(18) Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism
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 eighteenth 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 46 of Scarred Sarah Edmondson noted that fellow NXIVM member Mark Vicente told her to stick it out and decide for herself and to be a "critical thinker."
This seems reasonable, after all we SHOULD understand our own experiences but really we don't.
And cults rely on this.
Think about it - just by experiencing something it does not mean we understand what happened to us.
People have taken drugs and definitely not understood what happened to them! Including people who take lots of drugs or the same drug frequently for years!
And the social influence of being with a group who ALL are following the same leader and all have the same group norms is strong! Most of us will want to be accepted and approved of if we are around the same people in close proximity and in communication for days! And if you experience that and know it can occur again if you buy the next training or you dedicate yourself more to the group and work for them, with little or no pay, and move to a headquarters of the group, you can have this acceptance all the time!
People often say "I should know my own mind!"
But that is nonsense. You are not an expert on how to build cars from driving a car or an expert on nutrition from eating or an expert on medicine from having a lot of diseases. It just doesn't work that way.
We generally don't understand our own minds as experts and A subjective experience is not sufficient to educate us on the nature of our minds or the effects various activities have on our minds.
Cults rely on this and they define the experiences they have members go through for them. Robert Jay Lifton described this in his eight criteria for thought reform as mystical manipulation.
First I will give you an abridged description.
Dr. Robert J. Lifton's Eight Criteria for Thought Reform
1) Milieu Control. This involves the control of information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
2) Mystical Manipulation. There is manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated by the group or its leaders in order to demonstrate divine authority or spiritual advancement or some special gift or talent that will then allow the leader to reinterpret events, scripture, and experiences as he or she wishes.
3) Demand for Purity. The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
4) Confession. Sins, as defined by the group, are to be confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults" are discussed and exploited by the leaders.
5) Sacred Science. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or for all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
6) Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating cliches, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.
7) Doctrine over person. Member's personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group.
8) Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious and they must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. (Lifton, 1989)
Sarah Edmondson has mentioned a feature that Scientology has in common with NXIVM. She described how she was taught that people have an internal representation of others and that if a negative idea linked to a person via their internal representation then it ruins or tarnishes it forever so NXIVM requires members to not have critical remarks for other people in the group and in particular not for people high up in the group most especially Nancy Salzman and Keith Raniere.
But this rule doesn't apply to Nancy Salzman or Keith Raniere as anything they say whether negative or positive about others is seen as the truth and sacred.
Scientology has the exact same idea as negative gossip about others is called "natter" defined as negative idle chatter in Scientology and negative remarks in general can be called "entheta" in Scientology as "theta" means spirit or spiritual then "entheta" is seen as what upsets or disturbs the spiritual but oddly Ronald Hubbard wrote thousands and thousands of negative comments about others and his rule doesn't apply to him.
All cults seem to have this strict hierarchy of who is allowed to be critical and ultimately the leader can criticize anyone or anything but the leader is above criticism as is their behavior and doctrine. That's an essential for a cult. The inner circle is usually not to be criticized by low level members and definitely not to be criticized by outsiders.
Interesting power struggles can occur if a low member in terms of their training in a group is a huge donor in money and A more trained and higher ranking member in the organization disagree. Ultimately the leader decides who to favor and it most often comes down to the value the leader sees in each person.
In both NXIVM and Scientology a donor who gives millions or tens of millions to the group is often favored over a long term member who has given thousands and thousands of hours of labor faithfully for years.
The fact that a member who has millions to donate is also someone who if scorned could turn around and use millions to have an enemy investigated, to put out stories of the abuses and crimes of an enemy and to pursue legal action against an enemy is also in my opinion a factor in these calculations.
Scientology has had trouble from the rich and famous ex members who realized the group is a destructive cult that is far more than most ex members can create. Most ex members either get a job or just stay away from Scientology as they have to focus on the practical side of life and have little left to fight Scientology with.
NXIVM as I mentioned uses suppressive in a manner quite similar to the way Scientology uses the term suppressive persons.
In several articles Hubbard defines an antisocial personality as one who harms good groups and helps harmful groups, among several other traits. This material is found in the Introduction to Scientology Ethics book which almost all new Scientologists have to be indoctrinated in and all Scientology staff and Sea Org members are indoctrinated in as part of their basic training. It is also in policy letters which staff are required to be indoctrinated in as part of their training.
Ronald Hubbard, Scientology founder
Hubbard then defines suppressive persons with a list of nearly identical features but he changes helps harmful groups to helps enemies of Scientology and he changes hurts helpful groups to hurts Scientology and Hubbard claimed that the antisocial personality and suppressive person are the same thing.
He obviously wanted the reader to connect the dots and realize that the only way this redefinition is consistent is if Scientology is a good group and people opposed to Scientology are a harmful group. If that classification is true then the statements agree and are consistent, if it's not then they can't be resolved.
Similarly Keith Raniere defined anyone who said anything negative about NXIVM as suppressive and included anyone who wouldn't pay him tribute.
The concept of a "parasite" has been attributed to Ayn Rand but the inclusion of types I, II, and III is on the surface extremely similar to the fact that in Scientology the term potential trouble source has type I, II, and III as well.
A comparison of the literature on these concepts is worthwhile in my opinion.
Another notable parallel to the parasites classification is the "big being" and "degraded being" classifications used in Scientology.
In Scientology there is the idea that "no one is truly equal."
While we can observe that traits such as strength, speed, coordination, endurance and even intelligence and artistic and musical aptitude are not exactly the same for everyone, we can also have a principle that every human being deserves equal rights under the law as a basic human right.
In Scientology the idea that more capable beings, that is "big beings" make EVERYTHING occur and that most people are "degraded beings" and essentially little more than animals robotically sleepwalking through life and just messing up everything they do is the foundation of the philosophy.
Hubbard convinced thousands of people that they are the only ones who really do anything that matters and the rest of us, the vast majority of us, are nearly mindless automatons who would be helpless without the big beings.
This resonates with the "great man" theory of history that claims that history and human survival and progress require great men to be geniuses and guide the rest of us, which Ayn Rand also embraced.
Keith Raniere in his view of parasites echoes this as well and like all cult leaders paints himself as the most intelligent person on earth and the greatest of men.
Keith Raniere, NXIVM leader
It is somehow convenient that the cult leader who emphasizes the great man theory always just sees themselves as fitting that description and never labels themselves as a worthless degraded being or parasite.
Scientology and NXIVM - Parallels and Plagiarism
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