REPOSZT: Interpreting Scientology: A Short and Incomplete Essay
Human Rights Defense (ShyDavid)
Subject: Brief Interpretation of Scientology
Message-ID: <lhvx7.758$wX3.1...@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 05:34:09 GMT
Interpreting Scientology: A Short and Incomplete Essay
Frederick Nietzsche, a shrewd observer of cultural trends,
predicted that the gravest danger ushered in by modernism was the
specter of nihilism. It arises with the collapse of traditional
beliefs, which in earlier times provided stability, consolation
and hope in the face of adversity. With the loss of stable
meanings and ethical bearings, a person might come to believe
anything in order to forestall anxiety and hopelessness.
Nietzsche insisted that the more a society relies upon an
essentially soulless remedial science and technology to alleviate
life’s inevitable sufferings, the greater our tendency to fall
back upon primitive belief systems to provide balance and
sustenance. Or in more contemporary language, the more sanitized,
digitized and computerized our culture becomes, paradoxically the
more atavistic, bizarre and esoteric are the belief systems with
which we comfort ourselves in order to redress a natural
imbalance.
The ongoing presence of SCIENTOLOGY highlights the extent of our
current spiritual malaise. Its public pitches, visible on late
night television, features a thunderous lava spewing volcano with
a portentous voice-over extolling the miracle of DIANETICS, a
quack mental health therapy hurriedly concocted by the late L Ron
Hubbard. The advertisement has the subtlety of a snarling
carnival barker evoking Hubbard's (he died in 1986 under
mysterious circumstances) uninhibited flair for the melodramatic.
The pseudo-science of DIANETICS first appeared as a cultural
artifact in 1950. Hubbard toured the country following the
publication of his seminal best-seller "Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health," glibly peddling it as an easy
self-help method redressing the entire spectrum of psychic and
psychosomatic complaints suffered by a post-war America.
DIANETICS assures its practitioners of improved human
communications, better health ("freedom from the common cold"),
enhancement of perception, improved memory, higher IQ, and
increased personal empowerment. But its failure to deliver its
therapeutic promises, internal financial mismanagement, boredom
with the new fad, and increased scrutiny by the medical
establishment led to its rapid fall from public grace.
Yet L Ron Hubbard was not your run of the mill flimflam artiste.
He disclosed a doggedness and resiliency astonishing legions of
detractors. Hubbard surreptitiously resurrected DIANETICS by
incorporating it into his 1953 unveiling of SCIENTOLOGY, by
Hubbard’s account an "applied religious technology."
Prior to the birth of DIANETICS, however, Hubbard had intimated
his destiny to close associates, namely, to start a religion with
himself wielding papal authority, for as Hubbard asserted,
"that’s where the real money can be made." The collapse of his
short-lived DIANETICS empire prompted Hubbard to redouble his
efforts. He transposed central elements ("auditing," a form of
confessional counseling) into a foundation for an entire
religious system. By so doing he might with impunity generate
millions of dollars while keeping criticism and possible
interference from organized medicine and IRS at arms length.
While consummating his vision and formulating his "scriptures"
Hubbard highlighted his unrepentant zest for plagiarism. He
collaged a pastiche of carelessly stricken thought from the more
sober writings of philosophers ranging from Plato and Descartes
to William James and Sigmund Freud. For good measure he then
liberally spiced his pedantic understanding of these luminaries
with his own fondness for the science-fiction space opera. The
creator of SCIENTOLOGY then insisted that these ideas originated
in his own meditations upon "the meaning of life." Unknown to
most, Hubbard often fueled his feverish ruminations with an
exotic combination of alcohol, cocaine and amphetamines. His drug
induced reveries are unequivocally accepted as absolute truth by
thousands of followers, while Hubbard remains referred to in
hushed tones as "Source."
Hubbard forged SCIENTOLOGY into a self-enclosed system of
"absolute truths" inscribed not upon pillars of stone, but in a
turgid typewritten legacy spanning several decades. One learns
its core beliefs through a prolonged, esoteric (teachings with
many hidden levels of indoctrination) series of courses lasting
many years and costing the adept hundreds of thousands of
dollars. The dedicated SCIENTOLOGIST discovers the necessity for
total recall of his or her "past lives." After a protracted spell
of preparation one discovers that Hubbard's "Bridge to Total
Freedom" eventually entails exorcising countless numbers of "body
thetans." These entities consist of the purportedly orphaned
spirits of deceased space aliens, which in the wake of an eons
ago galactic cataclysm obstreperously attached themselves in
desperation to our primal human ancestors. One also learns of
Xenu, a ruthless inter-stellar dictator responsible for this
catastrophe. The persistence of these parasites causes all our
human woes and prevents one's full self-determination. Exorcising
them via Scientology "processes" enables one to reclaim the
native and unlimited superhuman spiritual powers of the
"operating thetan" (OT) residing at the core of our being. This
cosmological episode remains the central, but publicly
undisclosed incident in the extant "Scriptures" of SCIENTOLOGY
founder Hubbard.
In his youth "Ron" showcased his talents as a mediocre and
struggling author of pulp fiction. As a college dropout who was
later relieved of his naval post (for his inability to follow
orders) in WW2, he often took solace fictionalizing his own life
as well. By the late 1940's his career as a writer faltered.
Looking for guidance he came across the writings of satanist
Aleister ("Do What Thou Wilt") Crowley. Hubbard became an acolyte
and began to enthusiastically practice the black arts. Crowley's
dark affirmations remained an enduring but unpublicized source of
inspiration for him during frequent and lifelong bouts with
depression.
The self-enclosed SCIENTOLOGY belief system and its defensive
organizational structure testify to the paranoia, cynicism,
megalomania and opportunism of its author. It also discloses the
boundless and tragic gullibility of those craving relief from
life's vicissitudes. For in the end SCIENTOLOGY delivers nothing
other than mind bending mystification and harsh internal social
controls to keep blinders over the eyes of its brain-washed
adherents. Rather than empower its membership, it disempowers
them to the point of abject slavery. Quickly after entering the
SCIENTOLOGY edifice a person with sufficient wherewithal
discovers himself enclosed in a sinister hall of mirrors with no
discernible exit. The "spiritual growth" so vociferously
testified to by members is flagrantly hollow to the eyes of a
casual outsider. It has credence only within the limited social
milieu of the organization itself. Peering through the windows of
any SCIENTOLOGY establishment one glimpses only the vacuous
camaraderie of a precarious internal confidence game.
SCIENTOLOGY in fact discourages a members efforts on his or her
own behalf towards greater self-awareness. For an excess of
awareness might prompt one to leave. Nor has it any interest of
the welfare of its individual membership. Rather, only
organizational goals matter in stark contrast to its public
dissemination. SCIENTOLOGY's method of attracting newcomers
entails a classic "bait and switch" scenario. It promises
prospective members freedom and expansion. Once inside they
discover constriction and slavery. One experiences a harshly
conditioning atmosphere comprised of coercion, extortion and
exploitation. And this treatment is "for your own good." Those
offering positive testimonial to the virtues of its confessional
counseling methods ("auditing") and administrative procedures do
so under command and severe duress. SCIENTOLOGY maintains a
rigorous system of administrative controls ("ethics"). In
addition to peer pressures to conform, an omnipresent "ethics"
scrutinizes the behavior of its membership very closely and
ruthlessly deals with instances of complaining, nonconformity or
poor production ("statistics").
Within the confines of Scientology one notices discovers an
alarming absence of warmth among the membership. Rather they come
across as robots programmed solely for efficiency. A tenuous
institutionalized sense of cooperation and solidarity is evinced
amongst those situated in the lower rungs of the organizational
apparatus interfacing with the public. These are the newer
recruits. Yet once one pierces this veneer the coercive
atmosphere that keeps the organization intact and its recruitment
and monetary goals on target become readily apparent.
SCIENTOLOGY is a cult, paradigmatically so. Cult Expert Stephan
Hassan of the American Family Foundation and author of "Releasing
the Bonds" cites these characteristics endemic to cult behavior:
1. Forming an elitist totalitarian society
2. Isolating members from society at large in a physical and/or
psychological manner, forcing them to cut ties with family and
friends who are not part of the group
3. Using deception in recruiting and/or fundraising
4. Control by a messianic or charismatic self-appointed leader
not accountable to the membership
5. Instilling a fear in leaving the group
6. Controlling information that members are allowed to receive
7. Using thought control regimens such as debilitating labor
regimens, denunciating sessions, hypnotic routines, etc. to block
normal thinking criteria
8. Promoting exclusive dependence on other members of the group
9. Punishing dissent, doubt and disobedience
10. Inducing members to commit unethical and criminal behavior
because "the ends justify the means"
11. Forces members to undergo frequent self-criticism and
humiliation as a part of indoctrination
L. Ron Hubbard was an infantile, narcissistic and megalomaniacal
charlatan, the consummate sado-masochistic death worshipper.
Incapable of exercising discipline over his own morbid
inclinations he vented his next option, to eat, digest and
subsume those he could lure into his schizoid domain. Judge Paul
Breckinridge of the Los Angeles Superior Court noted in 1984
while ruling in a lawsuit against Scientology: "[The court record
is] replete with evidence [that Scientology] is nothing in
reality but a vast enterprise to extract the maximum amount of
money from its adepts by pseudo scientific theories... and to
exercise a kind of blackmail against persons who do not wish to
continue with their sect.... The organization clearly is
schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to
be a reflection of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard." Hubbard's goal
purportedly was to "clear the planet," to wit, forcing the world
to accept his version of "enlightenment" and "eliminate without
sorrow" (in Hubbard's own words) those resisting his sinister
world view.
Hubbard's penchant for objectification and dehumanization may be
unprecedented in any system of thought skulking behind the
moniker of religion. The founder of SCIENTOLOGY derisively uses
the term "raw meat" as reference to potential initiates into his
system. More generally, Hubbard vulgarizes language by
transforming living and transitive verbs into reified "things"
("is-ness," "having-ness" represent typical examples of
Scientology neologisms...the tendency is to attach "ness" to
verbs in a cadaverous conversion to nouns). His proclivity was to
deaden and subsume language in a similar fashion as his system
does to its followers. Within his writings Hubbard reflexively
employs the term "planet" in reference to the world in which we
live. Though the objectification of our life-world has a purpose
within the discursive context of astronomy or cosmology, we as
human beings do not live "on a planet." Rather, we live in a
world. This world is essentially a biologically and socially
founded one upon which Hubbard turned his back.
Hubbard's legacy of renouncing the larger social world other than
as a fresh market for "raw meat" continues in the baleful and
defensive glower of Scientology's most ardent practitioners
strolling the streets of downtown Clearwater, Florida. Here march
the somnolescent paramilitary vanguard of the cult, the uniformed
"SEA ORG," robotically advancing into the darkest of spiritual
cul de sacs, bound to their masochistic rapture and "billion
year" contracts. These are the humorless, brain-washed, passive
and glazed-eyed consumers of L Ron Hubbards impoverished semantic
universe, torturous and self-nullifying "religious technology"
and paranoid delusions of grandeur. The most flagrant abuses that
Scientology exacts upon its practitioners and outsiders daring to
criticize it include a patterned history of the following:
? Usurious and relentless mandatory "tithing" requirements in
exchange for its confessional counseling techniques, typically
costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
? The use of materials culled during confessionals for purposes
of blackmail in the event a member decides to leave or publicly
cast aspersions upon Scientology
? A paramilitary police force ("SEA ORG") acting upon the whims
of top SCIENTOLOGY management aimed primarily at quashing
internal dissent and lack of discipline, but also employed as a
tacit threat to public critics
? A gulag-like system of labor camps within which it places
recalcitrant SEA ORG members. This system is known as the
Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF).
? Harassment and threats against former members or public critics
who dare speak out against the organization or attempt to
publicly disclose its abuses. These typically take the form of
gathering information about the critic through shady private
detectives and/or abusing the judicial system by litigating
frivolous lawsuits against those who dare to speak out. This
represents a concerted effort to leave critics financially
destitute due to the costs of defending oneself through prolonged
litigation.
? Compilation of an "enemies list" by the security apparatus of
Scientology known as the Office of Special Affairs International
("OSAI")
? The alleged OSAI blackmailing of several top members of the
IRS, including former commissioner Fred Goldberg that led to the
IRS decision to recognize Scientology as a bona fide church and
grant it tax exempt status in 1993.
? An attempt by Scientology operatives to shut down discussion
groups and postings on the Internet that attempt to bring public
attention to the criminal activities of the cult.
SCIENTOLOGY bears an uncanny resemblance to the vampire bat. It
parasitically consumes whatever resources a person has in his or
her capacity that the organization finds useful. In return the
cult offers unfettered advancement upon Hubbard's "bridge" to
"total freedom," a "bridge" that grounds its appeal upon one's
most shallow aspiration, the craving for power and control over
others. It results in financial destitution, madness and death.
When one runs out of money after selling the house and maxing out
the credit cards then one contributes labor in return for its
counseling services. SCIENTOLOGY receives tacit support through
residency in a postmodern culture where little seems real
anymore, a world pervasive with relentless and seductive imagery
in which we suffer a dearth of genuine presence. Dostoyevsky
observed, "When God is dead, everything is permitted." The cult
avidly exploits social confusion and our current inability to
discern between the probable, the possible and the utterly
fantastical.
A few years ago SCIENTOLOGY became sensitive to its public image
and hired main-line consultants to redress a tarnished
reputation. The cult began a series of public relations efforts
ostensibly in the name of community outreach. These included
education, drug rehabilitation, and various "charities." This is
a flimsy canard designed to prettify the organization's image
rather than deal substantially with social concerns having real
weight. Its Narconon drug rehab program serves primarily as a
conduit to lead patients directly after treatment into
Scientology. Such efforts provide a shabby cloaking device for
its motives. These are levers to influence the most naive public
opinion and corruptible politicians. The cult's primary agenda
remains luring the unwary into the shabby nightmare of L. Ron
Hubbard's science fiction soap opera to enlarge the scope of its
current social influence.
Most long time members having scant idea of where to turn for
help when subjected to SCIENTOLOGY human rights abuses having
long ago severed their ties to friends and family in the outside
world. By isolation and milieu control the cult keeps its
mystifications intact. Nor do many have the emotional leverage to
leave. They implicitly realize that real life awaits them beyond
the immediate confines of the organization. A tragic paradox
ensues: they enter a nightmare more lethal than any they might
have encountered on the outside. The escapist flight from the
real invariably exacts a heavy toll.
Public opposition against Scientology has a relatively brief
history with respect to the time-line depicting the cult's
founding and consolidation of power. Until as recently as ten
years ago most critics and ex-members were invariably "shuddered
into silence" by the Scientology legal apparatus, its army of
private detectives and the Office of Special Affairs that spared
little expense in concocting dirty tricks to ruthlessly cower
detractors. Newspaper and magazine editors were in the main fully
aware of Scientology's well earned reputation for litigation and
were understandably shy in their coverage of the cult. Then a
series of events occurred to level the playing field. In May of
1991 "Time Magazine" courageously published a cover story
disclosing the cults activities and abuses. Though sued by cult
lawyers, "Time" went on to prevail in court though its legal
expenses ran into the millions (a couple of years earlier "The
Los Angeles Times" had published a series on Scientology, but
this lacked national exposure). At least, however, a broad public
alert was issued. With the advent of the Internet, former members
and critics at large began to congregate, network, organize and
exchange information and experiences in relative safety from the
Scientology tentacles.
Though the cult attempted to silence the on-line activity, its
frantic efforts to censor caught the attention of Robert Minton
of Boston, a successful investment banker considering early
retirement. He quickly learned of the full brunt of Scientology's
animosity by experiencing it head-on himself...and a war
commenced that continues unabated. Responding to the SCIENTOLOGY
presence in Clearwater, Florida, Minton founded the Lisa
McPherson Trust early this year (LMT). McPherson was a long-time
and devout SCIENTOLOGIST who suffered a psychotic break, dying 17
days later while under cult supervision in late 1994 . In the
wake of her mental breakdown she was isolated in a small dark
room of the Fort Harrison Hotel (Scientology Headquarters) and
denied reputable medical assistance. During her period of
sequestration she lost 60 pounds, refused to eat and slept
constantly when not breaking into sudden outbursts of hysteria.
Scientology assumed no responsibility for her deterioration and
cavalierly treated her death as a mere public relations flap.
McPherson became a martyr and a rallying point for those aware of
the true nature of Scientology. In her name Minton opened an
office in Clearwater situated but a stone's throw from the Fort
Harrison Hotel. This became the Lisa McPherson Trust. Its goals
and policies are:
? Tell their members and the public the truth about the life of
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
? Tell their members and the public the truth about the history
of Dianetics and Scientology.
? Cease all illegal, unethical and harassing activities against
their own members and those who criticize or disagree with
Scientology.
? Revoke the policies and practices that violate the civil and
human rights of Scientologists and those who criticize or
disagree with Scientology.
? Revoke the policy of practicing medicine without a license and
preventing people from receiving proper medical treatment.
? Stop using and abusing the legal system as a means of
harassment.
? Stop keeping the technology of Scientology secret if it truly
has the power to help the human race.
? Encourage Scientologists to speak freely among themselves. Urge
them to communicate with family and friends, even those who may
disagree with Scientology.
? End the practice of "disconnection."
? Revoke the policy and practice of using private and personal
material from confidential counseling sessions to blackmail,
harass and intimidate.
? Stop using duress to extract exorbitant sums of money from
their members.
More to follow later...
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