Wieber wrote:
I have just recently discovered two pieces to the puzzle of how a person involved in scientology is kept in line and kept looking on what is being done to them as the finest thing that has ever possibly happened to them. I am still puzzling over these things so my subsequent discussion of them may be a little vague and not well thought out.
One of these things involves what is referred to as the “SP/PTS tech.” I will defer discussing that until later, but there are aspects of what this is and how it is used that I feel require a deeper examination.
The other item of interest involves the subtle and insidious manner by which the egos of those involved are fed and inflated, while at the same time they are deprived of their own thought processes as well as their personal freedom and material wealth.
There is a difficulty with describing how this is achieved. There is no single document within L. Ron Hubbard’s output that comes out and directly feeds people’s egos. This is done in little bits here and there and now and again. The bits and pieces that are done are fleeting and seemingly incidental. Unfortunately I cannot identify very many of them or quote any. I think that was intentional on Hubbard’s part. I think he had it in mind to feed people’s egos and have them not really be aware that he was doing it and done in such a way that remembering specific examples would be extremely difficult.
I can recall one example of this. It is on the tone scale film. There is a class of students that look like they are supposed to be first or second year high school students dressed in the clothing and styles that students would have worn around 1954.
There is a teacher at the head of the class with a pointer. He goes through the motions of instruction but does not speak. Instead the spoken part of the instruction is delivered by the narrator. At one point the instruction is about how emotions relate to the endocrine system. Having brought up the subject of the endocrine system it is dismissed as unimportant and the comment is made that the medical profession doesn’t really understand how the endocrine system works anyway. The students then laugh knowingly.
I applaud you for pursuing these important investigations, Wieber. As you noted, the Suppressive Person doctrine ("SP/PTS tech") is key.
The point about the egos. Hubbard denied the existence of the ego. It has no place in Scientology literature.
From HCOB 23 April 1969RA Dianetics Basic Definitions by L. Ron Hubbard who wrote:
Once one really understands that mental image pictures are all there is in the preclear's "mind," one has understood the total of aberration. There is NOT something else there. No "id," no "ego." There are only mental image pictures.
-- Hubbard, L. Ron. The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology. Los Angeles, Calif: Bridge Publications, 1991.
Hubbard's definitions for "Thetan" include components of the individual we would normally recognize as "ego." Of course he was the only one authorized to define who and what we are, and what we are to do with and in Scientology. How convenient.
From Dianetics and Scientology Technical Dictionary by L. Ron Hubbard who wrote:
THETAN, 1. the living unit we call, in Scn, a thetan, that being taken from the Greek letter theta, the mathematic symbol used in Scn to indicate the source of life and life itself. (Abil Ma 1) 2 . the awareness of awareness unit which has all potentialities but no mass, no wave-length and no location. (HCOB 3 Jul 59) 3. the being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body. (HCOB 23 Apr 69) 4. (spirit) is described in Scn as having no mass, no wave-length, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things. (FOT, p. 55) 5. the personality and beingness which actually is the individual and is aware of being aware and is ordinarily and normally the “person” and who the individual thinks he is. The thetan is immortal and is possessed of capabilities well in excess of those hitherto predicted for man. (Scn 8-8008, p. 9) 6. the name given to the life source. It is the individual, the being, the personality, the knowingness of the human being. (Scn 8-80, p. 46) 7. energy space production unit. (COHA, p. 247) 8. in the final analysis what is this thing called thetan? It is simply you before you mocked yourself up and that is the handiest definition I know of. (5608C——) 9. the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as you. (Aud 25 UK) 10. a static that can consider, and can produce space and energy and objects . (PXL, p . 121 )
-- Hubbard, L. R. (1975). Dianetics and scientology technical dictionary. Los Angeles: Church of Scientology of California, Publications Organization.
Here's an example of how Hubbard and Scientology feed auditors' egos. Execs love to trot out this issue at events and when they want to stoke their implant machinery.
From PAB 79 10 April 1965 The Open Channel by L. Ron Hubbard who wrote:
WHAT DO I THINK OF AUDITORS?
(PABs will be sent airmail for $10 a year extra. That’s the commercial for this issue.)
Every now and again somebody tries to get me to say what I think of auditors. They want me to become hypercritical, I guess, so as to match the asker’s tone. Well, I better make a public utterance after all this time.
I think of auditors in a rather intense way. As I know more auditors than anybody else and have a better basis for judgment, on this subject I can be for once an authority.
My opinion of auditors in general is fairly well known to several people.
I think of an auditor as a person with enough guts to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. This quality is rare and this quality is courageous in the extreme.
It is my opinion and knowledge that auditors are amongst the upper tenth of the upper twentieth of intelligent human beings. Their will to do, their motives, their ability to grasp and to use are superior to that of any other profession.
I think of an auditor as having INITIATIVE. He is able to grasp or make a mockup and put it into action.
Auditors survive better than other people.
If this world has any faintest chance of surviving it will be not because I write, but because auditors can and will think and do.
I think our auditors came from beings lately arrived on Earth who, seeing where it was going, decided to band together to send it elsewhere.
I consider all auditors my friends. I consider them that even when they squirrel. I believe they have a right to express themselves and their own opinions. I would not for a moment hamper their right to think. I think of auditors and Scientologists as the Free People.
Just as they consider one another their people, so I consider them my people.
I think their errors of the past, when they existed, came about because we are new and we are finding out and I don’t think any of their errors were intentional any more than mine were.
I can understand their own reactions because I can understand the counter-effort given them by society, and thus I don’t hold auditors guilty even when they fold up but simply assume we’d better make a better effort into the society to overcome or bypass the counter-effort.
I don’t expect auditors or Scientologists to instantly agree with or seize upon whatever I say. I would be offended if they did and would feel they weren’t a Free People. Since they are intelligent I expect them to think over what’s said, try it, and if it’s good for them, use it. That old auditors sooner or later come back to and use what I have discovered isn’t any testimony to our relationship at all, it’s only a testimony to my being right because I meant to be right in the first place.
I sorrow when I see somebody accomplishing less than he should because he thinks I wouldn’t approve of it. In organizations and out I count upon initiative and good judgment.
The most decent people I have ever known have been auditors. The best hearted people I know are auditors. They are so decent and good hearted I have to work and argue with them to make enough to keep mock-ups rolling well, a thing they are now beginning to do.
I am very proud of Scientologists. I think they’re bright, shiny beautiful people and I’m glad every one of them decided to get born again this time.
I think we’re a fine crew. I know we can make it. And I know that if it’s a better world in the future it will be because Scientologists are what they are, not what I made them.
Now in case there are any further inquiries or doubts on the matter, I assure you I have spoken on the subject and that I have spoken from the bottom of a very experienced heart.
Scientologists are the best people on each of the five continents and that’s all there is to it.
-- Hubbard, L. Ron. The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology. Los Angeles, Calif: Bridge Publications, 1991.
Gerry has written a great deal on the ego issue in Scientology, but here's a thumbnail. The ego is the image the person has of himself. It's of course illusory. The person is the being, or as Scientologists say, the thetan. The being has never changed, and cannot change. Its image of itself can change, and in fact changes all the time. Scientologists claim their "tech" is superior to, or more holy than, e.g., psychology because they, the Scientologists, "address the spirit," whereas psychologists address the brain, or some such thing. But Scientologists are actually addressing the ego, and all the "changes," "gains," "improvements," etc. that the cult promises, and that are "experienced" are changes in the ego.
Scientologists are actually prohibited from addressing the spirit because it would be another practice. If Scientologists somehow address the spirit, or the spirit issue, they'd discover that all of Scientology's promised changes are fraud because the spirit cannot change. And thank God for that!
Login
Register
OCMB FAQ
FAQ
Search
