Reply #11: THOUGHT CONTROL AND SCIENTOLOGY

[icymist]

“The only way you can control people is to lie to them.”

- L. Ron Hubbard, “Off the Time Track,” lecture of June 1952, excerpted in JOURNAL OF SCIENTOLOGY, issue 18-G, reprinted in TECHNICAL VOLUMES OF DIANETICS & SCIENTOLOGY, vol. 1, p. 418.

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One becomes a Scientologist by (to varying degrees) substituting L. Ron Hubbard’s perception of reality for one’s own. Scientology is not swallowed whole; it is accepted incrementally via a carefully constructed series of agreements into which the individual is led, bolstered by profoundly invasive hypnotic techniques, peer pressure, hard-sell tactics and “whipped up gung-ho.” (1) This is a subtle, effective process that inhibits evaluative thinking and entraps people “through deceptive manipulation of our best qualities: loyalty, courage, desire to help.” (2)



Scientology appeals to people by offering them a grand game; a unique and comprehensive self-improvement system; a solution for almost every problem (many people come to Scientology when their lives are in crisis); and a welcoming group focused on major societal issues such as drug abuse, mental health, education, spirituality and morality. After joining the Church of Scientology, one meets with increasing demands for money, time and recruiting others. Those who resist these demands bolt, usually quickly. Those who remain go step-by-step into agreement with indoctrination, all the while believing that they are becoming more aware and self determined.



How and why people surrender their critical thinking skills and succumb to “re-education” has been the subject of study and controversy since the 1950s, when researchers began to encounter forms of coercive persuasion, or ideological re-molding, that were developed in China and the Soviet Union and were used on prisoners of war and on civilians in a variety of milieus. The methods of thought reform identified by such groundbreaking investigators as Dr. Robert J. Lifton (3) and the late Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer (4) have been shown to be present in virtually all high-demand religions presently operating in the United States and the Western world. (5)


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