You must believe that L. Ron Hubbard is All-Knowing, All-Seeing, Perfect and Always Right.
And they do. Completely.
You see, this is the very first lesson you learn in Scientology. At the start of each and every course you take, you must first understand and agree with Hubbard's Policy Letter "Keeping Scientology Working". In this policy letter, Hubbard modestly states that he has all the answers, that he is the only one who has these answers, that it is impossible for anyone to improve on his answers and that anyone who disagrees with all that is a very, very bad person, who must be stopped. I'm paraphrasing.
Once you've completely understood and agreed with that policy letter, you are allowed to continue on to the course material. Every course starts with this policy letter.
And the proof that Hubbard, or the Church of Scientology, or anyone gives that Hubbard was, is and will always be right is:
(absolutely nothing)
It is belief, in the purest sense of that word. Absolute, complete, perfect belief that "Hubbard is always right!"
This is why it is impossible to argue with a Scientologist. It goes like this:
You: The Church of Scientology has committed crimes, abuses, fraud. It lies.And there it is. How can you argue with that? That is the ultimate "proof", "Ron said it". Per that policy letter, it must be true.
Scientologist: Aha! It is proven that everyone who criticizes Scientology is guilty of horrible crimes for which they could be arrested, and they are all in the pay of a vast evil conspiracy. You are evil! I will destroy you!
You: Umm... what proof do you have of any of that?
Scientologist: Ron said it!
To get even more weird, not only do Scientologists believe that, if Ron said it, it is true, they also believe that if Ron did not say something, it isn't true! So you get things like the Freewinds asbestos disaster. Some people are reporting that the Scientologists in charge said that since Ron never mentioned the danger of asbestos, it couldn't be harmful!
You see, Scientologists cannot do research or think about something and make up their own minds about it, they can only check with All-Knowing-Ron. If he said something, then, by golly, that's it, it's true. And outside of that, everything else is false! No thinking, no investigation, no logic, just read what Ron said and then stop. Stop investigating, stop looking, stop thinking, stop.
The really hard-core Scientologists have gotten so good at doing this that they believe they are thinking and investigating. They very carefully "think like Ron" and then "investigate" what Ron said, and then "do what Ron would do". It is very creepy.
If you're a Scientologist, then whatever Ron said must be true or you will get ... "retrained" until you can make it true for yourself. You must go through whatever convoluted, rube-goldberg, twisted type of logic to make it work out to be true. It's a skill you must develop as a Scientologist, to only see how Ron is right and be blind to anything that might show he was wrong.
Ron promised OT super powers but never, ever exhibited any such powers himself. Nor has any other Scientologist.
Ron claimed he was better at administration and organizing than any other person in the whole world, but Scientologists have to pretend, real hard, to believe the disasters he created around the world are "successful, well run organizations".
Ron spoke of a vast evil conspiracy, composed of "International Bankers", drug companies and the always-evil psychiatrists, but he never presented any evidence of its existence. He even claimed to have completely uncovered the whole evil organization, but never presented any facts at all. To this day, no one outside of Ron has ever seen any hint of such a conspiracy. But they believe.
These, and a million other claims, are accepted whole, without ever any proof, by all Scientologists. All because of that first Policy Letter on their first course. The primary belief that they learned then: Ron is always right and anyone who disagrees is not only wrong but very, very evil.
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One of the most ridiculous and persistent claims that a Scientologist will fall back on is that Scientology "technology" has been tested and proven in case after case, and anything that was not workable had been discarded. Yet there is NO evidence of this anywhere - no case studies, no tests, no documentation, no peer-reviewed papers. The source of this information? Hubbard, who claims, without any supporting evidence, that it has been rigorously tested. Hubbard says it was rigorously tested, therefore it was rigorously tested, despite the fact that he has never produced any evidence of this testing or any hard data. But he said it, therefore it must be true.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great posts!
ReplyDeleteI always like to refer back to Dianetics 55!, where Hubbard said that the E-meter was a useful research device, but he knew it was contrary to good auditing, since it put something between the auditor and the pre-clear, but now he knows the answer: comm lag alone is enough to determine case state and run sessions. (I'm paraphrasing.) And then there's a little footnote (at least in my copy) explaining that later research by Ron revealed that the E-meter is, in fact, a necessary device...
ReplyDeleteI haven't shown that to nearly enough Scientologists.
I was an ex-scientologist. I realized that it wasn't for me. In a way, though they do not admit it, they are the same as any followers of any religion. They revere their "God." And they fight against any who say otherwise because they are violating their right to believe. In my experience, as a past agnostic (now christian), I have to say that the best way to explain the religion of scientology is to say that it is (to me), Psychology, Philosophy, Buddhism and Christianity combined all together. It is a bit difficult to explain, but to keep things simple, I think the above is better to stick with.
ReplyDeleteStudy-tech however, does work. I found that it is completely separate from the religion itself in the way that it deals with education, but still deals with psychology and philosophy. I took a college course about ethics and found that I read all of what the professor was talking about before. I read a book called "The Ethics Book," by L Ron Hubbard. I learned that whatever LRH "came up with and wrote" was actually the work of several other philosophers. "The Thinking Book," was also kind of developed in the same way, except that I believe it involved more psychology.
I went to The Delphian School as well. And I would like to mention, that while I was there (by that time an ex-scientologist), no one ever tried to convert me at all. I learned that though many of the staff were scientologists, it was not a school for scientologists. I knew Buddhists that went to the school. I also knew Catholics, Christians, Athiests, Agnostics like me, Hindus, Muslims, etc.
I can say now that though I don't see LRH was a fraud, I do see him as person who indirectly and very cleverly plagiarized a lot of stuff. If he came up with anything that was actually "true and would work" I'd have to give it to study-tech (though a lot of it was not his original ideas, some of it was and I can tell you that I, an F student becoming a straight A student, changed for the better with study-tech.)
"I don't see LRH was a fraud".
DeleteTry harder. He promised "Clear" and never delivered anything even vaguely like his description of "Clear". He promised "OT" and never produced even one. Again and again and again he promised all sorts of wondrous gains and abilities that he actually never delivered.
And all the time he was collecting big bucks from thousands of people specifically to deliver all these promised gains and abilities.
And you don't see this as fraud? Really? What do you call selling things and never delivering them?
It is one thing to "cleverly plagiarize" things but quite another to sell stuff that you can't and won't deliver.
LRH got very, very wealthy and there are still no "Clears", still no "OTs". Tell me again how that's not fraud.