Scientology Reflections (12) 10 Years After Leaving-Hubbard and God, Hubbard's Mind
This is the twelfth 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.
(Please note: this was originally a comment in response to a comment regarding the mind of Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard at Mike Rinder's blog on the post Why the Expensive Scientology Buildings?
June 7, 2024 By Mike Rinder)
Well, you certainly have covered a lot of bases here.
I know that you have been reading The Underground Bunker by Tony Ortega for many years, like myself.
One of the most helpful resources for me has been The Scientology Mythbusting Series by Jon Atack and his other articles online.
They helped me to realize that I had to study hypnosis and the techniques of contradiction (aka paradox or confusion), mimicry, vivid imagery, repetition, repetition-with-variation, attention fixation and so on.
Obviously the book, Let’s Sell These People A Piece of Blue Sky is the best available reference on Scientology in my opinion.
The point of why studying these is so important in my opinion is that one has to somehow accept that Scientology founder Ronald Hubbard both knew that he was using covert hypnosis to try to mentally enslave his followers AND he was to some degree apparently a believer in the usefulness of hypnosis as he used the affirmations as self hypnosis commands for years, probably decades.
It’s an odd combination to know you are hiding hypnotic techniques and lying constantly about using it on others BUT also to use them quite frequently on yourself and further to have others audit you with these techniques.
He may have actually been trying to “solve” his own mental conditions and problems with Scientology techniques while knowing that he lies and fools others and that his techniques are enslaving the minds of people.
Further, he in my opinion was conflicted about the occult and supernatural as he was concerned about God in his most private communications, such as the affirmations and his private letters, such as The Skipper Letter.
His persistent belief in Diana, aka Artemis, aka The Redhead was a significant factor in his life. He hid occultism as he understood it throughout Dianetics and Scientology. Occult words and numbers and symbols are present throughout Dianetics and Scientology.
Jon Atack has several excellent articles on Hubbard and the occult.
Regarding God, Hubbard denied God several times in Scientology but in his affirmations clearly tried to convince himself that he had a good relationship with and accepted God.
In The Skipper Letter he portrays God as uncaring and kind of cruel.
In an old tape I recall Hubbard saying that the closest he (Hubbard) came to quitting Scientology was admitting that God himself couldn’t do the job that Hubbard has done!
Quite humble!
My personal interpretation of this is that Hubbard believed in God and he felt mistreated and unappreciated by God.
I think that he wanted to be on the good side of God, if such a thing exists. He also wanted to have the fantasy that he was immune to God and free from any rules or punishment or judgement from God.
I think he wanted to possibly magically escape the wrath of God and he to some degree settled for hypnotizing himself into believing he was fine with God.
You have mentioned the excellent work of Robert Jay Lifton. I think it’s possible his eight criteria for thought reform is the tool that may have helped the most people to reframe and recover from cultic experiences via education.
It just has resonated with thousands of people, possibly millions, and made sense of the way that cults operate. I recommend several models of cults including The BITE MODEL, Margaret Singer’s model, the work of Daniel Shaw, Alexandra Stein, Janja Lalich as examples, but if you only look at one model I think the eight criteria for thought reform is the one to start with.
You may be familiar with this already.
I want to add that the model of a solipsistic reality that Lifton presents in his very short and easy to read book, Losing Reality adds context to the mind of Hubbard.
I think that we are fortunate in a way because the subject of cults and cult leaders is evolving during our lifetime. We get to take in information about the subject that is decades old and consider it and add new information as it comes out.
For ex members who were in Scientology or another cult this is an opportunity to take their experience and sort of take in the various models and ideas on cults and see what is most useful for their own recovery and education and also what they see as most consistent or accurate.
Perhaps the old “crazy or conman” question regarding the guru (cult leader) is the hardest to answer, because most people assume a cult leader is either a fraud OR a true believer in what they are preaching or selling.
With Hubbard and several other cult leaders there’s ample evidence that they both lie, know that they are lying, cover up their lies and crimes AND to some degree enjoy believing that their claims and desires are superior to or can control reality itself, but if they have to choose between protecting themselves and continuing to assert their beliefs, they will usually be practical and act as if their asserted beliefs are not really true.
As a case in point, Hubbard claimed that Scientology gave himself and others abilities such as telepathy, exteriorization, precognition, telekinesis and on and on routinely but in his own organization he used conventional espionage for Snow White and numerous other operations.
He hid the failures of Scientology and constantly blamed them on others and he lied about the results from Scientology. He reportedly turned down the efforts of outsiders to confirm his claims of improved reflexes and memory from Scientology. They were willing to do this work for free but Hubbard was unwilling to cooperate. Hubbard was also unwilling to demonstrate his own improvement in himself when asked.
Several articles at The Underground Bunker document this.
I hope these two points about the mind of Hubbard being two sided and his conflicts with God add something useful to the picture.
Here's a link to my blog archive by topic:
Here are several posts that are referred to in this post or that elaborate on the points raised here.
Scientology's Parallel In Nature - Malignant Narci...
Scientology Reflections (12) 10 Years After Leaving-Hubbard and God, Hubbard's Mind
