By "ewsnead" more
12 October 2001
Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/da2a1fa772cad61e
[I added hyperlinks where useful for reader's
convenience. rh]
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.”more 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:
- Forming an elitist totalitarian
society
- 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
- Using
deception in recruiting and/or fundraising
- Control by a
messianic or charismatic self-appointed leader not accountable
to the membership
- Instilling a fear in leaving the group
- Controlling information that members are allowed to receive
- Using thought control regimens such as debilitating labor
regimens, denunciating sessions, hypnotic routines, etc. to
block normal thinking criteria
- Promoting exclusive dependence
on other members of the group
- Punishing dissent, doubt and
disobedience
- Inducing members to commit unethical and
criminal behavior because "the ends justify the means"
- 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.more 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.more
- 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."more
- 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... |