The Scientology Tower of Babel

[ewsnead]

Sometimes known as *glossomania*, in which the material properties of
*signs* (in written language, those little squiggly marks running in
sequence known as words; in speech, the simple acoustic qualities of the
phonemes, those bits of sound that in sequence comprise the spoken word)
assume primacy over and obscure the actual meaning or natural referent to
which the signs are directed. Under such conditions of awareness, the
overall or contextual significance of the written or spoken word cannot be
grasped except, perhaps, tenuously.

Many forms of schizophrenia display such autistic tendencies. Clinical
psychologist, Phillip Sass ("Madness and Modernism," pp. 178-179) explains
that for many with severe mental illness, language loses its transparent and
subordinate status, a status that preserves its linkage to the natural and
the social worlds; it thereby loses any communicative power. Instead,
language emerges as "an independent focus of attention or autonomous source
of control over speech and understanding."

Sass continues, " a certain disengagement or abdication of responsibility
seems to occur. Instead of being guided by an overall sense of intended
meaning, the flow and sense of the message is determined largely by
intrinsic and normally irrelevant features of the linguistic system."

As a frequent poster to ARS, I receive a great deal of anonymous emails from
Scientologists intended undoubtedly to distract or annoy. Probably most
other regulars to this Newsgroup receive similar mailings. Here are a couple
examples:

*A few cups, and gypsy behind) to arrive at a state of tomatoBrent, the
friend of Brent and takes a coffee break with buzzard inside cargo bay.cab
driver living with spider returns home, because near blood clot find subtle
faults with around bonbon.tape recorder inside, oil filter around, and
stovepipe beyond are what made America great!Indeed, industrial complex
about give secret financial aid to beyond light bulb.When inside gypsy is
fashionable, of mating ritual play pinochle with labyrinth from turn signal*

and

*Where we can accidentally confess our shadow.behind ribbon, behind
stovepipe, and beyond mastadon are what made America great!photon from
trombone is cantankerous.stovepipe toward cargo bay operate a small fruit
stand with burglar for.*

etcetera

In common language, this is known as gibberish.

However, it brings to mind a recurrent topic with regard to Scientology
criticism, namely, how the cult over time may induce schizophrenic behavior
or schizotypal modes of perception and relatedly, in what is one of my
favorite themes, how, over time, cult regimens compromise context or depth
perception amongst Scientology practitioners.

ewsnead

--
"Scientology: boldly challenging the MEST universe since 1953, with
decidedly mixed results."