The questions were passed up to the front on little slips of paper. One such message said something like "Greetings from Hubbard." The audience again responded with appreciative laughter.
This is a draft of a presentation about Hubbard's PR technology I gave in Moscow last week. Afterwards there was a question-and-answer session. Some people have the idea that the CIA supports Scientology. How else could Scientology have gotten its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 1993 without help from above, so the reasoning goes. Along those lines, when I answered "I don't know anything about that" to the question, "Who is really behind Scientology?", the audience responded with laughter and applause.
The questions were passed up to the front on little slips of paper. One such message said something like "Greetings from Hubbard." The audience again responded with appreciative laughter. | |
| "Poklon ot Hubbard" ("greetings from Hubbard") |
Joseph Cisar
January 30, 2002
Hello, my name is Joe Cisar, and since this is my first time in your great country, I'll tell you a little bit about why I am here. Sorry, as I am not fluent in Russian, someone is reading a translation for me, but I am still here.
I live in the USA, not in a big city, but in a small country community in Pennsylvania. Over 20 years ago, I gave Scientology a chance to prove that it worked. A couple of years and a couple of thousand dollars later, I had satisfied myself that the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard, as taught in Scientology, do not work. I found out for myself that it is not possible for a person to leave his body and travel to outer space, as Hubbard had said. Neither is it possible for a person, using Hubbard's teachings, to instantly and accurately remember every single moment of his life. Neither does "Dianetics" cure any sickness or physical ailment, as Hubbard promised it would in his book on "Dianetics." To sum up, as a result of going through this costly ordeal, I found out that Scientology promises truth and enlightenment, but instead delivers difficulty and failure. Once this realization came over me, I left Scientology and had nothing more to do with Hubbard or his teachings for decades.
In the course of my experience with Scientology, I found out more than just the fact that the organization did not deliver what it promised. Hubbard's organization was a personality cult, not a benign cult, where everything merely revolved around praising Hubbard. The practice and policy of Scientology revolved around enforcing public acceptance of Hubbard. By enforcing public acceptance, I mean using other than rational, acceptable means to get people to accept Hubbard.
It was with this background that I read the Scientologists' political denunciation of Germany more than 15 years later. I could not believe the newspaper would publish anything like that. There are supposed to be limits on free speech. The classic example of a violation of free speech, to illustrate, is someone who stands up in a crowded theater and yells "Fire!". That would interrupt the performance, and it is potentially dangerous in the event that people believe there is really a fire. The Scientologists' false accusations against Germany also created a great potential for misunderstanding and harm.
That was five years ago. Since then I have been studying the techniques that the Scientology organization uses in its attempts to get society to accept Hubbard's ideology. Recently I received a Master of Science degree from Shippensburg University for a thesis on the subject. It was a case study on the "Press and Public Relations Policy of L. Ron Hubbard." A result of this is that now not only do I have the personal experience necessary to speak about Scientology, but also the necessary formal training. I hope this combination will prove satisfactory in this presentation.
Essentially, Scientology is a system that transfers Hubbard's thought process into the minds of the organization's adherents. This is done via Scientology's private media. Reading the teachings of Scientology is the equivalent of injecting oneself with a small portion of Hubbard's own personality. Therefore, the safest way for somebody not familiar with destructive cults to learn about Scientology is to first study the character of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. There is less danger that way of making the same mistake so many others already have. This also helps to build up some resistance to the potentially harmful effects that can result from Hubbard's peculiar mentality.
While L. Ron Hubbard was a complex individual, with regards to Scientology, he can be thought of in a certain way. Picture a megalomaniac who believes that all the power in the universe is already in existence. This particular megalomaniac had one obsession that overshadowed all others in his search for power. Hubbard was obsessed with being right. While perhaps everyone has a need for power or to be right, the megalomaniac is unbalanced. The human need has become an obsession in the megalomaniac. Each one of Hubbard's statements is considered by doctrine to be absolutely right, even though he frequently contradicted himself.
Now, think of power as an object, as if it were gold. We can safely presume that all the gold in the world already exists. Therefore if a person wants gold, he has to get it from somebody else. One person's gain, by necessity, will be someone else's loss. This is the same way Hubbard thought about power and about being right. Hubbard's power or rightness consistently come only as a result of anothers' loss.
A quick reality test will prove this is true. For every thousand dollars Scientology gains, somebody has to lose a thousand dollars first. The transaction goes beyond the point of exchange of money for goods or services, though. Scientologists lose money thinking that they will actually gain something in return. I've already mentioned some of the promises offered in exchange for money, such as relief from physical ailments or improved memory. The second most important characteristic in dealing with Hubbard and Scientology, besides an obsession with being right, is compulsive lying. These two compulsions, when combined, form a mentality that is not compatible with a peaceful society.
I'll give a few examples of Hubbard's lies to begin with.
Hubbard claimed that he was a big hero in World War II. The main problem with this is that his military records do not support his claims to herocism. Hubbard's typical response was that his heroic exploits could never be made public, because they occurred while he was on secret missions. In reality, members of the military who have been on secret missions have that fact recorded in their service records. Although the mission itself is secret, the fact that a person took part is still kept in the personnel record. No notations of this sort are present in Hubbard's military records.
Contrary to his boastful war stories, Hubbard's military record adequately demonstrates that he was incapable of functioning reliably in any one position. In 1942 Hubbard's chief wrote that Hubbard was unsatisfactory for any assignment. Moreover, he requested that Hubbard be transferred someplace else. His request was granted. Nine months later, a different superior officer again "urgently" requested that Hubbard be removed. He wrote that Hubbard was "not temperamentally fitted" for his assigned duty. Perhaps as a favor to Hubbard and to avoid embarassment, no specific reasons were given for Hubbard's removal from post in either of these two cases. Then, in July 1943, Hubbard was again booted off his ship. This time it was official and he was given a formal letter of admonition from the admiral. That incident involved Hubbard's decision to violate the international 3-mile-limit in Mexican waters and to conduct artillery target practice in the general direction of Mexican islands. The islanders complained, and Hubbard's unheroic action was the subject of a 70-page, 4-day investigation
Subsequent to each of these episodes, Hubbard apparently explained his actions to his superiors by stating that he was only trying to do the right thing. He claimed that he had only the best intentions, and in each of the three cases, he was also believed by his superior officers, or at least that is what they wrote in Hubbard's record. When the three episodes are looked at together, however, a contradiction in Hubbard's stated good intentions becomes evident. If he had been as well-intentioned as he said he was, he would not, in all likelihood, have been removed from three different duty stations over the course of two years due to his own misconduct. In none of the three cases did he admit responsibility when confronted with his own wrong-doing by three different commanders.
Another major falsehood that is spread about Hubbard was that he used his own supposedly miraculous powers to cure himself of wartime injuries at the end of World War II. Supposedly he was blind and crippled as a result of his wartime experiences. Again, his official military record tells a different story.
Shortly after Hubbard was officially reprimanded by the admiral, as previously stated, he was admitted to the Naval hospital. There he was treated for an ulcer. In those days, the treatment for an ulcer consisted of a bland diet, of belladonna and phenobarbital. As a result, he was a regular drug user, and it can be assumed that he suffered the adverse side effects of drug use. In addition, Hubbard had conjunctivitis, which means his eyes watered because his eyelids were occasionally inflamed. This is a far cry from being blind and crippled. It is a useful lie, though, because it supports yet another lie, which is the one that Hubbard cured himself from these alleged wartime injuries!
At this point, an observation about lying is appropriate. Lying is similar to stealing in that it is dishonest and thus it involves overcoming a victim's defenses. Almost everyone has lied or stolen at some point in their lives, even if to a very small degree. There is a major difference, however, between telling an occasional lie and lying for a living. It is similar to the difference between a person who sometimes steals and a professional thief. Generally speaking, the professional thief is not the one who gets caught, it is the amateur. But when the professional is caught red-handed, one of his best defenses is to pretend like he was an amateur. This will often work. If the thief is caught with a set of professional tools, however, such as a lockpick, then he may have a very difficult time trying to convince a judge that he was just an amateur.
Catching a professional liar can be even more difficult than catching a professional thief. Because when a professional liar is caught, he will try to talk his way out of it, and this is what a liar is best at doing. Due to the fact that Hubbard wrote down much of what he said, there is no doubt that he was a professional liar. In other words, he did not just tell the occasional lie to escape wrongdoing; he lied habitually, and he lied in writing. The following paragraph is called "On control and lying." It is written by L. Ron Hubbard.
THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM,
Hubbard wrote.
You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them. When you find an individual is lying to you, you know that the individual is trying to control you. One way or another this individual is trying to control you. That is the mechanism of control. This individual is lying to you because he is trying to control you - because if they give you enough misinformation they will pull you down the tone scale so that they can control you. Conversely, if you see an impulse on the part of a human being to control you, you know very well that that human being is lying to you. Not "is going to", but "is" lying to you. [1]
That is only the first half of the article by Scientology founder Hubbard. The second half is much along the same line, except Hubbard brought up the subject of religion, a relatively rare topic of discussion for him. As usual, he did not write about religion in respectful terms. He wrote about religion in terms of himself. He wrote that since he controlled people by lying to them, and since religion controlled people, religion must be telling lies.
A judge wrote about Hubbard in an American court case: "The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile." [2]
Throughout his life, Hubbard took control of his situation by hiding his true intentions and lying. His mentality was not that of a person who was trying to be honest who sometimes went astray. It was that of a professional thief. In this light, Hubbard devoted a great deal of his effort in life to two things in particular. His first objective was to overcome human resistance. In doing this, Hubbard knew he was going to get caught, so he also devoted a great deal of his time and effort into planning on how to escape detection, recognition and action. The culmination of his efforts was Scientology.
Operating in Hubbard's shadow, the Scientology organization reflects its founder's habitual aversion for truth. To this day, Scientology literature states that Hubbard made his debut into the world of popular psychology with his 1950 book, "Dianetics: Modern Science of Mental Health." This is not true. By the time Hubbard broke into the world of media with his ideology, he had already started a small personality cult. One of his enthusiasts was a publisher of a science fiction magazine, called "Astounding Science Fiction." This was a periodical in which the American public could read about space aliens and fictitious life on other planets. It was in the May 1950 issue of this magazine that Hubbard's work was first made public. Shortly afterwards, his book appeared. Presumably, because Hubbard wanted to get the idea across that his book was a serious scientific work, he never mentioned the name of the magazine by which he gained his present-day notoriety. Following in his footsteps, neither does the Scientology organization ever make mention of this fact.
Even something as basic as the founding of the first Church of Scientology was misrepresented by Hubbard and the Scientology organization. On December 1, 1983, within the first few minutes of an audiotape called "Ron's Journal 38," L. Ron Hubbard stated that he did not found the "Church" of Scientology. He said he only created the technology used by the "church." [3]
As of December 2001, an official Scientology web page called "authentic Scientology," states the following in a section entitled "The Church Is Born":
"After a very careful examination of a poll," declared Scientologists in a 1954 Journal of Scientology, "one would say very bluntly: Scientology fills the need for a religion." Consequently, and independently of Mr. Hubbard, the first Church of Scientology was founded by parishioners in Los Angeles. [4]
According to Scientology and its founder, then, there is no doubt but that somebody other than Hubbard founded the "Church" of Scientology in Los Angeles in 1954. But documents Hubbard filed with the state of New Jersey tell a different story.
According to legal incorporation papers, it was L. Ron Hubbard himself who founded the first Church of Scientology, not his adherents. Also, Hubbard's organization was not founded in the booming metropolis of Los Angeles, but in Camden, New Jersey. Finally, the first Church of Scientology was not founded in 1954, but on December 19, 1953.
It is also clear from the corporate documents that Scientology's incorporation was designed as part of a network to divide up and thus potentially mask corporate operations. The network consisted of "The Church of Scientology" and "The Church of Spiritual Engineering," both of which were subordinate to a "mother church," called "The Church of American Science." These "churches" all had the same address, 527 Cooper Street, Camden, New Jersey, and the Board of Trustees for all three "churches" included Ron Hubbard and his wife Mary, among others.
These items represented only a very small sample of the ways in which Hubbard and Scientology misrepresent themselves. They are a matter of public record, and are in stark contrast to the statements by Ron Hubbard and his Scientology adherents. No reason has been given for L. Ron Hubbard and his adherents to lie about their own "church." Such explainations are against Hubbard's policy. Even when his statements contrast with each other, each one is considered, according to Scientology doctrine, to be true to the maximum extent possible. Therefore, the main point to keep in mind when dealing with followers of Hubbard policies is that an initial assumption of good faith is not supported by the histories of either Scientology or of its founder. Scientologists are well aware of this, and, when pressed, will often not agree that Hubbard is perfect or that he was the best of all people. Instead, as if this were any different, it is stated that he was just better than anybody else in his field.
In any case, because of the widely distributed statements that the "Church" of Scientology was founded in Los Angeles in 1954, the fact that Scientology is actually a hierarchical network of corporations most often goes unmentioned in the press. While the lie would be considered dysfunctional from a mainstream point of view, it nonetheless serves an underlying purpose. This sets the stage for what a person can come to expect from Hubbard and his organization. Thus the main point being made here is not that lying is both practice and policy in Scientology, but that it is a basic element of the Scientology system, and that it is used as a tool of influence and control.
In this sense, lying was to Hubbard what the surgeon's knife is to a surgeon. Continuing the analogy, in a manner similar to that of a surgeon who uses various drugs to prepare his patient for surgery, Hubbard also used various hypnotic processes and techniques that have a similarly numbing effect on the "patients" upon whom he "operated." Scientology prescribes processes to people in the same manner a doctor prescribes drugs for a patient, but the effects of Scientology are not based on any accepted science. Nevertheless, Scientology techniques used upon a patient can have just as strong an effect as drugs.
Although the techniques prescribed by Scientology do not consist, for the most part, of physical chemicals, they do act as psychic narcotics. Therefore, I will call them "psychonarcotics." They are administered via either the mass media or Scientology's private media. Scientists have long been aware that these techniques exist, but they have not been utilized or studied on a large scale, due to their acknowledged detrimental effect upon the human mind.
In order to describe what a psychonarcotic is, it is first necessary to describe the opposite. The opposite of psychonarcotics, is the scientific method. The scientific method is used to improve the decision-making process. Using this method, scientists process data into useful information. Information is then evaluated so that it becomes knowledge. Knowledge is then used to form rational decisions. The purpose of all this is to increase the ability to perceive reality. As a matter of fact, it is a prerequisite for these techniques that they be used for further enlightenment and for the discovery of truth. Therefore, use of the scientific method for deliberate stupefication and failure is not valid. Neither is it ethical. Generally speaking, the studies done in this regard test for increased ability, not for decreased ability.
To continue, there are various concepts that are used to expedite discovery of truth, according to scientific principles. According to some of these principles, attention is directed to the relevance and validity of data, its consistency, how representative the data is of reality, the amount of bias with which the data is presented, and whether the researcher had formed a judgment in advance. From the beginning to the end of the long process of decision-making, all these concepts help the mind to make a better decision. It stands to reason, then, that doing just the opposite would stupefy the mind, leading to the likelihood of a worse decision. Scientific methods applied in reverse, therefore, can be thought of as psychonarcotics. It can be predicted that the effect of psychonarcotics upon human judgment is of similar degree as the effects of other vices, such as drugs, prostitution or gambling.
Although the Scientology organization describes its offerings simply as "processes," it may be more accurate to think of them as "psychonarcotics," as described above. In the same way that a drug is intended to have a certain effect upon the body, a Scientology process is intended to have a certain effect upon the mind, via the media. For instance, someone who wants relief for a headache might take an aspirin for it. But through Scientology's private media, Scientologists are influenced with regard to the decision as to whether they have a headache or not, and what the possible causes of a headache in humans could be.
Scientologists do not habitually take aspirin for headaches. They even discourage the use of aspirin, which they consider to be a drug in the same class as a narcotic. In relieving physical pain or discomfort, the first thing recommended among Scientologists is the use of various Scientology processes. These processes are learned solely from Hubbard's writings.
For publicity purposes, of course, the official story distributed to the public by the Scientology organization is that Scientologists go to a doctor first. This is supposedly to make sure there is no physical problem that is causing their perceived ailment. This concept is misleading, though. While Scientologists do have doctors, they are Scientology doctors. They conduct their practice in accordance with the teaching of L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard had no medical training. He dropped out of college, even after his parents had sent him to a special college preparatory school. In effect, Scientology doctors merely lend their credentials to Hubbard's unproven techniques.
In practice, as long as a qualified Scientology doctor does not see any direct, physical evidence that a Scientologist is seriously ill, and there are exceptions even to this, the Scientologist will engage in whatever "process" has been prescribed by the organization in accordance with Hubbard's teachings. Thus Scientology's various procedures are administered as psychonarcotics without fear of medical malpractice laws.
The Scientology organization is currently using these methods in an attempt to appear both religious and to appear as though it is an authority in the field of mental health. The new campaign is called the "volunteer minister" program. Its purpose is to gain public acknowledgment in preparation for the intended acceptance of Hubbard's system. To do this, "volunteer ministers" are being sent out to catastrophe sites to give what they call "spiritual counseling." Scientology recruits are trained to administer a mild psychonarcotic in a personal contact session. This is an attempt to penetrate the field of mental health. The phrase "spiritual counseling" is a thinly disguised effort to subvert the valid practice of psychiatric counseling into a recruitment effort for Scientology.
In response to criticism of its efforts, a Scientology representative has stated that it was ridiculous to say that his organization was giving psychiatric counseling, because Scientology vigorously opposes psychiatry. While Scientology does publicly protest against psychiatry and against drugs, these are merely diversionary tactics. Scientology is not so much against psychiatry and medicine as it is making an attempt to discredit the competition. Hubbard repeatedly stated that his intent was to completely take over the field of mental health. Thus the concept of psychonarcotics is consistent with the teachings of the founder of Scientology.
To illustrate the application and elusiveness of a psychonarcotic, I'll explain what a "designer drug" is for an analogy. Here is the story of "designer drugs." [5] Some time ago, it became illegal in the USA to possess certain drugs, such as amphetamines. People who made money by selling these drugs on the street found a way to evade the law. To physically avoid detection of the substance, the drug was chemically altered just enough so that it no longer technically tested positive. The altered substance had the same effect as the illegal drug, but it was not technically against the law to possess. One of these "designer drugs" was called "Ecstasy," (XTC) for example. [I don't know if you have that in Russia.] It took a while, but the law finally caught up with this.
Now, to make the comparison of how a process can be changed to make it legal, in a manner similar to the way drugs could be altered to make them legal, I'll use the example of the process of fraud. Fraud, of course, is illegal. But Hubbard changed the process of fraud just enough so that it was no longer illegal, similar to the way the composition of illegal drugs have been changed to evade the law. First, it must be understood that fraud is deceit that is used to gain a dishonest advantage. Fraud is a favorite crime of liars. It is different from theft. In theft, the thief physically takes the valuables away from the victim. In fraud, however, the liar talks the victim into giving his valuables to the liar.
Fraud is much more difficult to prove than theft. In theft, the evidence might be a lock that was broken. Anyone can look at the lock and see that it was broken. In fraud, however, the victim himself opened the lock, took the valuables out, and handed them to the liar. This is not nearly as simple to prove.
One of the most important factors in proving fraud is to clearly demonstrate that the liar had the intent to cheat the victim. If a liar can counter with a statement that he had nothing but good intentions, it becomes much more difficult to prove fraud. Therefore, to commit fraud with the least likelihood of getting caught, a person would merely have to alter the stated intent of his transaction. This type of verbal manipulation is consistent with the action of a person who is obsessed with being right.
No matter how often the intent in the Scientology system is stated to be religious in nature, its results are consistent with fraud, according to a substantial number of former members. In this sense it can be argued that Scientology works as a type of fraud whose components have been altered to the point where it can no longer be prosecuted in court. France is one of the first countries to take assertive action against this type of designer fraud. Its law uses the words "mental manipulation." Hopefully, the concept of psychonarcotics will be of some use if that law is ever put to the test.
There is another remarkable similarity between the providers of Scientology and the providers of street drugs . Back in the days before drug-testing was accepted, drug use was more rampant than it is now. Drug gangs also had an interesting method of eradicating particularly effective drug enforcement agents.
Whenever a member of a drug gang got arrested, it was standard procedure for the member to falsely accuse a law enforcement employee of using illegal drugs. According to the law, two false accusations of this sort against an innocent person who did not have an alibi could result in conviction. That is why the drug gangs did it. For every two arrests, the gang could theoretically eradicate one law enforcement official. So this was not just about drug-smuggling. It was the equivalent of war.
The above procedure was not systematically used by people who kept a small quantity of marijuana on hand for personal consumption. Those people usually didn't want to incur any more wrath upon themselves from law enforcement agents than was absolutely necessary. It was standard procedure for crooks at war with the law, though, and sometimes innocent people were convicted as a result. That was and still is one of the risks run by drug enforcement agents and they are very aware of this. The fact that there is such a thing as a crooked cop does not simplify things.
Destructive cults in general, and Scientology in particular, act in a similar manner. Scientology uses its own insider information to accuse its most effective critics of acting like members of destructive cults. This is the very subject that Scientology practitioners are most knowledgeable about. It is also similar to the practice of the old-time drug gangs.
The cultists who are most interested in publicly denouncing critics as brainwashers or hate-filled extremists are the professionals who make a career from selling psychonarcotics, and they are willing to wage war to defend their livelihood. Who better than professional extremists are able to present the images needed to falsely portray others as brainwashers and extremists? The extremists are effective up to the point where the public recognizes that the extremists are using extreme methods to paint others as extremists.
The analogy can be continued in that today there are some people (freezoners) who practice Scientology a little to experience the psychological effect it has upon their minds. Some of those people may even combine the effects of drugs and Scientology practice, the same way Ron Hubbard described it in the book "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health." Those people may be annoyed by the critics of Hubbard's cult, but the critics are really doing nothing to interfere with the personal use of Scientology's mind-altering technology.
We may be at a similar stage in our development today as the drug enforcement agents were back in the days before drug testing. Right now, we may have an idea that we are fighting something that some people call "brainwashing." But there is no test universally accepted by researchers that recognizes this sort of mental manipulation. We are still in the experimental stages.
There are several complications in recognition of brainwashing. One is that brainwashing is not an absolute thing. There are various stages of control, each one difficult to prove outside of a controlled environment, and each more serious than the last. The matter is also complicated by the fact, as illustrated above, that mind control cults accuse their opposition of mind control in an active effort to impede recognition. This confuses the matter immensely, but it may be beneficial in the long run in that once a reliable test for the stages of brainwashing has been developed, it will have been verified under the most difficult of circumstances.
In the past, the cult coalition has also had some degree of success in conducting their counter-attack upon sectologists. At least one false so-called "deprogramming" manual has been distributed in university libraries as a disinformation maneuver. [6] The false manual was apparently intended to show scholars that deprogrammers back in the 1970s used inhuman and illegal methods. As a result of this disinformation and a few real abuses, some people now think that deprogramming cult members is illegal.
Although illegalities have been associated with deprogramming, as they can be with almost anything, the act itself consists mainly of talking. As far as I know, talking to a member of a cult is still not illegal. The word "deprogramming" is still frequently used by cults in an attempt to make dissenting voices guilty by association of illegal and violent acts.
It is not enough to say that cult members have been brainwashed, that they have separated from their family and friends, that they have given all their money and time to a controlling group, or that they cannot hold a rational conversation. Those are symptoms, not causes.
If there could be said to be one cause of people joining irrational, extremist cults, that would be the inability to make a rational decision. It follows that a person who is the most capable of making a rational decision would be less likely to be tricked into joining an irrational cult. Naturally, there are other factors involved in a person's decision to enter a cult. The most predominant factor is a lack of information, as that is a major cause of irrational decision. Another factor is whether the person has suffered a recent loss, as with family, friends or a job, and is therefore more subject to outside suggestion. Because a lack of information and the conditions brought on by personal loss may outweigh the benefit of intelligence, the degree of an individual's intelligence is not necessarily a significant factor in joining a cult.
Looking at this from the perspective of a cult that operates on the principles of unreason, it is in the cult's interest to get people to make irrational decisions. The easiest and most effective way to get people to make irrational decisions is to lie to them. Remember, though, professional liars do not lie for the purpose of getting caught. Destructive cults lie to affect the decision-making process of their victim. This can be accomplished on a mass scale by using the mass media.
The mass media are generally accepted as an industry that works for the common good. One of the most important functions of the mass media is that they serve to provide entertainment. While there may be some argument as to whether the entertainment provided by the mass media is for the public good, it is undoubtedly entertainment that produces the most money. But the primary function of the media addressed here is that of information. The value of information lies in the act of making a decision. Information is to the decision-making process what nutritious food is to an organism. It needs to be present, and it helps to be of various types from various sources.
It is evident in decision-making that information is of the utmost value. The more important the decision, the more important the information. Approximately ninety percent of our knowledge comes from information passed to us through the mass media. This large amount of second-hand information upon which we rely helps us immensely in decision-making, but it also makes us susceptible to deceit. We may use this information, most of which has been passed on from others, to help us decide what is right and what is wrong for us. Once we look at the information, select what is relevant and weigh the facts, we make a decision.
Control cults use information for a different reason than to help people make their decisions. Cults use information to control people. Reversing the principle of the scientific method, cults make a decision first, then arrange the information afterwards to support the pre-conceived decision through the media. This is more than just using the media for a propagandistic mouthpiece. It includes psychonarcotic technique to dull the psyche. The foremost of these is to represent the mere presence of democratic discussion as hysterical discrimination against religious minorities. Yet, the discussion being objected to is an almost certain outcome of irrational conclusions, regardless of whether these conclusions were caused by cults or religious minorities.
Another example of this irrational technique is the idea commonly used by control cults that mankind is steadily and unmistakably moving towards its own destruction. The reason for projecting this false image is that without something to save mankind from, cults would need to manufacture another urgent need. Therefore all the horrible events of the world are magnified disproportionately. Good events are depicted as evidence that cult practice is effective.
A person who was in a position and had the resources to make a rational decision, however, could look over all the years of mankind's existence before deciding whether mankind is headed for certain destruction or not. Although it may be true that we have more destructive potential than we have ever had before in history, mankind has certainly advanced over its thousands of years of existence. There is no reason, historically speaking, to think that we are on a path to certain destruction. This is a piece of information seldom mentioned by controlling cults in the argument that man is causing his own demise.
Another, more refined method of affecting the decision process is to use exaggeration. Exaggeration is different from outright lying in that it alters the truth to such an extent that it becomes a lie. In the scientific method, this is referred to as choosing a sample that is not representative of a population. For instance, while it could be true that drinking a glass of wine may be beneficial under certain circumstances, it does not follow that drinking a bottle of whiskey would be even more beneficial. To the degree that exaggeration is consciously used to have an affect upon a person's ability to make a decision, it is another illustration of a psychonarcotic. A physical example of this is Hubbard's so-called "purification" program, which is administered by the Scientologists, and which is described as follows.
While it is true that sitting in the sauna for a length of time is beneficial under certain circumstances, in Hubbard's "purification" program, the Scientologists take it to the extreme. As a cure for all sorts of ailments, Hubbard prescribed sitting in the sauna for hours at a time, and for days on end. He combined this physical extreme of heat with both a radical change of diet and with physical exercise. Some people will recognize the above as a formula for heat stroke, which can cause various mental or physical difficulties, sometimes permanently.
Scientology actually sells the "purification" program as a remedy for drug addiction, depression and radiation poisoning. Due to governmental complications, however, the organization has had to alter its advertisements to be legal. The analogy of a "designer drug" applies. In its advertising, Scientology advertisements do not say Hubbard's program "heals" anything, because then the organization would be in violation of medical malpractice laws. It says it "salvages" people in the spiritual sense, even though the context of the program is that of physical healing. Also the organization claims it is not "selling" a service. Instead the money it demands is called a "mandatory donation." These minor changes have no effect on the overall outcome of Hubbard's para-fraudulent process.
Another example of extremism administered as a psychonarcotic by destructive cults is their reaction, for example, to opposition. If a group of Scientologists were to interrupt this presentation, we would wait until they stopped, or possibly have them escorted out. Then we would continue with what we were doing. Imagine what would happen if a group of people interrupted a Scientology convention. Almost without doubt it would be reported in the United States as if it were an international incident.
The annual US State Department report immediately comes to my mind in this regard. Several years ago, the US Congress passed a law that was supposed to encourage religious freedom. The irony of this situation was that the US Constitution states that Congress shall make no law regarding the exercise of religion. As a result, this lop-sided law is somehow applied to all countries except the United States. Scientology has been especially active in making frequent contributions through US embassies for this report. A couple of years ago, when some Austrians passed out leaflets at a concert held by a Scientologist, this was publicly recorded in the State Department's report as "harassment." In view of all the problems that we are faced with in the world, the application of the law in that manner is a distortion not only of reality, but possibly also of justice.
The use of psychonarcotic processes on a large scale, meaning processes meant to numb the psyche, takes on a new significance with modern media. In the past centuries, the main drive of civilization has been to find new ways of doing things better. Our vocabulary is focused on what we what to achieve, not on what we do not wish to achieve. Our predecessors obviously realized that there is no possible constructive use for methods which dull the psyche. There is no accomplishment in finding out how much of a drug humans can consume before they become addicted, for instance, other than to help drug addicts. Neither is there any valid reason to study the effect of psychonarcotics, other than for the purpose of helping those who have become dependent upon them.
The types of psychonarcotics discussed above are nothing new in themselves, just in our modern ability to apply them on a mass scale. Much has been written about these processes. In laying out the groundwork for Scientology, though, Hubbard discovered new ways to alter the old processes so they would not be easily recognized using traditional means. He customized the concept of prejudgment, for example, to be a particularly effective decision-inhibitor. This process works as a drug that causes its consumers to act irrationally towards other people. He called it the "Suppressive Person" doctrine.
Hubbard's native environment was the media, as he made his living by writing. He used the media to produce what he envisioned as "mental circuits" within people's minds. One of these mental circuits, the "Suppressive Person" doctrine, has a profusely negative influence upon individual judgment. In order for this doctrine to take effect, the subject person has to form a prejudice against a person for no other reason than to follow Scientology's suppressive person policy. The effect of this programmable prejudice is so intense and so predictable that it may be thought of as a strong psychonarcotic. It really does stupefy the psyche. From the viewpoint of the mass media, the psyche is that part of a human being that processes information.
Here is how it works. According to the "Suppressive Person" doctrine, all personal failures are somebody else's fault. That means whenever a Hubbard adherent gets sick, has an accident or makes a mistake, the underlying cause of these misfortunes is said to be a third party. Not just any third party, but one who has disagreed with the affected person. While it is possible that a third party may make a person nervous enough to make a mistake and have an accident, Hubbard once again took this matter to the extreme. He stated that unexplained misfortune in general is caused by a so-called "suppressive person." This fictitious class of people, he professed, was the cause of human suffering,. To that he added with the utmost authoritarianism that suppressive persons would be found, almost without exception, to have criminal backgrounds.
This is another example of making a decision first, and then arranging information to fit the decision. As a result of the above doctrine, one of the Scientology organization's main pastimes is the investigation of its critics for not just criminal deeds, but for any potentially compromising information.
This is a superb example of applying extremely poor judgment, as it completely ignores the matters of relevance or validity in jumping to a fantastic conclusion. Yet it is the underlying basis of the "Suppressive Person" doctrine, and it is selectively applied by Scientologists whenever they see a need to rationalize their own failures and failures of Hubbard's system. For example, whenever the Hubbard technology fails, the Scientologist will consistently blames someone besides Hubbard. And with the number of people who question Scientology's irrational conclusions, there is no lack of people to blame.
The amount of damage this destructive psychonarcotic can do to human intellectual capacity is practically without end, because it closes off the alternative of finding a real solution to one's real problems. Stupefication is a predictable outcome of its continued use. Application of the "Suppressive Person" doctrine also makes it nearly impossible for a Scientologist to exercise self-criticism or to conduct a rational discussion of Scientology with an outsider.
At this point, a word of caution when dealing with poor judgment is in order. To the extent that a person believes or supports the practice of poor judgment, knowingly or not, that person is also engaging in poor judgment. Therefore, in order to avoid this damaging circumstance, it must be realized that those who have been declared to be "suppressive" by Scientology are victims of deliberately inflicted poor judgment. While there may be cases of petty mutual name-calling and semantic disagreements between Scientology and others, real injustice may be found in many disputes involving Scientology if one bothers to look beyond the superficial facts. Therefore, in any disagreement that comes to light involving Scientology, it is advisable to do more than just seek a compromise between the two sides. Go beneath the superficial presentation.
Another effect of the "Suppressive Person" doctrine is a transposition of responsibility. As stated above, according to the "Suppressive Person" doctrine, all personal failures are attributed to the ill-will of a "suppressive" third party. In reaction to one who has been targeted as a "Suppressive Person," however, Scientologists will actively seek to cause them personal failure. Thus it is policy and has been shown in practice that Scientology agents will covertly alter circumstances in their targets' environment that are calculated to change the targets' situation for the worse. This may make it appear, even to the targets themselves, as though they are bringing their own failures in life upon themselves, although there may be considerable effort exerted in this regard on the part of Scientologists.
In another tactic involving a shift of responsibility, Scientology organizations also implement the "Suppressive Person" doctrine at the legal level. That means they use private and public means to investigate opponents for criminal or legally objectionable conditions. This information is sometimes provided to police agencies in the hope of getting the targeted people incarcerated or institutionalized.
In the event that one of Scientology's targets does actually get charged with a crime, as has happened in the United States, the organization has turned the circumstances completely around and claimed that the "Suppressive Person" doctrine was part of the Scientology "religion." Because it is unconstitutional to discuss religious belief in the courts, Scientology has then been able to suppress recognition in court of the its mentally destructive doctrine. It is not always successful in doing so, but at least one person stated he had to flee the USA because he was prohibited from presenting the "suppressive person" doctrine in court as defense.
Continuing with the concept of irrational conclusions, in addition to the "suppressive person" doctrine, there is independently verified evidence that Scientologists view simple statements of dissent by others as harassment. But in making statements about others, Hubbard actually promoted libel. He did this in writing, in a confidential policy of 1966. Referring to communication from non-Scientologists, he wrote, under "How to stop attacks" [7]
"The way we will eventually stop all attacks from here on out is by processing the society as follows: (1) Locate a source of attack on us. (2) Investigate it. (3) Expose it with wide lurid publicity."
In doing the above, Hubbard told his adherents that they should not be afraid of committing libel. He wrote,
"Don't worry about libel if our facts indicate rottenness. The last thing that target will do is sue as then we would have a chance to prove it in court, which they are terrified of our doing."
Of course, Hubbard also wanted to avoid getting caught. Therefore he also cautioned that libelous statements should not be put in writing. [8] In practice, that warning often goes unheeded. This does not indicate a tendency of Scientologists to disregard Hubbard's words, however. Hubbard often stressed that, if it meant accomplishing the objective, even his own words should be disregarded.
Another paradox in this regard can be observed in Scientology's written denunciations. While distributing libelous information directed against human targets, organization members sometimes proclaim that they are actually promoting human rights. Clearly people who participate in such behavior are not interested in the human rights of their targets. This discrepancy between statement and action can often be observed in Scientology communications. Unless one connects it with reverse scientific method, its significance is not likely to be recognized.
In the same, practical light with which Hubbard advocated lying, Scientologists who follow Hubbard's policy would not want to be caught lying, either. Not because lying is wrong, but because it would turn people away from Scientology. Why would Hubbard advocate lying to the point of libel? The benefit to the organization of widespread lying is that it clouds the fact that members of the Scientology organization are not being held publicly, verifiably accountable for the actions of the organization. Despite its creation of a welfare and legal burden upon society through its conduct, Scientology still steadfastly and, sometimes successfully, demands all the privileges granted to religion, all the respect granted to philosophy and all the confidence given to science.
In essence, the Scientology organization, while exercising the principle that the strong dominate the weak, simultaneously demands for itself the rights of the weak against the suppression of the strong. While it is true that Scientology has weaknesses -- dishonesty, irresponsibility and poor judgment -- these are deliberately self-inflicted.. Healthy discrimination against poor judgment and harmful decisions puts Scientology at an automatic disadvantage. Scientology uses this calculated reaction in a manner so as to increase the organization's own wealth and influence. Hubbard's "purification" program is only one example of Scientology's profiteering of this sort.
In order to preserve the true spirit of supporting the weak against the strong, it is more valid to grant the rights of the weak not to Scientology, but to the people it victimizes, from whose power and financial means Scientology has profited. While it may be true that Scientology's victims have had a temporary lapse of judgment and responsibility, their psychonarcosis resulted from a purposely misguided faith in trusting Hubbard technology.
150 years ago, Karl Marx wrote that religion is the opium of the masses. Marx, however, did not distinguish between the good faith of religion that leads people to relate better to the world around them, and thus make better decisions, and the bad faith of mind control, which cuts people off from their environment, and consistently results in poorer decisions for the individual. Therefore I will update Marx' statement by saying that the practice of mind control no more relates to religion than opium relates to food. Putting this relationship into a more constructive perspective, good food leads to healthier bodies, and good religion leads to healthier decisions.
[1] L. Ron Hubbard, Technique 88 English version: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/fishman/exhibb.html Russian version: http://cisar.org/russia/lying_r.htm]
[2] p. 370, Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, Russell Miller, 1987, Henry Holt and Company, New York
[3] Tom Voltz, Scientology with(out) an end. from http://cisar.org/swoe/swoe07.htm
[4] http://authenticscientology.net/page04.htm
[5] http://espn.go.com/special/s/drugsandsports/
[6] p. 176, Dr. Klaus Karbe: Rehabilitation of former Members of Youth Sects, American Experiences - 1981 available from: http://cisar.org/trn1087.htm
[7] HCO POLICY LETTER OF 25 FEBRUARY 1966 ATTACKS ON SCIENTOLOGY
[8] "And if one makes in writing not one slanderous or libelous statement, there is no defense by them." HCO POLICY LETTER OF 15 AUGUST 1960 DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS