To exscn.net

(This post just keeps morphing and morphing as I try to make sense of yesterday.)

As of yesterday, only 4 people in the entire world even knew this blog existed - including me.

What was intended as a light-hearted and humorous look at Scientology has been tweeted and posted on your forum and commented on ad nauseam. And my cheeks are burning.

I didn't expect my blog to be noticed, or to draw any attention from the ex-Scientology community. I've been out of the loop for almost 30 years, and hadn't even heard of Mark Rathbun or Mike Rinder until recently. After all, my involvement was quite boring in the big scheme of things - but awful for me nonetheless. But I guess I'd assumed that, if it was noticed, it would be met with indifference.

So it was a bit unnerving to read comments from people who presume to know anything about me based on a few blog posts. And I was bemused that anyone thought I was an OSA op. (Not sure what that is, but it doesn't sound good!)

One person contacted me directly, and she was friendly and open, forthcoming with her story and interested in mine. Thanks, Elli!

I don't know any of you, and I don't know your stories, so I can't comment on what you have or haven't been through. But I wonder, if we sat down with a pot of coffee and talked about other things, if we'd like each other.

P.S. - For a non-Scientology view on psychiatry, you could read Reality Therapy or Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health by William Glasser, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist.


P.P.S. - Thanks for the tip on spellcheck!

The boomerang effect

Apparently, misunderstood words weren't entirely effective at getting others to tow the line. Something else was required. So LRH concocted "overts".

An overt is a harmful act.

And when we commit acts that harm others, we tend to "natter" about those others.

(Natter = complain, criticize, find fault with)

This indoctrination teaches that the only time we natter about others is when:

1. we've done something harmful to that person, or
2. we've done something similar ourselves that we haven't taken responsibility for.

Quite smooth when you think about it - and very, very effective.

Any disagreement you have with LRH, Scientology, other Scientologists, or staff members is due entirely to your own prior misbehaviour - even if it's true, even if it's justified, even if it's reasonable.

As soon as you even think about complaining, this mechanism kicks in and you think, "Oh, no! What's wrong with me?!"

And there is no mechanism for dealing with an actual grievance either because it was ultimately your own fault. Someone assaulted you? Stole your wallet? Slept with your spouse? So what did you do before that to cause that (or, as they say in Scientology, to pull that in)?

CAVEAT: The exception is any transgressions against the C of S or any of its executives by non-Scientologists. Those are bad, suppressive, and crimes of the highest order because only Scientology is good - and it is always good!

Hook, line, and sinker

So let's put it all together:

The hook

It could be Dianetics. It could be a Superbowl ad. It could be a personality test. But it's something connected to Scientology that you can wholeheartedly agree with.

And if this is true, then surely everything else is true, too!

The line

Keeping Scientology Working - This policy letter firmly ensconses LRH as Source. He's a war hero, a nuclear physicist, an explorer, an adventurer (none of which are actually true). He alone does not stand on the shoulders of giants. He alone discovered and developed a map out of hell on earth. He gives no credit to any of those whose ideas he plagiarized - with the possible exception of Buddha. But that's okay, because he alludes to the fact that he's the reincarnation of Buddha.

The point is, LRH is Source. He is always right, always infallible, always compassionate, the greatest humanitarian of all time.

And if you take issue with anything in this policy letter, we'll move on to...

The sinker

The misunderstood word. Here's where you learn unequivocally that any and all disagreements you may have with anything LRH ever wrote are because you have misunderstood words. It must be the case. LRH said so! After all, "everybody knows" that to understand is to agree.

Failing that, there's always the boomerang effect. Once you buy into that (covered in the next post), every critical thought boomerangs back at you and causes you to wonder what's wrong with you!

(It's worth defining critical  and critical thought. Both are off limits in Scientology.)

Misunderstoods - a good idea taken too far

The concept of misunderstood words as the root of all evil is - dare I say it? - sinister.

There's a common misconception that LRH has incorporated into everything he wrote on misunderstood words:

Understanding = Agreement

In other words: If you understood, you would agree.

If you don't agree, it's because there's a word you don't understand.

Get it? It may seem inocuous, a small point, but everything else in Scientology hinges on you buying into this.

Not sure you agree with something LRH wrote? The course supervisor may smile at you indulgently (after all, you're still new) and say, "That's because you have misunderstood words! Let's clear those up!"

When you've been around a while, though, they're a little less indulgent. Actually, a lot less indulgent.

So how seriously do Scientologists take misunderstoods?  They're obsessive - and with good reason.

From a Policy Letter dated 23 December 1965:

Any repeated or continued violation of the five points of out study tech listed below, after two Courts of Ethics for violation of these points, subjects the person to a Committee of Evidence on the charge of committing an act or omission undertaken to knowingly suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists, and if found guilty
beyond reasonable doubt, the person may be declared suppressive and expelled with full penalties:

1. A person may be summoned to a Court of Ethics or Executive Court of Ethics if it be found that he has gone past a word he does not understand when receiving, hearing or reading an order, HCOB, policy letter or tape, any and all LRH written or printed
materials including books, PABs, despatches, telexes and mimeo issues which resulted in a failure to do duties of his post, without his at once making an effective effort to clear the words on himself, whether he knew he was missing them or not, as the source of his inaction or damaging actions.

The charge is neglecting to clarify words not understood.

Because to understand is to agree!

"What's true for you..." - another hook

"Will you walk into my parlour?"

said the Spider to the Fly.

Mary Howitt, 1929

It all starts off perfectly reasonably. I was told:

"What's true for you is what you yourself have observed."

No problem with that! The 2013 Super Bowl ad says:

"You're here to think for yourself, to look for yourself, to make up your own mind.

The one thing that's true is what's true for you."

But as you read through the rest of these posts, you'll begin to realize that that is only true when you're being audited.

Outside of that, this - and only this - holds true:

"If it isn't written [by LRH], it's not true."

And at the moment you buy into that, you stop thinking for yourself, looking for yourself, or making up your own mind.

KSW - LRH as Source

"The Monk watched in transfixed awe. The man, he believed

with an instant effortlessness which would have impressed even a Scientologist,

must be a God of some kind to arouse such fervour.

He waited with bated breath to worship him."

- Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

"A true teacher leads you to Allah.

A false teacher leads you to himself."

- Sufi Sheikh

The first policy letter you study in every Scientology course - and I do mean every Scientology course - is Keeping Scientology Working. (There's a link to the text on the right-hand side of this page.)

In a nutshell: You learn that, had LRH not been brilliant and courageous and daring beyond your wildest imaginings, there would be no hope for mankind. He - and he alone - single handedly dragged himself out of the mud and mapped the way out for the rest of us. He - and he alone - is Source.

In all the years I have been engaged in research I have kept my comm lines wide open for research data. I once had the idea that a group could evolve truth. A third of a century has thoroughly disabused me of that idea. Willing as I was to accept suggestions and data, only a handful of suggestions (less than twenty) had long-run value and none were major or basic; and when I did accept major or basic suggestions and used them, we went astray and I repented and eventually had to “eat crow.”

And so the work of Scientologists is not to research or innovate or be creative with the technology. Their work is to follow that path to the letter. No additions. No deletions. No alterations. In order for the tech to work, it must be pure and must be applied exactly as LRH wrote it. Don't think for a minute that you can improve on it. You can't.

Our technology has not been discovered by a group. True, if the group had not supported me in many ways I could not have discovered it either. But it remains that if in its formative stages it was not discovered by a group, then group efforts, one can safely assume, will not add to it or successfully alter it in the future. I can only say this now that it is done.

KSW is also full of jargon and Scientology nomenclature. This makes it especially difficult for the uninitiated. Just getting through these 3 pages if you're not familiar with the terminology is a monolithic task. It can take hours - sometimes even days - to complete.

I used to think this was unfortunate - understandable, of course, but unfortunate.

Now I think it's deliberate.

I'll explain in the the next post: The Misunderstood Word.

Dianetics - the hook

Nicole and I worked together as waitresses at the same restaurant. I'd only recently moved to Toronto with my boyfriend, and was happy to have found a friend at work, someone who was interesting and cheerful.

After a time, the conversation swung around to Dianetics. Had I read it? No. Would I like to? Sure.

I recently read Jon Atack's recounting of reading Dianetics, and it all came back to me: the excitement, the exhilaration, the possibilities - the hope. I was hooked.

Here's the premise: Man is basically good. The problem is that he has a "held down 7". Think of a calculator: If the 7 is always held down, all the calculations will be incorrect.

Here's how it works. We experience a painful incident accompanied by some degree of unconsciousness. Specifics about our environment and any conversation that takes place around us during that time are faithfully recorded by the reactive mind (the subconscious).

If we later find ourselves in a similar environment, or if we hear language similar to what was used when we were unconscious, our reactive mind will try to warn us that we're in danger and will cause us to "key in" - i.e., experience pain, discomfort, or emotions similar to what we experienced in the first incident.

The example is given of a little fish being bitten on the tail by a larger fish. The sun is low in the sky, the water is murky, the temperature is 68⁰. The little fish gets away, but he's distraught and in pain.

Some time later, he finds himself in a similar environment: sun low in the sky, murky water, temperature 68⁰. And although there are no other fish around, the little fish becomes uneasy. When he doesn't swim away, his unease turns to panic, and he feels a sharp pain in his tail. Not until he swims out of that "dangerous" area do his symptoms subside.

And so all that has to happen to unstick (or clear) our stuck down 7s is to revisit and release the pain and unconsciousness from those past incidents and, presto, we're sane, happy, and healthy.

Makes perfect sense, right? What could be more reasonable?

CAVEAT: LRH makes it clear in Dianetics that there's no way to tell the difference between an actual memory and a fabricated memory. So what happens when the person has a "memory" that they think may be false? It's not up to the auditor to validate or verify. It's up to the auditor to accept whatever the person says on the premise that "What's true for you is what's true for you." And this will have far-reaching ramifications down the line.

NOTE: If you compare Dianetics to Science and Sanity by Alfred Korzybski, you will see astonishing similarities. Korzybski died in March 1950. Dianetics was published in May 1950. Hmm...