I just finished reading Janet Reitmann's book. As I read the book, I found myself experiencing incredulity to outright anger. Not at Reitmann or her book, but at the content if it is to be believed.

I grew up a christian. I understand faith. I also understand that one's faith is often a product of one's upbringing and social indoctrination. Where you live geographically has much to do with which religion you practice.

I have moved on from christianity. At some point, I just couldn't continue to buy into the less plausible aspects of the faith. My crisis of faith was a death of a 1000 cuts -- No one doubt did it, but rather a result of many.

There are two things that strike me most about the book; 1) the number of people who came to Scientology as adults, 2) the other is the complete lack of believability and credibility one is left with in regard to LRH after truly researching his education, experience, sanity, and authenticity.

I am really having difficulty coming to terms with how people embrace Scientology. On almost no level does it seem rational. Perhaps this is my problem, I view religion with a dubiousness after having resolved myself to believe in no religion.

Still, I find that LRH had no bona fide inspiration or credential, no altruist intent, no loving and nuturing outcome, yet so many people allow/ed themselves to blindly follow an incoherent doctrine.

At least the ancient monotheistic religions are so old, that one cannot disprove the scripture. Scientology is from our lifetime and it is absurb in my opinion.

To keep from going completely offtrack, I will close by restating my point of the post; how is it possible that people join Scientology and not see it for what it is?

Hi, Linux 4 uneX (may I just call you Linux?) Welcome to the Bake.

You have asked the six million dollar question, and it has been dealt with at length on this message board. I can't answer it briefly so I won't attempt that here.

Generally cults use deception extensively and the scientology organization is very good at deception. There are other methods as well that come into play. These are dealt with in books such as Combatting Cult Mind Control, Cults in Our Midst and Captive Hearts Captive Minds.

This brilliant video will also help answer your question.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnNSe5XYp6E

You'll have to forgive my presumption as an outsider, but nothing about cult indoctrination is meant to attack the rational part of your mind. Its about attacking your ego, destroying you on a personal level so you can be molded into whatever the cult desires. Destroying your rationality only comes later.

I'll leave you to decide that for yourself, but you should take into account the Million Dollar Quote as you do so.


Yes. I think Andreas would agree.


Because humans are inherently social animals who tend to trust those they perceive as helping them. Its perfectly natural to trust those who seem friendly to your interests. But its equally sane to turn against them when you realize this is no longer the case.

*posted from Ubuntu Linux 10.04*

Hi, Linux,
Welcome to the board.

Many of us here are not ex-members, so we can only answer from what we have heard from people who were in.

For starters, this question has been dealt with many times, and to be honest it has often led to anger that people who were never in just don't get it, and make all kinds of generalizations and assumptions.

So, I am going to try not to do that.

Here is my non-ex interpretation, and someone can correct me if I get it wrong.

Scientology promises to make you more able. Your memory should get better, you sould be able think more clearly and basically be able to make things happen in your life. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this actually works! All you need to do is believe you are capabale, and just the thought alone probably does make you more capable. And lots of people who are exes swear that it "works" for whatever reason. Many Scientologists do have their own businesses and say it helped them overcome addictions, shyness, etc.

Also, from what I understand, you don't walk in and get hit with the bad stuff. Obviously if that happened no one would join. First you start off with classes that may actually help, that aren't that farfetched. Or expensive. At the same time, you suddenly become part of a welcoming group of people who also believe they are becoming more capable. There is a lot of manipulation of data, by carefully choreographing the message a new person receives, such as wonderful success stories from other members, lots of friendliness and encouragement.

Eventually you have invested a lot of money, time, and emotion on the hope (belief) that Scientology works, and that it helps people. Again, this message is carefully choreographed, and sprinkled with fear of a world without Scientology due to enemies who want to destroy the world, such as Supressive Persons, merchants of chaos, and of course psychiatrists. These *evil* people actually (supposedly) have a stake in seeing a world full of chaos, which would lead to them lying about Scientology, which is trying to save the world. Therefore, members are encouraged to avoid this information because it's all lies from these SPs. There's even a word for it: Entheta.

Anyway, just hang around for a while, ask questions, look at some old threads. There are some great stories here, and the whole subject is really fascinating because it's not just about Scientology but about humans and history and religion and cults.

Again, welcome to the board.

My encounter with Scientology was brief, and I cannot rely on my CoS experience to answer the questions raised by Linux.

It seems to me that there is a step-by-step involvement with CoS during witch the most damaging Scientology data (OT levels) is hidden from public view. At some point a cult member is willing to accept anything on the road to “Salvation”. Leaving the cult means denial of Salvation, whatever it might be, so the glue that keeps Scientology or any other cult is fear. That fear makes people do irrational things, they stay in a cult because of it. For some a moment comes when this fear I broken, which leads to departure from a cult. I do not know what breaks that fear, but I guess the process of overcoming it is different for different individuals.

Not only all of the above, but Scn makes a concerted effort to suck people in when they're victims of disasters, as demonstrated by their "Volunteer Minister" program. They were all over the place near Ground Zero after 9/11, the Haitian and Japanese earthquakes (though there were far fewer in Japan because they couldn't just send in foreigners willy-nilly), after Katrina, and pretty much anywhere there is a disaster that has left people traumatized, desperate and vulnerable. They don't actually provide much in the way of supplies--they like to hand out supplies other organizations have brought, making it look like Scn donated them. And their "aid" isn't anything that anyone outside of Scn would find useful, e.g. touch assists.

A big entanglement is that leaving Scientology makes trouble in your family, if there are loyal Scientologists in it. If you quietly stop buying and donating, they may simply be disappointed. If you squawk about Scientology, you may lose a spouse, a child, a parent, or a sibling.

Linux, it's what has already been said above plus two little words that make Scientologists groan. It's "thought control" and it starts the very moment a person enters a facility.

I've said a hundred times before on this board that I wouldn't touch the "tech" with a 10-foot pole, and I cringe inside when it is suggested that there might actually be some value to the first few courses. The first few courses -- the TRs in scilon speak -- "are billed as a way to improve communication skills, but their real purpose is to plant the seeds for thought control."

Check out this webpage entitled "Secrets of Scientology: The TRs". And watch this excellent video:

Scientology: Yelling at Ashtrays

How is it possible that people join Scientology and not see it for what it is? Because in the very first course they tacitly agree to take orders from another person and allow their thoughts to be manipulated. The TRs are frighteningly effective (especially when combined with the "love bombing" Glib described). Believers loath the words "brainwashing" and "mind control" and simply refuse to acknowledge that they are operating out of carefully executed conditioning. But you see clearly that it doesn't matter that Scientology is not rational, or that Hubbard lied, or that women in the Sea Org are forced to get abortions. Their minds have been programmed to not see that.

=====

I am a human rights activist protesting not the religion but the abuses. To me, the greatest abuse is the loss of a people's right to be themselves.

I haven't read JR's book yet only bec. the first copy I bought was a gift for a friend . I plan on buying it for myself this week.

However, even though I haven't read it I have read lots or reviews and comments on it. I'm pretty sure that JR's book is an exposé on scientology, more than anything else. I don't think it's main focus is about what draws people into it, what is enticing or interesting or how it fulfills a person's desire for spirituality. What draws people into cults is not really the territory of reporters. It is more the territory of sociologists and psychologists. So, I'm not at all surprised the book left you with the question. In order to answer the question, you'd probably have to read lots of personal stories from people who went in, stories that explain what they thought it did for them.

Without knowing all the negative truths about scientology, a person who goes in with interest is only shown the good side of scientology. Once they start to see the bad in it, it may be too late, or they are so distracted by believing the lies, they hardly notice.

Like Wieber says, it is a hard question to answer even for us exes, but I guess I could give it a try. When I first entered scientology (and I was a young adult at the time), I thought it had the answers to life. I thought it could explain the workings of my mind, and help reduce or eliminate any and all problems that I was creating in my own life, based on the mental machinery that was holding me back. I thought it would help me recover from losses, from pain and suffering (very much a Buddhist goal btw). It taught me that I was a spiritual being with a mind that had infinitely more power than what was previously thought, if I could just free that power. It taught me that I could use that extra mental and spiritual power to accomplish any goal I wanted and to help others do the same. I thought it could teach me to understand my fellow man better than anyone had previously achieved. These are the promises of scientology and I definitely had faith in those promises. I took a college class on religion a couple of years ago and I realized that there were little bits of just about every religion woven into scientology. So I guess it has something for everyone.

To someone only reading critical information and exposés, scientology would seem like a religion without love. But there is love in scientology. One article titled "What is Greatness" is all about love:


Does scientology do for one what is says it can do? You have people who will say yes, and people who will say no. The hard truth is there are no legitimate studies that prove or disprove scientology's claims either way. All you have is personal testimony.

Do I think scientology did for me what I had hoped it would? That's hard for me to answer. Overall, no, it did not. Obviously, that's why I left. And I really left. I have not practiced scientology in any form probably since around 2004. The reason it did not is because the negatives came to so far outweigh the positives that any personal loss/gain assessment gave me no other choice. It was a slow road out and took years. Also, personally witnessing hardcore abuse for the first time in scientology, just prior to 2004 helped me to realize that scientology was probably a losing game. The curtain on scientology that hid the truth was peeling back long before I ever went on the internet and checked it out there or met critics or read an exposé, things I did years after distancing myself from it.

Anyway it was interesting to hear what your "take-away" was from reading JR's book. I have no problem with it. I believe her book is objective, and is the truth. I don't see the church of scientology lasting another generation. I also don't have any problem with individual people who still believe in it and who want to continue practicing it. But the institutionalized, corporate form of scientology is dangerous and has got to go.

Other than some of the things Dorthy had to say, I'll state the obvious. Years ago, Scientology for the most part was not so well documented by so many books nor did defectors speak out as they have in the past few years. Because Scientology would legally and otherwise harass critics into submission. So much more is known about it all now.

Let's see if I can go over this briefly without writing a book on the subject. And what I have to say is not necessarily definitive nor is it intended to gainsay what others have said here. As lostinspace stated, there was a time when scientology was not well known. What inside or critical information that came up was either actively quelled by the scientology organization or else people didn't pay much attention to it.

There are two main vulnerabilities people have with regard to cults. One is that they believe that kind of thing doesn't happen where they are, or to put it the way it is commonly expressed, "It can't happen here." The other is that people, for some reason, and I was no exception, believe they are immune from any form of hypnosis or mind control.

Right now there is a lot of information available on scientology and many people know what it is and know that it should be avoided. That still leaves them vulnerable to other cults and they continue to have the two main vulnerabilities stated. Scientology has less chance now of getting people to join but Eckankar, for example, has free reign.

The first thing that needs to happen is the cult needs to make contact. Most people who join cults do not go looking for them. Cults actively seek out new people to join them. You don't have to go looking for any cult. There are cults out there looking for you. They send people door to door. They put people out in the street. Some of them send people to universities and colleges where they use student union money to form clubs that are fronts for recruitment. I have seen this with a political cult without knowing what was going on until after I got out of scientology, started reading the books and finally figured out what was going on.

Political cult? Oh, yes. Not all cults are based on self help or quasi religious.

So the first step is contact. A cult member will go and find someone and make contact with them. They will be friendly, interested, conversational, likeable and easy to get along with. At some point they will steer the conversation with the person that they have contacted onto matters involving the cult. This could be done within minutes of making contact or it could be done over time in which the potential convert is cultivated. This could involve an invitation to a social gathering, a dinner, a party, etc.

Scientology works as quickly as it can at this point. What is used here by scientology is a thing that in scientology is called "The dissemination drill." The dissemination drill may be used by itself or it may be incorporated into scientology's personality test or scientology's stress test. Without going into a lot of detail, the dissemination drill "finds" a person's "ruin" and then offers scientology as a possible solution to that, once the ruin has been made very real to the person.

Whenever possible the next step is for the person to try out scientology with an introductory course, to see if it will work for them. The introductory course is relatively inexpensive, say $100 or $200. I don't know what they charge for them now. The one I took in the 1970s was $50.

A metaphor used to describe cults is the layers of an onion. When people first come into contact with the cult they see the outer skin and their introduction to the cult involves showing them what is in the first layer. As people progress within a cult they get exposed to more and more of its teachings and behaviors as they progress.

In scientology, if possible, the introductory courses are given to people in a separate location from where the main courses are given. This isn't always possible but they do it that way if at all possible. At that point in scientology a person will either take a course that mainly involves what are called the "TRs" short for training routines, or they will be given what is called "Book One" auditing.

There is controversy among former scientologists on the TRs. Many people who were involved in scientology and now out of it think that the TRs were helpful and that they helped them with their communication. I don't share that view. My opinion of the TRs is that they put a person into a euphoric hypnotic trance state where they are extremely suggestible. I must say that the state one goes into from doing the TRs does feel extremely good. It also doesn't last. But it is sufficient to bring people to the conclusion that scientology works and is a good thing.

Book One auditing is the method of therapy as described in L. Ron Hubbard's book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. When I was involved in scientology and on staff the method described in that book was not used. At some point is was revived. That form of Dianetics is a repackaging of what was called abreaction therapy. Reference: Battle for the Mind by William Sargant. Abreaction therapy was developed from the results of Pavlov's experiments on dogs. It was developed and used with the purpose of bringing relief to soldiers suffering from shell shock (now called post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)) during world war I. It was effective but it was also observed that it made the patient receiving it highly suggestible. This aspect of that therapy is not described by Hubbard in his book.

Abreaction therapy was not used for any length of time. Other therapy methods were developed and it fell into disuse and was neglected, if not forgotten, so when Hubbard brought it back as Dianetics it was "new." That's what I have concluded from what I have read on the subject.

In any case, the person trying out scientology soon finds him or herself in a highly euphoric deep hypnotic trance state in which they are highly suggestible. Most people involved in scientology do not know what they are dealing with or what is actually happening to people. If they did they would either leave or they would be much more effective with taking people to the next phase and not lose as many of them as they do.

There is competition within the scientology's organizations for the people completing the introductory courses or auditing. That causes them to lose some as well. Within the organization there are public registrars in division six, registrars in division two and recruiters in division one. As well, all the executives or the various divisions and departments also recruit. Scientology organizations are always understaffed and every part of the organization is hungry for personnel. If there is a sea org mission (people from the sea org) in the organization they also want to recruit for the sea org. (Just say you've done LSD and the sea org recruiters will shun you.)

People involved in scientology are never as suggestible as they are when they complete their first service. After that they fall away from it to an extent though not entirely. If the people involved in the organization actually knew what was going on they would first get all the person's money and then recruit them to be on staff, and there would be not internal competition for the "new blood."

If the person does not leave while taking the first service or immediately afterward then they become a scientologist and they go to phase two of their indoctrination and they go into the next layer of the onion, as it were.

At the same time that these new people are taking their introductory service in scientology everyone on staff and most of the people involved who aren't on staff treat them like they were their long lost best loved closest relative. In the books on cults this is called "love bombing."

So that, very briefly, is the procedure that converts a person into a scientologist and "sets the hook." After that there is more indoctrination and they go in deeper and deeper. Hopefully, Linux, that, to some extent, answers your question.

For others on this message board, please, don't let what I have written here be the definitive answer. You have your own experiences to relate so, please, do so.

I like the posts by Dorothy and Wieber, I think that came close to providing a complete explanation of how the cults operate.

My story is very different -- I bought the Dianetics book and thought that the procedures described in it are workable. My crucial mistake was that I did not read the works of scientists who criticized Hubbard’s pseudo-scientific discoveries. On the other hand, my mistake made it easier for me to leave the cult when I realized that Dianetics does not work. Apparently, I was immune to mind-bending TRs, they had no effect on me. As I discovered later by reading articles on hypnotism, not all people could be put in a hypnotic trance; I was among the lucky ones.

My final decision to leave the Church came after I had read Hubbard’s screenplay, Revolt in the Stars -- I was told that it contains the “forbidden” OT data (at that time the Internet was in its nascent state, no Xenu data was available). The story looked like a bad sci-fi novel to me.

I'm pretty sure TRs "do something" to the person. Two hours sitting with eyes closed, "being there and doing nothing else but being there" puts one in a meditative state. That is how I see it, looking back on what I experienced when I did it and adding that memory to my more recent studies of meditation and what meditation is. Yes a meditative state can be somewhat of a euphoric state.

Whether or not TRs overall put someone in a trance or hypnotic "state", that's not what I experienced. But I do think there is a problem with one aspect of TRs, and that is the repetitive part, repeating questions over and over and answering over and over. If you read Lifton (Robert Jay Lifton, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism") you will find that repetition is a key factor in brainwashing and mind control. It is very possible that the repetitive drills in TRs "prime" one, so to speak, for the repetitive processes in auditing. Book One (Dianetics) is not a repetitive process, but most scientology auditing, is. Scientology uses repetition throughout its system. Reading KSW over and over at the beginning of each course, "Chinese School" in scientology (repetitive drilling), the word clearing methods, so much of it uses repetition as a learning process. I think that's dangerous and right out of the "thought reform" playbook.

I think what non-initiates often do not get is that it is the careful and brilliant combination of both good and bad that make scientology problematic. TRs are not obviously problematic and do make one feel as though they have improved their ability to confront and communicate. Have they really? now that's questionable, because they can also become robotic. People (especially public) can be in scientology for a very long time and witness no abuse and see only good, for real. So when they hear about the bad, they have not experienced it for themselves, so it's easy for them to assume it's all lies. Plus they've been trained to ignore all negative information about their group, their side, their ideology, because it is "antagonistic" and "suppressive".

Wieber,I liked your mention of political cults. So very true. "If you disagree with me, then you must be a communist", "So and so is the most dangerous person in America" etc. Many do not realize that mind control is taking place all around them.

Dianetics auditing is a form of hypnosis, as several studies done by independent scientists show. I put relevant data on my thread, OT Hallucinations. The thread is mostly about the hallucinations that OTs have, but it also contains some data on Dianetics hallucinations.

Where is this thread? Link?