Social Control in Scientologyby Bob Penny

Bob Penny, one of the founders of F.A.C.T.Net (Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network), givesthis account of how his book was originally published in a dual edition with Margery Wakefield’sbook, The Road to Xenu :

Margery wrote the first part of the book (The Road to Xenu), and I wrote the secondpart (Social Control in Scientology). We decided that the two parts complementedeach other, so we published them together in one volume which we first released atthe 1991 Cult Awareness Network conference in Oklahoma City. The printing wasdone in response to demand at the nearest Kinko’s or other quick printer. Thevolumes were bound in a thermal binding machine of mine. Both Margery’s workand mine were released to the public domain in 1993, when they were offered fordownload on the (non-internet) F.A.C.T.Net BBS. Neither are on file with theLibrary of Congress unless someone else put them there. The text has been available(with no remuneration to either Margery or me) on the F.A.C.T.Net BBS and oncountless Web and ftp sites for I know not how long.

Social Control in Scientology is available on the World Wide Web athttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/

andhttp://www.demon.co.uk/castle/xenu/scs.html

Edition 2, released 25 July 1996.This document was formatted on 26 July 1996.

Table of Contents

Introduction 11 Shared Self-Deceptions 3

‘‘TRs’’ (Training Routines) 4

2 Friends to Be Cooperated With 53 A Destructive Cult 74 Scientology Training: Selling "Hard Sell" 8

Learning How to Learn 8How Questions are Handled 8I Will Wait until You Stop Asking 9Another Example of Scientology Training: ‘‘I Am Not Your Auditor’’ 9A Separate Realm of Thought 10Start of the Trap: The Numbers Game 11The Trap Continues: Gradual Erosion 11After Gradual Erosion: Hard Sell 12

5 The Creation of Ignorance 136 But I Thought You Cared about Your Children... 15

Look Only Where I Tell You to Look 15Take a Mile If He Gives an Inch 16In Other Words... (a summary) 17

7 Scientology Ethics 18Ethics as an Assertion 18Ethics as the Destruction of Values 19Personal Integrity 20Advanced Skills of Being In-Ethics 20

8 The Defeat of Street Smarts 22Caveat Vendor (Seller Beware) 22An Example: Narconon and the Purification Rundown 22Certainty vs Truth 23

9 An Example of Word Games: The Word Control 24I Say BLUE; I Dare You To Say GREEN 25

10 The Web of Group-Think 27Something Done Other Than What Was Said 27

11 Results 29Enforcing the Appearances of Results 30Don’t Overlook the Obvious Absurdity 31

12 About the Author 32

1

Introduction

A newsletter of former Scientologists, the inFormer,published a Gary Larson cartoon which shows a coupledriving along a dark road surrounded by giant mutantvegetation and ants. The caption says: ‘‘Something’swrong here, Harriet... This is starting to look less andless like the Road to Total Freedom.’’

That cartoon describes very well the last several ofmy 13 years in Scientology and the process by which Iwas finally able to escape from what was by far themost destructive and debilitating influence that my lifehas encountered.

The clues were there all along, so it is no surprisethat the experience finally reduced itself to absurdity.The wonder is that I wasted 13 years of my life andmore than $100,000 before learning to handle the falseloyalties and other tricks in which I was enmeshed forso long. Clearly, something was going on that mybasic ‘‘street education’’ had not prepared me to dealwith. Rationalizations such as, ‘‘it’s the best thingwe’ve got,’’ and ‘‘at least it’s moving in the rightdirection’’ (neither of which is true) helped perpetuatethe stasis. Even afterwards, it was hard to avoidrationalizations like ‘‘but I learned a lot,’’ or ‘‘the or-ganization sucks but the tech is good’’ which were at-tempts to minimize and not really face the harm whichhad occurred and from which I had yet to recover. Thehabits of self-censorship, loaded language, avoidanceof contrary data, and other thought-stoppingmechanisms took a long time to go away if, indeed,they are gone even now.

I was intensely curious how such a bizarre situationhad come to be. Coming to understand it was a part(only a part) of my recovery. The articles here arederived from my notes, compiled slowly as thoughtsoccurred to me over a four-year period after getting outof the cult.

If you are looking for a systematic discussion of‘‘mind control’’ or suggestions for helping loved onesin a cult, I recommend that you read Steve Hassan’sbook, Combatting Cult Mind Control, Park StreetPress, 1988.

If you want a description and history of the Scien-tology organizations, read John Atack’s A Piece ofBlue Sky, Carol Publishing Group, 1990.

If you want a feel for life in the Scientology environ-ment, read Margery Wakefield’s The Road to Xenu.

The material I present here is none of those things. Ihave tried to step back from the narrative detail thatMs. Wakefield presents, to look at the underlying pat-tern and structure of Scientology’s manipulation andabuse of otherwise free people. By printing both worksin the same volume, we provide an immediate jux-taposition of the specific and the general, the trees andthe forest, so the reader can refer back and forth be-tween Wakefield’s specific narrative and my moregeneral characterizations of similar experience. Ibelieve this juxtaposition provides a more completedescription of how cult entrapment actually occurs andwhat it consists of.

These models of social manipulation, which I havedrawn from my own experience, may be most recog-nizable to others with direct cult experience (any cult,really — my contacts with ex-members of variousgroups show the ploys and traps to be quite similarfrom one cult to another), so the primary use of thismaterial may be in exit counseling.

But it is possible too, I would hope, that thesemodels may sensitize any reader to recognize them ifsuch types of experience occur in his or her own life.Recognizing these patterns may make the reader lessvulnerable to cult recruitment in the first place. It ismy strong belief that there is a lot more mileage ineducation and prevention before the fact, than in tryingto get people out of cults once they are in.

Our ‘‘street smarts’’ must expand to cover the newdangers created by the growth and increased sophis-tication and power of destructive cults (and gangs, hategroups, etc.). This is an educational endeavor, a kindof consumer awareness education.

As Wakefield shows, Scientology creates a special-ized environment within which anything can be madeto seem true or reasonable or ethical. It is this insaneenvironment, not any flaw in the individual person,which accounts for the apparently insane behaviorwhich she and many others have described, just assimilarly perverted environments trap otherwise goodpeople in lynchings, gang behavior, Nazism, and othersocial ills.

How does it work? The mechanisms of cult entrap-ment are not hard to understand, once you look atthem. But there are many things in our social environ-ment we take for granted and do not look at, any more

Social Control in Scientology

2

than we look at the air we breathe.There is no one answer. A person is not hypnotized

or brainwashed suddenly one day and a slave there-after. It is a process of social learning, like any otherexcept with demented content. It occurs gradually overtime.

In the following series of twelve short articles, wewill look at some of the ways in which this happens,and attempt to sensitize the reader to some of the pres-sures which can force a person into cult servitude. Itremains for each person to recognize such mechanismsas they may occur in his or her own life.

3

Chapter 1Shared Self-Deceptions

You hear about mind control in cults, but what is itand how does it work? It is not the same as brain-washing and we know that torture, at least of the physi-cal variety, is not involved. There are no scars on thebodies and you can’t see the ones on the minds.

Manipulation of group agreements is the key. Amanipulated social environment is created in which, tobe loyal to one’s friends, one must believe the mostamazing things and perform actions which, in real life,would be beneath contempt.

Cults (not just Scientology) create a social milieuwhich gradually and covertly seduces good people intoagreeing among themselves on self-deceptions, so theycome to believe themselves an elite in unique posses-sion of the only right answers. The real result is depen-dence on the group and vulnerability to its control andexploitation.

For example, to act in good faith, we who wereScientologists had to believe there was a good result towhat we were doing. But immense pressure is put onany evaluation of result by the environment of sellingand gung ho, by our own complicity and participation,by our disposition to grant benefit of the doubt, tocooperate, to be willing, enthusiastic, and loyal.Spiritual growth is what was promised, thus precludingany determination of result except subjectively by theinfluenced group member himself. What, then, can wesay about result?

First the obvious: that even if there was any validityto the claims made, this hothouse of social pressurewould be the last place to expect any kind of objectiveperception, evaluation, understanding, or verificationof results. What kind of science can work only withinthe confines of a closed group that actively suppressesnonconforming viewpoints while demanding andrewarding gung ho agreement?

A kind of insanity is visible in the peculiar group-think ways of evaluating or not evaluating information(like Ron said so) that we accepted and sold to eachother. If there was demonstrable result, why would allthe hype and controlled information be needed?

The hype is needed, of course, to allow us to sharebelief in a result. The process can be summarized infour steps — small steps at first, but larger and larger

each time around until the person gradually assimilatesthe group-think.

1. Sell him something. The person is told that if youdo X you will get better. It is standard practice topromise anything (without actually promisinganything), and whatever the person can be madeto admit to wanting (called his ruin) becomes theexcuse for getting him into this process.

2. Whip up gung-ho. Group members manifest theirfriendliness, concern and hope for the person.They make very clear that they want him to getbetter and they are very sure that participation inScientology will do it. The expectations are set inplace so that not to get better would be a betrayalof one’s friends.

3. The person does X. While engaged in the action,he has special status. He is adulated for being‘‘on purpose,’’ and carefully not disturbed or ‘‘en-turbulated.’’ He is clearly an important person.He may also be told how much better he is look-ing, and how apparent the change is. A socialexpectation of result is built for the particular caseat hand.

4. The person agrees that he is better. As a goodgroup member, he will find some way to crea-tively play his part, to justify the time and moneyhe has spent, avoid embarrassment, and not let hisfriends down.

With all this weight of authority and expectation,merely focusing attention on an area of life may ‘‘rattlethe cage’’ and give an impression that something hashappened. Add the feelings of relief and solidarityafter completing something important and sharing asuccess with one’s friends. The notorious unreliabilityof subjective perception is not considered, nor are theremethods to control bias and ascertain the actual sub-stance of the experience. Instead, the resulting mentalstate is exploited uncritically in whatever way will bestfit doctrine and make everyone agree that it worked.

At that high moment, the person quickly attests inwriting that he got an appropriate result from the ser-vice and is satisfied. He must do this to complete theservice, or he is ‘‘handled’’ further at his own expenseuntil he does. No gun is held to the person’s head so

Social Control in Scientology

4

the success story may be said to be freely given. Thecost of remedial handling provides additional motivefor everything to be all right.

After I say that everything is all right, my agreementis taken as proof that what you are doing is OK. Yoursuccess provides the same rationale for me. By uncriti-cal acceptance of influenced, unreliable data, wedeceive ourselves and keep the circle closed. If every-thing was not all right, one’s status in the group wouldbe jeopardized. An enemy of the group, or ‘‘Suppres-sive Person,’’ is said not to have case gain. Successstories, attestations, and gung-ho agreement areevidence that one has ‘‘case gain’’ and so is a validgroup member.

Case gain requires no substantiation beyond theperson’s attestation and other evidences of loyalty. Aslong as the supposed benefit is attributed to Scientol-ogy and does not contradict doctrine, the person is freeto claim whatever he wants to believe about himselfand dare anyone else to contradict his personal delu-sions (it is a crime to invalidate a Scientologist’s caseor gains). When personal delusion is reinforced bydoctrine, the result can be impaired self-knowledge,obstructed ability to deal with real situations, and adanger to the person’s mental health.

Such is the quality of material which forms the basisfor Scientology’s claim of results. A legal case forfraud would be difficult, because the person said inwriting that he got what he was supposed to have got-ten. And it is difficult to go back on representationsmade voluntarily. One must defend the delusions orrisk facing the terrifying loss of control of one’s lifewhich has occurred. There are numerous motives tofind ways to actually believe that one has experiencedcase gain.

The payoff is whatever psychic benefit the in-dividual derives from belonging — the appearances ofcommunity and caring, certainty, allies, defense againstothers in life, and evasion of the real challenges ofgrowth.

Given such motives, the individual may well notcare how the apparent benefit was obtained or what itcost, just as the high is everything to the drug addict.He has found where to get it. Alternatives are ir-relevant. I have even heard, ‘‘So what if it is aplacebo....’’

Never mind that truly needed help may be foregonein favor of the immediate fix. Life goals may be aban-doned or redefined as the true cost of participation be-comes manifest. In this pressure-cooker of agreement

and gung-ho, the benefit may be illusory but the personcan no longer tell the difference.

As the cult member continues to deny his depen-dence, or to rationalize it as ethical and beneficial,employers, parents and concerned others must protectthemselves as best they can. An obvious concern is thesituation of children living in such an environment,whose welfare is subject to the parent’s need to believeand to belong.

‘‘TRs’’ (Training Routines)

Many of us considered TRs to be innocuous; yet wewere aware they were part of something destructive,and didn’t know how to sort out the connection. I hadfun doing TRs too. Chanting, meditation, TRs, hyp-nosis, physical exhaustion, a good back rub — theseare all conditions that subjectively feel mellow andlucid while actually they heighten suggestibility andreduce critical awareness. We all have our more sharpand less sharp moments.

The feeling of lucidity produced by TRs, meditation,drugs, etc. is merely a subjective state. The group tellsyou how to think about that state, such as ‘‘you aremore in present time.’’ The suggestion is that you areless suggestible and you buy it because you are in ahighly suggestible state. Other cults sell meditation orJesus the same way.

The cult environment systematically exploits theseless-sharp moments. In a Scientology courseroom, forexample, the student is surrounded with the cult’s pres-sure and loaded language. He might be receptive evenwithout TRs. Maybe he’s tired or lonely. TRs are justone more device to enforce agreement and compliance.At least they’re more fun than ethics.

Many of us have trouble enough recognizing andaccepting our feelings even without any ‘‘help’’ fromScientology. To practice suppressing our feelings andsubstituting group-mandated responses in their place,all within this context of group pressure and heightenedsuggestibility, is destructive indeed. The next step isthe success story where one talks about having morereality on the first dynamic and coming to understandthat one’s real self wants only to serve the cult.

Such understanding makes it much easier to sendyour kids to the Cadet Org and ‘‘disconnect’’ fromyour ‘‘suppressive’’ mother or spouse.

5

Chapter 2Friends to Be Cooperated With

Entrapment occurs through deceptive manipulationof our best qualities: loyalty, courage, desire to help.We try to cooperate and be supportive of our friends.That normal desire and tendency is exploited in thistricky environment to create an appearance and beliefthat Scientology works.

Reader be warned: this is the most difficult article inthis collection, but also the most exact description ofthe nature of the trap. To describe what is so hard toput into words, I will use the concepts of sociologistErving Goffman who describes the devices by whichwe all maintain identities and the amount of work andlearning required to do so.1

The man in public with an unzipped fly has failed tomaintain the consistency of appearance required for theidentity or image that he is presenting. Such an in-cident is embarrassing both to him and to those whowitness it. For witnesses, there is a reminder of howfragile are our appearances and how much we rely onthe good will of others to maintain them, a reminderthat face can be lost and that one’s own is not invul-nerable.

In going un-self-consciously about our business, wenormally do not dwell on or even notice the fragilenature of the appearances which make it possible. It isa natural response to creatively find ways to gloss overembarrassment, to help the actor who blew his linesrecover as gracefully as possible so the show can go on— including our part in it, in which we have somestake of gratification and status. The maintaining ofpresented identity is a cooperative endeavor and we areaccustomed to cooperating as a basic habit of civilizedbehavior.

The desire to cooperate is strongest when we feel acommunity of interest with other players and feel thatthey would willingly help us handle an unzipped flysituation. But it is possible to do the opposite, tosearch out any flaw or error in the presentation and

1The interested reader may refer to the following books by Gof-fman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Doubleday AnchorBooks, 1959. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of MentalPatients and Other Inmates, Doubleday Anchor Books, 1961. Rela-tions in Public, Harper Torchbooks, 1972.

expose it: Hey, everybody look, this guy’s fly is un-zipped!

The Hard Sell salesman’s job is to get the mark tocooperate with him in maintaining whatever image heis trying to present, while the salesman works todestroy the integrity of any independent (non-checkwriting) identity presented by the mark. Perhapsthis imbalance is possible because the mark denies(tries not to acknowledge) his humiliation. By namingthe salesman’s games (in which he has participated) themark would further discredit himself (by association).This would further destabilize the interaction, which isnormally a cooperative endeavor, in which he has arole and stake.

Under such pressure, the mark (in a defensive man-ner, to avoid what Goffman calls soiled identity) makesan extraordinary effort to preserve the appearance thateverything is normal, as best he can under the cir-cumstances. A cultural image which might help iden-tify this denial of humiliation is the shiteating grin.

This cooperation is seen in the mark’s creative jus-tifying of potentially alarming situations by givingbenefit of the doubt or making excuses for actions byScientologists which might otherwise appear over-zealous or discreditable. Typical excuses include:

• he’s untrained,

• he wouldn’t do that if he were Class VIII,

• these things go in cycles and there’s a lot of heaton right now,

• at least he’s making mistakes on the right side,

• at least he’s doing something,

• he has case problems.In such ways, actions which might otherwise becomeclues to the real situation are made to look normal andno cause to look further. Thus the faith can be kept andthe self-images which go with it.

Cooperation is not a bad thing, but this is a perver-sion of cooperation to achieve exploitation. Comparethe denial, rationalization, and loyalty characteristic ofbattered women, whose situation is similar.

Cooperation, even with deception, is possible be-cause we are involved with real people who possess

Social Control in Scientology

6

real abilities, real strengths, real human beauty. Theirwillingness, enthusiasm, even heroism, can be in-tensely admirable. That feels good to be a part of.

When involvement occurs in a context called Scien-tology, then Scientology may be said (by unsubstan-tiated assertion) to be the source of the admiration andgood feeling we share with our fellows when actuallythe source is agreement and cooperative action withlike-minded participants, as may also occur, for ex-ample, in a theater company, military unit, orentrepreneurial business.

The intense loyalties generated by group action, thusmisdirected, produce further motive to creatively jus-tify the group’s ideology. We cooperate. We workcreatively with the other actors to ensure that we allknow our lines and that the show as we collectivelyagree it to be can go on. We mutually support eachother in creating the appearances which are necessaryfor us to go on believing and acting in good faith. In acult, this means we tell each other that we are an elitein unique possession of the only right answers.

The person in a Scientology auditing session knows

the rules of the game and what the normal actions ofthe session will be. The auditor is a real person in frontof him, in a situation of high affinity and community ofinterest. The normal cooperativeness of social inter-action is heightened by this affinity and by the environ-ment of pressure and expectation.

One can be very creative in fulfilling the shared ex-pectations of this situation. The auditor’s role is to bethere to be cooperated with.

The ‘‘tech’’ is just stage management. The auditoris there as reminder of the social context and the im-peratives which await just outside the door. In thismilieu, the preclear will produce appropriate ‘‘cog-nitions’’ (past lives, etc.). The auditor’s only errorwould be to disrupt the normal process of cooperationby obtrusive or distractive statements, actions, or man-nerisms.

In this setting, the person discovers for himself howit could be that way — just as in everyday life wecreatively find ways to go on letting doctors be doctorsand janitors be janitors, and cover for each other’s un-zipped flies.

7

Chapter 3A Destructive Cult

America is a land of voluntary associations, with theright to do your own thing well established in our tradi-tions. The diversity thus protected is a source ofstrength for American culture. But in recent years wehave seen totalist groups systematically employ undueinfluence to exploit the shelter of this tradition, bypassour society’s normal controls on unethical activity, andmount large scale programs of entrapment and fraud.

An internal power struggle in Scientology in theearly 1980’s left many people willing to tell what theyhad seen, and a number of court cases have put sometruth about Scientology into the public domain.Several books have presented documented descriptionsof Scientology, the most recent being Jon Atack’s APiece of Blue Sky, published by the Carol PublishingGroup in 1990. Much of this information waspublished in a six-part expose by the Los AngelesTimes in July, 1990, and an abbreviated version byTime magazine in May, 1991.

The written sources tell what is easiest to describe:the trashed families and careers, lost savings, aban-doned educations, and the like, which are commonstories among ex-members. But in my opinion, aprimary harm done by Scientology is capture and cor-ruption of the group member’s ability to make moraland intellectual judgments. Impoverishment, brokenfamilies, etc. are merely what follow.

To evade scrutiny, Scientology tries to pass as justanother church or self-help group with laudable aimsand programs. But Scientology is neither the answer toall problems of life nor even a helpful activity exertinginfluence in the right direction.

Behind the hype and ‘‘PR’’ (public relations), Scien-tology is a money-making enterprise which systemati-cally exploits, under the guise of help, the hopes,needs, and weaknesses of those it recruits. It operatesby selling questionable services with ambiguousproducts (so that fraud is difficult to prove), then usingmind control techniques to substitute certainty (loyalty)in place of truth. The result is to make those who takethe bait into captive group members who will sacrificetheir lives and fortunes to the group, defend it, andinsist publicly that they received benefit.

In its efforts to conceal the reality, Scientology has

become notorious for vicious attacks and disregard ofthe civil rights of any who would expose the truth of itsactual practices. As with rape and other abuse, cultactivity can cause lasting harm to those involved, totheir families, and to society.

This is something from which one must recover, of-ten with considerable difficulty, and there is risk oflasting ill effects if the recovery is not complete. Theprocess and difficulty of emerging from a cult andregaining one’s own integrity and growth are discussedat length in Steve Hassan’s book, Combatting CultMind Control, Park Street Press, 1990.

Scientology represents itself as the way to bettercommunication, health, ability to learn, a more suc-cessful career, or a better life. Scientology is not anyof those things, but the bait gets you into the trap.Under carefully controlled conditions, you learn not toquestion the claims. You learn the countless reasonswhy your education is less important than learningScientology, your career less important than servingScientology, your family less important than clearingthe planet.

The means replace the end; loyalty substitutes forresult; the group replaces life. That is no accident: theonly true product of a cult is group members,desperately telling each other that they are an elite withthe only answers to life’s questions. It becomes normaland commonplace to substitute certainty in place oftruth, group loyalty in place of informed decision. Astime goes on, one needs to believe in the group agree-ments in order to justify what he or she has done, thetrashed families and so on.

In such an environment, one is prevented fromdeveloping realistic understandings of self and theworld. Instead, the person must defend illusory self-images composed of various abilities supposedly ac-quired through Scientology training and processing.That the snake oil is bogus cannot be faced withoutraising serious identity problems. How the harmcomes to be done, the impairment of judgment and thefostering of delusion, is particularly evident if we ex-amine Scientology’s LRH Study Technology (dis-cussed in the next article) which Church members in-flict on children as well as on each other.

Social Control in Scientology

8

Chapter 4Scientology Training: Selling "Hard Sell"

Scientology’s indoctrination procedure consists, onthe one hand, of an official line which emphasizesrespect for individual reality and experience, and in-cludes formal prohibition against ‘‘feeding cogs’’ ortelling the person what he will experience or what tothink about his case or about Scientology (calledevaluating).

Underlying that official line is an enormous flow ofinformal data, such as wins sessions and success storiesand just plain gossip, through which one begins tolearn who are the bad guys and what are acceptableideas and statements. The new group member beginsto practice voicing these ideas (including the rationaleand techniques of ‘‘dissemination’’) as his own, in ful-fillment of obligatory participation in the bonhomie ofthe group.

Learning How to Learn

Scientology claims to be rational, founded on ob-servable evidence, and scientific. In fact it is stronglyanti-intellectual, espousing freedom of thought publiclywhile in practice bringing to bear emotional grouppressures and influences which systematically createthe opposite of the openly stated ideals.

Scientology’s Student Hat (how to study) coursecontains LRH tape lectures filled with easily-agreed-with material about finding out for yourself, not blindlyfollowing authority, and seeing what really is thererather than what authority or training or habit says isthere.

Yet the people who take those courses, and thosewho supervise them, are uniformly exposed to the fic-titious and deceptive biography of Mr. Hubbardpublished in Church materials. Not once in thirteenyears did I hear anyone openly question those fictions,and never did I hear from Church sources or membersthe truth of the man’s background and activity. In-stead, socially mandatory applause was universal prac-tice in every Scientology courseroom I ever attended,repeatedly honoring the man Judge Breckenridge, afterdays of testimony (Los Angeles Superior Court, May,1984), described as virtually a pathological liar when it

comes to his history, background and achievements.When success stories and wins are given publicly,obligatory applause creates a motive to rationalizeagreement. (Why am I applauding? Oh, yes....)

Pointing out the discrepancy between official andunofficial would of course be a faux pas.

These same practitioners of Scientology’s StudyTech also found nothing wrong with the efficacy ofauditing being proved by anecdotal testimony givenroutinely under the most influenced circumstances im-aginable, and with total lack of verification by sourcesnot under Church control.

On one occasion when I communicated some ofthese concerns to a person who I thought was atrustworthy friend, the mere fact that I was thinkingsuch things was greeted with horror and I was told toroute yourself to Ethics and get it ‘‘handled.’’ That isthe true product of Scientology’s Study Tech.

How Questions are Handled

Another bulwark of Scientology’s attack on thoughtis the tenet that knowledge is not information or under-standing, but certainty. Increased certainty is com-monly cited in success stories as a benefit gained fromauditing and training.

This ideal is so much part of Scientology’s culturethat any questioning or un-certainty comes to be seenas a moral failing, not to be admitted. In practice,certainty becomes synonymous with loyalty, and to beuncertain is to fail as a group member and very pos-sibly to betray the group.

Questions about minor points of doctrine are‘‘handled’’ routinely by cramming or retraining (at theperson’s expense). But uncertainty on any basic matterbecomes a question of ethics or disloyalty to behandled with Scientology’s ethics conditions.

The ethics conditions include the Condition ofDoubt, through which the wavering group member issupposed to regain certainty. In following theprescribed remedy for that Condition, a question offact, logic, or intellectual standards will be resolved bydeciding who are your friends and what group you

4.2 How Questions are Handled

9

wish to belong to. The actual issues are disposed of orrationalized away in whatever way will permit an un-ambiguous affirmation of loyalty. (This is an exampleof the distraction and misdirection which I have citedelsewhere as key words describing my own experienceof Scientology.)

The Doubt Formula includes gathering informationon the two sides between which one is undecided. It isalways a mutually exclusive either-or choice (no men-tion of none of the above). I never saw a doubt for-mula which gathered any information about Scientol-ogy beyond its own PR claims and stated intentions,nor would it be admissible within the group to do so.

Other information, not under group control, islabeled with the sweeping generality ‘‘enthetha,’’which categorically outlaws its consideration or dis-semination without regard to truth or fact. Thus infor-mation which has been publicly available to others formany years, such as the facts of Hubbard’s actual his-tory and qualifications, is not commonly known toScientologists.

The ideas of working hypothesis or conditional judg-ment based on the best evidence to date (which implyopenness to new information) are excluded in favor ofcategorical appeals to group loyalty which require sup-pression of any contrary thought or data.

A sense of something wrong with this, or disagree-ments on specific issues, are ‘‘handled’’ alike bydemanding that the individual resolve it now (completehis ethics condition) and categorically re-commit to thegroup. This cuts short any thought process or con-sideration of other data and is one of the best examplesof this group’s totalist, anti-pluralist control process.You are either totally with the group or totally againstit.

I Will Wait until You Stop Asking

Questions may arise during training about unsub-stantiated claims or about the relation of this materialto mainstream lines of thought. The standard handlingof such questions in Scientology is to explicitly dis-regard them. Instead, the student is told to do it ‘‘ex-actly as the materials state’’ and then observe whetherit works. That approach sounds sensible: see if itworks. Yet in this group environment, the actualresults are twofold.

First, the student is prevented from integrating oraligning what he is studying with other things he al-ready knows or might learn if he investigated. Thenormal processes of evaluation, comparison and judg-ment are bypassed.

Second, evaluation of the material is deferred until a

later time when he has learned it exactly as stated,which may be a very long time indeed, because it isasserted that if he has questions then he has not under-stood the material. This provides time for the processof socialization through which, for extraneous reasonsof group loyalty, the person will come to accept whathe has been taught, believe in its correctness, and stopasking questions.

The effect is to replace questions of fact and evalua-tion of data with questions of group loyalty, to thepoint where the former become forgotten and indeedunthinkable.

Study Tech is only one example of the reversal ofvalues on a gradient, which is what happens asScientology’s official line becomes correctly under-stood in actual group practice.

Being able to live with such contradictions is thehallmark of a Scientologist. The trick has to do with‘‘unmocking’’, or making nothing of other values, sothe contradiction ceases to have meaning. Only devo-tion to the group remains.

Another Example of ScientologyTraining: ‘‘I Am Not YourAuditor’’

Early in the game, on the HQS course, for example,one is familiarized with certain rules of conduct calledThe Auditor’s Code, also referred to as rules for civil-ized conduct. This includes rules against invalidatinganother person and against telling him what to thinkabout his case or about Scientology (called evaluating).This familiar and apparently humanitarian approachmakes it easy for the new person to get into it.

Later along the gradient, one learns that such rulesapply only to an auditor during an auditing session, andthat apart from that context (i.e., most of the time) in-validation is a standard means of control, and evalua-tion is the backbone of socialization into the group. Inone of my early naive encounters with a registrar, I wasaghast at his disregard for what I thought were centralvalues of the group. His reply: ‘‘I am not yourauditor.’’

The person hooked on The Auditor’s Code learnsfrom experience with registrars and others what it isreally all about. By being a good listener, for example,the Scientologist masters just one more trick ofmanipulating communication to obtain compliancewith ethics and Hard Sell.

Social Control in Scientology

10

A Separate Realm of Thought

Through such experience, much of what winds up inthe minds of Scientologists — including children ex-posed to this environment — gets there through infor-mal indoctrination under group pressures. Additionalpoints of the informal indoctrination include:

• That one does not disagree with anything Mr.Hubbard said or question in any way the authorityof Church organizations.

• That Scientology is beneficial and ethical, and thatthis topic is not open to question or discussion.

• That one does not openly value any other activityunless it is unambiguously subordinate to Scien-tology. Hubbard used bowling as an example,suggesting that whatever else you might be doingis as unimportant as bowling. I once told anauditor socially about an impressive ocean voyagemade by a friend. The auditor disapprovinglycalled my friend a dilettante and not serious as aScientologist.

• That if you have a disagreement or reservation, itindicates something wrong with you (never theChurch), a problem to be solved by correctingyou, whatever that takes.

• That past-life or any other experience contactedthrough Scientology’s exclusive methods are nor-mal, acceptable, and factually valid.

• That contact in auditing with this and other data issufficient to establish its factualness without refer-ence to any other validation and despite its discon-nection from ordinary standards of evidence andevaluation (i.e., one comes to operate with andaccept the separateness per se of this frame of ref-erence).

Lack of alignment with ordinary reality is no ac-cident, but is a vital part of disconnecting the personfrom the rest of life. Scientology is not to be seen aslike psychology or like anything else. The proselytemust set up a separate category of thought, suspendingdisbelief, maintaining politeness, granting benefit ofthe doubt, operating in a part of his mind as if thesethings were true.

This separateness is necessary to create a niche ofcredibility, a beachhead for the trip, to create a concep-tual space within which, for example, there is room tobelieve that ‘‘OT’’ (‘‘Operating Thetan’’) meanssomething more than a status within the group.

We learn many things by setting them asideseparately until enough understanding has been ach-ieved to make integration possible with the rest of lifeand thought (a conditional frame of reference).

What is different about cult indoctrination is closure

— that the cult’s special frame of reference behaveslike a cancer, preventing integration and seeking todestroy (invalidate) any competing or non-supportiverealm of thought.

For example, there is no reason in principle whyrecent-past-life experience contacted in auditing couldnot be verified historically, if valid, and integrated withother modes of thought. But Scientologists do not dothat. Integration is prevented.

Reference to non-Scientology standards of evidenceare invalidated as meaning the person cannot observeor has fixed ideas or is subject to (dramatizing) unseeninfluences or evil intentions. To be a Scientologist, onemust learn to accept it as a special frame of reference.This is a key criterion of valid group membership.

This new beachhead is emotionally connected toone’s own ego and vanity. You have ‘‘cognited.’’You know the Truth. You are special. But othersdon’t have the tech. They don’t know the real (i.e.,past life) causes of what they do. You wouldn’t wantto be like them, would you? This is the mental spacefrom which other values and sources of meaning in lifebecome subject to invalidation.

These specialized images of self and others becomepart of the expectations of a highly visible referencegroup. In the busy-ness of ordinary life there is nooccasion to challenge them. Making sense of it all, inany wider context, is Not Done. It would be too muchtrouble. It is not the easy, sociable thing to do. Youwould have to deal with what people would think aboutthe nonconformity. You would risk losing all that flat-tery about what a good, special, and important personyou are.

Unresolved questions and dissatisfactions are easierto put off when conforming activities are so readilyavailable (busy, rush, emergency, important) and whenany deviation would be a big hassle. In Scientology,any nonconformity becomes a big hassle.

Critical thought or independent evaluation of whatone is doing is prevented by incessant busy-ness andrush. The hype says that Scientologists are rational,even scientific, but the atmosphere is one of continuouscrisis and emergency which interrupts and prevents ra-tional thought. One gets points for how rapidly onecompletes a course. Sales cycles are always Buy Nowbecause of some asserted emergency or other (theChurch is under attack, we’re in a desperate race tosave the planet, etc.). To step back and think it overbefore signing the check is a sign of case interferingwith Clearing the Planet, and if you let that happen youare out ethics.

4.6 Start of the Trap: The Numbers Game

11

Start of the Trap: The NumbersGame

The initial come-on (the start of the gradient) mayhave been in terms of tools for life, it might help, see ifyou find it useful or it worked for me. Just try it andthen decide for yourself. If you were reluctant, youmay have been accused of being closed minded, fear-ful, unwilling to change or improve. PR buttons suchas freedom, ability, education, drug rehabilitation, etc.may have been used to attract your attention and inter-est.

The real purpose was to get you physically into theenvironment described here (called ‘‘bodies in theshop’’), and exposed to the influences which seek tocreate in you this separate realm of thought and thus tobypass your own decisions, standards of evidence andevaluation, and original purpose. Whether because of asense of danger or just the high prices, most of thoseexposed to all this do not stay. There have been a lotmore Dianetics books sold and free personality testsgiven than there are Scientologists.

It is a numbers game. If enough people are exposed,there will be some with compatible emotional needs orsituations in their current life which make them vul-nerable, who will swallow the bait and become captiveto the group.

The Trap Continues: GradualErosion

One step at a time, the new proselyte gradually findsways to suspend disbelief and develops special criteriaof evaluation to use when dealing with this group’sdata — much as one might do with a pushy en-cyclopedia salesman. Midway through the sales pitchit becomes difficult and a failure of self to confront thedisplacement of one’s own standards which has oc-curred (‘‘but I thought you cared about yourchildren...’’). So you buy a set of encyclopedias andthereby escape the awkward situation you were boxedinto. The salesman leaves with a check and you soonrecover from a small blow to your dignity.

In Scientology, however, the salesman does notleave (figuratively speaking). What is sold is not just abook or course or some hours of auditing, but a set ofideas and perceptions which lead to the one conclusionof total commitment to the group. This does not endwith any one-time concession. The accommodation ofwriting a check to get rid of the salesman is merelyprelude to the next round of demands.

Any Scientology activity, be it a communication

course, school for children, management course, drugrehabilitation program, or other apparently laudable ac-tivity contains this covert agenda.

Even well-meaning and contributing outsiders can-not be taken seriously on their own terms because theylack the special Truth available only to insiders, whichcannot be examined or questioned. Any problem ordisagreement with Church activity is interpreted by theScientologist in private terms as the influence of harm-ful and unseen past-life causes and not really theperson’s own words or desire at all. As one gainsunderstanding, outside reality becomes dim and dis-torted, seen only though a peculiar filter. One’sresponsibility to the group always becomes more clear.

At introductory levels you might be hoping for helpwith some situation or condition in your life. For awhile you go on, hoping that your or your family’sas-yet unresolved questions and problems will beresolved on some not-yet-reached higher level. Bysolving problems you never even knew you had (butwhich were discovered in auditing) you gradually forgea more thoroughgoing and consistent group-memberidentity. This becomes the measure of progress and thejustification for continuing.

As more inches and miles are taken, one increasinglybecomes an insider who accepts this situation andlogic. Gradually you come to understand that the realpurpose of Scientology is to help mankind, not you theindividual.

You become a real insider with the next step, ofunderstanding that your real duty is to the group, andthat your personal condition and the failure of otherindividuals is not important. Thus your original need issolved by distraction and misdirection (‘‘gung ho’’).Scientology worked.

Where does this lead? In my own experience, whileunder a siege that I felt but was unable to recognize orunderstand, I became withdrawn, hostile, and incom-petent in dealing with the ongoing issues of life.

By comparison, since getting out of the cult I can atleast deal with the actual situations around me, for bet-ter or worse. Most striking is the change in ease ofdealing with people since leaving the cult. I notice thisespecially and joyfully with my children and with co-workers. Within the cult there was always the filter offalse and preemptive explanations and importances(those validations of insider status) which distractedfrom the actual situation at hand. A real dealing withsituations would have involved open-ended amounts ofheresy, forbidden other practices, or at least failure toapply the tech.

Any other learning, growth, or change would havebeen very difficult to follow through intelligibly andfor the most part simply did not occur. The only solu-

Social Control in Scientology

12

tions available were the redirection of attention typedescribed above.

Factors of life not accounted for in Scientology’spop-psychology are called complexities. Attention tocomplexities is said to indicate something wrong withyou, an inability to understand, or having something tohide. This discouragement of thought, plus the ever-present atmosphere of rush and hurry, left nowhere togo except deeper into gung-ho as the solution to all oflife’s problems.

Those years in Scientology were the most extendedperiod in my life with the least of what I would con-sider real personal growth. They left quite an un-finished agenda for my real life to catch up on and goforward from.

After Gradual Erosion: Hard Sell

Not surprisingly, it takes increased force to maintainsuch increased levels of delusion, to ignore thevacuousness of claimed results and the ordinariness ofsuperbeing ‘‘OTs.’’ Status within the group becomesmore and more the sole and exclusive basis of self-image.

As one becomes an insider, agreement is more andmore presumed. Claimed respect for integrity and in-dividuality gives way to an environment of undisguisedperemptory orders and Hard Sell salesmanship: of par-ticipation, auditing, commitments, self-conceptions,ideas, ethics, or anything Church representatives wantyou to believe or do. Truth comes to exist in Hard Sellsalesman terms, i.e., whatever it needs to be at the mo-ment to invalidate your objections and obtain com-pliance.

Hard Sell technique that I observed (and was sub-jected to) consisted of a fast-paced and disorientingswirl of asserted and presumed agreements, trumped-

up emergencies, plays on loyalty, physical exhaustion,sophistical arguments, accusations of betrayal, guilt-trips, browbeating, physical and verbal intimidation,humiliations, attacks, threats, insults, alienations of af-fection, ganging-up-on, asserted and presumed com-mitments, promises, demands, orders, invalidations,ridicule, plays on deeply felt needs, pleas, misiden-tifications, misrepresentations, putting words in mymouth, telling me what I think, asserted truths, valida-tions, praise, flattery, plays on status, ‘‘trust me’s’’ —anything to destroy my position, to close the sale, toget the stat, to get the check. On one occasion (per-sonal experience) this went on day and night for threedays. These words do not begin to describe it.

Hard Sell is official written Church policy. It isjustified in terms of this preemptive definition: caringenough about the person to insist that he Buy Now andget the service that will rehabilitate him. Actual tech-niques are learned primarily from role models, but alsoin classes and workshops.

The effect is to undermine all meaning and valueapart from Scientology. It becomes permissible todestroy anything (of someone else’s) to produce aresult useful to the Church. A registrar told my wife,‘‘What have you got to lose?’’ when they were discuss-ing whether I might leave if she borrowed against ourfledgling business to purchase Scientology services.That same registrar explained his actions to me, ‘‘I’mjust doing my job.’’

I tried to explain away such events as just the iso-lated action of lone individuals, but after my 1986 tripto Scientology’s base in Florida I could no longer denythat this sort of action is typical, characteristic, andapproved by the Church. I saw and experienced ad-ditional instances, and attempts were made to recruitme for similar activity. I saw that a major activity atthe religious retreat is to train people in such actionsand to handle their scruples.

13

Chapter 5The Creation of Ignorance

A cult’s special kind of group-think may need tocontend with alternative or competing ways of under-standing the world. Thus there may be special defini-tions which explain to the group member how he issupposed to understand other understandings and thepersons who represent them. If the group member hap-pens to have knowledge of the alternative understand-ing, it may be necessary for him to create an ignoranceof the alternative in order to be able to accept an emo-tional and unsubstantiated rejection of it — just asracism demands some degree of ignorance of thehumanity of the ‘‘wog’’ or ‘‘nigger.’’

Consider, for example, the relation between Scien-tology and psychology. Both offer explanations of andmethods to change individual human behavior and somight be seen as competitors. Scientology attempts toinvalidate psychology (and psychiatry) by describingboth as a single undifferentiated generality identifiedwith the physiological school of Wilhelm Wundt(1832-1920). In thirteen years I never once heard anyScientologist communicate anything even vaguely in-formed about the actual state of psychology. Skinner,Maslow, Erikson, Piaget were all one with Wundt. Tostudy (or teach) psychology would be heresy. To ac-cept and promulgate this viewpoint requires ac-complishing an ignorance.

This kind of thinking can produce harm beyond thatdone to the person’s intellect. Scientology’s self-serving anti-psychiatry campaign led, in 1991, to a waron the anti-depressant medication Prozac; a war inwhich, as usual, individual Scientologists knew nothingof the facts but just followed group direction (‘‘Psych-iatry Kills’’ bumper stickers, for example).

An FDA investigation, prompted by Scientology’ssmear campaign, pronounced Prozac to be safe and ef-fective. But meanwhile, a public scare had beenmanufactured which deprived many patients of badlyneeded help, the April 19, 1991 Wall Street Journalreported. A representative of Prozac’s manufacturer isquoted as saying, ‘‘It is a demoralizing revelation towatch 20 years of solid research by doctors and scien-tists shouted down in 20-second sound bites by Scien-tologists and lawyers.’’

In another example of the creation of ignorance,

Scientology is laced with pseudo-scientific overtonessuch as referring to Mr. Hubbard’s opinions andpronouncements as data and tech to make them soundsomehow scientific. This attitude includes ridicule ofphysics, often personified in the name of AlbertEinstein, a name sure to be known by anyone, the im-plied assertion being that Scientology is far advancedbeyond mere twentieth century Earth science — anassertion not borne out by any evidence that I know of.But a person actually educated in the sciences couldhave a very hard time un-learning enough to go nativecredibly in this environment. Anyone applying normalstandards of validity and scientific method to the dataof Scientology would become an instant pariah (‘‘he’sattacking my religion’’). To survive in the group onemust accomplish an ignorance.

A striking instance of willful ignorance isScientology’s Purification Rundown, a supposeddetoxification program developed by Hubbard whichuses saunas and high doses of niacin and othervitamins. That procedure is also the basis of Narconon,a Scientology recruitment effort operating under theguise of drug rehabilitation (as their promo puts it, Nar-conon is the bridge to The Bridge).

Dr. James J. Kenney, Ph.D., R.D., a member of theNational Council Against Health Fraud (a group whichalso includes former U.S. Surgeon General C. EverettKoop) cites medical studies of the effects of niacin, andconcludes:

There is no credible support for claims that large dosesof niacin clear toxins from the brain, fatty tissue or anyother part of the body.... To subject people to ... poten-tially serious side effects on the pretense that they arebeing ‘‘detoxified,’’ ‘‘cleared’’ or ‘‘purified’’ is quack-ery.

What else does Scientology want you to believe?Consider what you would have to ignore or cease toknow in order to be able to agree with the followingpoints of the Scientology group-think.

• One guy (L. Ron Hubbard) got it all right andnobody else has any chance of getting anythingright except by agreeing with Mr. Hubbard (i.e.,he is the exclusive and only possible Source ofScientology), including ...

Social Control in Scientology

14

• ... some stories discovered by Mr. Hubbard aboutspace opera and things that we supposedly ex-perienced during past lives on earth and elsewheremillions of years ago. Our problems and cir-cumstances cannot be understood or resolvedwithout reference to such things which can beknown about only through the methods of (bybelonging to) this one group.

• The group’s methods provide sufficient and con-clusive evidence of the factualness of past life ex-perience and other phenomena said to exist, apartfrom and in spite of any other standards ofevidence and evaluation. Apart from Scientologythere is no hope for man or for men. Only Scien-tology possesses the Truth and there is no chanceof anyone learning the Truth except by becominga Scientologist. Any other hope or promise ofbetterment is false at best or ‘‘suppressive’’ if itcompetes with Scientology.

• Since only this one group possesses or ever canpossess the technology of Scientology, only it canachieve the goals of Scientology. Therefore any

opposition to the group is opposition to thosegoals. The goals of Scientology are ethical.Therefore anything which furthers the group andits action is ethical.

That last includes justification of Hard Sell dissemi-nation tactics and the group’s asserted right to controlall aspects of a member’s life, such as knowledgereports. Such ideas justify the intended conclusion,you can’t be half in and half out of Scientology, andthus total commitment by and total control of the in-dividual.

It appears to be irrelevant to the faith of Scien-tologists that the guy who got it all right is the sameguy who, according to extensive court testimony, liedcontinuously about his childhood, education, militaryrecord, research activity and much else, and accumu-lated millions of dollars from the Hard Sell and CrushSell tactics of his followers. Despite abundant redflags and indications of a trap, many things can bemade to sound rational, given properly controlled in-formation and good cheerleading.

15

Chapter 6But I Thought You Cared about Your Children...

The salesman gets the prospect saying yes. Once theprospect establishes a pattern of agreeing, he isdivested of his objections in small increments, each notunacceptable in itself, until finally he must either ac-cept the close or awkwardly contradict what he ap-parently agreed to before. If the prospect still resists,the salesman then can accuse him of betrayal, of lead-ing him on, of wasting his time, and attempt to shamethe prospect into the close: ‘‘But I thought you caredabout your children....’’

The salesman gets agreement on a sufficient numberof apparently innocuous points to covertly define theterms of the discussion (the rules of the game, theagenda) in a manner that permits only one outcome.

Scientology asserts a distinction between thespiritual being that is really you (good) and your case,which is the composite of all sources of irrational con-duct (bad), and that only Scientology can know whichis which and free the spiritual being from its case.Suppose for the moment that you really want to betteryourself and others, and that you have gone along withthis thus far.

What happens now, when you find agreement withwhatever the registrar wants from you validated asreally you (good) and any other of your interests andvalues ruthlessly invalidated and attacked as just case(bad) on the basis of the supposedly expert knowledgeof the Scientologist? Suppose you were reluctant tomortgage your home or company, or trash yourchildren’s college savings to purchase Scientology ser-vices. ‘‘But I thought you wanted spiritualfreedom....’’

Of course this is logically absurd, but it is nonethe-less a cognitive trap that has nailed many people.

Any sale results in the person getting on course, be-ing ‘‘connected up,’’ his ‘‘body in the shop’’ exposedto group influence.

Look Only Where I Tell You toLook

Scientology presents itself to the public as a dedi-

cated group of concerned people trying to help. TheScientologist might talk about how children do betterin school if they look up misunderstood words in adictionary (as though that notion was anything peculiarto Scientology). This is the stage magician’s trick ofmisdirection — he can make you see what he wantsyou to see if he can get you to look only where hewants you to look. In addition to this misdirectiveattempt to identify Scientology as consisting of one ora few acceptable concepts, contrast with criminals ordrug dealers may be used to argue what a beneficialthing Scientology is by comparison. Note what hap-pens if you add none of the above to the artificiallyrestricted choices offered by the salesman.

Key words, such as ‘‘communication,’’ ‘‘drugs,’’‘‘education,’’ ‘‘management,’’ ‘‘religion,’’‘‘freedom,’’ etc., are buttons used to attract and directattention. By attacking opponents of the cult as soft ondrugs, against education, and so on, Scientology at-tempts to:

• divert attention away from critical evaluation ofitself,

• create an unquestioned presumption that Scientol-ogy is effective and relevant to those issues,

• discredit and smear opponents,

• intimidate internal dissent,

• and publicize the buttons that will get new rawmeat in the door and subject to group controls.

Once one responds to a button, the first introductionto Scientology, such as a Dianetics lecture or Com-munications course, is generally pleasant, sociable,non-threatening and in some way useful or seeminglyso. The perspective jolt of new viewpoints may beexciting and somewhat liberating in itself. The staffgroup’s morale is high and contagious, somewhat likethat of a theater company whose members similarlyshare the task of presenting a special reality to thestraight world. It is easy to say yes and go along withwhat is happening.

This is salesmanship of membership — not of theostensible purpose or activity — but of belonging to agroup.

Social Control in Scientology

16

Scientology’s agenda begins with the fact of mem-bership — a matter handled as routine upon startingany activity with the group. The person who came infor a Communications Course suddenly becomes amember of something. He has joined something. Hehas, by whatever means and however naively, beenpersuaded to accept a new label and role with con-sequences as yet unforeseen — but this is not what youare supposed to look at or notice.

One learns, in the Scientology environment, that heis either a Scientologist or a wog, a derogatory andracist term used to refer to non-Scientologists, definedas a person who isn’t even trying. That is the realcurriculum and message.

The fact of membership — then, of having taken acourse or participated in any way — is asserted byregistrars and others as evidence of commitment, oftengreater than the person ever understood or intended, tocompel deeper participation which then can be used asevidence of deeper commitment, and so on. ‘‘You areloyal to your friends, aren’t you?’’

One might be asked, ‘‘What could be more impor-tant than starting your next course?’’ Any answer at allto such questions gives the registrar some area ofmeaning and value in the person’s life — anything thatmight compete with the priority of membership — toinvalidate and knock out of the way. Through this‘‘take a mile if he gives an inch’’ sales technique, theproselyte continuously is asserted to be more and moredeeply committed to the group, so that he must eithersay yes and take another small step forward (then ra-tionalize having done so), or disagree and create a sig-nificant upset. Small non-upsetting steps are usuallythe path of least resistance.

Take a Mile If He Gives an Inch

The idea of ‘‘gradients,’’ or steps, is espoused inScientology as the way to ‘‘handle’’ something in anorderly, step-by-step manner. In actuality, this conceptbecomes justification for deception. For example, thenew proselyte is not told about Hard Sell because thatwould be ‘‘out gradient.’’

One who encounters ‘‘out gradient’’ material — forexample, by witnessing Hard Sell used on another — isbelittled and invalidated by being said to have ‘‘notcognited yet,’’ and treated like an immature school-child having trouble figuring it out. The implication isthat when he grows up a little more he will come toagree with the use of coercion and become more skilledat understanding deception.

Training courses are the usual introductory service(start of the gradient) sold to ‘‘raw meat.’’ Training for

life involves the same courses as training for the‘‘profession’’ of auditor.

The rationale is that one needs auditor training to‘‘handle’’ life. In doing the Communications Course,for example, or another common introductory coursecalled the Hubbard Qualified Scientologist (HQS)Course, one comes to discover that he has thereby em-barked upon auditor training.

By the time he has completed the introductorycourse the new member will have spent enough timewith the group to have become somewhat accepting of,or at least familiar with, the idea of becoming an‘‘auditor.’’

Thus he is sold another new label and role, and be-comes subject to additional expectations and demandsby the group. Now he must complete his auditor train-ing and then audit. The latter is commonly done byjoining staff, and so it goes.

Regardless of his original purpose, the new groupmember is expected to believe that this new professionexists and possesses a legitimate body of knowledge.And it is easy: one can become a valuable and skilledperson wholly in group terms, without having to deal atall with outside standards of accomplishment.

That initial course begins the softening-up processby which the proselyte is introduced and gradually ac-climated to the actual agenda of Scientology; i.e., thisis his introduction to what really is being sold.

The first pages of all Scientology courses are apolicy letter called ‘‘Keeping Scientology Working’’from which I quote:

When somebody enrolls, consider he or she has joinedup for the duration of the universe never permit an‘‘open minded’’ approach. If they’re going to quit letthem quit fast. If they enrolled, they’re aboard, and ifthey’re aboard, they’re here on the same terms as therest of us — win or die in the attempt. Never let thembe half-minded about being Scientologists.... The wholeagonized future of this planet, every Man, Woman andChild on it, and your own destiny for the next endlesstrillions of years depend on what you do here and nowwith and in Scientology.

One could walk out, but in most cases the habits ofsocial cooperation suspend response to the unreality ofthis inexplicable diatribe.

One cooperatively continues along the gradient,hoping that whatever this may turn out to mean, it willbe sane and acceptable.

The person who thought he was taking a Com-munications course thus unknowingly grants some de-gree of complicity to a different agenda which has asits goal making him a group member above all else,and an auditor, and signing him up for the duration ofthe universe. That apparently innocuous membershipbegins to acquire quite a different meaning, but group

6.2 Take a Mile If He Gives an Inch

17

pressures keep him playing along until he gets used toit and thoroughly trapped.

The person was persuaded to ‘‘say yes’’ and agreethat his being here has to do with caring about hischildren, spiritual growth, or something of undeniablevalue — a hope and commitment he cannot deny. Sohe goes on.

Education, business, and drug rehabilitation areareas infiltrated in this manner, to covertly introducethe agenda of Scientology through activities which ap-parently have other purposes. This is illustrated by astudent at the Delphian School (reported in TheDelphian, Issue XXIV, 1989, p.7), who wrote, ‘‘it tooka lot of effort from everybody here ... to help me under-stand that this was the right group for me.’’ That stu-dent indeed got the message.

Remember the Hard Sell concept of truth: anythingthat will undermine the mark’s position and obtaincompliance with the ‘‘ethical’’ actions that will bringin More Money to Scientology. Apply that to the con-cept of ‘‘gradients’’ and what do you get? The NewYork Times, July 17, 1989, discussed a Narcononfacility planned near Newkirk, Oklahoma:

Townspeople say that Narconon has not been honestabout its links to Scientology, its financing, its medicalcredentials, and its plans for the project.... Narcononofficials denied any connection to Scientology until con-fronted with a Scientology magazine article titled,‘‘Trained Scientologists to Staff Huge OklahomaFacility.’’

The truth would have been ‘‘out gradient’’ for thepoor wogs of Newkirk. In the same way, other Scien-tology front groups conceal their real agenda.

A Sea Org (Scientology) magazine, High Winds, Is-sue 9, 1989, refers to the World Institute of ScientologyEnterprises (WISE) working to boom Scientologythrough its use and dissemination into businesses. Italso refers to the Association for Better Living andEducation (ABLE),

... where the many vital social programs using LRH’stechnology are administered. One such program whichreceives guidance from ABLE is Narconon....

Another is the Delphian School.

In Other Words... (a summary)

• The cult process begins with deceptive recruit-ment — management training, drug rehabilitation,communication course, etc.

• The real purpose is to get ‘‘bodies in the shop’’where they can be sold membership in a group.

• Within the cult group, loyalties, sociability, will-ingness, desire to help, etc. are manipulated (ref.Robert Jay Lifton’s ‘‘Eight Points of Mind Con-trol’’) to get the person cooperatively to go alongwith shared self-delusions which create and thensustain mutual-dependence relations with thegroup.

• Starting to go along with the group-think (for ex-ample, starting to see oneself as part of an elitewith special understanding available only throughthe group) is the beginning of a gradient of in-doctrination, control, and exploitation.

• Hubbard presents the idea of ‘‘gradients’’ as partof his ‘‘educational technology.’’ One learns on agradient to assimilate the Hard Sell concept oftruth, which destroys value, isolates the personfrom his social roots, and makes him exploitableby the group.

• The ‘‘gradient’’ is presented as a gradient towardunderstanding. But in the Hard Sell concept oftruth, the measure of understanding is compliance.If you to not comply with Church instructions it isasserted that you have not understood them. Thedrills on the communication course are about con-trol.

• The actual gradient then, is a gradient towardcompliance. Anything that will produce com-pliance with Church interests becomes The Roadto Truth.

• The lies told to the citizens of Newkirk are thus acorrect application of Scientology’s concept ofgradients. Those people were not ready to com-ply, and anything is justifiable to move them fur-ther along the Road to Truth — as truth is under-stood by deceived and self-deceived group mem-bers. The bottom line, of course, is More Moneyto Scientology.

Social Control in Scientology

18

Chapter 7Scientology Ethics

In Scientology, ethics is defined as ‘‘rationalitytoward the greatest good for the greatest number ofdynamics’’ (parts of life, such as self, family, groups,etc.). The purpose of ethics is said to be ‘‘paving theway for getting tech in.’’

Notice how that second sentence qualifies the firstand frames how the definition of ethics is to be under-stood and applied in Scientology. In practice this turnsout to mean getting statistics up. If a registrar brings indollars then his ethics must be correct because dollarshelp Scientology survive and ‘‘get tech in,’’ and ofcourse the other dynamics (parts of life) will not sur-vive without Scientology. That is ethics.

There are formulas in Scientology by which oneevaluates alternative courses of action and then an-nounces publicly and acts on what he has decided to bethe more ethical action. When done inside the groupcontext, this ensures the decision will be seen in termsof Scientology’s frame of reference, and non-Scientology considerations invalidated. The actionmost favorable to Scientology gets decided upon be-cause it is favorable to Scientology, and therefore bydefinition ethical — since nobody else has the tech.One cannot argue otherwise within the group withoutlosing cachet.

As the subject of ethics becomes externalized, theperson’s own sense of right and wrong gradually isinvalidated and replaced by public proceduresmonitored and controlled by Scientology.

Conflicts of value are held to be illusion, with thenon-Scientology side false and unreal, not really you,just your ‘‘case,’’ something to be resolved and over-come by additional ‘‘handling.’’ If others would beharmed by an action, then it is not really them whowould be harmed, just their case. One learns to dismissany nonconformity as aberration and achieve personaldistance from any alternative source of meaning. If Iwish to help you, I put my attention on Scientology,not on you.

This facile and self-serving logic isolates the Scien-tologist, like the Ugly American, behind a barrier ofmoral impenetrability, and justifies a pathetic andlonely arrogance. Eric Hoffer, in The True Believer,describes it in these words:

The fiercest fanatics are often selfish people who wereforced, by innate shortcomings or external circumstan-ces, to lose faith in their own selves. They separate theexcellent instrument of their selfishness from their in-effectual selves and attach it to the service of some holycause. And though it be a faith of love and humilitythey adopt, they can be neither loving nor humble.

Ethics as an Assertion

Hubbard writes in The Auditor, No. 9, 1965: ’’...theonly slim chance this planet has rests on a few slimshoulders, overworked, underpaid and fought — theScientologist.’’ Such melodramatic imagery pervadesand characterizes the writings of Scientology — alwaysunsubstantiated of course, except by assertion. Butsuch assertions, and the crisis mentality they invoke,provide the short-circuit of thought necessary to over-ride other values and sustain the anything we do isethical modus operandi.

Success stories, those socially expected expressionsof gratitude to my auditor, the C/S, and most of all toLRH, provide immediate assurance that one is doingsomething worthwhile, and so justify not looking fur-ther. In turn, each participant is expected to mirrorsimilar assurances to others. Scientologists tell eachother constantly that they are ethical people becausethey are Scientologists.

In contrast to this nobility of participation, lore about‘‘Suppressive Persons’’ makes clear how one could bestigmatized as betrayer of all that is good and decent ifany significant conflict with Scientology were to occur.To become or remain a valid group member, one musteventually rationalize, using such data as successstories, how the actions and viewpoints which resultfrom Scientology involvement are ethical — i.e., onemust internalize the Church’s interest as his own ethic.

Scientology’s asserted but unproven relevance to thebuttons it uses for public relations, such as crime, in-sanity and drugs, provide an easy vocabulary for talkabout ethics. The actual relevance of Scientology tosuch issues is not open to question or discussion withinthe group. Instead, we find any such questions divertedby vocal attacks on others, such as psychiatrists, and by

7.1 Ethics as an Assertion

19

inference on any who would question. Attacks on dis-agreement, even attacks on non-hostile but non-Hubbard ideas, comprise much of the activity of Scien-tology ethics. In the late 1970’s a ‘‘teach your baby toread’’ program, temporarily popular among Scien-tologists and in no way hostile to Hubbard’s ideas, wassuppressed merely because it wasn’t Scientology.

The policy letter, ‘‘Keeping Scientology Working,’’a checklist for suppression of deviant thought, is in-cluded in every Scientology course and is itself thesubject of a special course. One of its proscriptions isclosing the door on any possibility of incorrect tech-nology.

Correct technology consists only of that alreadywritten by Mr. Hubbard and published in officialScientology bulletins and policies.

The contrast between honest thought and Church au-thoritarianism is very clear, yet to be a valid groupmember one must learn to rationalize this away.

Ethics as the Destruction of Values

Scientology’s inability to tolerate disagreementmakes it seem an act of loyalty to label others as enemyand to discredit non-group persons and values. In thisauthoritarian atmosphere, the Church is always right.In taking any independent position, the individual isalways wrong. In the logic of Hard Sell, a clever per-son can produce an infinity of reasons why the in-dividual is wrong-for-some-reason-or-other withoutregard to the facts of any particular situation.

A common misdirection is to force attention off theissue and onto intentions and motives; anyone who isnot gung ho must have evil intentions. Thus discourseis reduced to smearing, invalidating, or otherwise ‘‘dis-connecting from’’ (generally: not seeing) those not ofone’s persuasion. For example, a Scientologist whosaw a very early draft of these notes made no responseat all to their content, but was horrified that I woulddiscuss the group in non-group terms. I was told to seean ethics officer and get it ‘‘handled.’’

Sacrifice of non-Scientology values is the normalcurrency of status enhancement (or brownie points), asin I trashed my business to buy more Church services.One must produce a satisfactory list on paper of proofsof contribution to be eligible for certain services, anditems such as the above are quite acceptable. Idivorced my wife (or husband) because she (or he)wasn’t helping me get up the Bridge was one I heardmore than once.

In an ethics ‘‘handling,’’ one is under immediatepressure from officials and/or peers to get this resolved.The group’s culture provides facile justification for

why it is OK to deny one’s former associations andbeliefs, and why what others might consider betrayalreally isn’t. With acute awareness of what others willapprove, and under supervision from an ethics officer,the person decides how far he can go and an ethicshandling is worked out. If necessary, there may bemore handling until the person has appropriate realiza-tions — which the techniques of Hard Sell ensure thathe will have.

The individual’s participation prevents the requiredchange from being more than he can justify in view ofhis present commitment to the group, and thus inclin-ing him to leave. But by keeping ethics in over thecourse of a person’s career, his former identity can beeroded piecemeal, by numerous small accommoda-tions, in each of which the present group pressure out-weighs the sacrifice of more distant values. If he didnot go far enough this time, well, there is always nexttime.

The matters in question will be shown to work whenwe all agree that they did, so eventually one is going tohave to assert agreement — or leave. The social pres-sures involved (friendships, status, finishing what youstarted, validation for being a valuable being, not beingwrong about something you invested so much in, thestigmas of betraying your group and ‘‘but I thoughtyou loved your children...,’’ etc.) encourage one to findhow it could be that way and believe it and say so —whatever the betrayals one must commit or nonsenseone must find some way to believe.

Products of Scientology ethics that I saw includedpeople convinced their most ethical action was to ob-tain as many credit cards as possible and max them allout buying Scientology services.

I met a woman who had gone through complex legalmaneuvers to secure possession of a trust fund left byrelatives to her children, and donate it to Scientology.A fellow, perhaps mentally retarded, had spent all hismoney on Scientology and had been sent more by hisemployer to get home. The registrars got it. Breakingtrust and confidences with spouses, friends, oremployers was a common ethical action (I saw a lot of‘‘Liability Formulas’’).

I heard numerous brags about how ‘‘I got my hus-band to send X amount of money’’ or ‘‘we trashed ourbusiness to buy services’’ or ‘‘we sold our house’’, etc.

My personal impression of people I met who haddone such things is that they were scared and confused,having been intimidated by high pressure sales tacticsand having yielded to the invalidation of whatever elsehad been important to them (perhaps after a heroicstruggle with ‘‘suppressive’’ influences). They werehanging on desperately to the one thing they had leftthat people would validate and praise them for. The

Social Control in Scientology

20

woman with the trust fund could not look me in theeye.

Many of these were good and intelligent people forwhom I felt genuine affection. One wonders what theymight have accomplished had not their life’s energybeen short-circuited into this frenetic closed-circle raceto justify each other’s delusions.

Personal Integrity

To complete an ethics action, the individual may berequired to strike an effective blow against the enemythen make public repentance within the group and peti-tion for readmittance. Through such repentances andthe realizations used to justify them, complicity is ob-tained in the compromise of other values in theperson’s life. The resulting vacuum of meaning isfilled from the surrounding high-pressure ambience of‘‘gung ho’’ and ‘‘dissemination,’’ and the person thenmust convince himself so as to maintain personal in-tegrity.

The preemptive definition of personal integrity(‘‘what is real for you is what is real in your ownexperience’’) functions as a normative injunction not toperceive or admit to coercion from within the Church.If it was coercion or trickery then it was not real foryou, and of course you can never admit that.

One’s own reality is said to have a kind of separateand autonomous existence apart from realities mutuallyagreed upon with others. Thus anything, however self-serving or illusory, could be true for you in your ownuniverse and used to justify ethical action againstothers or to justify not dealing with issues raised byothers. Thus ethics can defend insanity or criminality,as long as group allegiance is not compromised. Infact, a virtue is made of disagreeing with agreed-uponmeanings — except, of course, there is never any virtuein disagreeing with Scientology.

In this way, external viewpoints and standards ofvalidity, and sometimes of legality, are defined as ir-relevant. If you agree with something, or have beensold on agreeing with it, then it is true for you and anyother evaluation or source of meaning should not beallowed to sway you. You are supposed to be stead-fastly unreasonable and maintain your position.

The meaning in practice of your own position is il-lustrated by how registrars make use if it: if you fail toallow influence by the Church then there is somethingwrong with you, but if you allow influence by non-Scientology ideas then you are compromising your per-sonal integrity. I never heard anyone accused of violat-ing his personal integrity because he gave money to aregistrar.

Advanced Skills of Being In-Ethics

One knows that his actions today may come up lateron ‘‘security check’’ questions in auditing, such as‘‘failed to apply Policy.’’ This could include anyfailure to report another person’s nonconformity(‘‘knowledge reports’’ are Policy). Thus any relation-ship always has an implicit third party present, enforc-ing gung-ho compliance and enforcing one’s enforce-ment of that compliance upon others.

To prove his conformity and rightness, and to avoidappearing less than completely loyal, the experiencedScientologist learns to delicately reconcile the roles ofdisseminator and mark.

As mark, he can never be good enough, sacrificeenough, donate enough. Whatever he has done, morecan be asked — and will be asked. Yet he cannot rebelor refuse. He must remain able to act from the view-point of the registrar and insist that no conceivableresource be held back.

He is expected to demonstrate gratitude and loyaltyto the group by actively cooperating with registrars,ethics officers, and others, and by accepting their view-points: we’re both on the same team, I’m just here tohelp you get what you’ve said you want, and so on.Any other position is ‘‘ingratitude,’’ and is underminedby the mark’s own complicity.

If any other position impinges on the situation,whether as moral scruples or as sales resistance, it isinvalidated as merely a problem the person has with hispersonal integrity or ethics.

The mark may save face if capitulation is negotiatedin private, without visible representatives or remindersof any independent viewpoint or value. Thus heremains visibly in ethics. Knowing the registrar role,he knows what he must do to submit and cooperatewith this invalidation. Isolated, and surrounded by aclosing team (the most I personally observed was sixon one), the individual is in a vulnerable position. Helearns over time that he might as well concede in ad-vance and internalize the destruction of value, so thatno visible ‘‘counter-intention’’ need ever appear —even, perhaps, in his or her own mind.

To avoid conflict or dissonance, the mark learns toinvalidate in advance any value of his own whichmight compete with a registrar’s demands, just as helearns to maintain distance from any insufficientlygung ho friend.

You know you are going to wind up agreeinganyway (you’re used to it, good at it, proud of it), soyou quickly figure how it could be that way, thenproceed (rush, rush) straight ahead without looking offto either side. The special frame of reference whichgives meaning to such things as ‘‘OT’’ misdirects at-

7.4 Advanced Skills of Being In-Ethics

21

tention away from the actual mechanics of the situationso one is able to believe that Scientology works everytime.

With practice, this can be done unselfconsciouslyand sincerely, without noticing the mental gymnastics

involved. Such speed of understanding is a source ofactual pride for many Scientologists. It reduces costsin auditing.

This peculiar approach to evaluation of data helpspreserve certainty that one is acting ethically.

Social Control in Scientology

22

Chapter 8The Defeat of Street Smarts

Claiming to be a religion is but one means of shel-tering a commercial enterprise from accountability.Ambiguity of product is another.

The legal profession struggles to keep up with ques-tions of accountability that arise when buyer and sellerdisagree about the nature and effect of esoteric ser-vices. That problem becomes all the more difficultwhen the product is inherently ambiguous, as is thecase with the subjective and possibly manipulated men-tal state of an individual. This ambiguity is a legalweak point which Hubbard recognized, exploited, andfurther obscured by mixing it with religion.

By charging money for obscure expert serviceswhich are part of a religion and which have as theirproduct an ambiguous subjective condition, Hubbardcreated a sales and recruitment machine virtually im-mune from legal accountability.

Caveat Vendor (Seller Beware)

Special concern for accountability is appropriatewhen the user of a service is at a significant disadvan-tage in relation to the provider, as is the case withcomplex medical services. In such cases the rule tends,properly, to be caveat vendor (seller beware). The ven-dor is liable for harm or fraud which the disadvantagedconsumer was not in a position to understand or avert.Thus medical products and services are subject to ex-tensive governmental, scientific, and professionalreview by which the vendor establishes that he hasshown due regard for the consumer’s interest and is notnegligent.

Caveat emptor (buyer beware, otherwise known as‘‘street smarts’’) may have been sufficient protectionfor the consumer against the snake oil salesman. But anew kind of consumer disadvantage must be con-sidered when an authoritarian, well staffed group, hid-den from public scrutiny, uses sophisticated techniquesderived from a half-century of social science researchto manipulate the lay consumer and thereby secure thepurchase, acceptance, and recommendation of an es-sentially worthless or even harmful service.

In the legal periphery where cults reside, shrouded

by irrelevant issues of religion, there is no accoun-tability or protection for the consumer of quasi-medicalor self-improvement services. Scientology has mademany claims which could be tested, if those claimswere legitimate — such as Hubbard’s numerous claimsfor the state of Clear.

Instead, the group relies on bald assertion ofmiraculous results, backed only by success stories writ-ten by people in the midst of intense social pressure —and on the legal presumption of caveat emptor.

Scientology fanatically avoids any independentreview or evaluation of its actions. Attempts to estab-lish accountability are slandered and misrepresented asattacks on religion.

An Example: Narconon and thePurification Rundown

Public scrutiny may sometime occur, however,despite the Scientologists’ best efforts to prevent it.Here is one example concerning Narconon, a Scien-tology recruitment program operating under the guiseof drug rehabilitation — a bid to promote Scientologyby coattailing on an established social issue.

[Narconon NEWS, Volume 6, Issue 3, states, ‘‘NAR-CONON is freeing people from crime and drug abusewith standard tech, and starting them up RON’S bridgeto total freedom. WHO CAN YOU START ACROSSTHAT BRIDGE?’’]

Narconon is based on the Purification Rundown, adetoxification program developed by Hubbard andpromoted through Scientology organizations. The fol-lowing assessment of the Narconon program is datedJanuary 5, 1991, by Dr. James J. Kenney, Ph.D., R.D.,a member of the National Council Against HealthFraud, a group which also includes former U.S. Sur-geon General C. Everett Koop.

I am familiar with the ‘‘Hubbard Method’’ of‘‘detoxification’’ which is used at Scientologist run‘‘clinics’’.... This ‘‘purification’’ program was createdby L. Ron Hubbard’s fertile imagination in themid-1950s. It is part of the teachings of the Church ofScientology and lacks any credible scientific support.

8.2 An Example: Narconon and the Purification Rundown

23

This ‘‘purification’’ or ‘‘detoxification’’ program isclaimed to help ‘‘clear’’ the mind of toxins such asdrugs, pesticides and chemical pollutants. It consists oflarge doses of niacin, vegetable oil, exercise and ‘‘lowtemperature’’ saunas. According to the followers ofL. Ron Hubbard, the large doses of niacin work bystimulating the release of fat into the blood stream andthis is accompanied by various ‘‘toxins’’ trapped in thebody’s fatty tissues.

According to science, large doses of niacin actuallyblock the release of fat from fat cells. This has beenobserved both at rest2 and during exercise.3

In other words, the scientific evidence shows the exactopposite of what Hubbard’s theory predicts. There is nocredible support for claims that large doses of niacinclear toxins from the brain, fatty tissue or any other partof the body. To make matters worse, large doses ofniacin ... can cause serious liver damage ... trigger gout,raise blood sugar into the diabetic range, cause itching,flushing and a rash. Nausea and gastritis are other sideeffects of large doses of niacin.

To subject people to these potentially serious side ef-fects on the pretense that they are being ‘‘detoxified,’’‘‘cleared’’ or ‘‘purified’’ is quackery.

NCAHF president, William Jarvis, Ph.D., writes,NCAHF believes that responsible community leaders

should reject the Narconon addiction treatment program.It appears to be among the least acceptable in a field thatalready suffers from a lack of sound objective research.

Certainty vs Truth

Sound objective research is not relevant to the truebeliever. In place of evidence and scientific validity,

2Acta Medica Scandinavia 1962, 172(suppl):641)

3D. Jenkins, Lancet 1965, 1307

things are said to work (in Scientology) by using socialpressures to persuade people that they did work; i.e., bygradually interfering with the individual’s ability toevaluate information.

The coercion which accomplishes this defeat of‘‘street smarts’’ may not be obvious. It would be apretty ineffective group that had to control its membersthrough blatant coercion. It is much more efficient tocreate a milieu in which the members indoctrinate andcontrol themselves, and convince each other that it wasall their own free choice and decision. As a cohesivegroup, they will enforce such ideas as a condition offriendship and belonging.

We encounter a friendly and enthusiastic groupwhich espouses goals and values that are easy to agreewith. Home at last!

At first, it seems that all we are being asked to agreewith is better communication, getting people off drugs,motherhood, and apple pie.

What these groups really sell is membership. Sure,they want your money and your time, and they willtake all there is of both. But what they want above allis for you to be one of them, to belong, to agree withthem, to reassure them by the sacrifice of your own lifeand values that their own lives and decisions have notbeen futile misguided error.

‘‘Street smarts’’ is swept away by the person’s ur-gent reliance on the constant reinforcement required tomaintain ‘‘certainty those collective self-deceptionsabout being an elite in unique possession of the onlyright answers. It may be decades before one begins torealize, or to fight desperately against realizing, thatlife has gone by to no constructive effect.

There were some tricks going on that our ordinaryschoolyard and street education failed to teach usabout.

Social Control in Scientology

24

Chapter 9An Example of Word Games: The Word Control

The effectiveness of cult manipulation would sufferif it was perceived and understood. Something cannotbe my deepest understanding of myself if it obviouslyis some group’s attempt to control or own me.

Understanding of the manipulations is prevented bygroup-think definitions which assure me that manipula-tion is not something I should notice, not somethingabout which I should be wary, i.e., not an alarm, in thesense of Goffman’s discussion, in Relations in Public,of normal appearances.

Normal Appearances‘‘When the world immediately around the in-dividual portends nothing out of the ordinary,when the world appears to allow him to continuehis routines (being indifferent to his designs andneither a major help nor a major hindrance), wecan say that he will sense that appearances are‘natural’ or ‘normal.’ ... Wariness is handled as aside-involvement; one might say that he can ‘takethings at face value,’ the unstated implication be-ing that he can predict from what he sees what it isthat is likely to come about, and this is not alarm-ing. And when special attentiveness is required,as when humans cross a busy intersection or un-pack eggs, it will be understood that this specialeffort is restricted to a brief period of time.’’

AlarmsGoffman’s discussion of alarms is more involved,but generally the term refers to signs that some-thing is up other than what first appears, and thatit may not be safe to take things at face value. Analarm might be the knock on the door or anotherperson’s expression of surprise or fright. It couldbe the absence of some expected event. Variouskinds of all-clear signals communicate the ab-sence of cause for alarm, even though the situationas seen by someone else might be ambiguous.

Much of Goffman’s discussion concerns the ways inwhich alarms (or all-clear’s) can be false or manipu-lated, as indicated by the phrase ‘‘acting natural’’ andby various techniques of criminals and confidencemen.

Scientology makes totalistic control of group mem-bers appear normal by making control central to theideology and experience of the group, defined as a

good thing to which one would object only if aberrated.The suggested image is of driving a car, where onenecessarily is controlling the car and does so eitherwell or poorly. This image is generalized to socialgroups, and used to justify an extraordinary degree ofcontrol of members by the group.

The concept of loyal opposition has no place. Anyresistance to control or difference in viewpoint ishandled as error and/or opposition to the group itself.Thus one’s career within the group functions as a kindof obedience training which one is supposed to inter-nalize and affirm.

We are familiar with team sports, traffic regulations,and cooperative action such as getting out a bulk mail-ing. We accept controls which are limited in time andspace to specific circumstances, of clear utility, volun-tarily accepted and clearly delineated. It is understand-able how that could be like controlling a car well orpoorly.

These obvious kinds of control are apparent andhighly visible in Scientology organizations, whichoperate on a military model complete with uniforms,ranks, musters and orders of the day.

These are highly enough visible to serve as misdirec-tion away from less easily identified kinds of control(various demands for total commitment) which arewithout limit and thus not at all like driving a car orgetting out the bulk mail.

Suppose I do not quite understand what the registrar(salesman) is doing, but I can see that he is trying tocontrol me in some way. Well, that is a good thing,isn’t it? He is part of my group. I am not supposed toobject. I would not want to let go of the steering wheelof a car. I had better write him a check right now.

This is misdirection in the stage magician’s sense.What is hidden are the actual mechanics by whichagreement and conformity are inculcated and enforced— how and why I came to agree.

Most people have limited skills in identifying andhandling covert control mechanisms. An inchoatesense of something wrong with this is hard for theamateur proselyte to defend against the professionalregistrar who makes the most of the proselyte’s faultygrasp of the tricks played on him.

9 An Example of Word Games: The Word Control

25

Under such pressure, the proselyte may do the besthe can to understand and articulate his discomfort. Hisamateur best may not be good enough.

He may seize, for example, upon the militaristic, au-thoritarian organization, which is highly visible, andobject to that.

But that is a red herring, a misdirection. His objec-tion was probably not really to uniforms and orders,and so can be talked down. And having acceptedScientology’s private concept of control, he cannot saythat he objects to control — because he would not letgo of the steering wheel of a car. He cannot even saythat his objection is to totalistic control, as opposed tospecific and limited control, because any instance isalways specific and can be justified somehow. Theforest can be obscured by looking at a tree.

In the heat of a face-to-face sales cycle, which maynot even look like a sales cycle, the target of suchtrickery can be thrown seriously off-balance. Themilitaristic red herring is just one example of a ploy.There are countless other sophistries the con (con-fidence man) could use to throw the mark (the con’starget) off-balance and sell the desired understandingof control.

The mark winds up confused, with no ground tostand on, questioning or denying his own perceptionsand judgment. Then he can be sold the idea that hisconfusion is something wrong with him (an aberrationabout control) which will be fixed by further participa-tion in Scientology.

I Say BLUE; I Dare You To SayGREEN

I used control as an example, to show how it is pos-sible to grab the meaning of a word which, in the con-text of actual life within the group, likely would be-come an alarm and nucleus for other interpretation ofthe activity which occurs. Wariness is averted by apreemptive definition (in this case, of control) whichdictates the non-alarming way in which observedphenomena are to be understood.

The effect is: ‘‘I say blue. I dare you to say green.’’Likewise, a Scientologist is defined as one who is

using the technology of Scientology to improve con-ditions. Therefore you are not to think of Scien-tologists as persons who have become proficient at in-validating non-group values, or who have learned notto ask certain kinds of questions — meanings whichmight credibly be constructed from observation of whatoccurs within the group. They dare you to say green.

In another example, one learns that an auditor is one

who applies Scientology processes to help people, thatauditors are valuable people, that such a profession ex-ists. None of this is demonstrated factually, upon anyevidence beyond group data. It is part of the group’severybody knows and the new proselyte is made to feelinadequate because he does not know. He hurries tolearn the right words and attitudes. He does not askquestions about the emperor’s clothes. They dare youto say green.

Such preemptive definitions work by using socialpressure to bypass ordinary standards of evidence andevaluation. They bypass any need to make a case forthe truth or sense of what is being communicated. Thepreemptive definition is just how it is. The group daresyou to say otherwise. You are the new kid on theblock, cooperative and polite, so you don’t make trou-ble (and God help you if you actually are a kid).

The preemptive definition establishes a sociallyobligatory normal appearance, a way of seeing thingswhich other experience must be made to fit. If youquestion or disagree (or say green) then you get the bigchill. Force is not wanted because it calls attention toitself.

Usually the chill is accomplished with condescend-ing disapproval, pity for your inability to understand, amoment of embarrassed silence, or some other in-passing action which is made to seem normal and nooccasion for questioning your surroundings. Yourawkward questions or other viewpoints will eventuallyand somehow be rationalized into insignificance. In atotalist context, preemptive definitions can be used thusto systematically bypass and then destroy (replace) ex-isting values and orientation. A person ordinarily has asense of himself and the world which gives him accessto a plurality of sources of value and meaning. No onegroup or set of definitions is ordinarily able to achievetotal dominance and control of the person’s thoughtand action. Family, profession, interest groups andfriends comprise the resources (‘‘support groups’’) bywhich a person balances each area of life against othersand achieves a mixture which is satisfying and work-able for him, difficult though such balance may be inpractice.

If this multiplicity of areas of value, resources andsupport is destroyed, the individual becomes relativelyhelpless, vulnerable and adrift. If that multiplicity isreplaced by a single totalistic source of the values andresources of life, then the individual becomes extraor-dinarily dependent on that one source and vulnerable toits control. A totalistic group seeks such control byundermining, invalidating and subordinating all areasof life apart from itself. That is what cults do.

A typical cult rationale for this manipulation is someversion of you’re either totally with us or totally

Social Control in Scientology

26

against us (saved or damned) so put your money whereyour mouth is. The non-group world is depicted assinful, evil, wrong, incompetent or insane, and thegroup as the only opportunity for survival, salvation orsuccess.

Though persons so indoctrinated may continue to actin the world but not of it, their cognitive universe andvalues have become captive to a single totalistic group— a position which undermines the person’s veryability to think, to judge, to differentiate, to know.Thus over time, it comes to seem more and morereasonable to invalidate any non-group attachments or

values and to live wholly within the bubble.In an environment (supposedly) of truth, hope, help,

and trust, the person thus disoriented can be sold, overtime, a systematic inversion of values. Insanity be-comes sanity, betrayal becomes integrity, meanness be-comes ethics, obedience becomes freedom, slavishnessbecomes independence, a destructive cult becomes thegood of mankind, the group becomes the only truth andthe highest purpose.

Soon there is nowhere else to go. Other people areevil and do not make sense. It’s crazy out there.

The trap is complete.

27

Chapter 10The Web of Group-Think

Fluent use of preemptively defined words in theirgroup-specific sense, and avoidance of other meaningsas though such did not exist, are criteria and evidenceof legitimacy within the group.

Another example of preemptive definition is theword help which, in the group context, is identifiedwith whatever the Church does — so that any disagree-ment with the group is made to seem the same as op-position to helping people at all. Obvious not-helpedsituations in Scientology are rationalized away withtechnical explanations and removed as nearly as pos-sible from general view. One is not allowed to discusscase problems or disappointments out of session.

Other betterment activities are invalidated as ineffec-tual, misguided, or ‘‘suppressive.’’ They dare you tosay green. Nearly all the concepts required to under-stand actual Scientology practices are found in its ownliterature, but redefined in a misdirective way toprevent such use and understanding. Wrong source,something done other than what was said, somethingasserted, and invalidation are examples of conceptscaptured, and the person given opportunity to ration-alize for himself how they actually do not describe hisScientology experience.

The above examples are from a list, called the‘‘L1C,’’ which is used in auditing when the person hasan upset. Repeated use of this list on Scientologistsprovides ample opportunity for them to cooperativelyrationalize how their upsets ‘‘really’’ come from somenon-Scientology source (perhaps parents or other as-sociates, or past life influences) rather than from con-ditions within the group.

Perhaps the ultimate example of such opportunity formisdirective rationalization is Hubbard’s blithe com-ment about people who raise hopes of betterment andthen betray them by using hope and human aspirationas bait for a trap.

Preemptive definitions do not exist alone, but in aconstructed web of meanings which define the privateuniverse into which the proselyte is to be re-educated.Special terms come to look natural, next to thefamiliarity of common-language words.

This association of the concepts help and discipline

illustrates how Scientology’s web is constructed4:We help beyond any help ever available anywhere.

We are a near ultimate in help. ...if we help so greatlywe must also in the same proportion be able to dis-cipline. Near ultimate help can only be given with nearultimate discipline.

Notice that nothing was actually said about the rela-tion between help and discipline other than Mr.Hubbard’s assertion.

But now you know the approved group line for howyou are supposed to think about Scientology’s coercivepractices, and what line to take in justifying them toyourself and to others.

Something Done Other Than WhatWas Said

Such associations are made gradually, one small stepat a time, so that at each juncture the current lesson iscushioned by one’s participation-to-date (complicity)and by the habits of sociable cooperation such as grant-ing benefit of the doubt.

It is your job to incorporate such data into your ownlife, and change your own understandings so it all fits.The web is built up in thousands of pages of ‘‘tech-nology’’ written over more than thirty years by Mr.Hubbard, in which countless situations are given aplace and explanation. That labyrinth of detailresembles a science fiction alternate universe in whichthe proselyte can lose sight of mundane reality by end-less group-validated preoccupation (diversion, bon-homie) with apparently meaningful technical explana-tions and procedures. He can believe, and find supportin believing, that he is learning a science — but with-out ever having to face the public and adversarial na-ture of scholarly dialog or standards of validity.

The relative consistency of the web (such that it is)would not be credible were the subject treated seriouslyas a science (which it claims to be), with public

4L. Ron Hubbard, ‘‘Conditions, How to Assign,’’ HCO PL Oc-tober 20, 1967

Social Control in Scientology

28

methods and results. But there are no such constraintson the inspired creation of a single individual (author,Source). There are explanations for everything, and insuch detail. It is expounded with such confidence andby such nice people. So it must be true.

To avoid being false within himself, the proselytemust take the given raw material, one small bit at atime, and find for himself how it could be that way;i.e., discover, invent, or imaginatively constructwhatever thread of logic will produce for him the re-quisite observations and conclusions (called certainty),while obscuring or invalidating any contradictory or

critical thought (the defense of certainty).Nonconforming viewpoints can be deeply threaten-

ing because they challenge this precarious construct.The claims of superior rationality made by Scien-

tologists require that they perceive themselves as ra-tional and self-determined. There is thus strong motiveto submerge control mechanisms into normal appearan-ces, to deny having been manipulated or having actedirrationally.

The the very process described here is thus madeinvisible (taboo) to group members — though notnecessarily to their family and friends.

29

Chapter 11Results

It is a high crime (in Scientology) to invalidate thestates of ‘‘Clear’’ or ‘‘OT.’’ Thus all that is heard arethe widely publicized success stories, which are all thatis permissible to say.

A failed case is said to be possible only due to ethicsproblems such as evil intentions. Scientology’s claimsof results are thus based on explicitly manipulated andrestricted information.

Given the complicity required for participation in thefirst place, plus the stigmatization of failed cases, oneis effectively forced to claim and to believe that onehas had wins. Disappointments are more likely to bemanifested as confusion and silence rather than as vo-cal questions or criticism. The lure remains that maybethe next level will handle it.

Many of those who escape remain silent, whetherfrom fear, consciousness of failure, or dim hope forfuture results. Thus they leave others to follow blindlyin their footsteps and give an unopposed PR victory toScientology’s letter-writing factories.

Further motive to believe in ‘‘results’’ comes fromthe high price of Scientology services (in my ex-perience, approximately $100,000 by the point of com-pleting ‘‘OT Level V’’). The high prices, like loadedwords such as ‘‘data’’ and ‘‘tech,’’ lend a legitimacy toideas which might not fare so well on their own meritsapart from this formidable context. The prices alsoprovide a rite of passage by which one significantlybreaks with wog standards of value and increases com-mitment to the group. It becomes more embarrassingto have been wrong; there is motive to make it lookgood.

The Church has used inflated membership figures tosuggest widespread acceptance of Scientology’sbenefits and results. For example, the 1978 book,What is Scientology?, claimed a worldwide member-ship for the Church of 5,437,000.

In 1984 a new official membership organization wasmade a prerequisite for receiving Church services.This cost money, so wildly inflated membershipfigures could not be used — or no one would believethe Church’s urgent need for money. After a year ofrecruitment, the International Association of Scien-tologists (IAS) claimed membership of 12,000. Jon

Atack estimated in 1990 that worldwide membershipwas probably close to 100,000 by now due to a recentadvertising blitz. (I am personally acquainted with theHard Sell techniques that were used to sell $2,000memberships in 1986.)

An appearance of result can be produced by misat-tributing the result of some other activity. Severalbooks on Scientology have described working con-ditions and pay scales in the Sea Org. Is forced laborextorted by ‘‘heavy ethics’’ really the better lifepromised by Scientology?

Likewise in Scientology’s front organizations,results attributed to ‘‘Hubbard Management Technol-ogy’’ may actually result from very ordinary bruteforce methods applied under group pressure.

For example, a March, 1990 article in PodiatryToday asks the practitioner:

Do you feel comfortable asking a patient to call andrefer a friend to you while that patient is still in youroffice for treatment? Or sending a card to a friendbefore their own procedure is completed? Do you feelcomfortable using tone scales to manipulate a person’sresponse to your treatment proposal? Or talking aboutmoney and payment methods before discussing illnessand treatment methods? Do you feel comfortable usingtried and true hard sell methodologies within the doctor-patient relationship?

That same article notes that consulting firms licensedby WISE paid ten to fifteen percent of their grossrevenue to WISE, which then ‘‘by extension, flowedinto Church of Scientology coffers.’’ In other words,Hard Sell is used to to get medical practitioners to useHard Sell on their patients to get money to give toScientology. That is ‘‘management technology.’’

One’s ordinary work may come to be understood aspart of Scientology because it is done in that context.The usual group pressures (‘‘gung ho’’) are relied uponto cement the misidentification. Problems of organiza-tion and production can be handled enthusiastically andcreatively, without having to pay much attention towhat is being organized or produced. The technicalactivity itself, and the person’s expertise, become thefocus. The goal becomes to do a good job, and a goodperson will produce a result. The Church of Scien-tology (or an entity under its control) becomes an

Social Control in Scientology

30

employer. The person’s work habits become an area ofsecurity to fall back on when doubts or questions occurabout more controversial topics — a defense familiarin many industries, from nuclear weapons to adver-tising. One can feel more normal while preoccupied indealing with UPS, printing companies, airlines, etc.

Just as being an auditor is asserted to be a legitimateprofession, a job like many others, so the registrar canfall back on an image of himself as a dedicated salesprofessional doing right by his employer. In bothcases, close focus on the task at hand becomes a meansof avoiding notice of expensive pseudo-therapy, HardSell, abused clients, alienation of friends and family,and disrupted lives. One just ‘‘does a good job’’ and‘‘increases production.’’

At each step, Hard Sell tactics assert some absolutewhich justifies disregarding any other concerns. Atearly levels it may be solving some problem or increas-ing ability. Later it becomes ‘‘getting stats up’’ orensuring the future of Scientology. It may be avertingnuclear war, getting rid of body thetans, or ensuringthat Scientology controls sufficient resources, when thetime comes, to repel the Markabian invaders from outerspace — anything to invalidate the mark’s objections,to get the stat, to get the check.

The auditor is responsible for delivering a by-the-book correct session — not for whether his precleargets better. There is neither motive nor occasion tolook closely at the actual result. But there is plenty ofmotive to stay busy and Make Money.

That is the result.

Enforcing the Appearances ofResults

Scientology’s claim to offer help for whatever ailsyou is possible because any situation is ‘‘handled’’ inthe same way: transfer the person’s attention awayfrom the immediacy of his own situation and ontogroup loyalty and participation (busy, busy) which willencourage him to agree that results exist and are asmiraculous as claimed.

Anyone doing Scientology and amenable to the newidentity thus imposed could claim, at least temporarily,to have solved his problem by participation in Scien-tology. For example, a marital problem might besolved by doing Scientology so that hats, ethics of-ficers, confidential data, special knowledge, and soforth constantly are interposed between the individualsinvolved, who then put attention on Scientology ratherthan on each other: I will help us by going off anddoing something with them which I can’t tell you about

because it happened in session so it is confidential.You, then, are supposed to cooperatively consider it

fixed because I went off and did some Scientology.Otherwise you are not acting validly as a group mem-ber. You too must remove attention from whateverwas wrong and put it onto Scientology (more gung ho),so as to make it not matter that whatever was wrong isstill right where it was. It is fixed because we both didethics conditions and wrote success stories and then gotvery busy: a therapy of distraction and misdirectionwhich works when we all agree that it did.

A classic form of this is to do something unethical toget money to give to the Church, then fix everything bydoing an ethics handling — but keep the money! In asimilar way, the Church will punish overly coercivemembers who have created a flap, make claims ofreform, then recruit others to do the same things again.

The group member will appear inadequate or dis-loyal if he does not find some way to agree that theasserted result occurred and the situation is fixed. Suc-cess stories are a means by which one ranks and asses-ses status with reference to the Bridge, a complex chartof abilities supposedly gained at various levels of one’sScientology career. To fail to claim to have achievedthe specified results would discredit one’s status as aScientologist and invite expensive remedial action.Thus one must come to see oneself and demand to betreated by others as an unusually sane, capable andrational person — one with extraordinary ability tocommunicate, who has no problem with problems, onenot troubled by past upsets in life, and so on. It isdiscrediting to admit having a problem that was sup-posed to have been ‘‘handled.’’ At the moment ofattestation you said it was handled. Are you now say-ing that Scientology does not work, or that you lied inyour attestation? A way is needed, perhaps a divorceor most commonly by joining staff, to deny that suchsituations still exist. By doing Scientology (busy,busy) one gains an avenue for action that simply bypas-ses the circumstances of own prior life, so that suchquestions simply will not arise — the ultimate invalida-tion.

OT abilities are least likely to be challenged by otherScientologists who have similar ego needs, most likelyto be seen as delusional by those who have known theperson well over time. Lack of real change, and evi-dent failure, can be covered up by staying in the groupand doing Scientology.

The more vain the person or fragile the ego, themore tightly and desperately held (internalized,believed) are the claims made for personal conditionand ability, and the more threatening any challenge tothose claims. An attack upon one’s religion becomesemotionally synonymous with an attack on one’s per-

11.1 Enforcing the Appearances of Results

31

sonal vanity and self-concept.The group-think presumption that Scientologists will

succeed better than other people encourages unequalstandards of evidence and validity, giving benefit of thedoubt on the one hand and withholding it on the other.If one begins to act more like a Scientologist, that tendsto be perceived as improvement per se. Likewise,‘‘he’s better now’’ tends to mean that he is acting morelike a Scientologist. Realistic assessment becomes im-possible, the real accomplishments of others are min-imized, and the ordinariness of trained Scientologists isnot to be noticed.

Don’t Overlook the ObviousAbsurdity

Claims of success by Scientology or due to Scien-tology are supposed to be accepted at face value —including the ‘‘I was thinking about my sister in TerraHaute and just then she called’’ type of thing which iscommon in promotional materials. Asserted but un-verified claims are particularly evident in areas ofeducation, drug rehabilitation, business management,and communication skills, where the Church makesclaim to unique competence which is widely assertedbut which I have never seen supported by evidence.

An amusing instance of claims for Scientology oc-curs in a book which we gave our employees forChristmas several years ago. It stated that with theamazing discoveries of Dianetics and Scientology thereis no reason for anyone ever to wear glasses. Thisbecame a standing joke among the rest of ouremployees because all five of our Scientologists woreglasses.

If the claims made by Scientology were in any waytrue, the world and especially Scientology would befull of virtual supermen. I have not observed any, and Ihave observed people who should have been supermenif there were any — in fact I should be one.

Social status such as ‘‘OT’’ or upper managementenable some to pass within the group as superior beingswithout having to show anything more than an air of

confidence.In those I knew best, I saw no positive result not

attributable to pressure-cooker motivation, experience,and the maturing of already existing ability. Whilethose things may be valuable, they are not the claimsmade by and for Scientology. Certainly I saw no spe-cial qualities which cannot be observed also in non-Scientologists. The most predictable result I observedwas a temporary elation following completion of a ser-vice.

There are negative results too. We might ask what itcosts a person to believe, and act on the belief, thatScientology is scientific, that it is man’s only hope, thatonly Mr. Hubbard got it all right, that nothing is asimportant as your status with Scientology, that every-thing associated with Scientology is always an emer-gency and urgent and mandatory, that the rest of theworld lacks the tech and can be saved only by gettinginto Scientology, or any of hundreds of other examplesfrom this bizarre ethos.

What relevance to anyone else does such a personhave (except within the group’s bubble)? What betterlife could such a person have created, on a more sanebasis? And what is the cost to that person’s associates?

A six year old child described being told by herScientologist mother, when you get to higher coursesyou can be kind of dead and then if you don’t likewhere you are, you can get to be somewhere else justby thinking about it.

Evaluation of result is pretty much bypassed in prac-tice. The selling of cult membership relies on othermeans. Astounding results are widely asserted inpromotional materials, to provide a needed rationale,but actual evidence is not needed for those already inthe maw of Hard Sell and heavy ethics. Neither is itneeded to attract new raw meat, the supply of which isassured by broad dissemination to the public at large,and playing the odds. There will always be some whowill try an introductory course or service and provedefenseless to a new agenda for their lives — espe-cially if the cult is able to suppress free and publicinformation about itself, and if those who have beenthere remain silent.

Social Control in Scientology

32

Chapter 12About the Author

My background includes undergraduate and graduatestudy in anthropology and sociology, 1961-1970, atBrandeis University, Washington University in St.Louis, and the University of California at Davis.

By 1970 I had found fixing cars more rewardingthan the life of professional academics, and I spentroughly a decade doing that. In 1973, at a time ofchange and confusion in my life, I encountered theChurch of Scientology. Curious and otherwise at looseends, I spent eleven months in L.A. studying that sub-ject. I met the woman who was to become my wifeand business partner. She learned of Scientology fromme and got into it on her own before coming toColorado to join me. She insisted that its viewpointsbe the conceptual and normative basis of our lifetogether.

As the 1970’s ended I was writing computersoftware and, together with my wife, started a companyto market and continue developing the product I hadcreated. That company (sans wife) is still my work.

I had left L.A. with reservations, after such experien-ces as observing unattended babies crawling on urine-soaked carpets (at a place called the Cadet Org), andhearing recruiters clearly advocate breaking promisesto friends, families, and employers (‘‘we can handlethat’’).

Most unsettling of all, however, was my observationthat being a Scientologist required becoming a masterof facile justifications of such things. I saw that thegroup think was expected to justify anything.

But I rationalized that any shared language couldserve, at least as starting point, for communication be-tween people committed to each other, that the badparts were less important and would get sorted out, andthe outcome would be beneficial. Thus hopefully, I setout sincerely to make my own best use ofScientology’s conceptual framework.

I did not understand fanaticism or the abeyance ofkindness and thought it can produce, or that the meansfor achieving desired ends would take such totalprecedence over the ends themselves. There was nobackstage, no home to go home to (ref. CharlesSchultz’s Peanuts cartoon, ‘‘Home is where you’drather be when you don’t know the answers’’).

For me, that was a lonely and frustrating time ofintellectual and social isolation, during which pursuitof alternatives per se violated norms of a group whichnow included my family. Obviously something waswrong, but there was no avenue to communicate, ex-plore or handle it: any viewpoint other than Scientol-ogy tech was unacceptable. I got pretty weird, nega-tive, uncommunicative, unpleasant and unhappy. I didnot understand what was wrong or what to do about it.I stayed very busy writing software. I was in Scien-tology through 1986, becoming a Class IV Auditor andCase Supervisor. I did volunteer work for most of ayear as a Case Supervisor but was never actually a staffmember. My last formal connection was at theChurch’s base in Florida during 1986 when I reachedthe fairly high status they call ‘‘OT Level V.’’ Duringthat four-month stay, though I was there as participant,not observer, I could not help but observe how themagic tricks were done, i.e., the control mechanismswhich produce ‘‘OTs’’ (‘‘Operating Thetans’’) andother kinds of group members.

The long years of trying to be a valid group memberhad reduced themselves to absurdity. The thing wasnot worth being, in fact it was clearly destructive. Therationalizations and justifications crumbled away, leav-ing me to face many things which I had really knownbut long denied out of hope and misplaced loyalty.

I had no specific help or exit counseling. It wasnearly three years before I found people who under-stood what I had been through. I would not recom-mend that others wait so long.

Scientology was not a beneficial experience for me.I avoid the word fraud because it connotes a deliberateand knowing deception which is rare among themisled, but I do believe the organizations practices arebased on fraud. The ‘‘tech’’ is certainly fraudulent.But as regards most individual Scientologists, I suggestinstead the word trip, in the sense of a self-justifyingsystem of thought which, once entered, leads only intoitself.

My words for the experience and for its effect on mylife are distraction and misdirection, the latter in thestage magician’s sense.

The group has countless reasons why to explain why

12 About the Author

33

it is not really a cult and why coercion and deceptionare really other than how they seem. But despite thesophistry, I suggest that if something looks like a duck,

walks like a duck, talks like a duck, etc. then thesimplest and most obvious explanation at least deservesconsideration.