Scientology Reflections (5) 10 Years After Leaving-More Types of People
This is the fifth 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.
Something that is worth giving more attention after leaving Scientology is the realization that there are more types of people than Scientology described, by a lot. Not only are there highly empathic people, extremely low empathy people, we might call human predators, and quite likely the majority of us who are in the middle and sometimes good and sometimes bad and overall, well frankly ugly, meaning a difficult to understand at times combination of good and bad traits and good and bad behavior, (which I explored at length in the blog post The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology) but there are other dimensions to human beings and greater variety across those dimensions, which Scientology and some simple minded approaches don't recognize or even consider.
Here's a link to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
“Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.
-Alma Mavis Taraza”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune
I have found that we have different motives and ways of approaching life. It might be quite obvious to some people, but it took me a lot of experience to see that a significant number of people are going to just go through life and persist.
They are not trying to figure out anything in particular or verify anything. They are perhaps content or perhaps happy generally or unhappy, but in any case they just go along. They may or may not have a religion or philosophy they have been taught but they ain't testing anything like that or seeking greater wisdom.
Sometimes they make it quite clear by telling you they have no interest in reflection on anything. They often never read a book about anything deep or serious after high school or college.
This is not a condemnation and it's not about character or intelligence. They can be bright or dull.
They can have little education or a lot. I have seen this with high school drop outs, graduates and even college graduates. Some people get a college degree and promise themselves they are never gonna open another book after they graduate.
It is not a situation that requires cult indoctrination. Some people are not pursuing any more knowledge after some point in their lives.
They simply are not seeking wisdom or knowledge or big answers. Not even a little bit once in a while.
Some of them vote, lots of them don't. Lots of them either avoid politics or get information exclusively from the blue feed or red feed and never question the information or work to verify it or see if the other side has a good rebuttal. They may have no interest in politics and either always vote the same way or simply not vote.
A small percentage are the elusive "independent" voters who are extremely fickle and just vote by their gut instinct and often vote against whichever party is in party, as one example.
The overall point is that a lot of people, maybe most, really value having many things stay the same, like their opinions and values and don't want them to change.
They may want a better job or occasionally a different or better partner but they are not looking to fundamentally change themselves or more exactly not looking to change or develop their minds.
“It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
"54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade level. 21% of Americans 18 and older are illiterate in 2022."
From 55 US Literacy Statistics: Literacy Rate, Average Reading Level by Steven Zauderer June 30, 2023
I think it's fundamentally unfair to think that is is what must be, specifically regarding the state of education and American education as one example. This is not going to be an extensive or authoritative examination or criticism of the US education system or education in general.
I am just going to say that outcomes regarding education vary tremendously and the result under one system doesn't in my opinion reflect the best possible outcome for the students necessarily. They might do far better under a better system which may already be used in other countries for example. Finland reportedly has far better outcomes on average than most other countries, as one example.
And I certainly am not an expert on education or IQ but I think that the research of James R. Flynn on The Flynn Effect supports the idea that race has no proven bearing on intelligence in general.
He found that exposure to education and math and complex subjects resulted in extremely rapid rises in IQ scores via conventional testing, which suggests that opportunity and practice of aptitude help to develop them in members of all groups, regardless of racial background.
I think unfortunately, lots of students get poor resources for education and discouraged rather than encouraged. Research on both The Pygmalion Effect and Golem Effect in psychology supports this idea in my opinion.
So, the overall point is, a lot of people are under the mistaken impression they personally can't learn or that learning in general is difficult, so they at some point stop trying.
You in my opinion run into lots of men and women and children and people of all types and backgrounds who could learn far more than they do, but due to circumstances beyond their control, are prohibited or discouraged.
So, that adds another element to the situation.
“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
It is worth noting not just regarding knowledge and wisdom, that in other ways, some people never seek to change. It can be a big surprise to some, especially those who seek improvement or new experiences as a matter of course.
In Scientology one is indoctrinated with the idea that they should constantly be seeking to improve and overcome their flaws. And all through Scientology indoctrination one is told over and over and over that they and everyone else (besides Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard) has more and more flaws to work endlessly to overcome.
So, the fact is that in real life all kinds of people exist and they don't have to fit the categories Hubbard described regarding seeking improvement. You are not a bad or evil person for just not seeking the improvement that a particular person thinks you need to get. You are not unaware or anything negative for not looking for the goals someone else imposes on you.
That's a very different way to think of people than what is presented in Scientology.
“When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.”
― Frank Herbert, The Godmakers
I was shocked by the fact that so many people are unwilling to admit ignorance. I have had several jobs outside of Scientology in which certain events occurred. As one example I was at Pepsi for four years and I discovered a disturbing trend.
A bunch of guys got hired one summer and I would be in a meeting with a dozen or so guys and a boss would ask if there were people here ready to do certain things. The boss used terms I had never heard before, which I assumed are either terms that are used at Pepsi or at various businesses and they are terms one might learn in college.
We always had a bunch of guys who would say they could do whatever the boss asked for. I would note who said that and listen.
At some point the bosses would leave the meeting and I would ask the guys who enthusiastically said yes what the terms meant. Every single time the guys would man for man say, I don't know what that means. I would ask how can you agree to do something without even knowing what you are agreeing to? I would get told that you have to say you can do anything to get a job, then learn how to do it after.
An interesting thing I observed was that the guys who have said that they could do any and everything they were asked for was that those guys got a promotion to sales very quickly and then they either sank or swam. Some did what management wanted and stayed, but some didn't succeed and were rapidly fired.
But the point remains, lots of people don't ask questions when they don't understand. I run into new terms that are introduced in society and most people don't bother to learn what the terms mean and then the terms get over used.
Right now terms such as "narrative", " gaslighting ", " impostor syndrome " and several others just seem to pop up in the society and people use these terms without finding out what they mean. An interesting thing that I run into is the phenomenon of a person using a new term, then explaining to them that just because an idea is in the definition of a term that alone doesn't make the idea true or true in a particular situation.
An especially egregious example is the term "virtue signalling", lots of people accuse others of virtue signalling and the term is problematic. You can't prove that virtue signalling is occurring since you can't read minds and anyone accused can't prove they are not virtue signalling. It is not remotely scientific. You are just taking attention from the claims by a person and saying they are a bad person, with no evidence.
Anyone can have a valid claim. Even if virtue signalling is a real thing (which you can't show empirically) the fact is the person who is doing it may have a valid claim anyway.
So, my point in bringing up all of these examples is to show that the simple models of people in Scientology, and any other system that sums up all people as either just good or bad or a few categories of any type is that it is going to be incomplete and almost certainly incorrect. I am a believer that some people are thoroughly devoted to doing evil or willing to do it far more than most people and some people who are naturally trying to be helpful and kind to others in a majority of their actions and that most of us are somewhere in between and sometimes do bad and sometimes do good, but often have limits on how far we are willing to go, but extraordinary circumstances like what occurs during war for example, can have us go past what we thought were our limits. This can occur in prison too, or a cult.
But even beyond those three rough and tentative categories people have so many variables in behavior that it's best to say there are more than we are likely to ever fit into any categories and any categories may be inaccurate or certainly incomplete.
There are all sorts of things in nature that people thought could not exist, until they discovered them. I have heard of numerous animals and forms of life that were doubted until proof emerged. Scientists reportedly didn't believe a huge ape could exist until they were introduced to gorilla tribes.
Many of the animals from Australia and the surrounding region weren't believed even possible until specimens were delivered.
My point is that we can have a simple explanation for who and what a person is and be wrong.
If I understood when I initially was recruited into Scientology that Hubbard could have been lying and had motivation beyond money that would have been helpful.
If I had understood that Scientology and Dianetics could have used techniques to induce euphoric trances and labeled them therapy and study technology and ethics conditions and persuaded people that these methods are in fact transcendent spiritual experiences I would have had an entirely different perspective. If I understood these techniques were used for decades or centuries and described and understood by others than I could have seen that Scientology is just a repackaged version of these things, combined with other !methods to disguise them then I likely would have run, not walked away from Scientology.
You probably already know that Scientology is a harmful fraud if you are reading my blog or have read many of these posts. But you may make a different misstep or mistake by limiting the kinds of people that could exist in your own mind.
Sometimes it's a good thing that people are not just what we are already aware of and sometimes it's a bad thing, but it definitely happens enough to be worth knowing.
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 (5) 10 Years After Leaving-More Types of People
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