Brian Lambert sent in another of his thought-provoking pieces about the writings of L. Ron Hubbard. Enjoy.
SCIENTOLOGY “KNOWINGNESS”: LONG LIVE THE TOOTH FAIRY AND HER FRIEND THE TEDDY BEAR!!
I want to preface this essay with the thought that not everything in Scientology is delusional. Nothing can always be absolutely one way or another in a relative universe.
Seeking to communicate when there is an upset, seeking the root cause of a problem in one’s mind, listening to people when they are having issues, looking up words in a dictionary, being a good student and occasionally finding a past life recollection that resolves a present condition are all a good thing. But it is these good things that give rise to accepting delusional imagination. “If this works, then that probably works too,” is the fallacious reasoning that is the doorway to collapsing lies and truth and accepting them as equal values.
Gee wiz, auditing resolved my issue with Harry, therefore psychs are from the planet Farsec, BTs are thinking thoughts through me and I am stably exterior with full perception. There are endless Hubbard delusions that we all accepted as true. It was the many positive and valid experiences that gave credibility to Hubbard’s delusional mental state, which then became our delusional mental state.
This essay is not about the positive things in Scientology. Nor do I choose to argue that they exist or do not exist with Hubbard apologists or antagonists.
THE TEDDY BEAR UNIVERSE
Back in the New York Org – early 70s – when it was at the Hotel Martinique, I met an OT3. I was in my “all of this OT stuff is real stage”; I was 17 years old.
This OT3 women proceeded to tell me that she has a Teddy Bear universe that she created. She told me that there, in her Teddy Bear universe, she would talk to and play with her Teddy Bears.
I believed her as I believed OTs were super beings. I believed she created a real universe with the same power as the Supreme Being creates space, time and objects.
The question is: how can a “rational” human being ever come to a point where they actually believe that they have an actual Teddy Bear universe?
What are the psychological steps?
What are the doctrines, the words, the auditing experiences, the study materials that can bring a human mind to LITERALLY destroy the lines between truth and imagination, between madness and sanity?
In my opinion it’s the word that Hubbard created:
KNOWINGNESS
In an auditing session one day, I was trying to find some whole track incident. My brain was ready to explode because I could not find the incident. My auditor had her TRs in and kept giving me the commands but nothing, absolutely nothing was reading.
Then my auditor looked at me with “tone 40 intention” and said, “Brian……….. you know”. She delivered the command with such certainty that it acted like a hypnotic command. And it also flattered me. It gave a false credibility to a talent of “knowing” that I decided I must have, but I am too occluded to experience.
Then and there I said to myself, “this is auditing, Hubbard’s science of truth, there must be something there, it’s my whole track occlusion that’s blocking me from “knowing”.
With my “certainty” that something must be there I created that something in my thoughts and…
BOOM!!!!!
The auditor got a read and said – THAT! – what’s that Brian?
I thought, “finally, I got it. It must be true because the needle is going blip”.
I communicated my imaginary creation, which I now thought was real, and got an FN, went to the examiner, communicated my cog and then and there I was initiated into the Scientology cult of collapsing objective truth with delusional make believe.
All of these things: the needle reads, the floating needle, the “end of session” with auditor smiling and feeling proud, the examiner acknowledging the floating needle and his granting of beingness TRs – all acted to dissolve the difference between objective truth and delusional make believe in my mind.
I was now a Scientologist with “knowingness”.
My mind was now in the hands of a dangerous Malignant Narcissist.
Now, everything in Scientology was “true”. And what gave me that sense of certainty: I now had knowingness!
Meaning, I had lost the ability to differentiate the real and the unreal.
I was now an owned intellectual slave to a dangerous madman.
I was now in the Scientology thought club that says, “if it pops up in the mind and I think it – it must be true.”
I was now in the Scientology thought club of replacing real knowing with E-meter reads.
I was now in the Scientology thought club that says, “those that doubt you, or question your thoughts, are invalidating your “knowingness”.”
I was now in the Scientology thought club that needed to be around other similar thought slaves to constantly validate make believe. And in that safe bubble of make believe we all felt safe to dream our mad delusions with others and not be questioned or invalided.
Because none of us wanted to invalidate anyone else’s “knowingness.”
How many Mozarts, Jesus’, Mary Queen of Scots and Beethovens did you meet in Scientology? I met many. And I was just as guilty of letting my ego think up some great personage in my past. I was able to do this all because Scientology validates “knowingness”.
And how many PCs said they were dirty smelly flea ridden peasants with rotten teeth, who died of an infected scratch at age 12. Not a one did I meet.
They all had “knowingness” of their past lifetime greatness. And none of us had the balls to invalidate these delusions. Because we did not want in invalidate their “knowingness”. And besides, it’s a high crime to do so. It’s a high crime to see through the lies and delusion, because we are making less of another person’s “knowingness” and invalidating Hubbard’s delusional “tech”.
When Scientologists say they “know”, remember this:
They have collapsed reality and delusion, lies and truth, objectivity and imagination with the justification of having…
KNOWINGNESS
Yet another word definitionally raped by the man who sought to redefine words for psychological manipulation and control.
What lurks in the Scientologist’s mind as knowing, is in reality, a distorted dangerous philosophical doctrine which leads the unsuspecting disciple to equate objective truth with whimsical imagination.
What the Scientologist “knows” as truth, is inspiration for comedians making fun of Scientology.
It’s their “knowingness” that transforms a normal human being intro the brunt of jokes.
It’s their “knowingness” that makes them into circus clowns and Hubbard lap dogs.
Sorry Tooth Fairy and Teddy Bear, I hope I did not invalidate your existence. If so feel free to write a Knowledge Report. It could be my overts speaking.
And………. Thank you Foolproof for inspiring this.
Warm Regards,
Brian
I survived the Titanic, was a Pharaoh in Egypt, a reptilian invader on Mars, a whale, a dung beetle, a World War one soldier, a Galactic ruler… wait!… was it all just imaginary??? 😆😂😆😂😆
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire
Brian says he met many people who mentioned glorious past lives but you weren’t supposed to talk about your “case” out of session. I only recall one friend who mentioned a glorious past life. He had occupied some type of machine body and thought it was great fun that he could do all sorts of extraordinary things you can’t do while occupying a meat sack. “I’ll be back” haha
I had a pc in session who recalled being a cannibal. He said that at that time he despised the taste of dark meat. I guess he preferred breast meat over leg or thigh.
“This lifetime” was spoken as casually in scientology as being “saved” might be spoken in a Christian organization.
Great post Brian! So well articulated – which for this very subtle aspect of how the brainwashing works can be difficult to explain. You nailed it! And thank you as it also help unravel just a bit more for me – out now since 1982 – well physically at least.. the terminology – and all that the terminology “links to” mentally -takes a long time to sort through consciously. I appreciate you.
Thank you Judy. I left in 82 also.
Brian,
As always-excellent essay! You always give great insight to those of us who were never in. This appears to be classic “brainwashing” technique. Withholding approval, then giving approval. Ad nauseam. I would guess Hubbard stumbled on this technique while he was hanging out on the dark side, but that’s only an assumption. There were multiple books and essays on techniques that were published in the 50’s and 60’s- and I would bet you dollars to doughnuts that Hubbard would have read as many of those as he could get his hands on.
I guess it doesn’t really matter where he picked it up- he used it ruthlessly for his own gain. Now miscavige uses the same techniques, but he goes even further and darker with it.
Thanks again!
Kat
This gets to why I think Scientology is the closest thing to brainwashing that exists: it can implant a directed false personal narrative in an individual, mostly in the form of supposed past lives of a particular type, and then leverage that to get a person to do things that are against their own best interests in their present life, in order to serve the aims of the organization and its leadership.
Brian, you lay out very well how auditing subtly, using the same sort of tools as covert hypnosis, implants ideas and even false memories. This is also essentially how therapists infamously ended up coaxing false memories of satanic ritual abuse, out of impressionable and imaginative small children.
Others have already eloquently made most of the detailed comments that occurred to me on reading the piece.
Thanks for your thoughts and work on this.
I think that the definition Hubbard gave for brainwashing fits what Scientology is TRULY intended to do. He made a “game” of misdirection and reversals of truth as he described in the 39th tape of the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures in 1952. He described how the games maker must hide the rules from the pieces and broken pieces.
His definition of brainwashing involves introverting someone thoroughly as does his description of how to handle critics of Scientology.
Additionally his description of confusing someone to the point of hypnotic overwhelm fits his methods of study technology having students look earlier than the confusion to resolve it and having the student have to pick between three potential fictional barriers to study and not to be able to question the materials, point out contradictions in the materials or say that Hubbard simply was wrong in his doctrine.
Scientology has the claim about what is true being true when you have observed it but you are not actually allowed to discuss the fact that parts of Scientology may be FALSE when you observe it and having that right makes a world of difference.
Brian, so well written and succinct, accurate and defined perfectly how I observed all of this LRH codswallop worked on me and how I observed it working on others. This I hope allows others to see how one gets drawn into the trap of believing make believe of a mad man.
Well done for writing such a clear descriptive piece.
Here are a few other quotes to show the deception in Scientology.
Quotes from Ron Hubbard on the Confusion Technique:
[Quote]
Now, if it comes to a pass where it’s very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.
The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, “But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees.”
You say, “Your professor of what?”
“My professor of physics.”
“What school? How did he know?” Completely off track! You’re no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you’re arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won’t know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis. The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they’re not sure of their own name.
And at that point you say, “Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don’t you?”
“Yes-anything!” And he’ll go out and draw the water out of the well.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard Lecture, 20 May 1952 “Decision.”
source Lermanet.com
Also, even earlier, in 1950:
[Quote]
One error, however, must be remarked upon. The examination system employed is not much different from a certain hypnotic technique. One induces a state of confusion in the subject by raising his anxieties of what may happen if he does not pass. One then “teaches” at a mind which is anxious and confused. That mind does not then rationalize, it merely records and makes a pattern. If the pattern is sufficiently strong to be regurgitated verbatim on an examination paper, the student is then given a good grade and passed.
[End Quote]
Ron Hubbard lecture 29 August 1950, “Educational Dianetics.”
source Lermanet.com
He also knew that when one is confused they can feel relief (i.e. brighter TEMPORARILY) when they get an “answer”, even if it doesn’t address the confusion!
Scientology uses confusion to control people. Scientology is intentionally designed to use confusion for this purpose.
Scientology techniques are extremely confusing and if you are able to find the right references from Hubbard and look at the techniques with an understanding of the methods he based them on then his intentions are clear.
let’s look at some of the things Hubbard said:
“If you can produce enough chaos — it says in a textbook on this subject — if you can produce enough chaos you can assume the total management of a psyche — if you can produce enough chaos.
The way you hypnotize people is to misalign them in their own control and realign them under your control, which necessitates a certain amount of chaos, don’t you see?
Now, the way to win through all of this is simply to let the guy have his stable data, if they are stable data and if they aren’t, let him have some more that are stable data and he’ll win and you’ll win.
In other words, you can take any sphere — any sphere which is relatively chaotic and throw almost any stable datum into it with enough of a statement and you will get an alignment of data on that stable datum. You see this clearly?
The whole society is liable to seize upon some stupid stable datum and thereafter this becomes a custom of some sort and you have the whole field of morals and mores and so forth stretching out before your view.”
Hubbard, L. R. (1955, 23 August). Axiom 53: The Axiom Of The Stable Datum. Academy Lecture Series/Conquest of Chaos, (CofC-2). Lecture conducted from Washington, DC.
“Another way to hypnotize somebody would be to put him in the middle of chaos, everything going in all directions, everybody shooting at him and suddenly throw him a stable datum, and make it a successful stable datum so that it’s all called off once — the moment he grabs this. And this gives you the entire formula of brainwashing: interrogate, question, lights, pain, upset, accusation, duress, fear, privation and we throw him the stable datum. We say, “If you’ll just adopt ‘Ughism’ which is the most wonderful thing in the world, all this will cease,” and finally the fellow says, “All right, I’m an ‘Ugh.’ ” Immediately you stop torturing him and pat him on the head and he’s all set.Ever after he would believe that the moment he deserted “Ughism,” he would be drowned in chaos and that “Ughism” alone was the thing which kept the world stable; and he would sell his life or his grandmother to keep “Ughism” going. And there we have to do with the whole subject of loyalty, except — except that we haven’t dealt with loyalty at all on an analytical level but the whole subject of loyalty is a reactive subject we have dealt with. ”
Author: Hubbard, L. R.
Document date: 1955, 21 September, 1955, 21 September
Document title: Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing – New Understanding of Axiom 36, Postulates 1,2,3,4 In Processing – New Understanding of Axiom 36
“A confusion can be defined as any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion is random motion.”
“Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particular in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder.
“Any body of knowledge, more particularly and exactly, is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” – Ron Hubbard [ref]
“Any time anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude…if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject…he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as a hypnotic suggestion….With parity, such as occurs between acquaintances, friends, fellow students and so on, there is no hypnotic suggestion” (Education and Dianetics, 11 November 1950, Research and Discovery, volume 4). Source Jon Atack
Here’s a longer excerpt:
ALTITUDE INSTRUCTION
“In altitude teaching, somebody is a ‘great authority.’ He is probably teaching some subject that is far more complex than it should be. He has become defensive down through the years, and this is a sort of protective coating that he puts up, along with the idea that the subject will always be a little better known by him than by anybody else and that there are things to know in this subject which he really wouldn’t let anybody else in on. This is altitude instruction … It keeps people in a state of confusion, and when their minds are slightly confused they are in a hypnotic trance. Anytime anybody gets enough altitude he can be called a hypnotic operator, and what he says will act as hypnotic suggestion. Hypnotism is a difference in levels of altitude. There are ways to create and lower the altitude of the subject, but if the operator can heighten his own altitude with regard to the subject the same way, he doesn’t have to put the subject to sleep. What he says will still react as hypnotic suggestion.” (Hubbard, Research & Discovery, volume 4, p.324)12 source Jon Atack
From Insidious Enslavement: Study Technology
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2015/01/insidious-enslavement-study-technology.html
MB, I’m really curious as to how Hubbard got such a methodological understanding of hypnosis. I know that he was accomplished at stage-style tricks of hypnosis and post-hypnotic suggestion, according to accounts of contemporaries, and that he mysteriously claimed to have worked as a “swami” during some of his time in L.A. But I’ve never seen quite such clear indications that had that level of grasp of technique, though perhaps he is just trying to put an impressive spin on things he learned while trying to manipulate people. And any idea what the “textbook on this subject” that he refers to, might be? (a bit of searching shows the 1940s produced several books on treatment of “war neuroses” by hypnosis)
And thanks, that’s a great set of relevant quotes showing how Hubbard understood powerful suggestive and manipulative techniques, in the ways that are obviously put to work in Dianetics and Scientology.
Hubbard recommend the book Hypnotism Comes of Age and in the essay Never Believe A Hypnotist Jon Atack shows that Hubbard had extensive knowledge about hypnosis.
I have written several posts at Mockingbird’s Nest blog on Scientology on Hubbard’s use and knowledge of hypnosis. Hubbard obviously was a pathological liar and we can know one thing about even a liar – they might or might BELIEVE what they say – but to say something you have to KNOW the information. In other words Hubbard studied hypnosis extensively.
Cult expert trained in hypnosis Steven Hassan has said Hubbard read books on hypnosis from the twenties and thirties.
I have dug through many articles on Scientology and posts to find relevant quotes from Hubbard. I certainly welcome everyone interested in Scientology to check these out.
Here are a few more quotes.
From a tape on the Philadelphia Doctorate Course lectures in 1952 entitled Structure/Function we get this:
RON THE HYPNOTIST
Structure/Function: 11 December 1952 page 1
“All processes are based upon the original observation
that an individual could have implanted in him by hypnosis
and removed at will any obsession or aberration,
compulsion, desire, inhibition which you could think of – by hypnosis.“
“Hypnosis, then, was the wild variable;
sometimes it worked,
sometimes it didn’t work.
It worked on some people; it didn’t work on other people.
Any time you have a variable that is as wild as this, study it.
Well, I had a high certainty already –
I had survival. Got that in 1938 or before that. And uh…”Ron Hubbard
From the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course lectures we have a couple extremely relevant quotes. The tapes are listed by their number:
SHSBC-402
Of course, we go on a tradition “if you learn anything about man that will help him,
you help him with it.” …
“If you learn anything about man that you can manipulate him
You’re going to manipulate men,
you’ve got to change their definitions
and change their goals
and enslave them and do this and do that.
SHSBC-447
Now, brainwashing simply is the trick of mixing up certainties.
All you have to do if you want to know and develop the entire field
of brainwashing as developed by Pavlov,
is simply to make somebody ….. into a confused or hypnotic state in which he can believe anything. Ron Hubbard
Complimenting this is a quote from Philadelphia Doctorate Course lecture tape numbered 39 from 1952 – known as the games maker tape or lecture
“Now here’s a process that has to do with the making of games, and all this process adds up to, is you just address to those factors which I just gave you, oh, run and change postulates and any creative process that you can think of and shift postulates around, you get a whole process.” End quote
THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.
Lecture: “Off the Time Track” (June 1952) as quoted in Journal of Scientology issue 18-G, reprinted in Technical Volumes of Dianetics & Scientology Vol. 1, p. 418. Ron Hubbard
From Scientology, Ron Hubbard and Hypnosis 3 – Hubbard’s Intentions
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/04/scientology-ron-hubbard-and-hypnosis-3.html
MB, I’m particularly curious about Hubbard’s familiarity confusion technique. Its originator, Milton Erickson, was based in Phoenix after 1948, and I wonder if Hubbard might have picked up on his ideas while he was in the city in the early 1950s, perhaps second-hand.
I was only previously familiar with Erickson’s first notable writings on the subject in the mid-1960s, though I know that he discovered the basic principles much earlier. But I just discovered that Arnie Lerma tracked down this earlier publication that could be a source for Hubbard:
THE CONFUSION TECHNIQUE
by Milton Erickson
Excerpted from Experimental Hypnosis
by Leslie LeCron,
first published in 1948
from a chapter titled: “Deep Hypnosis Techniques”
http://alerma.powweb.com/scientology/confusion-technique2.htm
By the way, I know from a couple of subjects that I am particularly familiar with, that Hubbard seems to have had oddly fragmented knowledge of some of the things he refers to and even uses. I finally found a quote from his second wife Sara, explaining that he really wasn’t the sort to work through a book of someone else’s ideas, and for instance relied on her for his knowledge of Korzybski’s General Semantics, that he relied on heavily for “work” like his Logics and Axioms. I don’t know that he can necessarily be credited with really having read any source material on his own, other than perhaps some of the stuff he encountered early on like Crowley.
Google Books shows 13 matches for “confusion” in the book, thought it will on show me 3 of them.
Atack also says:
‘In lectures given in 1950, Hubbard recommended three books on hypnotism to his followers: “Anyone in doubt as to how hypnotism works need only consult the authoritative books on the subject by Estabrooks [George Hoben Estabrooks, Hypnotism]. In fact, this is recommended as a means of proving that Dianetics and hypnotism are total strangers.” (R&D 4, p.345); “There is a little book by a man by the name of Young written about 1899, which contains in it about as much hypnosis as one ever wants. It is called Twenty-Five Lessons in Hypnosis … Practically everything in that book works, and clairvoyance, mesmerism and so forth are also delineated” (R&D 1, p.307); the third, and most significant, work recommended is Wolfe and Rosenthal’s Hypnotism Comes of Age (R&D2, p.12).’
Those other two look interesting as well.
p.s. I also ran across this, which apparently itself refers to some of the above books: A Critical History of Hypnotism: The Unauthorized Story by Saul Marc Rosenfeld
Others have brought up excellent scientific evidence and research regarding false memory induction. Anyone who knows me knows I have written a lot on the psychological vulnerabilities that make it possible for us to be deceived by Scientology.
I want to share a couple excerpts from long posts that dig deep into how this is possible. The first involves a quote from the book Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow.
Mlodinow wrote, “As it turns out, planting false memories is not that hard…Memories of events that supposedly happened long ago are particularly easy to implant.” (Page 75. Subliminal by Leonard Mlodinow. )
Psychologists have found merely telling a person an event occurred can prompt the manufacturing of a memory to fit the suggestion. And then recall the memory but not the suggestion that prompted it.
This has been described as successful 15 to 50 percent of the time. A recent study was done on people that went to Disneyland. They were asked to think about a fake ad for the park with Bugs Bunny. It had suggestions regarding vivid imagery of Bugs and being with him using suggestive language like imagine, he got bigger the closer you got and so on.
About a quarter of the subjects recalled meeting Bugs and of those 62 percent remembered shaking his hand, 46 percent recalled hugging him.
Now Warner brothers owns Bugs Bunny and Disneyland owns Mickey Mouse and the two don’t visit each other. But people can recall meeting Bugs Bunny when they never did – if provided the suggestion.
For Scientologists the hundreds of suggestions they’re provided are certainly sometimes effective on some people at prompting false memories. In Scientology indoctrination and auditing hundreds of suggestions are given and repetitive questions certainly serve as suggestions in this context. And if those people stay in Scientology and agree that the suggestions are real as memories then to them it appears everyone has these memories, because the people that don’t have these memories either leave or keep it to themselves.
Mlodinow wrote, “Conscious memory and perception accomplish their miracles with a heavy reliance on the unconscious.”
Unfortunately, just as the unconscious is unseen by the conscious mind its errors and efforts to manipulate the unconscious to guide or fool the conscious mind are also unseen and when successful unnoticed.
That’s the horrifying vulnerability that makes groups like Scientology capable of deceiving people with false memories and similar techniques.
Our ignorance about the vulnerability of our minds is the deadly glaring weakness that leaves us gullible about our gullibility. We are sure our memories are so reliable when Scientology manipulates them we mistakenly take that as proof and see the matter as settled. We couldn’t be more wrong.
From Scientology The Evidence , What Convinces Scientologists ?
https://mbnest.blogspot.com/2019/04/scientology-evidence-what-convinces.html
Thank you Mockingbird, I’ve been meaning to write something else tying in all of my writings on the tone scale and using this hypno-Hubbard data to show a deeper correlation between Hubbard’s mind control and his words.
Your links will help me out.
I have really enjoyed your articles here. I discovered them a few weeks ago and have found them concise and informative. If anything I wrote is useful for you then that is terrific.
You may already know that I have written extensively on Scientology and tried to find evidence from studies and research on psychology and neuroscience to show how it is a plausible hypothesis that coercive persuasion or brainwashing or mind control or thought reform has sound evidence it is genuine and something that is empirically established, meaning with things that can be measured and observed and that it is repeatable.
I have in particular looked to establish the intent of Hubbard to use his “psychology” he described in his affirmations to make slaves of men and that it was largely based on hypnosis as he understood it.
There is a lot of work to explaining hypnosis and bit by bit breaking down the steps and showing that Hubbard used them in Scientology, particularly in indoctrination and auditing.
I would love any feedback you can give me on the content of my posts.
I think this is intertwined with LRH claiming no one imagined anything, and that anything they fantasized had happened in a former life. Cults denigrate the power and value of imagination because they want to hijack it for their own ends. If you make people believe that fantasy is bad or nonexistent, you can get them to believe that fantasy is reality.
That teddy bear lady would have been perfectly fine if she had collected teddy bears and imagined herself in picnics with them. Written some stories about teddy bear world. Heck, maybe she could have been a successful children’s book author! Instead, she fell in thrall to a cult that twisted her own fertile imagination against her.
Cults like scientology may have a FACADE of being anti-hypotism and hypnotic control so they can USE hypnosis for their nefarious ends. Tubby was particularly adept at it. As evidence, I present the numbers of scientologists who did NOT run away screaming, doubled up in laughter when they encountered OT III.
Brian has very clearly described how cultic thinking works. If one or two things are brilliantly true, the rest of the package must be true also. Then group thinking and wishful thinking take over from there. Scientology in particular has a deep web of cultic thought, ready to trap the next vulnerable victim.
O/T, check out the front cover of the new US magazine. Not good for the cult.
Thanks Mike and Leah.
BK Mole, If it’s not good for that criminal organization masquerading as a religion, it’s hardly O/T, IMO.
Well, this morning I got hooked into buying two magazines that had scientology on the cover page. Both with lots of celebs in the pages. So sad. I didn’t know who 99% of them were, never heard of them. Nothing about scientology that I had not already read. Lesson learned. All I need to know about what’s going on is to read here, and Karen de la Carriere’s and Jeffrey Augustine’s and Tony Ortega’s, and Chris Shelton’s sites, etc.
In an effort to be fair, on occasion I have checked a few of scientology’s sites, but it’s always the same thing. I guess if that’s all you’ve got you just recycle it?
Note to self, save your money Peggy.
Peggy: don’t be afraid to scan the rags before buying. That’s why I love read bookstores who install comfy “browsing” chairs strategically so we can be SURE we want to take one home with us.
OOPs! “read” bookstores should have beeb “real”. Once again, fumbly fingers and “autocorrect” work faster than the brain.
LOL jere, I have that same problem. Sometimes, unfortunately it’s a problem that my thought comes out of my mouth too. Darned thought bubbles something pop.
Unfortunately there are no book stores near here. I will have to stop reading the front pages of the tabs while waiting in line at the grocery store.
Brian, you nailed it dude. No need to brainwash someone into mass delusions if you can persuade them to do it to themselves.
Somehow no Scientologist has managed to recover the secret to creating gold or unlimited energy or even the wavelength of an implant machine. We know this is so because they still beg for cash from all and sundry. If they could go to Vegas and clean it out at will using their OT Powerz we wouldn’t still be hearing about awards for donations.
In the book “The Memory Illusion”, chapter 7, author Dr Julia Shaw details several experiments that clearly demonstrate false memory installation in normal, intelligent, awake human subjects.
In the following pages she goes, step by step, through the process of installing a false memory. It is almost exactly what you described, Brian, in your descriptions of the awakening of “knowingness”.
Once someone truly believes that they can know something without evidence, testing, observation or by taking advantage of the experiences of others who have discovered actual facts, you can feed them any kind of nonsense.
I wish with all my heart that this was a special danger applying only to Scientology. But it isn’t. People seem to believe what seems right to them, whatever strokes their egos, makes them better than others, puts them in a position of advantage over others, makes them guiltless despite their crimes. With anti-social media and the reckless endless spew of mindlessness that is most of the Internet, truth is hard to find in its native habitat these days.
But truth is still the only thing that can truly set us free.
Thanks for bringing up The Memory Illusion Bruce. I was completely fascinated by it and the examples she gives of experiments to implant memories are very enlightening.
Some memories might be “installed” or illusions and others not.
O/T. My fourth and final (at least cross-posted here, I promise) tweet on this subject. I thank “Intergalactic Walrus” at Tony Ortega’s blog for giving me the idea to tag Josh Sanburn, the author of the Time magazine story that Tony Muhammad misrepresented.
3RD UPDATE – PLEASE SEE THREAD
#Scientology Freedom Medal Winner Nation of Islam Minister Tony Muhammad [@BroTonyMuhammad] misrepresents work of journalist @JoshSanburn & uses fake @Time magazine cover to attack vaccines.
https://twitter.com/ISNOINews/status/1167896014658752512
/
“attack vaccines”….
Such idiots deserve their own “Darwin awards” for ensuring that their KIDS won’t pass their genes on further to pollute the human SAPIENS gene pool.
Great essay, described the mindset of my former auditor to a T. He used to say that a thetan could know anything by just deciding he wanted to know.
Fabulous, first rate essay, Brian! Thank you for writing this. It really explains one reason I think I’m so skeptical and suspicious post Scientology… I refuse to be Fooled Again!
And this:
“It’s their “knowingness” that transforms a normal human being intro the brunt of jokes.”
That’s it. In a nutshell.
I was in a nutshell once. This is why my body is so twisted.
Very good Brian.
A quote from one of my Chakra books fits:
“The universe is exactly the way you think it is, and that is why.”
The more that auditing produces euphoria, the more the PC wants more, and they just ‘know’ that Scientology is ‘it’.
The main struggle in life is against one’s own faulty thinking. It takes strength to face one’s own mistakes and correct them. Escape into delusion to protect the ego is very tempting, especially when one is surrounded by people and a belief system that feeds into it.
@ Francis D you said “The main struggle in life is against one’s own faulty thinking”
I agree and also the emotional co-factor. Do you have any recommended reading on reducing that faulty thinking?
Brian,
Excellent article. Scientology has always validated any affirmation that ‘it’ works.
Jim, scientology has REQUIRED only validation that ‘it’ “works”
In all the years I have been engaged in research I have kept my comm lines wide open for research data. I once had the idea that a group could evolve truth. After a third of a century, I have thoroughly rejected that idea since it has substantially cut into my income. Willing as I was to accept suggestions and data, unfortunately the majority of suggestions had long-run value and some were major or basic; and when I did accept major or basic suggestions and used them, I went astray and repented and eventually had to go back to my original money making idea.
Good one, scribe😀
Good parody, Scribe — so spot-on.
This is not just LRH’s insight. This is how all totalitarian dictators and ideologies work. Create mass delusion through language manipulation. Orwell wrote about it and radicals of the left and right have perfected it. It’s double plus ungood!
“Scientology thought club” – nailed it! This succinct explanation of the naive novitiate’s descent into the Co$ rabbit hole so illuminates for us never-ins the claimed “wins,” the delusional “stats” and the penultimate tragedy that lies at the end (or even before) of every “bitter-ender’s” desperate saga who doesn’t manage to escape the talons of this rapacious nest of vipers.
May every kernel of truth revealed speed their journey to freedom!
Wryturman:
“May every kernel of truth revealed speed their journey to freedom!”
May ANY kernel of truth penetrate their bubble universes and start them on the way to personal freedom.
PLEASE: Don’t forget to support the Aftermath Foundation any way you can.
Yep
Brilliant
This one’s a keeper for sure.
“just go with it”
That’s what I learned in my auditing. My auditing got better and better, more real, more exciting, and more productive, the more I leaned in and just followed the glimmers and fleeting flashes that flitted my imagination as I looked for answers to the auditing questions.
It got easier. I was proud of it. I had become a “fast PC”. I would cheerfully (and smugly) toss off that “I can get wins from practically anything!”
I went through the OT levels with ever growing certainty and I even promoted this as a benefit of the levels, “my certainty is rock solid from here to eternity, a billion million years from now I’ll look back at this time as the turning point……”
Date and locate was a bit of a disappointment, I would privately admit to myself… doing this procedure on my Clear Certainty Rundown, I expected to walk away with all the details of going Clear last life.
Sadly, I got a longfall blowdown just on pointing, “where” so we didn’t have to follow the rest of the procedure to get the actual address of the happenstance.
Rats! I wanted ALL the details of my magical last life experience with Hubbard and SCN! I wanted actual provable things, my FULL NAME, my P C folders, my actual address, and city and state!
But, nope. Just lots of story time details of hazy ideas easily FNed in a joyful Clear (!) session…..
This was cool with me, so happy with these big boots I now wore… course, years later, when I was sitting in the chair at Flag and had a hundred grand on account that was to pay for the entirety of set ups, and preps for VII and get me all the way through including six-month checks.. my “pointing” and decades old clear status was suddenly getting a second look.
I got a little interview wherein I was ASKED a long list of questions regarding exactly all those details of everything to do with my last life and auditing. Name, address, names of auditors, locations of sessions, where my folders were stored, how many, what incidents were run.
An hour of that shredded me. Got me in shape for being told I had made it to OT 5 without even being clear! Now I get to run NED at Flag rates, after some more set ups, of course.
(That hundred grand was used up just getting into VII) (and I wasn’t wealthy. This was hard earned cash from decades of planning and sacrifice. Decades of being staff with nothing)
Knowingness
When everything came crashing down I only knew one thing…
Scientology was bullshit and I was DONE.
“I got a little interview wherein I was ASKED a long list of questions regarding exactly all those details of everything to do with my last life and auditing. Name, address, names of auditors, locations of sessions, where my folders were stored, how many, what incidents were run”.
I’m just curious, is this a standard check? Has anyone ever, anywhere come up with any satisfactory answers to these questions? Do they try and verify it afterwards by checking if the info was correct? Seems to me that anyone undergoing these questions would fail and then have to redo the bullshit.
Has anyone else on Mikes blog here had this check? Anyone here ever answered these questions satisfactorily?
No clue.
I figure that by asking, it gives the hapless PC the idea that they should recall all this if they’re actually clear, and that other people who really are clear can provide the answers.
In four decades IN, I never heard of anyone’s last life claims substantiated with concrete evidence.
That must have been a very rude awaking. Hopefully you had someone to help you blinking into the daylight. I’m on standby for my own loved ones when they remember the difference between life and imagination.
This blog and the good good people of this blog have been hugely helpful. The community of Ex’s are a vital lifeline for the UTRs.
Rip:
“my “pointing” and decades old clear status was suddenly getting a second look.”
And that isn’t even the worst that the Munchkin™ has done.
Does anyone really believe that someday there will be scientific proof of an afterlife or a Universal Intelligence/God?
Wikipedia says the estimate of the number of humans who have ever lived is in the order of 100 billion. Over the course of human history probably billions of people have had random religious/peak/transcendental/kensho/satori type experiences. It’s difficult to explain them all as illusions.
Well dissected and written Brian.
scientology means knowing how to delude.
I have a question for all who did OT VIII, or to anyone who may know the answer: I’ve read that when you do OT VIII, they take a list of beingnesses or people you’ve been on the whole track, culled from your folder data. So if you said you were Beethoven, that is one of the ones they handle by asking on the meter were you Beethoven or not, or was it your item or someone else’s item? So then I’ve heard that most of these beingnesses you’ve supposedly been are not really you and were not your beingnesses on the whole track. And it then reads on it is a BT’s or Cluster’s beingness that you thought was your own. So do you OT VII’s who ran this, do you think it was always yourself just mocking up this stuff as in putting something there to run? Or do you think it really was an incident and/or beingness from a BT or Cluster on you?
1: Basically you check past life incidents for yes/no somewhat like you wrote. 2: There are no BTs so “memories” are your own or something you imagined. Basically people come out of VIII thinking that they have not really recalled their “whole track” which is the opposite that El Con promised VIII would deliver.
In a way it is similar to Hubtard’s Clear joke. The EP of Dianetics or the Clearing Course is that you made it up (imagined the bank) and you don’t have one.
Both are very expensive and cruel jokes created by Hubtard.
Wynski, did you do OT VIII in the church?
No, after reading the materials from Hubtard I wouldn’t have touched it. It was as insane as the III materials but with less imaginary substance. The gig was really up with VIII as it was the first “real” OT level that supposedly you didn’t get NEGATIVE case gain but would get an OBJECTIVE OT ability. Therefore it WAS the make break point for scamology as a whole scam.
Wynski, you said, “In a way it is similar to Hubtard’s Clear joke. The EP of Dianetics or the Clearing Course is that you made it up (imagined the bank) and you don’t have one.”
Not to split hairs here, but one does have a reactive mind or bank. Because once you created it yourself, then through whatever mechanism, maybe misownership, or not-isness or something, it is then there impinging and sabotaging and causing problems for you. So it wasn’t like you didn’t have it. YOu created it and then had it with all the side effects that come with it. And per the tech, that bank supposedly goes away once you as-is it by viewing it the moment you created it, and take responsibility for having created it yourself.
“Not to split hairs here, but one does have a reactive mind or bank.”
I’m talking about the INSIDE joke of Hubtard’s. Not what he published. Or, the scam wouldn’t have worked.
I get what you are saying though. Maybe I wrote my answer incompletely on that part.
Cindy – I don’t know where the idea of “I mocked it all up” comes from. To me it sounds “squirrel” (non Hubbard). Most people accept the idea of a “subconscious mind” although there is no universally accepted definition of such. It’s probably why some people accepted Hubbard’s reactive mind/engram theory.
Here’s a thread about Clear which includes an article written by David Mayo about the ever changing definition of Clear. He wrote it in 1989 while he still believed in the reactive mind/engram theory.
https://exscn.net/forum/threads/clear-some-background.50323/
Thanks for the link Richard. Speaking of Mayo, I’d love to see him speak out or write a book. I know he was paid off to keep quiet, but as we saw with Debbie Cook, even after signing that gag order, they couldn’t make it hold water in court. So for that reason I hope Mayo speaks out and tells us the true history of the church that he was a part of etc. Wouldn’t that be nice?
He is no longer with us.
And his gag order was part of settling a case with lawyers on his side. Debbie Cooks was an agreement signed under duress without a lawyer when she was trying to leave. Apples and oranges. Debbies later agreement after scientology sued her and she had a lawyer representing her is definitely enforceable.
Richard said, “Cindy – I don’t know where the idea of “I mocked it all up” comes from. To me it sounds “squirrel” (non Hubbard).”
Richard here is the confidential “clear cognition” from Hubtard hisself. Clear occurs when one stops mocking up bank, or realizes he : is doing it. This is the Clear Cognition.
You constantly underestimate Hubtard’s evil and calculated scam. You need more anti-brainwashing therapy.
Wynski – I had guessed that if the Clear Cog came from Elron it would be on a confidential bulletin available only to auditors who were Clear and above. Also, Mayo may have omitted mentioning it in his article about Clear since that would be “feeding a cognition” to PRE Clears.
Some of my neuro synapses continue to function, thank you.
It IS on a confidential HCOB and a tape I think. What does that have to do with you thinking it was squirrel?
I did some Dianetics and got some benefit from it. Got some E-meter type auditing and what a waste of time and money! In my opinion, Hubbard was good at reading and stealing workable ideas from other writers and philosophers. He then distilled them into Dianetics. Therefore, the best ideas he read and rewrote, had some workability. When he finally had to originate his own ideas, we have “Body Thetans” and harsh, unworkable “Ethics” – All designed to clean out your bank account. The “Knowingness” part of the operation means to stay in the bubble and never question or do your own looking. All the while nodding sagely in the echo chamber of “Knowingness.”
Brian Lambert, you have excellent insight into $camatology.
What’s true for you is true.
But what if you’re an asshole? Can Lron cure that? Or will he just use you to make him more money?
There’s no cure for assholeness.
Sorry to disagree OSD, but patience and persistence can lessen the level of A-H-ness. Many years of experience in scn, then Mensa have opened my eyes and given me plenty of practice.
Too much butthurt involved.
Lol Brian! When at Flag as a lowly clear interacting with the “higher ups” I arrived at a new stable datum regarding scio. Which is, if you’re an asshole when you come in, you’re still an asshole as you move up the bridge. Maybe, maybe, just a little less.
I knew an asshole lady who did OT VII and she was still an asshole after OT VII. Made me and a lot of people scratch our head in wonderment. I think even being out of valence would be better than her existing personality.
Brilliant. So much truth here. I admire the skill to take what happened to us and put it into words that explain it so well. Thank you.
Brian, I’ve loved many of your past essays, but this was one of my favorites.
I concur with Charlotte; it IS brilliant!
Thank-you!
Thanks for spelling that one out so precisely.
It applies beyond Scientology to the whole Disney “BELIEVE”™ ideology that pervades so much modern thinking. Don’t ask whether what you are believing is true, don’t test its predictions against reality to evaluate its validity. Just believe it really really hard and it will be true. If it turns out to not be true, you obviously didn’t believe it enough.
Spot on Brian. You have told the truth. My experience was when the auditor made me think that the ship sinking scene from Ben Hur was real and that I was dying on the ship. It was nothing more than my “knowingness” making me think I lived in Rome. This knowingness is all that Miscavige has. It is “cheap”.
Blavatsky was the first occultist to mention “knowingness”. It is a reference to Hinduism where the guru can recall everything from the “records”. I forgot the Hindu name? Whole track is nothing but modified Hinduism. Blavatsky maintained that all experience in the universe was stored in a file. Hubbard just developed on the idea.
Yo George, good day bro. The word is Akasha, or Akashic records. It translates into the word “sky”.
The theory is that everything that is created: thoughts etc. leaves a vibrational impression that is permanently etched in the ether in background of the universe.
The theory is that an enlightened being can access these through intuition. Psychics, seers, prophets and nut jobs say that they can access these recorded impressions.
Hubbard most likely took this theory which led him to his madness since Mr. Smarty Pants was the greatest “knower” the universe has ever produced.
No doubt he was influenced by this Sanskrit word.
I saw an educational show on tv about Einstein. It theorized that people like Da Vincci and Einstein somehow reached a point in their awareness where they were able to meditate or somehow get into a state where they could receive data from the universe and use some of the upper level stuff to create the huge and amazing things like theory of relativity and other things.
Cindy,
Google: Akshic Record
It apparently takes some skill to get answers from the true record.
Thanks Brian. You filled it in. Yo bro!
Akashic records.
Akashic record. My theory is that if any of the largely false “past life” recollections are true, it’s because we can tap into that collective species memory at times. It’s a least the simpler theory, which means (according to principles such as Occam’s Razor) that it’s the one to go with; but Hubbard, characteristically, chose the egoistic model, in which he got to lay personal claim to fantastic past lives.
It is a belief. What you believe is what is real for you and that also corroborates the power of the mind – it can imagine, analyze, conclude, cancel ideas, create new ones, you name it.
As long as one is aware of what one is doing, you may have a better chance to control it yourself.
Giving authority to others to decide what is true and what is not, is what creates a cult and gives power to cult leaders and, of course, makes the person to become a slave.
This is easily the best essay I’ve ever read describing the path to Hubbard’s mindfuck that is Scientology. I, too, am guilty of the leap of faith that says if A+B=C than B+C=D. One nugget of “truth”, whether real or imagined, leads to grand presumptions that it ALL must be true.
Thank you Brian for an absolute first-class read.
Thanks Scott, you are very welcome.
Great article Brian! Foolproof said he’s never going to post on this site again! (Yayy) I’ll drink to that!
I think it’s an “I quit/you’re fired” thing with Foolproof.
He crossed a line when he used his questionable reasoning to justify/deflect/make light of the very true experience of those that suffered child abuse within $ci.
Mike told him he is no longer welcome here.
Thanks, Glen. I wondered where the twerp disappeared to.
Thanks Eh=Eh
Are we going to drink like it’s 1999?
Foolproof is lamenting the fact that he went bye-bye. He is so wanting to chime in!
FP has come and gone before. He seems rather reactive for someone supposed to be “clear” or whatever, and I suspect there’s a good chance he’ll be back once more when he needs to quell his cognitive dissonance over the discrepancy between what Hubbard said Scientology should be and the dreary state of his indie world by going on the attack against enemies (one of Hubbard’s behavioral “implants”), or whatever exactly drives him.
He/she won’t be back
Thank you.
Perhaps for the best then. They’re effectively a troll. I’ve wondered if their own indie circles aren’t relieved when they go on a tear here, if it gives indie discussions a break from being hounded with the same sort of arrogance and righteousness.
That was both brilliant and heartbreaking.
Thanks Charlotte
When you’re trapped within your own mind, that is truly sad.
The only REAL trap is created by you own mind. Tubby learned that lesson well and applied it brutally efficiently.
Your mind is so fucked up you’re screwed!