Scientology Reflections (1) 10 Years After Leaving-Introduction
This is the first post in a series that I am publishing in 2024. The series is on the journey I have been on AFTER leaving Scientology and Dianetics and what my experiences were, and mistakes I made, and things that I learned, some shortly after leaving Scientology and others further along the way, even up to the present day. Some of this involves Scientology and Dianetics. Some involves the process of leaving a cult. Some is just knowledge that I could have benefited from knowing sooner, that may even be unrelated to the cultic topic entirely.
For anyone who is unaware, I was in Scientology for twenty five years, between 1989 and 2014. I left in 2014 and discovered that Scientology is a harmful fraud and jam packed with lies and further it is composed of techniques plagiarized from other practices and sources. Ronald Hubbard had the ability to take a practice, file off the serial numbers and repackage it as his own in first Dianetics and later Scientology.
He was particularly fond of taking methods such as the abreactive therapy used by Freud and others and repackaging it, mixed with the occult and hypnosis covertly, to then present Dianetics as his own creation.
Notably both hypnosis and abreactive therapy have the trait of appearing to be beneficial through granting euphoric trances and ultimately this results in no long-lasting benefit for most subjects, and certainly no miracles, but instead both create increased dependence in the subject on the therapist and reduced independent and critical thinking in the subject, in my opinion.
(see Jon Atack: The abandoned ideas that L. Ron Hubbard turned into Dianetics at The Underground Bunker blog by Tony Ortega)
These qualities in methods are the most notable traits in those chosen and employed by Hubbard. His Dianetics and Scientology auditing as well as his indoctrination "study tech" and "ethics tech" are designed to use the same foundation of employing the technique of using loaded language, contradictions, repetition, repetition-with-variation, vivid imagery, mimicry, attention fixation and division combined with some other more palatable techniques to confuse the subject, so hypnotic induction occurs and the doctrine that has loaded language is taken in below the conscious awareness of the subject. In Scientology terms the doctrine is implanted in the mind of the subject.
The more palatable parts are the abreactive therapy which people hoped could relieve traumatization, the study ideas stolen from others, and numerous techniques used in auditing which have been taken from other therapies.
This may be combined with a fake method for critical thinking, namely The Data Series, or vocabulary and parts of speech as in The Key To Life Course or the nature of reality itself as in The Life Orientation Course. It has been included in a series on personal morality in The Introduction to Scientology Ethics course and related materials.
Hubbard took numerous methods of therapy and married them to his techniques.
Some are simply hypnosis techniques repackaged which were stolen from books published in the 1920s and 1930s on hypnosis. This was noted by cult expert Steve Hassan.
"I was on stage talking about hypnosis because Hubbard was a hypnotist. And a lot of the processes in Scientology are straight out of a hypnosis textbook from the 20s and 30s, which is when Hubbard was reading about it." Steve Hassan on The Joe Rogan Experience # 680 - Episode Date: August 7, 2015
Some are techniques used by other cults and others are methods from psychology or psychiatry or other therapies combined with Hubbard's knowledge of covert hypnosis.
Hubbard has in turn inspired many offshoots of Dianetics and Scientology and splinter groups.
The top of the following image has likely sources Hubbard plagiarized from and these flow into his presentation as Dianetics and Scientology. Finally, below these we have techniques that are likely or in some cases definitely ideas taken from Hubbard's methods. So, we have twice plagiarized ideas!
Hubbard notably showed no regrets over stealing ideas from others but was quite upset when this was done to him!
Perhaps it's best summed up with a quote.
William Goldman — 'You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly.'
Image from Kiddle
For anyone with serious interest several articles are superb at describing the plagiaristic origins of Dianetics and Scientology.
Possible origins for Dianetics and Scientology by Jon Atack and The Hubbard is Bare by Jeff Jacobsen are among the very best and both are available for free online.
This was just meant as an introduction to the series to show my mindset and that I am definitely a person who has completely rejected the practices and doctrine in Scientology.
In this series I want to reflect on the things I learned in the process of trying to leave Scientology, trying to escape the web of lies that Hubbard used to cast his spell over Scientologists, trying to make sense of it all, and further the things that I experienced in this journey and things that were new information to me.
In this introduction I have tried to very briefly describe my mindset and emphasize that I have looked long and hard at the techniques which are in my opinion the true origins of Scientology. I want it to be clear that I don't support or believe in the methods or doctrine in Scientology or Dianetics.
You may or may not have encountered other people who have left (or been kicked out of Scientology) and a significant amount of people have some of the beliefs they had while in Scientology or see parts as beneficial or at least not harmful, while I want to emphasize that I don't hold that position, so there's no confusion.
You may have encountered other people who have left groups but still hold some or all of the beliefs of the group.
No problem. This just isn't that situation.
I want to explore other aspects of this journey and the things that I learned that you are not told about until you experience them, things like what ex cult members are like, including the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I want to describe some of the many, many, many mistakes I made in my journey and the things that are easy to do when you come out of a cult, that you can learn from experience to do differently.
Note: here is a link to my blog archive by topic which has almost all my older posts at the blog sorted into categories for your convenience.
I am going to include links to several articles at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology that have either been quoted in this post, or that expand on the topics introduced here.
Brainwashing: Standard Tech In Scientology
Scientology Reflections - 10 Years After Leaving
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