Scientology's Insidious Influence Revisited (5)

Note: this is the fifth post in a five part series looking at this topic. The entire series is also available as one post. I recommend reading the posts in order as they refer back to one another regarding information covered already. 

 After everything else we have examined we have the astounding question:

But there is one more thing to address: did Ronald Hubbard intend to use his study tech and misunderstood word idea to confuse and control people? Did he try to implant ideas in their minds? 

To answer this we have a wealth of resources in the form of his own words.

I was able to realize that the confusion on study in Scientology is from contradictions and cognitive dissonance it instills and the relief of this in word clearing comes from setting aside the confusion and accepting the ideas and definitions Hubbard guides you to. 

Hubbard wrote: "Waiting to become groggy or to “dope off” (feel tired, sleepy or foggy as though doped or drugged) as the only detection of misunderstood words before handling is waiting too long. If you have ever seen a student falling asleep over his book, then you have seen dope-off." Ronald Hubbard 

He described a student feeling tired or groggy as being due to misunderstood words. Okay. 

But he also said something else:

These quotes are from the Philadelphia Doctorate Course tapes, a series of lectures delivered by Hubbard in the early fifties. PDC stands for Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures and the number next to it indicates which lecture a particular quote is from, so for example "31" in "PDC-31" represents the thirty-first tape in the series. "pg" is "page" abbreviated. 

Originally Posted by PDC-31 pg 16
BASIC AGREEMENT AND PROVE IT!

"So, in order to _____ you have to desire it.

Now, this mechanism is, incidently, one of the interesting points of hypnotism.

When a person gets very groggy in hypnosis, he’s been put down to a point where he’s very obedient." Ron Hubbard

So a groggy student is told to stop and look up a word, but a hypnotist can have a groggy person be hypnotized and obedient, according to Hubbard. Hmm.

What else did Hubbard say about this ? 

Back to the Philadelphia Doctorate Course (PDC) tapes

Originally Posted by PDC-05 pg 7 SCALES OF HANDLING 2.12.52

"Well, that’s… that’s very interesting because we have hypnotism which can be demonstrated as a phenomenon,

and we show that the greater and greater agreement,

all you do to hypnotize somebody is just make him agree… agree… agree 

and after that he’ll see anything.

He’ll do anything,

he’ll see anything.

He agrees, agrees, agrees." Ron Hubbard

Originally Posted by PDC-15 pg 4 THE LOGICS:

"he has volunteered.

And the next thing you know, you’ll find out he has agreed.

How is all this done?

It’s done by hypnosis; it’s done in various other ways.

Hypnosis is just a sudden agreement. 

And uh… it’s done in various ways

and then he comes down this whole long scale of agreement 

and things get more and more in agreement 

and they are probably more and more actually to his personal discredit

and uh…

antipathetic to his best beingness, habit he’s still going down the line,

and goes down the line further, ...and further, ...and further, ...and further.

And this fellow goes into apathy and he goes further and further

and further. And of course, he goes more and more under control." Ron Hubbard

So, way back in 1952 Hubbard said hypnosis is agreement and a groggy person is obedient.

But Could this really apply to a student reading or listening to a tape?

Hubbard had definite ideas on this:


"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). Ron Hubbard Source Jon Atack 

Here's a longer excerpt:

ALTITUDE INSTRUCTION

“In altitude teaching, somebody is a ‘great authority.’ He is probably teaching some subject that is far more complex than it should be. 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 … It keeps people in a state of confusion, and when their minds are slightly confused they are in a hypnotic trance. Anytime 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.” (Hubbard, Research & Discovery, volume 4, p.324)

"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 Arnie Lerma

Remember how Hubbard described nervous hysteria as coming from misunderstood words? Isn't that a mind that's confused and anxious? 

So, back in 1950 Hubbard saw altitude, also called authority or prestige or transference, as the key to hypnosis and NOT formal induction.  Interesting. So the student could take in what a source provides as hypnotic suggestions and be obedient if groggy, according to Hubbard if altitude has been achieved. 

Hubbard had other specific ideas:

"Good Word Clearing is a system of backtracking. You have to look earlier than the point where the student became dull or confused and you’ll find that there’s a word that he doesn’t understand somewhere before the trouble started. If he doesn’t brighten up when the word is found and cleared, there will be a misunderstood word even before that one.

This will be very clear to you if you understand that if it is not resolving, the thing the student is apparently having trouble with is not the thing the student is having trouble with. Otherwise, it would resolve, wouldn’t it? If he knew what he didn’t understand, he could resolve it himself. So to talk to him about what he thinks he doesn’t understand just gets nowhere. The trouble is earlier." Ron Hubbard

So Hubbard had directed a student to look earlier and look up words, sometimes English words and sometimes Scientology words to clear as a response to blankness or the not there feeling or washed out feeling or a nervous hysteria. He directed the student to go earlier and that what the student is having trouble with isn't what they are having trouble with. A very confusing statement. Why confuse a student about what they don't get ? Check this out:


Quotes from  Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique: 
[Quote] 
"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

"If you can produce enough chaos — it says in a textbook on this subject — if you can produce enough chaos you can assume the total management of a psyche — if you can produce enough chaos.

The way you hypnotize people is to misalign them in their own control and realign them under your control, which necessitates a certain amount of chaos, don’t you see?

Now, the way to win through all of this is simply to let the guy have his stable data, if they are stable data and if they aren’t, let him have some more that are stable data and he’ll win and you’ll win.

In other words, you can take any sphere — any sphere which is relatively chaotic and throw almost any stable datum into it with enough of a statement and you will get an alignment of data on that stable datum. You see this clearly?

The whole society is liable to seize upon some stupid stable datum and thereafter this becomes a custom of some sort and you have the whole field of morals and mores and so forth stretching out before your view."

Ronald Hubbard (1955, 23 August). Axiom 53: The Axiom Of The Stable Datum. Academy Lecture Series/Conquest of Chaos,   (CofC-2). Lecture conducted from Washington, DC.

"Another way to hypnotize somebody would be to put him in the middle of chaos, everything going in all directions, everybody shooting at him and suddenly throw him a stable datum, and make it a successful stable datum so that it’s all called off once — the moment he grabs this.

 And this gives you the entire formula of brainwashing: interrogate, question, lights, pain, upset, accusation, duress, fear, privation and we throw him the stable datum.

 We say, “If you’ll just adopt ‘Ughism’ which is the most wonderful thing in the world, all this will cease,” and finally the fellow says, “All right, I’m an ‘Ugh.’ ” Immediately you stop torturing him and pat him on the head and he’s all set.

Ever after he would believe that the moment he deserted “Ughism,” he would be drowned in chaos and that “Ughism” alone was the thing which kept the world stable; and he would sell his life or his grandmother to keep “Ughism” going.

 And there we have to do with the whole subject of loyalty, except — except that we haven’t dealt with loyalty at all on an analytical level but the whole subject of loyalty is a reactive subject we have dealt with. "

Author: Ronald Hubbard

Document date: 1955, 21 September, 1955, 21 September

Document title: Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing - New Understanding of Axiom 36, Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing - New Understanding of Axiom 36

So, according to Hubbard redirection of attention can confuse someone enough to achieve the depth of hypnosis. But that's what his having the student always look for something to resolve that isn't what he's having trouble with does. He's utterly confused. Hubbard had more to say on confusion and hypnosis:

“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 fromone 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  [excerpts from the article, Confusion and the Stable Datum, Scientology Handbook]



Below are quotes from a tape lecture entitled Structure/Function.

RON THE HYPNOTIST

Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1

"All processes are based upon the original observation

that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis

and removed at will any obsession or aberration,

compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“ 

"Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;

sometimes it worked,

sometimes it didn’t work.

It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.

Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.

Well, I had a high certainty already –

I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…" Ron Hubbard

So he was trying to confuse a student, get them obedient and accepting his altitude and then his definitions for Scientology terms along with English words and his doctrine through tapes and writings.

All this was to get people under his influence ? To overcome the limits hypnosis had of sometimes working and to also be applied remotely. Remember Hubbard described hypnosis as requiring confusion, which his method creates and altitude.

So Hubbard was creating a confusion then with altitude trying to suggest his words as the answer to the confusion. A confusion from contradictions can create mental discomfort and cognitive dissonance. Cognitive Dissonance has a moment of blankness and hesitation.

That's where Hubbard inserted the suggestion. The confused person is meant to accept the suggestion without question. What is the suggestion ? Hubbard's reality through his doctrine.

Hubbard inserted his stable datum to relieve confusion, really to have it taken in on a hypnotic level. Hubbard knew his information didn't need to be correct. It just needed to align information to relieve confusion and control a student.

Here's something else Hubbard said:

From the PDC tapes, lecture entitled How To Handle Them

Originally Posted by PDC-04 pg6
HOW TO HANDLE THEM

"The hypnotist is only interested in one thing, really.

The hypnotist is interested in taking the control of this individual."  Ron Hubbard

Originally Posted by STRUCTURE/FUNCTION:11.12.52

"I turned around and I had hypnotism. 

I had a little advantage there because I was using hypnotism that I had learned in India.

And that doesn’t bear too much resemblance to Western hypnotism.

You’ve got variety of hypnotism there. There are ninety thousand ways of putting a guy out – I swear there must be that many ways.

I mean, you can just run on and on and on.

There’s various things you do;

you treat the perceptic lines in certain ways

and guys go Ka- boom!“ Ronald Hubbard

I dug deep into the issue in the blog post Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology. Here are a few quotes:

Quotes from  Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique: 
[Quote] 
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: 
[Quote] 
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 [excerpts from the article, Confusion and the Stable Datum, Scientology Handbook]

“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”  Ronald Hubbard (Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery, volume 4).  Source Jon Atack

Remember the statements from Jon Atack we started with?

"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

And

 "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)

I hope that I have explained that Scientology founder through the use of his misunderstood word doctrine and method described in the Scientology Handbook as Basic Word Clearing intended to confuse people. 

He intended to create anxiety in people and to overwhelm them with far too much information, far too complex in form and to use new definitions for thousands of terms to create a state of heightened anxiety and to use tremendous amounts of contradictions to increase suggestibility in people and to then implant his ideas found in his definitions in their vulnerable minds, minds that are in a state of diminished independent and critical thinking.

I will conclude this with a collection of statements from Hubbard to Hubbard, his private writings intended only for himself. 

Hubbard made statements in his affirmations (private self-hypnosis commands intended for himself and no one else)  that I call the Rosetta Stone of Scientology because they help ex Scientologists decipher the information in Scientology.

I have them posted at Mockingbird's Nest as 

A Psychiatric View With Comments On The Admissions By Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1947)

I will put a few excerpts here to highlight Hubbard's intention regarding hypnosis and in general. To understand Scientology I absolutely recommend reading the post in full. These excerpts are just for this post on his intentions.

LRH is obviously L Ron Hubbard

LRH:Your psychology is good. You worked to darken your own children. This failure, with them, was only apparent. The evident lack of effectiveness was "ordered." The same psychology works perfectly on everyone else. You use it with great confidence. 

LRH: Material things are yours for the asking. Men are your slaves. Elemental spirits are your slaves. You are power among powers, light in the darkness, beauty in all. 

LRH : Your psychology is advanced and true and wonderful. It hypnotizes people. It predicts their emotions, for you are their ruler. 

LRH: No matter what lies you may tell others they have no physical effect on you of any kind.

LRH: Lord help women when you begin to fondle them. You are master of their bodies, master of their souls as you may consciously wish. You have no karma to pay for these acts. 

LRH: You can tell all the romantic tales you wish. You will remember them, you do remember them. But you know which ones were lies. You are so logical you will tell nothing which cannot be believed. 

LRH: You use the minds of men. They do not use your mind or affect it in any way. 

So, Hubbard in his private affirmations clearly described his "psychology" as such that it "hypnotizes" people and that men are his slaves and regarding women that he was master of their bodies and souls. He described himself as being able to lie and be both believed and he was immune to physical effects from his lies. He described himself as the ruler of people who uses the minds of men but they do not use or affect his mind. 

Imagine having these goals and using self-hypnosis commands repeatedly for years to bring these things into your mind. 

I hope that I have been thorough and covered all the points I started with to concisely support and demonstrate each one.