followers.


When the process of brainwashing or totalist indoctrination by the group is successful there is a threefold outcome. The followers' feelings are disrupted and an attachment to the group and/or leader is formed. Their thinking, and in particular their ability to think about their feelings and attachments, is in turn disrupted. Finally, followers can then become deployable - that is, able to be directed to engage in actions regardless of their own survival interests.  Deployable followers lose their autonomy of thought and action. " Page 63 - 64

Okay, that was a ton to quote but I felt it is vital for portraying the model Stein used and some of its most important points. 

To me this is the difference between a cult and other type of group. The cult does these things in these ways to operate in this manner.

in Scientology I experienced all of this. I was encouraged to leave all outside attachments, subtly and slightly at first but it steadily grew over months. There was arousal of distrust of outsiders, so I would not ask anyone outside Scientology any important questions. The schedule rapidly became all day every day, even if I was promised a day off, somehow something important would come up so I had to be at the org. 

Always having to be there and never getting paid while being pushed to finish courses and programs faster and faster and needing to never fall behind on my training produced extreme anxiety. And in Scientology you are subjected to spot checks and checkouts in which, often with no notice, you are asked for the correct in context definition of words from your course materials. 

If you fail to give the exact correct definition for the context without hesitation or doubt you get flunked and have to go back in your materials to where the word appeared, use Scientology word clearing on the word THEN restudy your materials from that point forward. It may be a page back or hundreds of pages back.  That produced terror in students. 

I also experienced everything described regarding feeling attachment to the group and leader, my ability to think was disrupted by the Scientology indoctrination system, I had awareness of contradictions in Scientology and flaws with the doctrine reframed by Scientology doctrine and practices as misunderstood words, meaning it you find contradictions or flaws in Scientology doctrine you are always treated as if you have words you do not understand and your anxiety is called nervous hysteria, your sense of reelingness or confusion is attributed to a skipped step in understanding, your hesitation, a not there feeling or dead feeling is attributed to a lack of seeing the subject or misunderstood words.

Many phenomena associated with cognitive dissonance from contradictions are relabeled as being from misunderstood words in Scientology. A blank feeling, a not there feeling, hesitation and much more.

Doubts are seen as proof of your own hidden evil acts as is wanting to leave. So you learn to push aside those criticism filled thoughts and subsequently censor your own critical thinking.

When you have accepted the language of Scientology it is jam packed with loaded terms. These terms have concepts in the definitions that include accepting cause and effect relationships between words and phenomena, criticism of Scientology and hidden acts, wanting to leave Scientology and hidden crimes and words that assumes these relationships are genuine and beyond rational doubt. So, as you truly accept these terms and constantly think them thousands and thousands of times reaffirming their infallible certainty you become deployable. After all, you become absolutely sure everything Hubbard wrote is true and know your survival depends on this knowledge for eternity as Hubbard told you so. 

Stein went on to describe isolation and engulfment:

"To take the first two elements of the brainwashing process: as the group consolidates the isolation from friends and family that began in the recruitment stage (if there was one) they simultaneously engulf the follower in group activities, surrounding the recruit with other group members"

"In order to more completely isolate the follower and ensure they become focused on the group, the group controls the follower's time, their communication with others and the communication they receive. " Page 64

 "But fundamentally the combination of isolation and engulfment results in a situation that the philosopher Hannah Arendt describes as people being "pressed together" so tightly that there is no space between them, "so the very space of free action - and this is the reality of freedom - disappears. The space between people, she says, is what makes up the "world." It is in the space between people that conversation, speaking to one another, occurs by which "everything that individuals carry with them innately becomes visible and audible." In other words our differences and individuality, our different experiences and different views only become real, in a sense, when we are in conversation with others across this space that separates us, that allows us this difference. Arendt sees this conversation as the essence of real friendship.

    But in a totalist system, no differences are allowed - all are pressed together and compelled to have a single set of beliefs, goals and behaviors. With only a single view, a single, absolute "truth" allowed , then no conversation is needed - after all, in such a case we already agree on everything, we already (apparently) experience everything in the same way. What then, is there to talk about ? In fact, what is key in totalitarian groups is a constant monitoring to ensure nothing "worldly" (this is the very word used in many, bible-based cults) is talked about. And certainly nothing "anti-organizational" - as it was called in my group - may ever be discussed. Indeed, in our case, being accused of anti-organizational talk, thinking or behavior was considered the greatest crime. " Page 68

"Contrary to the stereotype of cult life, followers are isolated not only from the outside world, but in this airless pressing together they are also isolated from each other within the group. They cannot share doubts, complaints about the group or any attempt to attribute their distress to the actions of the group. At the same time as this isolation from other people - either within or outside the group - is occurring,  there is also a deep loneliness and isolation from the self.The time pressures, sleep deprivation and the erasure of the individual mean there is never any opportunity for solitude - that creative and restful state where where contemplation, thinking and the space in which changes of mind might occur can take place. As there is no space between people, neither is there any internal space allowed within each person, for their own autonomous thought and feeling. Thus there is a triple isolation: from the outside world, from others in the group and from one's own self. "  Page 68


Okay. This describes exactly what my experience in Scientology was. We were packed together with how we communicated controlled. We drilled looking into each other's eyes for hours, so we did it the same way. We drilled how to begin communication, how to continue communication how to end communication. We followed a formula on how to communicate. It has how to communicate down to exact steps, with little room for variations. 

in Scientology the communication you receive as a member is rigidly controlled with no interruptions allowed during indoctrination on course or while in auditing. Often Sea Org members and staff have their day scheduled to the minute. 

Many forms of communication are monitored or banned in Scientology. There is no joking and degrading allowed, you are not supposed to joke around at all about Scientology. You are never supposed to acknowledge failures of Scientology technology. 

Saying or writing anything critical of Scientology organizations or leadership is  treated as a crime or betrayal in Scientology. In Scientology conformity to group norms and obedience to authority intersect as the group norms and obedience are one. No dissent is permitted by either.

We were discouraged so strongly from expressing any individuality that often entire conversations and relationships were just people looking at each other as required in drills, communicating as required in drills and saying the terms and phrases from Scientology doctrine to each other over and over like robots. Scientology even has drills to address the fact that Scientologists act like robots when they talk to each other and outsiders. We practiced by saying things as if they were our own original thoughts. This was to hide the fact that we were regurgitating the same phrases and doctrine from Scientology over and over. 

Scientology also uses drills to get people used to setting aside their personal boundaries. You get used to being sworn at, yelled at, touched and directed and controlled by other people and you get used to controlling other people too. You get used to violating their boundaries and setting your own aside. So there is no safety or security in this relationship. 

your conversation and personal expression are so rigidly controlled in Scientology that you might be around other Scientologists for years but never be friends. Between the schedule, lack of closeness between cult members and the monitoring of your own thoughts and behaviors no contemplation of negative aspects of Scientology occurs.

In fact I one day realized something in my life was wrong and couldn't figure it out. I had begun to look at the parts of my opinion life and began listing them out. I immediately ruled out Scientology as the source of anything negative and realized something - I ruled it out with no actual consideration, as if it cannot be even looked at and should be automatically assumed to be so infallible.

I realized I had automatically been seeing Scientology as blameless and not being objective or even really consciously looking at it  as possibly flawed for decades. That was deeply disturbing.


It is one thing to use independent and critical thinking to carefully compile evidence and arguments for and against something and to weigh them against each other, but I was skipping that and as a habit on a subconscious level automatically acting like the decision was made.

I was separated from my own capacity to judge some things, particularly things that Hubbard didn't want Scientologists judging. The three fold isolation Stein described is exactly what Scientology provides.