Mockingbird's Nest: (6) Scientology and NXIVM

Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism

Influences on NXIVM beliefs and practices, sourced from Natalie et al (2019), rendered in the mode of W.S. Bainbridge, e.g. Bainbridge 1978. |NXIVM teachings drew upon diverse influences, including Ayn Rand ("parasites"), L. Ron Hubbard ("suppressives"), Milton Erickson's hypnosis, Isaac Asimov's science fiction, Rudolf Steiner, Tony Robbins, and neuro-linguistic programming. NXIVM incorporated elements of multi-level marketing and practices from judo, with colored cloth for rank and bowing.

This is the sixth post in a series that examines the book Scarred: The True Story Of How I Escaped The Cult That Bound My Life by Sarah Edmondson.

I recommend reading these posts in sequential order and have listed them in order to make reading them in order easy.

Unless noted otherwise, all quotes used in this series are from that book.

On page 19 of Scarred, author Sarah Edmondson introduced the term "EM aka Exploration of Meaning".

This is a technique that I frankly never saw in Scientology. At least I never saw it with that name.

In Scientology and Dianetics auditing many techniques are similar enough to the EM used in NXIVM that it's worth noting.

Both have methods that involve guiding questions and the recall of past events to resolve underlying trauma, or at least both CLAIM to do so.

I have written extensively on the use of guiding questions as a form of covert coercion in which the questions combined with other ideas in Scientology doctrine combine to encourage a member to "recall" the answer desired by the practitioner.

In Scientology these "answers" often include submission to Scientology procedures and belief the procedures are beneficial and Scientology doctrine is correct.

I suspect that EMs have this quality as well.

"Nancy's own specialty was neurolinguistic programming (NLP), ..." (Scarred page 21)

Sarah Edmondson goes on to describe some of the claims for NLP and I won't even waste your time with them, because a lot of examination of NLP has found it to be a harmful fraud and a method that unscrupulous people use to try and control others.

It was not developed with scientific research and it doesn't stand up to scientific examination, which has been used on it.

I have several blog posts on the harmful and dangerous practice already and recommend you run, not walk, away from any person or group that uses NLP.

Many serious scientists have been very unequivocal regarding the nature of the subject and the effects it creates; not beneficial and genuinely harmful quite often.

Nancy Salzman reportedly still believes in the methods used in NXIVM and that's unfortunate for anyone she spreads them to and possibly tragic for her own mental well-being.

I suggest any NXIVM members or ex members who still believe in the techniques used look long and hard at the criticism of these techniques and actual scientific research on them and their effects.

I have a similar suggestion for Scientologists and ex Scientologists regarding the methods used in Scientology, I have written extensively on the origins of these methods and the harm they cause at Mockingbird's Nest, blog on Scientology.

On page 22 of Scarred Sarah Edmondson introduced the "stripe path" in NXIVM.

Many cults have a variation on a gradual scale of hierarchy that elevates usually very few members to the top levels and most people don't ever make it past the lower levels.

In Scientology the cult has numerous ways to be elite and there are nearly too many to list. You have a training path for auditing and a path as a person who gets auditing, and a path for administrative training, and a path for money donated to any one of several causes within the organization, including the International Association of Scientologists, the Super Power project and numerous other projects that Scientology solicits donations for.

Within the organization staff members are in their own hierarchy groups and seen as above the public and public see themselves as above non members. Of course Sea Org members often see themselves as above ALL other people.

And in the Sea Org itself various branches see themselves as higher or lower than others and in fact I have known Sea Org members who feud with each other over who is higher in the hierarchy or whose branch has more authority than the other.

In Scientology many staff members see the public members as "namby pamby" and "wishy washy" "dilettantes" and it's a serious insult! Likewise many Sea Org members see the public AND staff as inferiors!

Ronald Hubbard, Scientology founder

In fact, within Scientology there's a poster for the Sea Org that features a statement I will paraphrase: "For every Sea Org member working to make things right on planet earth there are a million people who don't even know what right is!"

This represents the idea that a few thousand Sea Org members are allegedly trying to save earth while billions of normal people are so far beneath Sea Org members in knowledge and awareness that to Sea Org members the rest of us are like mindless drones sleepwalking through our lives and completely oblivious to reality!

A similar trait that Sarah Edmondson brought up was how she worked on the stripe path for years before she was able to make money for her labor and did thousands and thousands of tasks and wasn't compensated and additionally Keith Raniere had many people do unpaid work for him and the organization in exchange for courses.

In Scientology in my twenty-five years of experience I met hundreds of staff members and perhaps a hundred or two Sea Org members and met people from organizations all over the world. I spent most of my time at a small local organization and a few months at a large organization in Los Angeles and a couple months in a large organization in New York City.

In my personal experience while in the organization I discovered something that has been strongly supported by my experiences since leaving Scientology.

Most people who are in Scientology are poor. Many staff members and Sea Org members go months or years without pay. That's right, they go months or years with zero pay!

The image of a rich person like a famous actor or business owner spending a fortune on Scientology has perhaps a hundred very poor staff members or Sea Org members that are unknown and not acknowledged by the media most of the time.

To be clear Scientology seeks out and targets and exploits the rich and famous but just as only one percent of people are wealthy only a tiny fraction of Scientology cult members are wealthy!

Many people who are not extremely wealthy join Scientology staff or the Sea Org and they devote their lives to the group. And they discover that the Sea Org often provides no pay or pennies per hour when and if it pays anything at all.

As a legally recognized "religion" in the United States, Scientology is exempt from minimum wage laws regarding "volunteers" and all staff and Sea Org members are volunteers. (there are a few exceptions in very rare cases in which the law requires workers to be treated as regular workers, but this is a tiny fraction of Scientology)

Sea Org members routinely work hundred plus hour weeks and though the Sea Org often provides cramped communal housing and barely sufficient food it often provides no medical insurance, no retirement, pays nothing into social security, and doesn't pay members enough for things like feminine hygiene products and birth control and soap and laundry detergent.

Staff in my twenty-five years in Scientology often were always waiting for the promise of expansion to a point of consistent and decent pay and to sum up most staff in most organizations made little to nothing for the overwhelming majority of the time. I am talking about probably over eighty percent of staff making nothing for years at a time and most of the remaining staff making a few hundred dollars PER YEAR! There have been rare exceptions of staff making several hundred dollars in pay per week, but the odds of that happening consistently are extremely low.

Many Scientology staff survive by also working a full time job in addition to working full time for nothing in Scientology and others have a spouse or family members that support them while they are on staff.

The fact that NXIVM and Scientology both provide a facade of extremely wealthy and successful people financially while relying on a hidden foundation of people who are either unpaid or paid very poorly, well below minimum wage, is a notable trait found in many cults.

I recall an interview with cult expert Margaret Singer. Margaret Singer had interviewed over four thousand ex cult members in her decades of research.

She said a cult leader must have two traits. They must be willing to lie to people and to exploit people.

I believe that these traits were present in NXIVM leader Keith Raniere and in the founder of Scientology Ronald Hubbard and also his successor or supplanter in David Miscavige in his own turn.

Keith Raniere, NXIVM leader

Both Scientology and NXIVM sell "intensives" of training and Scientology sells "intensives" of auditing as well.

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Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism

Thursday, December 29, 2022

(6) Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism

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