Scientology's Insidious Influence Revisited (1)

 I left Scientology in 2014 after spending twenty five years in the cult. I explored the techniques used in Scientology indoctrination in the article Insidious Influence: Study Technology. This article has been posted on Quora, the Ex Scientologist Message Board (ESMB), at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology and Facebook.

I think it's time to revisit the topic and see if I can make my initial point any more clear. 

In the past seven years I have read about fifty books, read hundreds of articles and watched thousands of videos.

Hopefully the information is helpful and I can share it in an easily understandable manner.

Note: this is the first post in a five part series looking at this topic. The entire series is also available as one post. 

I want to start by quoting an article by the top Scientology expert in the world, in my opinion, Jon Atack.

This article was published by Tony Ortega at The Underground Bunker blog.

Jon Atack excavates the Scientology mind for L. Ron Hubbard’s most harmful implants

By Tony Ortega | November 29, 2014

"The aim of Scientology is to reduce the free individual to obedience to the orders and policies of Scientology. Quite simply put, it does not bring about “self-determinism” but “Ron-determinism,” where the follower (or Dev-OT) is in complete accord with the fantasies and fabrications of the Founder." Jon Atack

 

"Scientology is a system of procedures that induces euphoria (“very good indicators”) and heightens suggestibility (obedience training or OT) so that the tenets of Scientology will be followed and Hubbard deified. Elsewhere, the same techniques are called hypnosis. Hubbard said of hypnosis: “It reduces self-determinism by interposing the commands of another below the analytical level of an individual’s mind” (Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary, from Science of Survival, Book 2, p.220). It is a good definition and is achieved on a daily basis by Hubbard’s cult.

Here is one of the most relevant statements that Hubbard ever made. I shall quote it at length, because it is the essential truth of Scientology: “In altitude teaching, somebody is a ‘great authority.’ He is probably teaching some subject that is far more complex than it should be [Scientology is the most complex system ever devised by any single ‘great authority’]. He has become defensive down through the years, and this is a sort of protective coating that he puts up, along with the idea that the subject will always be a little better known by him than by anybody else and that there are things to know in this subject which he really wouldn’t let anybody else in on. This is altitude instruction.” In Keeping Scientology Working, Hubbard asserted that every major tenet in Scientology and Dianetics was his exclusive discovery. This is most certainly “altitude instruction”!

Hubbard continues, “And in order to get people to sit very alertly and do exactly what he says, he has another trick: he gives them examinations [‘star rate checkouts’] … So there is this anxiety around a person’s grades, and this comes forward until he finally gets up to a point in education where when somebody says the word examination to him it not only push-buttons him but it also threatens Mama, Papa, love and general survival. It is a terrific whip. It keeps people in a state of confusion, and when their minds are slightly confused they are in a hypnotic trance. 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. There are ways to create and lower the altitude of the subject, but if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject the same way, he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as hypnotic suggestion.” (my italics; Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery Series, volume 4, 1st edition, pp.324-5)

So, Hubbard’s altitude — the only creator of “Tech” — means that “what he says will still react as hypnotic suggestion.” Not simply “act,” note, but “react,” as in “reactive mind.” Of course the “reactive mind” is that part of the mind which acts below consciousness — the hypnotic mind, in Hubbard’s terms (the reality is rather more complex, but you have to get past the anti-brain implant to approach the unconscious mind in all its glory). Hubbard fashioned the reactive mind, gifted it to his followers and filled it chock full with implants, so that Scientologists have about as much self-determinism as Pavlov’s dogs after their testicles had been removed.

The implanted positive suggestions of Scientology are the beliefs themselves. It is amazing how simply these beliefs come apart, if you can only confront them head on. Raising communication does not raise affinity — or yelling, beating, and brutalising would be useful means for bringing love into the world. In the eight dynamics, it is risible that the individual has the same vote as the entire of humanity, or that God is allowed only one vote. Those who believe in God would surely not go against His (or Her) will, no matter how much it seems to benefit the other seven dynamics. Scientology is a farrago of pseudoscience. Curiously, the word “scientology” was first used to mean exactly that, long before Hubbard redefined it. It is an edifice that crumbles once logic is focused upon it." Jon Atack

"

Alfred Korzybski

 
"The system works using the “two terminal universe” concept. In Science of Survival, Hubbard borrowed Korzybski’s concept of infinity-valued logic. Korzybski is acknowledged in the frontispiece of that book, as one of the thinkers “without whose speculations and observations the creation and construction of Dianetics would not have been possible.” (Though Hubbard would later assert that his were the only contributions of any value in “50,000 years.” But contradiction keeps the marks confused, so that they will do as they are told.)

In Notes on the Lectures, Hubbard asserts: “Primitive logic was one-valued. Everything was assumed to be the product of a divine will, and there was no obligation to decide the rightness or wrongness of anything. Most logic added up eerily to the propitiation of the gods. Aristotle formulated two-valued logic. A thing was either right or wrong. This type of logic is used by the reactive mind. In the present day, engineers are using a sort of three-valued logic which contains the values of right, wrong, and maybe. From three-valued logic we jump to infinity-valued logic — a spectrum which moves from infinite wrongness to infinite rightness.” (cited in the Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary under “logic”).

Scientology does not use infinity-valued logic, rather it uses single-valued logic — not the “will of God” but the will of Hubbard. There is no flexibility in Scientology: You follow the “Technology” to the letter (the “white taped route”). No matter how “OT” you become, you will never reach Hubbard’s level: You will never be able to see how the universe works and discover any “technology” yourself. You might be a god, but he is a god-maker. If you subscribe to his infantile narcissism, that is.

The definition of infinity-valued logic in Science of Survival is: “It is a tenet of Dianetics that absolutes are unobtainable. Terms like good and bad, alive and dead, right and wrong are used only in conjunction with gradient scales. On the scale of right and wrong, everything above zero or centre would be more right, approaching an infinity of rightness, and everything below zero or centre would be more and more wrong, approaching an infinite wrongness. The gradient scale is a way of thinking about the universe which approximates the actual conditions of the universe more closely than any other existing logical method.” Hubbard certainly didn’t waste time on humility! (And it would be interesting to see the “gradient scale” of death as a condition — is Hubbard more or less dead now that he was in 1986?).

Still, this idea was quickly abandoned in favour of the Will of Hubbard. The two-terminal concept pervades Scientology — dual-valued logic (right and wrong) — at best. So, we find “goals problems masses,” which are the basis of Grade 6, the Clearing Course, the original OT I and the current OT II. According to Hubbard this is the foundation of the Reactive Mind or “R6 Bank.” These are the “implants” given during Incident Two of OT III, 75 million years ago.

The notion is that “charge” is generated by two poles, so the individual is held in place by contradictions — such as “to be or not to be.” Scientology itself is a two-terminal structure, where almost every assertion has a contradiction (as we saw in my piece on double binds). This induces cognitive dissonance — confusion — where the individual becomes unable to decide, so must ask for direction from the outside. The implants of Scientology tend to follow this pattern. Confusion technique is the most basic method of hypnosis. In the blank, while the mind hunts for sense, a positive suggestion (or command) can be quickly inserted." Jon Atack

 

"Scientology can be stripped down into a series of implants. These are patterns of behaviour that will persist even after auditing is abandoned. " Jon Atack

"As Hubbard said, in his Propaganda by Redefinition of Words: “WORDS ARE REDEFINED TO MEAN SOMETHING ELSE TO THE ADVANTAGE OF THE PROPAGANDIST.” (emphasis in original, see more about this subject in my essay at Jonny Jacobson’s website, Infinite Complacency.) Hubbard tells us that we can be controlled by the redefinition of words, and then proceeds to pour forth more redefinitions than anyone in history — two 500 page dictionaries. So, start with “open-minded,” which according to one online dictionary means “Willing to consider new ideas; unprejudiced.” In Keeping Scientology Working, we find, “When somebody enrols, consider he or she has joined up for the duration of the universe — never permit an ‘open-minded’ approach.” Now, I can feel the grind of cognitive dissonance in the minds of the true believers, so let’s put this simply: To be a Scientologist you must be unwilling to consider new ideas (ie, non-Scientology ideas) and you must adopt Hubbard’s prejudices wholesale and without additional thought." Jon Atack

"Now for the “misunderstood word implant” — “the only reason a student gives up a study,” we are told (apart from “too steep a gradient” or “suppressive rendition” and various other notions). This diverts the student from the wood — which can no longer be seen — to the trees. What Hubbard says isn’t contradictory nonsense: The fault lies with the student, who has failed to understand the brilliance of Hubbard’s ideas." Jon Atack

Now, you might be wondering what an "implant" is.

Wikipedia can help us out.

"In Scientology, an implant is similar to an engram in that it is believed to condition the mind in a certain way. The difference is that an implant is done deliberately and with evil intent. It is similar to Thought insertion. It is "an intentional installation of fixed ideas, contra-survival to the thetan". [ Hubbard, L. Ron "Scientology Definitions II", 6612C06, SH Spec 83, 1966. ]" end quote Wikipedia ( the number "6612C06, SH Spec 83, 1966" refers to the quote coming from from a particular taped lecture of Ronald Hubbard, he recorded thousands of taped lectures, the number is a way to catalogue them, the 66 refers, for example, to 1966 as the year the lecture was given and the SH Spec refers to the Saint Hill special briefing course, which the lecture was a part of. The Saint Hill special briefing course was a Scientology course delivered in Saint Hill England originally. The 83 lets you know the tape was the 83rd tape in the lecture series.)

Just explaining the abbreviation of one Scientology term takes a bit of an education. 

For comparison, here is a regular English definition from the Cambridge Dictionary:

implant verb [T] (IDEA)

 

to fix ideas, feelings, or opinions in someone else's mind:

He implanted some very strange attitudes in his children.

There is much debate on the issue of "therapists" implanting false memories of sexual abuse in adults."End quote

Just examining these two we can see that Scientology has the idea of an implant as a noun, in other words what gets implanted is an implant. 

Now, you might wonder how this works, in other words, how does Scientology put implants into the minds of people? 

Jon Atack quoted Hubbard claiming that altitude instruction is akin to hypnosis and that Hubbard presented confusion via contradiction to instill cognitive dissonance and then "In the blank, while the mind hunts for sense, a positive suggestion (or command) can be quickly inserted." Jon Atack

Here is a bit more on that.

I have been communicating with Jon Atack and want to give him credit for pointing out something to me. I got close to seeing and stating this, but not quite right.

I will quote directly from an email: "I realized that throughout DMSMH he contradicts himself. I'd read it three times and never noticed. Presumably because the 'blank' that he relates to the mu actually occurs during the cognitive dissonance. Once you have confused someone, you insert the suggestions that will put them under your control ('if you knew what was wrong with your mind it, it wouldn't be wrong' is a favorite). Jon Atack

(DMSHMH is Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health and obviously "himself" and "he" refer to the author of Dianetics, Ronald Hubbard)

But what exactly happens? And how?

To get to that we have to know two or three things.

We need to have a little information on cognitive dissonance theory, we have to understand a bit about hypnosis, particularly the use of confusion and contradictions, and last of all we need to examine what happens to a Scientologist involving these ideas. Easy peasy!