It has been said on numerous occasions that a Scientologist’s overt “confessions” could be used by unscrupulous CoS bosses to keep him/her in a servile state. Frankly, I disagree with this assessment, but I may be wrong.

My reasoning is following: A person must be ashamed of his overt acts; otherwise an overt-withhold procedure would do him no harm. But if he were ashamed of his acts, he would have not committed them on the first place.

When I was in Sea Org I made dozens of violations of Scientology ethics. But I felt no shame because I was following my own principles. One might say that I have not reached the point when my principles were replaced by Scientology ethics. This may be true, but it raises this question -- what makes a person conclude that his principles are inferior to Scientology ethics?

Saying that acceptance of the “fact” that Hubbard knows better than anyone else what kind of ethics the mankind must adhere to is not really an answer to the above question because it begs another, similar question -- what makes a person conclude that the mankind must follow Scientology ethics?

Basically, there is an infinite series of questions regarding acceptance of Scientology ethics, each question being a response to its preceding questions. In terms of deductive logic, we are faced with an endless chain of logical deductions that has no beginning and no end.

The only way of breaking out of this endless chain is to assume that a person is afraid of the consequences of her overt acts. I am willing to accept this explanation. But once her superiors are aware of her overt acts, her fear disappears because she is willing to accept the punishment whatever it might be, which is, most likely, an exile to RPF. If she is not willing to accept the punishment, she simply leaves CoS behind.

Without the fear there is no control mechanism.

Once again, I might be wrong about this, so I am waiting for a feedback.

Many people have done stupid or wrong or mean things and didn't feel that bad about it, as long as "most people" don't know, and as long as their family and career isn't wrecked. What Scientology really wants, besides your money, is that leverage over you when you tell them your embarassing secrets.
Even so, Placido Domingo Jr. had his confidential messy embarassing stuff blabbed about when he wouldn't disconnect, and his world didn't end. Other CoS members should be brave like that, but we don't know their whole situation. They fear disconnection perhaps even more than embarassing exposure of secrets.

I don't know what the mechanism is that makes it work but confession is used as a thought reform technique outside of $cientology. I think an aspect of it is repetition. That was a feature of the technique described in the case studies I read about in Robert Jay Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. I haven't read the book in its entirety. I may find a theory of how confession works.

I think confession is just a part of the whole method. Sleep deprivation, dietary control (specifically reduced protein), menial work, humiliation, wearing uniforms, intimidation, peer pressure, violence and threat of violence, isolation, and demeaning quarters and living conditions (what did I leave out?) all combine with confession to bring about conversion/thought reform/mind control/brainwashing. In addition to that a person has to be subjected to those things over a period of time for it to work fully.

In $cientology, once someone has bought into the false promises offered on $cientology's grade chart they tend to become willing to allow themselves to be subjected to those things. Not only that but the aspects of thought reform that manifest in them are looked on as positive changes or wins and validated as such by the group.

I think confession is a form of personal investment, or an investment of trust. The more invested you are the harder it is to admit you've wasted it, wasted your money, your trust, your love or your life.
And then to many, confession is an instantaneous relief, and as such can be made to feel at least momentarily, like a reward.

Of course there is no grace in scientology. Everything goes on your permanent record. so the confessing scilon is just building his own jail.

Personally I never had a desire to “confess my sins” to anyone, so I do not know what kind of emotions people experience during a confession. I asked several Catholics what was the purpose of their confessions. I got the same answer from them, which is “to receive God’s forgiveness”. Since Hubbard was not officially declared a god, I do not see how he could “grant forgiveness” to his followers.

Wieber, I agree with you about the use of other methods of control such as sleep deprivation, dietary changes, etc., by CoS. But the confession is something else because the followers of all major religions use it to ask God for forgiveness

Protestants don't confess to a minister, unless they use him for psychological counseling. They just pray directly to God, who never puts the dirty details in a file. Catholic priests don't write down the confession dirt, either.

In the protestant church I went to there was part of the service where the congregation were exhorted to confess their sins to God followed by a few minutes of silence. After that there was a statement that those sins, whatever they were, had been forgiven, no mediator required.

Overt: Open and observable; not hidden, concealed, or secret

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/overt

The Free Online Dictionary.

An overt act would be an observable act. The definition does not say whether an overt act is harmful or not.

================

1. an overt act is not just injuring someone or something; an overt act is an act of omission or commission which does the least good for the least number of dynamics or the most harm to the greatest number of dynamics
2 . an intentionally committed harmful act committed in an effort to resolve a problem.
3. that thing which you do which you aren’t willing to have happen to you.

http://www.scientologymyths.info/definitions/overt.php

The above definition comes from Scientology dictionary.

-========================

To start with, Hubbard’s definition is illogical: An act that does the least good for the least number of dynamics is not the one that does the most harm to the greatest number of dynamics; the latter is, clearly, harmful, but the former is still beneficial because it does something good.

Hubbard’s definition, being completely idiotic, is harmful to Scientology because EVERY act, which is not the optimal one, could be classified as an overt act. But the optimal act may not be obvious from the start due to the lack of information, so every act is an overt act as far as Scientology is concerned. The only way out of this logical fallacy is to abstain from taking any action.

I think that CoS staff have reached this conclusion on intuitive level -- they avoid taking initiative even when they know how to make things go right.

Unfortunately, in $cientology a failure to act can be looked on as an 'overt of omission' and that can be punished. An example of that is that failure to file a knowledge report on an act or a failure to act results in the person who didn't file the knowledge report being treated as an accessory and receives the same punishment as the one who acted or failed to act.

It all condenses down to this: if you are involved in $cientology you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you like you can condense that further to: if you are involved in $cientology you are damned. I guess that makes the daily grind of 14+ hour days, no days off, low pay, and lousy food all part of the ongoing amends for everything a person in $cientology does or does not do.

^^ I agree with your assessment of the CoS situation, Wieber. I was just talking about the logical inferences, not about the actions that CoS bosses expect from their subordinates. But Scientology and logic are diametrically opposed qualities. Of course, senior CoS managers expect a flood of KRs.

When I was in Sea Org, I observed that Sea Org staff had an unspoken agreement -- if you don’t write KRs on me, I won’t be writing KRs on you. It worked pretty well except for the cases when someone’s job completion was dependent on his colleague’s job performance. In this case a person had to “cover his ass”, as we would say, by writing a KR on his partner who was working too slow.

Hubbard called that behavior 'mutual out ruds.' $cientology makes the milieu in Orwell's 1984 seem like a paradise by comparison.

Withhold: To hold back from action.
Other definitions of “withhold” also show that this word is a verb.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/withhold

Miriam-Webster Dictionary.
=============

1. A Withhold is an unspoken, unannounced transgression against a moral code by which the person was bound.
2. The unwillingness of the pc to talk to the auditor or tell him something.
3. A Withhold is something that a person believes that if it is revealed it will endanger their self-preservation.
4. When a person should be reaching and is withdrawing that's a Withhold.
9. Is always the manifestation which comes after an overt. Any Withhold comes after an overt.

http://www.xenu-directory.net/glossary/ ... uvwxyz.htm

Scientology dictionary
===============

There is a contradiction between definition 1 and definition 2 of the Scientology dictionary: A PC may be withholding financial information from the auditor, for instance, which is not a transgression against a moral code. A PC may not be willing to talk about childhood sexual abuse, which is not her fault.

Regarding the definition 3 -- if a person is withholding information about a crime committed by someone other than him, then this is not a withhold because it does not endanger his self-preservation.

From logical standpoint, Scientology definitions suggest that anything could be viewed as unannounced transgression against a moral code. In other words, a Scientologist could be punished for a deed committed by someone else, which is a regular occurrence in Sea Org. An example of such punishment is the rice-and-beans diet that an upstat staff member can receive if her Org is insolvent. All Orgs, except for Clearwater Flag, are insolvent, so periodically all Sea Org members go on the rice-and-beans diet. It is not evil DM who subjects them to this diet, but the silly Tech designed by Hubbard the Idiot who could not make logically correct statements.

The OSA dimwits who are reading this post could be punished for reading it, although their job description says that they should be visiting this website. But they are not supposed to read the whole post, just a portion of it because my logic analysis of Scientology definitions could make them lose their faith in the doctrine.

Verbal Tech: A cardinal sin of describing the cult’s “tech” by the word of mouth, or through one’s own writing, deemed a crime.

http://www.anti-scientologie.ch/dictionary.htm#V

When I was a Scientologist, I never heard about anyone making written “amendments” to the Tech. But there was plenty of verbal data floating around, especially in Scientology classrooms. When asked a question about the Tech, very few students would burden themselves by finding a pertinent HCOB; instead, they would give a verbal answer to a question. This is bad habit, I must say, because it prevents the students from seeing how stupid Hubbard was.

When I asked my classmate what the words “overt” and “withhold” mean in Scientology lingo, he said, “Overt is a bad act causing harm to Scientology. Withhold is a desire to avoid talking about an overt.” There was nothing illogical in these definitions, so I accepted them. But that was a huge mistake -- I should have cleared these words with the help of Scientology dictionary, which was lying on the desk right in front of me. My laziness caused me loss of money that I spent on stupid Bridge courses.

Seeing Hubbard’s illogical definitions would have been a red flag for me -- if the Founder is so dimwitted about the simplest definitions, he must have made more serious mistakes when he was writing more complicated stuff.

My advice to the current Scientologists who are reading this thread -- do not neglect your Scientology duty by avoiding the proper word-clearing procedure. By following the procedure you will see how stupid Hubbard the Enemy of Logic was. You are much smarter than the crazy bedbug named Hubbard. Do not descent to his level by accepting all mental garbage that he wrote. Do not follow in the footsteps of the idiotic Pied Piper. Return to normal life. Stop being a retarded individual’s slave.

If you are involved in $cientology here's what you should do. Tell the guards, goons and watchers you are going for a walk as described in Hubbard's The Problems of Work. Since that is 'Source'/scripture, they will most likely let you go in order to do that. (If they don't write a knowledge report on them, or as it is stated in $cientology, KR them.) When you are finally allowed to take your walk as described in Hubbard's The Problems of Work walk away and don't go back. Remember to phone this number: 1-866-XSEAORG.
https://sites.google.com/site/xseaorg/