My Scientology Fair Game Experience

Something I didn't describe in fine detail when I left Scientology is how fair game was applied to me by the organization.

I had to go a very, very long way and learn a lot to understand what was done, why, and how.

I covered a tiny bit of it in my unauthorized autobiography A Million Years In Hell. It is posted at my blog Mockingbird's Nest and ESMB.

Very briefly, I was a public Scientologist just volunteering at the Buffalo org and someone was secretly communicating with the media. This guy was telling someone else details about the Buffalo org which were being exposed online.

Back then the org took leaks very seriously. This was over six or seven years ago.

So, OSA of course did an investigation and using their tech they of course determined that I was the leaker!

But as anyone family with Scientology investigations knows the determinations of Scientology bodies rarely matches reality.

The actual leaker was the husband of a staff member and a guy who I never even met!

But once you are found guilty by Scientology it usually sticks.

Especially if they never tell you that you are under investigation!

So, I was considered a serious troublemaker and problem.

So, they had people comb through my ethics, student and PC folders. They looked for all my buttons to know what to say to introvert me. In persuasion it would be called confusion technique and in psychology gaslighting.

I was a person who would do what is called "opening the gate completely" when dealing with the Dir I and R. I would accept their authority so completely that I took their words straight into my mind with my critical factor turned off, in other words we usually filter information from other people with our critical and independent thinking on some level evaluating it and accepting what we expect and agree with and doubting, questioning and rejecting what we don't expect, or believe.

But when the gate is wide open we accept everything as true and are in trance logic and set aside our defenses, we uncritically accept information and bury any cognitive dissonance caused by contradictions in our subconscious minds and deny it dissociate from the dissonance.

This makes questioning or doubting the information taken in while in the trance logic extremely distressing as it causes the confusion and mental discomfort to come into the conscious mind and you usually are not aware why you feel confused, exasperated, anxious and overwhelmed.

The more times one takes in information in this state the more dissonance is buried and the more difficult it becomes to doubt or question the information, it becomes more unpleasant as more cognitive dissonance is buried and building, like a pot of water getting more and more pressure underneath ready to boil over.

By this time I had been in Scientology over twenty years and indoctrinated for many hundreds of hours.

Submitting to an authority in Scientology had long been a habit by then and established by years of submitting to the authority of course supervisors, word clearers, auditors, Scientology doctrine, and MAAs and Dir I and Rs. So I was extremely vulnerable to their suggestions. And to top it off they had me write up pages and pages of overts and witholds.

The excessive confession of course further lowers confidence, heightens anxiety, and diminishes ego defenses.

If you confess so much you feel worthless and ashamed, then someone can tell you you have poor judgement and don't understand things and you are likely to not oppose criticism as you feel deserving of criticism.


So, they had the Dir I and R introvert and confuse me by focusing on telling me that I am not my name, beliefs, values, memories, body or anything else I believed in or felt. Remember, I took this in with the gate wide open, so it was like being told this by God and having more faith in God than yourself.

The process is to get you looking in on yourself so much you cannot be comfortable and look at anything else.

Here is an excerpt from Brainwashing Standard Tech:

Several days ago Lori Hodgson was harassed by someone from the Scientology cult. I copied and examined the comments by Vistaril at the Underground Bunker on this. I realized that the brainwashing techniques of Scientology which Vistaril quoted Ron Hubbard on described as introversion were also the exact same method that was used on me in an attempt to drive me to madness or death.

I had spent hundreds of hours trying to understand exactly what had been done and how. I believe the same method has been used on Bob Minton and many others over the years. I will quote Vistaril and some Hubbard references that relate to his methods. I had written about my experience in A Million Years In Hell but feel the exact methods used sheds new light on what Scientology attempted to do to me and has done to ruin utterly several others.

Vistaril Lori Hodgson

Stay strong, Lori!
That comment from Scientology is a particularly nasty one. It is a classic use of KSW Standard L Ron Hubbard Scientology "Shattering Suppression" Tech™ in that it is a full-on attempt to "introvert". Note the wording . . .

(below is the comment from a Scientology operative intended to introvert Lori Hodgson )
YOU won’t, Lori. Every action I have seen YOU doing in the past years has further alienated YOUR kids fromYOU. I would think YOU know that but YOU do it anyway. But maybe YOU don’t see it. So I am telling YOU. YOU can’t force them to love YOU again.

. . . is designed to focus the subject's attention in on themselves. It also employs the use of "Enemy Tactics" in its attempt to stir up "aberrative" wog HE&R concepts like love and attachment to family. And then there's the threat aspect as pointed out below with Cash Bolt's connection to weapons. Cruel, nasty, critical, intimidating and vindictive, just as L Ron Hubbard would have liked it. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if the comment was the work of David Miscavige himself. It takes a special kind of arsehole to come up with that sort of mind fuckery.

From an academic point of view, it is interesting to show just how duplicitous L Ron Hubbard was in his advocacy of such practises. Of all the words used to describe Scientology, perhaps the one which Scientologists rail against most is "brainwashing". But look how the term is defined in L Ron Hubbard's Administrative Dictionary . . .

BRAINWASHING, 1. brainwashing is a very simple mechanism. One gets a person to agree that something might be a certain way and then drives him by introverting him and through self-criticism to the possibility that it is that way. Only then does a man believe that the erroneous fact was a truth . . .

. . . now, contrast and compare L Ron Hubbard's "Shattering Supression" Tech™. One will find it is littered with instructions on how to introvert people and organizations. A stark example can be found in L Ron Hubbard's HCO Policy Letter of 15 August 1960 Dept. Of Government Affairs . . .

. . . The goal of the Department is to bring the government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology. This is done by high level ability to control and in its absence by low level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies. Scientology is the only game on Earth where everybody wins. There is no overt in bringing good order . . . 

. . . that HCOPL is compulsory reading for all Scientologists involved in Scientology's public relations and "special affairs". Yet how many Scientologists reading it realise that what L Ron Hubbard is telling them to do is to apply what he also defines as "brainwashing"? Not only that, L Ron Hubbard tells his Scientologists that applying such practices against people and organizations, regardless of the effects on individuals and their families, is not a sin (overt). Watta guy. Note also, that the general practice of Scientology is all about control and overwhelming a person and getting them so introverted they come to believe material which is demonstrably false - from the existence of Engrams right through to Xenu.

Perhaps if Lori was an isolated Scientologist stuck in L Ron Hubbard's weirdo world such tech may have an effect. But, in this particular case, the attempt is entirely futile. Well, perhaps not "entirely" because there will be an effect, but it will be the exact opposite of what was intended. First of all, Lori knows all about these pernicious Scientology teachings and can recognize them from a mile off. Also, she has far too much love and support around her for them to have any effect other than to reinforce the need to expose Scientology and make more strenuous efforts to reach out to her children.

EDIT: Typos, grammar, wording. Usual end quote by Vistaril.

Here's some more from Hubbard on this:

Quotes from L Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique:

Now, if it comes to a pass where it's very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.
The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, "But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees."
You say, "Your professor of what?"
"My professor of physics."
"What school? How did he know?" Completely off track! You're no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you're arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won't know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis. The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they're not sure of their own name.
And at that point you say, "Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don't you?"
"Yes-anything!" And he'll go out and draw the water out of the well.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard Lecture, 20 May 1952 "Decision."
source Lermanet.com

Also, even earlier, in 1950:

One error, however, must be remarked upon. The examination system employed is not much different from a certain hypnotic technique. One induces a state of confusion in the subject by raising his anxieties of what may happen if he does not pass. One then "teaches" at a mind which is anxious and confused. That mind does not then rationalize, it merely records and makes a pattern. If the pattern is sufficiently strong to be regurgitated verbatim on an examination paper, the student is then given a good grade and passed.
[End Quote]
. Ron Hubbard lecture 29 August 1950, "Educational Dianetics."
source Lermanet.com
He also knew that when one is confused they can feel relief ( i.e. brighter TEMPORARILY ) when they get an " answer " , even if it doesn't address the confusion!

“A confusion can be defined as any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion is random motion.”
“Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particular in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder.
“Any body of knowledge, more particularly and exactly, is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” – . Ron Hubbard [ref]

“Any time anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude…if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject…he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as a hypnotic suggestion….With parity, such as occurs between acquaintances, friends, fellow students and so on, there is no hypnotic suggestion” (Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery, volume 4). Source Jon Atack

Quoted from my own post Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology.

The reason I am pointing out that Scientology had me stripped down by the Dir I and R getting me confused and introverted by telling me that my past, memories, name, beliefs, feelings, body and everything else are not who I really am is because the process of being told that while completely open to suggestions from an authority strips down everything you know and rely on.

You are reduced to a confused, anxious and overwhelmed husk, empty of direction. Your stable data have all been invalidated down to nothing.

I saw an Adam Curtis documentary, The Century of Self, that examined, among many other things, EST - a Scientology offshoot. Warner Erhard in a television interview explained that EST had people tear down everything that they believed before by forcing people to do activities very similar to TRs drills, they found and exposed buttons and got people to say and do things they were inhibited about and convinced them the old traditions, values, identities and beliefs they had were not genuine and that they had all been artificial additives to the genuine person.

Erhard said that what they discovered is that when you strip the person down through EST is that underneath everything is nothing. It is extremely nihilistic. Or existentialist. It is postmodernism.

You end up getting told your entire life, identity and values are fake and no longer binding. Then Erhard said it is liberating because you are left knowing two truths. You exist and you want to be happy.

He said then you can pursue happiness unfettered.

That means if you were a middle aged man who is married with three kids and you have gone to a church for forty years but you want to sleep with a twenty year old then do it because it will make you happy.

If you have been a part of a company or community and committed to helping out but think you would enjoy doing cocaine and sleeping with prostitutes in Vegas then do it, because the only things that are real are you and your desire to be happy.

If you are a mom and raising three kids and married and working at a job you hate, then you can quit that job, abandon those kids, leave that husband and do absolutely anything that makes you happy. It gave the people involved permission to do anything at all in the pursuit of happiness.

In the documentary a different application of the techniques was used on a group of nuns at a convent. The people higher up in the church wanted the convent to appear modern, so they let the "modern" technique get applied to the nuns.

At first the nuns started opening up and going out into the outside world for shopping and to eat at restaurants, no big deal.

Then over time as they were encouraged to try new things and drop boundaries and open up things started to change more.

A nun expressed wanting to kiss another nun and of course under the "modern" technique was encouraged to do so. This awakened something in her and things kept progressing. The nuns were encouraged to do whatever felt good, whatever they wanted. Anything they wanted.

I swear it sounds like the plot of a poorly written porno but here is what the documentary described, the nuns went out and experienced and experimented with so many things that they had about half the nuns write letters asking to be released from their vows, I think some dated men or married, the remaining half became radical lesbian nuns. Yes, you got it right - radical lesbian nuns.

I don't think the church wants any more modernization.

Try explaining to the Cardinal or Bishop or Monsignor that sister Mary Mcgillicutty is now the leader of a convent of radical lesbian nuns and they are consulting with David Miscavige regarding ecclesiastical dildos!

My point is that the Scientology introversion to brainwash you or the EST or EST like techniques to break you down end up deconstructing your identity, and can push you to desperation and despair.

I am convinced Scientology agents following orders from OSA tried to introvert me so completely - by having me focus entirely on my overts and witholds while invalidating everything I knew, felt or believed about my identity - that it would drive me to madness or suicide.

The nuns had their identities deconstructed, broken down and nothing put there but self-awareness and personal desire.

I have nothing against lesbians or radical lesbian nuns. I just think that people need to know that they may lose everything that made them who they are if they do certain things like submit to Scientology for twenty five years or do the Scientology like techniques in EST and other offshoots of Scientology.

The breaking down or deconstruction of a person has been shown to remove the beliefs, values and traditions the person followed. You have every right to know this before starting one of these activities, after all you might want to be you when it is over..