Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Scientology Reflections - 10 Years After Leaving (1) Introduction

 Scientology Reflections - 10 Years After Leaving (1) Introduction

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. 


L. Ron Hubbard. “Ron looks to the future with the sea org, ”

 Ronald Hubbard. 




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

L. Ron Hubbard influences
Hubbard's beliefs and practices, drawn from a diverse set of sources, influenced numerous offshoots, splinter-groups, and new movements


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.




Thought Reform/Influence






Brainwashing: Standard Tech In Scientology

Hypnosis and Covert Persuasion











Scientology Reflections - 10 Years After Leaving

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Scientology Conditions - Their Purpose and Practice (6) Step by Step Analysis of Scientology Conditions

 Scientology Conditions - Their Purpose and Practice



Young Ronald Hubbard


Now, to add up up everything we have seen so far, we must look at the conditions one by one and see what a Scientologist does and what they believe they are doing, step by step, keeping in mind Hubbard's intentions and beliefs regarding the effects of his techniques. 

In his Scientology conditions formulas Ronald Hubbard had certain assumptions built into the formulas that the individual Scientology cult member must follow. 

In Scientology indoctrination disagreement is generally treated as misunderstanding which is interpreted as ignorance, ignorance on the part of the Scientologist about the words and symbols in Scientology doctrine.

 It is the ultimate expression of the "you will agree with this if you understand, you don't agree, therefore you don't understand!" philosophy. Of course the problem with this philosophy is it's simply wrong. 

Lots of ideas in Scientology are ones that you can understand and simply not believe. You can understand that in Scientology you are supposed to have been a God eons ago and have forgotten over a billion lifetimes and you can simply say, "I do not see any credible scientific evidence for this, so I don't take it as a fact." Scientology has thousands and thousands of such ideas. 

But my point is that the Scientology student is taught that the ethics conditions formulas ARE true and they reflect REALITY. So, if a Scientologist is assigned a condition (by themselves or someone else) and they accept the condition as valid for the part of life it concerns they are obligated to believe everything stated in the formula. 

To make it clear, let's look at some of the conditions and their formulas.

Let's start with confusion:

The formula for the condition of Confusion is, simply: FIND OUT WHERE YOU ARE.


Here's a bit more on it from The Scientology Handbook:

Condition of Confusion

The lowest condition is a Condition of Confusion.

In a Condition of Confusion, the person or area will be in a state of random motion. (When something is random it is uncontrolled and unplanned.) In a Condition of Confusion, there will be no real production, only disorder or confusion.

In order to get out of Confusion, a person has to find out where he is.

The formula for Confusion is:

Find out where you are.

Note: It is important that the person who is in Confusion be cleared up on the definition of confusion. (This is done before the formula itself is started.)

Definitions:

  1. Any circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution.

    More broadly:

    A confusion is random motion.

    If you were to stand in heavy traffic, you would be likely to feel confused by all the motion whizzing around you. If you were to stand in a heavy storm with leaves and papers flying by, you would be likely to feel confused. A confusion is only a confusion so long as all the pieces are in motion. A confusion is only a confusion so long as no part of it is clearly defined or understood.

    People who can control “randomness” can handle confusion. People who cannot control things actually create more confusion.

  2. All a confusion is, is a flow which has no pattern (orderly way that it is arranged). The parts involved in a confusion crash into each other, bounce off each other and stay in the area. There is no product, as to have a product something must flow out.

For example, take a car repairman who is in the Condition of Confusion. He can’t find any of the new car parts because his workshop is not in order, can’t find his tool kit or even his hammer because he doesn’t know where he put them down. He spilled oil all over his paperwork, so he doesn’t know what needs to be done with the cars in his shop. No cars are being repaired and returned to the customers.

As another example, an office worker who is in the Condition of Confusion makes the action of writing a letter take two days instead of fifteen minutes. He breaks his computer, can’t find paper, has no ink in the printer, loses the person’s address and has to buy more stamps. Meanwhile, none of his other letters are going out as he is still trying to send out the first one.

The additional formula for the Condition of Confusion is:

  1. Receive a Locational in the place where you are.

  2. (A Locational is done by walking around with the person, both indoors and out-of-doors, and saying: “Look at that [object].” When the person has done so, acknowledge him with “Thank you” or “Okay” or “Good.” Use objects such as a chair, a tree, a car, the floor, the ceiling, a house, etc. The person running the Locational would point at the object each time. It is simply done until the person brightens up and realizes something or has a new understanding about his life.)

  3. Comparing where you are to other areas where you used to be.

  4. Repeat step 1. End quote

So, this requires a bit of context to make sense.

Here's a quote from the Scientology Handbook on assists (a locational is a type of assist)

Theory

The theory of why assists work includes three factors. The first is control and direction of attention. The second is location. The third is time. The injured or ill person remains ill or injured because there is something wrong with each of these three factors. His attention is not under any control, he is located thoughtwise elsewhere and he is not in present time. He is in the past. The problem of someone who wishes to help with an assist is how to control the person’s attention, get the person located here and into present time. By having the unconscious person touch nearby things like a pillow, the floor or his body (without hurting an injured body part), you can help bring his attention under control and bring him into present time. The process is feather-light, but it can reach a long way down. End quote

So, in Scientology there's an implied assumption that someone in the condition of confusion has their mind on a moment that is not present time. You could say stuck in a moment. The assumption is about the person. You note that the situation is not the fault of others, or the organization or ever the methods or ideas used in Scientology.

By using the techniques in the confusion condition you are buying into the idea that you are not in a correct state of mind. And the techniques used in the assists are hypnotic but not identified as such.

Another notable thing about the confusion condition is it doesn't seem like a lot to ask to just look around and follow simple commands, but you are buying into the idea that YOU are not in present time and can be brought into it by Scientology techniques. This sets you up to follow further commands. The brightening up described is actually meant to be a euphoric trance one enters in hypnosis, so the assist seems to help you. Euphoric trances feel pleasant, so it's easy to see why one might think they actually got a real benefit from the assist.

I can tell you from personal experience that you can think that you are experiencing transcendent miracles and increasing your awareness if you are hypnotised and enter a euphoric trance and don't understand that is what is happening. It is defined by Robert Jay Lifton in his eight criteria for thought reform as Mystical Manipulation, a presentation of a mundane experience that is described as a miracle to the uneducated. 

Hubbard understood he was hypnotizing people and labeled it as his technology. He got his followers to do this to each other and be unaware that it was hypnosis which was disguised as spiritual techniques that elevated them beyond human beings. 

The next condition is treason.

Here it is from The Scientology Handbook


Condition of Treason

Treason is defined as betrayal after trust. (Betrayal is intentionally acting in a way that breaks a promise or agreement after you have been trusted to do it.)

A person is in the Condition of Treason when he has gone against the activities and purposes he was trusted with.

It will be found that a person who is a part of a group (his family, friends, the people he works with or any group he is a part of) and who then breaks their trust will upset or destroy some part of that group.

By not knowing that he is the _______ (position name), he is committing treason.

The results of this can be found in history. A failure to be what a person has the job or position name of will result in a betrayal of the group.

Almost all upsets in a group come from this one fact:

A person in a group who, having accepted a position, does not know that he is that position is in Treason against the group.

For example, a bus driver who goes out for the day and does not show up for work is in Treason. He has people, young and old, around the town waiting for him to pick them up. Finally, the owner of the company drives the bus himself and handles the upset passengers. He had trusted the bus driver to do his job and the bus driver broke that trust.

The formula for the Condition of Treason is:

Find out that you are. End quote


Now the words "know" and "not-know" have special meaning in Scientology, of course.

Hubbard defined these in an article in The Fundamentals of Thought book.


Here's an excerpt.

Chapter Nine

Know and Not-Know

IT IS A MECHANISM of thinkingness, whether one is postulating or receiving information, that one retains one’s ability to know. It is equally important that one retains one’s ability to not-know.

Thought consists entirely of KNOWING and NOT-KNOWING and the shades of gray between.

You will discover that most people are trying not to remember. In other words, they are trying to not-know. Education can only become burdensome when one is unable to not-know it. It is necessary that one be able to create, to receive, to know and to not-know information, data and thoughts. Lacking any one of these skills—for they are skills, no matter how native they are to the individual—one is apt to get into a chaos of thinkingness, or creatingness, or livingness.

You can look at any eccentric or aberrated person and discover rapidly, by an inspection of him, which one of these four factors he is violating. He either is unable to know or not-know his own created thoughts, or he is unable to know or not-know the thoughts of others. Somewhere, for some reason best known to him, in his anxiety to be part of the game, he has shelved (lost) one of these abilities.

Time is a process of knowing in the present and not-knowing in the future or the past.

Remembering is the process of knowing the past.

Prediction is the process of knowing the future.

Forgetting is the process of not-knowing the past.

And living “only for today” is the process of not-knowing the future.

Exercises in these various items rehabilitate not only the sanity or ability of the individual, but his general capability in living and playing the game.

End quote



So, we can see that you are supposed to think you "not-knew" some position you were. Once again you are treated as though you don't know the information necessary to handle the condition. 

It seems like an easier condition than others in some ways. 

Again we quote the Scientology Handbook


Condition of Enemy

When a person has openly stated he will harm a person or group or when he is doing destructive acts against a person, group, project or organization, a Condition of Enemy exists.

Take for example, a student who intentionally and openly throws stones and breaks windows to disrupt classes. He would be in a Condition of Enemy to his high school.

The formula for the Condition of Enemy is just one step:

Find out who you really are.


end quote

So, all of these conditions address you in odd ways. But a Scientologist has a particular answer from Hubbard they are likely to adopt. They see the mind as constructed as Hubbard described and he described it as containing different identities people assume, which he called "valences," so they see Scientology techniques such as a locational as helping one to be themselves instead of a valence.

Here's an excerpt from the book,  Fundamentals of Thought:


"Valences - The whole study of valences is a fascinating one. A valence is defined as "a false identity assumed unwittingly." An identity is modified by valences. People who can be nobody may try to be everybody. People who are seeking a way out of scarcity of identity may become fixed in false valences. Nations can become fixed in valences of countries they have conquered in war, etc etc.


A rule is that a person assumes the identity of that which gets attention. Another rule is that the person assumes the identity of that which makes him fail (for he gave it his attention, didn't he?)


There is a basic personality, a person's own identity. He colors or drowns this with valences as he loses or wins in life. He can be dug up." Ron Hubbard end quote

So, it is obvious that Scientologists see these conditions as valid and the source of problems is often attributed to the character of a person if they are assigned one of the lowest conditions (confusion, treason, enemy, doubt, and liability), these are often called the conditions below non-existence and people assigned them are often looked down on by Scientologists, particularly if they are seen as remaining in them for many weeks or months or longer. 

Ultimately Scientologists see these conditions as being caused by the flaws in character and the minds of people.

So, when a Scientologist is assigned these conditions they often see themselves as mentally flawed and as having deficiencies in character that are the result of their own behavior.

 In essence they blame themselves for behavior that they see as freely chosen by themselves that resulted in their own conditions. 

If they don't understand how or why they are in the condition assigned, they may see themselves as having been confused or in one of the other conditions as described by Scientology which may include "not-knowing" or  being in a different "valence" (personality or identity) or not being "in present time" (experiencing the current environment, as opposed to the past) as an explanation of why they are unaware of how they did something wrong.

Notably they are taught that Scientology has the only effective methods to spot and understand how and why they did these alleged deeds.

I must stress that Scientology tells people to see themselves as absolutely responsible for everything they do and experience, with no exceptions, so they have a responsibility to make everything right, whether they understand how they created it or not. 

At this point I think it's apparent to me what exactly Hubbard was doing with his ethics conditions. He was eroding the reality perceived by his followers/victims. He was using a systemic method to do this. He was setting people up to think they had flawed minds and they were in need of Scientology to rehabilitate their minds and remedy "aberration" (a lack of sanity) which he claimed needed "clearing" (a removal of the aberated content in a mind).

After studying the behavior of human predators I realized this method used by Hubbard fits the description for gaslighting exactly.

Here's a brief description from The Empathy Trap Book by Dr Jane McGregor and Tim McGregor:

 "Gaslighting is the systemic attempt by one person to erode another's reality. The syndrome gets its name from the 1938 stage play Gas Light (originally known as Angel Street in the USA), and the 1940 and 1944 film adaptations. The 1944 film Gaslight features a murderer who attempts to make his wife doubt her sanity. He uses a variety of tricks to convince her that she is crazy, so she won't be believed when she reports the strange things that are genuinely occurring, including the dimming of the gas lamps in the house (which happens when her husband turns on the normally unused gas lamps in the attic to conduct clandestine activities there). The term has since found its way into clinical and research literature.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented in such a way as to make the target doubt his or her own memory and perception. Psychologists call this, rather incongruously, 'the sociopath's dance'. It may simply involve the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, or it could be the staging of strange events intended to disorientate the target. In any event event, the effect of gaslighting is to arouse such an extreme sense of anxiety and confusion in the target that he reaches the point where he no longer trusts his own judgement. The techniques are similar to those used in brainwashing, interrogation and torture, the instruments of psychological warfare. This is Machiavellian behaviour of the worst kind. A target exposed to it for long enough loses her sense of her own self. She finds herself second-guessing her own memory, becomes depressed and withdrawn and totally dependent on the abuser for her sense of reality.

Gaslighting is a deliberate ploy that occurs between one individual (The gaslighter - the sociopath in our case) and another (The gaslightee, often an empath). The endgame for the sociopath is when the gaslightee thinks he is going crazy. Anyone can become the victim of a sociopath's gaslighting moves. Gaslighting can take place in any kind of relationship - between parent and child, between siblings or friends, or between groups of people including work colleagues. Going back to our analogy of the Emperor's New Clothes, it is the process of gaslighting that distorts our sense of reality and makes us disbelieve what we see. Even when the victim is bewildered there is a reluctance to see the gaslighter for what he is. Denial is essential for gaslighting to work. 

Psychotherapist Christine Louis de Canonville describes different phases that the abuser leads the relationship through: different phases that the abuser leads the relationship through: the Idealization stage, the devaluation stage, and the discarding stage. Gaslighting does not happen all at once, so if you suspect in the early stages of a relationship that you are being gaslighted, you can protect yourself by walking away. (page 48 -49 The Empathy Trap Book by Dr Jane McGregor and Tim McGregor)

The fact is that Scientologists see themselves as having existed for eons, usually trillions or hundreds of quadrillions of years before their current life. Many see themselves as having a billion or so past lives and that they piled up numerous identities and valences and various things that are piled up and confusing them and causing them to not remember the vast majority of their half eternity or so of existence, possibly in other universes before this one and definitely including various misadventures in this universe. 

This is meant to totally confuse a Scientology cult member to create "the effect of gaslighting is to arouse such an extreme sense of anxiety and confusion in the target that he reaches the point where he no longer trusts his own judgement. The techniques are similar to those used in brainwashing, interrogation and torture, the instruments of psychological warfare. This is Machiavellian behaviour of the worst kind. A target exposed to it for long enough loses her sense of her own self. She finds herself second-guessing her own memory, becomes depressed and withdrawn and totally dependent on the abuser for her sense of reality." The Empathy Trap Book

The effect of Scientology is a person that has their sense of self disrupted so thoroughly by the contradictory elements in Scientology and the looking too closely inward (as guided by the techniques in Scientology, including the ethics conditions that perpetually imply that the individual is not really being themselves, that they are abberated and not fully sane). 

The person is ultimately meant to lose trust in their own judgement, thoughts, and senses and to turn to Ron Hubbard's words and wisdom to have reliable, accurate, stable data. That's the end product. A person undergoes "processing" in Scientology. They are being changed.

By making the ethics conditions appear as scientific formulas and the steps seem rational and logical Hubbard has framed the conditions as the scientific nature of reality, and not something to be questioned or doubted. 


We can see how this continues in the Doubt condition.

Below quote from The Introduction to Scientology Ethics Conditions book. 

"When one cannot make up one's mind as to an individual, a group, organization or project a condition of Doubt exists. The formula is:

  1. Inform oneself honestly of the actual intentions and activities of that individual, group, project or organization brushing aside all bias and rumor.

  2. Examine the statistics of the individual, group, project or organization.

  3. Decide on the basis of "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics" whether or not it should be attacked, harmed or suppressed or helped.

  4. Evaluate oneself or one's own group, project or organization as to intentions and objectives.

  5. Evaluate one's own or one's group, project or organization's statistics.

  6. Join or remain in or befriend the one which progresses toward the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and announce the fact publicly to both sides.

  7. Do everything possible to improve the actions and statistics of the person, group, project or organization one has remained in or joined.

  8. Suffer on up through the conditions in the new group if one has changed sides, or the conditions of the group one has remained in if wavering from it has lowered one's status."

Now we need to understand that in Scientology "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics" means whatever benefits Scientology. Scientology has a long and complex series of definitions for the dynamics but the bottom line ends up being that what benefits Scientology ends up benefiting the greatest number of dynamics. This is a conclusion baked into the way the dynamics and Scientology are defined. 

So, a Scientologist doing a doubt formula about doing something for Scientology or being in a Scientology group is ALWAYS going to conclude that Scientology is the correct group to join or befriend or remain in from step 6 of the doubt formula. If they accept the definitions and concepts in Scientology doctrine as true and accurate they have no choice. 

But it looks like they have a choice and it looks like they freely made the choice using their own judgment. 

The loaded language in Scientology has conclusions in the definitions of terms like Scientology and the individual Scientologist is extremely unlikely to realize this. It is well hidden in the dynamics and various complex terms that have their own lengthy definitions and contradictions in the materials on them. 

Hubbard in numerous references describes the Scientology organization as the most ethical group on planet earth, he describes Scientology as the only group that can save earth and Scientologists as the only beings that will survive the end of the earth. With that perspective, Scientology has rigged the condition formulas so Scientology is to always be supported and chosen when a doubt formula is done involving Scientology.

Now we can look at the condition of Liability from The Indoctrination to Scientology Ethics book.

"Now "upgraded" by the Ethics Officer to a condition of Liability, the formula is:

  1. Decide who are one's friends
  1. Deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger.

  2. Make up the damage one has done by personal contribution far beyond the ordinary demands of a group member.

  3. Apply for re-entry to the group by asking the permission of each member of it to rejoin and rejoining only by majority permission, and if refused, repeating steps 2-4 until one is allowed to be a group member again."

We can note that Liability contains the conclusion that a person assigned this condition in the phrase "the group one has been pretending to be part of." The conclusion is that the person pretended to be a part of a group!

This is an odd thing to just uncritically accept with no evidence but Scientologists do this routinely!

They accept that they have somehow not really been friends to other people in Scientology and further only pretended to be part of the group!

That's got to be gaslighting to tell someone they were only pretending to be a member of the group and were not really a member!

Then they have to somehow deliver an effective blow.


When I was in Scientology I saw that we didn't question if we were pretending to be part of the group, we usually got our attention stuck on figuring out how to deliver that effective blow!

We didn't question if we had genuinely done damage but instead tried to figure out how we could make up the damage! 

This goes back to Hubbard's approach of introverting someone, getting them looking too closely at themselves and then giving them a stable datum on what to do at that moment. That stable datum is to do something, it can be delivering an effective blow or making up damage or something else that requires their focused attention and they accept that they did whatever Hubbard said without evaluating it for themselves.

I believe this ultimately comes back down to this quote we already examined from Hubbard on altitude instruction:

"“In altitude teaching, somebody is a ‘great authority.’ He is probably teaching some subject that is far more complex than it should be. He has become defensive down through the years, and this is a sort of protective coating that he puts up, along with the idea that the subject will always be a little better known by him than by anybody else and that there are things to know in this subject which he really wouldn’t let anybody else in on. This is altitude instruction … It keeps people in a state of confusion, and when their minds are slightly confused they are in a hypnotic trance. Anytime anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude."  Ronald Hubbard

The conditions are definitely overly complex and confusing. A Scientologist has to do them and try to understand the things not said, that come from other Scientology references and they have to uncritically accept the ideas in the conditions and try to look up definitions for Scientology terms.

 The many thousands of definitions for Scientology terms are confusing in their own right. Lots of the terms are regular words that are used to mean the exact opposite of their usual meaning. That's confusing and hides this reversal of meaning. Many Scientology terms have multiple contradictory definitions. That makes them confusing and foggy in the minds of Scientologists. 

Additionally, Scientology terms are defined by other Scientology terms, so one has to look up a Scientology term, then in the Scientology reference that has definitions they routinely find a half dozen more Scientology terms to look up in four or more definitions and these definitions contradict each other and this process continues for dozens and dozens of terms just to look up one word.

As if that's not bad enough, to further confuse people Hubbard made hundreds of abbreviations and piled them up to the sky and additionally he took several words and changed their part of speech, meaning he converted adjectives and adverbs to nouns, just to confuse people a bit more.

This leaves a Scientologist utterly confused and struggling to somehow comply with these conditions and forget about any independent or critical thinking.

We can see the options they have are joining Scientology or helping Scientology or harming the enemies of Scientology or  contributing to Scientology.

I knew a Scientologist many years ago who told me, "No matter how you slice it, the answer comes up Scientology!"

He had been in Scientology for several years and realized that his ethics conditions were always going to "conclude" that he needed to give more and commit more to Scientology, no matter what actual situation he was in!

It didn't matter that he had been on staff for several years and never got paid or that he was broke and needed some way to buy food and pay bills, the formulas simply are rigged to get one to turn to Scientology and the authority of Scientology no matter what!

He was trying to leave staff and get a regular job and it was difficult to put it mildly. 

I could go over the remaining conditions and analyze each one but I think it's sufficient for now to remark that they fit a description from Margaret Singer in the book, Cults In Our Midst, in which she commented on cults using a system of penalties and rewards. The other conditions definitely reflect quote


I have broken up the original very long blog post on this topic to make it  more manageable as a series of short posts. This is the sixth in the series of short posts to address this. 


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.




Thought Reform/Influence






Brainwashing: Standard Tech In Scientology

Hypnosis and Covert Persuasion













Scientology Doctrine and the Words of Ronald Hubbard





Scientology Conditions - Their Purpose and Practice