From nobody@replay.com Mon Jul 26 23:43:12 1999 Path: cs.tu-berlin.de!unlisys!news.snafu.de!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!remarQ73!supernews.com!remarQ.com!news.usenetserver.com!news.replay.com!sewer-output!mail2news Message-ID: <199907250104.DAA08523@mail.replay.com> From: Anonymous Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: Co$ & Totalitarianism----Leadership & Language 2/5 Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 03:04:26 +0200 (CEST) Lines: 379 Comments: This message did not originate from the Sender address above. It was remailed automatically by anonymizing remailer software. Please report problems or inappropriate use to the remailer administrator at . X-Mail-To-News-Contact: abuse@replay.com Organization: mail2news@replay.com Xref: wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de alt.religion.scientology:646954 Leadership "Have you ever felt that you could do a lot more for this planet if only given the chance in a real group with common interests, common goals and...The greatest leader on this planet!!" -From a Sea-Org flyer, 1971 Understanding Scientology, as with any movement, requires analysis of its leadership characteristics. The orientation of leadership within Scientology and within Arendt's theories on totalitarianism show how closely the two are often related. Leadership refers to how the leader of a movement thinks, behaves, and conceives of his or her relationship with the group. It is also about how the group member acts and feels concerning the leader. In many ways, L. Ron Hubbard has been the dominant leader of Scientology. Yet, after his death, Scientology did not crumble or disappear. The cult is now under the leadership of David Miscavige, a long-time Scientologist known for his temper and ruthlessness.30 Many of the examples used within this essay will refer to leadership under Hubbard, as there is simply more information available on him. Miscavige, who has headed Scientology for the last twelve years, differs in some respects from Hubbard's leadership style, yet has retained the fundamental characteristics employed by Hubbard. Studying Scientology, it becomes increasingly clear that Hubbard's "discoveries" were merely re-hashed versions of earlier psychological or scientific theories. Arendt also recognized this quality in the totalitarian leader. She writes that the leader is distinguished by "the simple-minded purposefulness with which he chooses those elements from existing ideologies which are best fitted to become the fundaments of another, entirely fictitious world."31 Much of early Dianetics should seem familiar to anyone who has seriously studied psychology and computer science. Dianetics incorporated a number of ideas from psychology: engrams32, aberrations33, the subconscious, "charge,"34 the value of talk therapy, some rules of therapist behavior. None of these ideas were original or unique to Hubbard. He simply re-phrased them and claimed them as his own. Hubbard added in some half-understood concepts from Korzybski's General Semantics (the "semantic reaction A=A") and Eniac-era computer technology (clear, key-in, bank, erasure, electronic files). Also interesting was what Hubbard discarded from his sources- any uncertainty about how the mind worked. According to Hubbard, the mind consisted of two compartments, the analytic mind35 and the reactive mind, and their natures were fully known. The fundamental model of the "mind" on which all of Dianetics is based includes a division of the mind into a "bad [reactive] mind" and a "good [analytic] mind." One could re-file everything (as if the mind was a computer) from the bad mind into the good mind and then "erase" the bad one, like a software program. There was no more uncertainty about what the "mind" was, claimed Hubbard- he had discovered all there was to know. Hubbard never backed-up his claims of success with actual evidence. Furthermore, there was no need to prove the workability of the hypotheses. This astounding simplicity utilized in the creation of Dianetics was the basis for the "fictitious world" of which Arendt speaks. By appropriating already existing theories from various ideologies, while claiming them as his own faultless ideas, Hubbard had begun building the foundation for the totalitarian movement that would follow. One of the major distinctive traits of the totalitarian leader is that he or she can never admit an error. Arendt writes that "The chief qualification of the mass leader has become unending infallibility."36 Whatever the leader says, no matter how absurd, his words are always right and correct. There are no "mistakes" on the part of the leader, only the failure of the group member to adequately engage in the leader's instructions. This theory holds true when applied to Hubbard and Scientology. During my study of Hubbard's Scientology audio tape series37, I was struck by the number of times Ron expressed uncertainty about any of the subjects he discussed: Zero. There was not a single "maybe" in any of his lectures. Hubbard claimed that "Dianetics is terribly, terribly simple. You can only mess it up by complicating it."38 Scientology is 100% workable, he said. The only reason Scientology sometimes appears not to work is because people are either altering it or not doing it exactly as Hubbard says. Hubbard could make no error- he was infallible. No one was permitted to challenge the validity of his methods since within the ideological structure of Scientology, it would be the equivalent of admitting personal failure. In addition, the totalitarian leader has a distinct relationship with the group member, whereby the member becomes a sort of miniature clone of the leader. To Arendt, this means that "every functionary is not only appointed by the leader but is his walking embodiment, and every order is supposed to emanate from this one ever-present source."39 The members act on account of the leader, while the leader remains infallible. Thus, any mistake "can only be a fraud: the impersonation of the Leader by an imposter."40 Through this identification with the leader, the member builds a sense of pride and loyalty toward the leader. That is, unless they are unlucky enough to make a mistake. In that case, in order to correct his own errors, the leader must liquidate those who carried out his own orders.41 The multiplication of these mini-leaders also results in the feeling of being constantly watched or supervised from all angles of the organization. The nature of Hubbard's leadership in Scientology has displayed traits indicating an unsettling similarity to Arendt's theories of totalitarianism. During Hubbard's years on the Sea Org boat, the aging Commodore was able to construct a world virtually of his own creation. One part of this was a rather bizarre new element called the Commodore's Messenger Organization."42 The CMO was an elite unit made up of children who were the offspring of committed Scientologists. The children acted as messengers, with the original function of serving Hubbard by relaying his verbal orders to crew and students on board. The messengers were mainly pubescent girls who eventually came to be widely feared little monsters.43 It was the greatest possible honor to be selected as a messenger, and the girls vied for the position. In their cute uniforms, they were trained to deliver Hubbard's orders using his exact words and tone of voice. If the Commodore had a temper and was bellowing abuse, the messenger would scuttle off and yell the same abuse at the offender. No one dared to disobey a messenger, for she was vested with the authority of Hubbard's leadership. The example of the CMO serves to show how closely Hubbard's leadership comes to the totalitarian model. Hubbard's messengers were the "walking embodiment" of their leader. However, the messengers were composed of an elite group, while the same rules did not necessarily apply for the majority of Scientologists. When mistakes were made by other Scientologists on board the Sea Org, they were not "liquidated," but humiliated.44 Often times, these mistakes were due to Hubbard's picky habits and temperamental moods. In these cases, the member was certainly taking the blame for Hubbard's own errors, while it is uncertain whether he or she was acting in leader's name. Loyalty on the part of the member is of equal importance for the totalitarian leader. A sense of duty or loyalty toward the leader is necessary because without it, the movement could not function. As Arendt notes about the Nazi Party, "The mutual loyalty of the Leader and the people" was the principle "on which the Reich rested."45 To capture such sentiment, the totalitarian movement requires "concentrated obedience, undivided by any attempt to understand what one is doing."46 This builds loyalty toward the group as a whole as well. Through reviewing the literature of ex-Scientologists, I noticed that many of them mention this mentality of obedience when referring to their personal experiences in Scientology. Many spoke of feeling encouraged not to think about what they were doing, but instead to concentrate only on the specific action involved. For example, the following excerpt comes from a former Scientologist regarding what he felt his duty to be: "I had a few incipient doubts come up, but I didn't think about it too much. My job, as I saw it then, was to understand what to DO, to do it, and to observe for myself what happened. Only what you observe for yourself is true for you. I had to reserve judgement on anything I hadn't yet 'observed,' whether or not it was true."47 This obedience to Hubbard's techniques indicates the same emphasis on loyalty for the leader referenced by Arendt. Concentration solely on Scientology technique produces a mentality whereby one is directed to ignore independent thoughts. Another former member writes about what she understood to be her role as a dedicated Scientologist: "Stop wavering and apply the tech[nique] exactly in all areas of life. Look inward; all failures stem from your own dereliction of your basic duty to apply the tech[nique] precisely. The only right path is the path of loyalty to Ron."48 Such unreasoning loyalty, once established, obliterates critical thinking not only in respect to the leader, but about the group as a whole. The result is an organization where it becomes nearly inconceivable for the member to violate the leader's orders. Arendt noted that according to Adolf Eichmann "such behavior was impossible." It was "unthinkable."49 In Scientology, for those who have become dedicated to the movement, the notion of disobedience is likewise, unimaginable. Combined with a sense of duty toward an infallible leader and single-minded obedience to his techniques, Scientologists are well on their way to totalitarianism. Language "Charge is the electronic bing-bang that hits the pc in the blonk..." -L. Ron Hubbard, Engram Chain Running, audio tape lecture series, 1963. Scientology uses a strange language that is altogether baffling to those unfamiliar with it. Speaking in a lingo almost entirely coined by L. Ron Hubbard, Scientologists communicate in words that the average person would find quite perplexing. While this language is technically English, it is composed of hundreds of coded words whose meanings are known primarily by Scientologists. This peculiar aspect of Scientology brings up several questions, such as "What is the function of this language?" and "How does it relate to totalitarianism?" In this essay, I will answer these questions by examining the relationship between language and the thought process in totalitarianism, focusing on Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. In addition, I will discuss the type of language that influenced Hubbard and the consequences of altering word meanings. The complicated language of Scientology is an integral part of the movement and distinguishes the group from many others. The official glossary for Scientology and Dianetics50 lists definitions for over 300 words, and these are only "official" terms. Many of these word meanings were altered by Hubbard in order that his new definitions would describe or agree with Dianetic techniques.51 Others terms are simply made-up by Hubbard.52 The terminology of Scientology is influenced by several key areas: science-fiction and computer science. The language of science-fiction throughout Scientology should come as no surprise, since Hubbard had written science-fiction narratives for many years prior to Dianetics. Science-fiction is defined as "fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals."53 Apparently, Hubbard felt little need to do away with this type of story-telling when speaking or writing about Scientology. This is because Scientology is itself a kind of "science fiction." Scientology is composed of undocumented, unproven "scientific" theories, which are then used by Scientologists to form success narratives- in short, it is fictional science. Arendt emphasizes that totalitarian movements rely on building an entirely fictitious world, whereby factuality is increasingly distorted.54 L. Ron Hubbard wanted to make fiction reality- he wanted to write his own "space opera."55 In the upper levels of Scientology, Ron's penchant for science-fiction becomes especially evident.56 Members discover that some 70 million years ago, Earth was part of an overpopulated Galactic Federation. The evil president of the federation, Xemu, ruled that the excess population be sent to Earth, where they were put alongside volcanoes and subjected to nuclear bombs. The spirits, or Thetans, of the victims were then "implanted" with religious and technological images and became stuck together in clusters. Human beings, said Hubbard, were actually a collection of these Thetans, a cluster of alien-spirits or "Body Thetans." Xemu was later rounded up and imprisoned in a mountain on one of the planets. To this day, he is still kept alive by an eternal battery. In order to be a free soul, without the clusters influencing our behavior, one has to remove these "Body Thetans" through Scientology techniques. That is what Dianetics prepares one for! The language of computer science also highly influenced Scientology-speak. Hubbard borrowed quite a few computer science terms from the 1940's and 50's, once again changing their definitions to reflect the goals of Dianetics. For example, Scientology defines "machine" as "an actual machine in the mind (like ordinary machinery), constructed out of mental mass and energy, that has been made by the individual to do work for him, usually having been set up so as to come into operation automatically under certain predetermined circumstances."57 This definition places the human mind in a mechanical state that can be manipulated accordingly. The mind is thus a version of a computer that can and should be programmed efficiently. Other computer related words litter the Scientology dictionary: circuit58, erase59, processing60, terminal61. This phraseology reveals Hubbard's desire to mechanize human thought and feelings, to the point where a simple technique could be used to fix any ailment or "aberration"62 on the part of the subject. The language of Scientology serves several primary functions. One of these is to construct a style of communication unique to that particular group. The unusual lingo distinguishes Scientologists from other people, building a sense of community that is different and removed from the rest of society. Because Scientology-speak is utter nonsense to the uninitiated, it separates the Scientologist from everybody outside of that group, functioning as communication for the few.63 Thus, the language becomes one of the marked traits of the Scientologist. Another aspect of language in Scientology is the ease with which members speak in ready stock phrases arising from the cult's beliefs and rhetoric. Stock phrases are words which are often repeated in order to provide an easy explanation for beliefs. To put it another way, they are clichés. Hannah Arendt particularly noticed this trait in Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi war criminal on trial for the genocide of the Jewish people. In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt writes of being struck by Eichmann's capacity for continually speaking in "stock phrases or slogans."64 Eichmann was unable to communicate other than through catch words and Nazi party slogans. "Officialese is my only language," he admitted, testifying to his incapability of "uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché."65 Scientologists also tend to often display this trait. There exists a startling similarity in phraseology between Scientologists. While studying language within Scientology, I became aware of how frequently certain phrases and terms are repeated. This characteristic provides valuable insight into how a Scientologist thinks and speaks. A prime example of Scientology lingo is found in the following excerpt, gathered from a on-line newsgroup: "Scientology is a religion founded on ethical systems and conduct, by using the understanding that freedom is found for the individual by that individual taking responsibility for their past, present and future. Some criminal organizations have recognized this as a threat to their survival or criminal intent to rob mankind of spiritual freedoms and have thus gone about in quite a methodical fashion to undermine the work of Scientology in the community. Scientology as a religious practice is about the individual taking responsibility for themselves and others across the dynamics. It is a good organization under attack, from ignorance, from evil intent and from those who are not into taking responsibility in general. It is my personal belief that there are suppressive individuals in society, suppressive groups, chaos merchants and the like who knowingly attack the truth either consciously or unconsciously. They are repelled by the fact that others wish to stop criminal action. They are repelled by a group that has the capability to find them out. They are repelled by concepts of freedom, love and honor and higher spiritual concepts."66 The passage above demonstrates the thought processes of an active-phase Scientologist and contains many of the cult's terms and stock phrases used in a natural context. Virtually everything said has been repeated over and over by Scientologists in order to justify their "religion" against attacks by critics. As with Eichmann, the language is full of clichés that are "always said the same, expressed in the same words."67 This curious trait is a revealing factor of the Scientologist mentality. Regarding Eichmann, Arendt wrote that "his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else."68 Eichmann was unable to think outside of one position- that of the Nazi party. Consequentially, his mind was "filled to the brim with fabricated stock phrases."69 The quotation from the Scientologist shows how effortlessly the member uses Scientology terms and catch words to defend himself against criticism. Communication without these stock phrases and cult slogans would be near impossible, for they constitute the way the member thinks. Repetition of such phrases within Scientology indicates that members are only capable of thinking in one particular way. They can think only in terms of Scientology-speak and have much difficulty doing otherwise. This does not mean that Scientologists are blind robots that repeat everything they hear. It does, however, mean that Scientologists' thought processes have become so enmeshed in the cult's beliefs, they are unable even to think outside of the cult's language. Another element of Scientology-speak, which can be seen in the previous excerpt, is the strange juxtaposition of talk about "criminals" with words such as "freedom" and "spiritual." Anyone who challenges Scientology is an evil "criminal," while the group is self-labeled as honorable defenders of "freedom" and "higher spirituality." This paranoid thread runs throughout the language. The theme can clearly be read in the lines about being "under attack," along with the omnipresent "chaos merchants"70 and "criminal organizations." Scientology views itself as the victim of a brutal scheme by those who seek to oppose the "truth." The "suppressive" people of whom the member speaks are defined as those "who actively seek to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by actions or omissions undertaken knowingly to suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists."71 Thus, a constant paranoia is built within the language of the movement. The idea of a worldwide plot to destroy Scientology because it contains higher "concepts of freedom" is a testament to the group's delusions and irrational suspicions. Speaking with Scientologists, one frequently encounters such views along with the standard stock phrases. As with Eichmann's case, communication is not possible because the words are consistently used as a safeguard against reality.72 The altering of word meanings remains another language characteristic common to Scientology and the Nazi party. For the Nazis, all correspondence referring to the mass killing of the Jews was subject to a rigid set of "language rules."73 The rules substituted code names for words such as "killing" and "extermination," replacing them with "final solution" and "special treatment." The effect of this language system was to prevent people from equating the unpleasant idea of murder with the horrible actions they were taking. Within Scientology, words meanings are also altered, yet the reasons for the changes are somewhat different. While the Nazis substituted code words to cover-up the reality of their murderous actions, Scientologists are more apt to exchange old words for a new version that better suits their ideology. An example of this sort of language is the unofficial Scientology term "Raw Meat Preclear." A Raw Meat Preclear is defined by Hubbard as "one who has never had Scientology processing."74 Hence, anyone who is not a Scientologist is equated with "Raw Meat." This is an especially revealing word substitution, as it exposes the insulting attitude taken toward non-Scientologists. The term "Raw Meat" is akin to the massification of bodies into pieces of flesh. It is much easier to harm a person when they are simply packages of meat, and not people with complex feelings and experiences. The result of the Nazis' code words is the same- dehumanization through language. Terming a person as "Raw Meat" also functions inside another dialectic. Because most Scientologists were not always members of their movement, they too were once "Raw Meat." Thus calling another "Raw Meat," the Scientologist unwittingly equates his or her own self as a reconstructable, packagable, utterly manipulatable object. In addition, Scientology redefines words with the goal of producing an entirely new meaning for them. Often times, such words are a significant clue into the cult's ideology. For instance, Scientology's re-definition of the term "critical thought" particularly exemplifies this case75. Hubbard defined critical thought as "a symptom of an overt act having been committed"76 or "a withhold from an auditor."77 What Hubbard meant is that critical thought is a bad thing; it indicates a criminal act. "Overt acts" and "withholds" are the equivalent of crimes against life and freedom in Scientology. The new definition thus makes it a crime for members to think critically, particularly about Scientology. Any "critical thought" by the Scientologist is immediately suspect. This redefinition makes criticizing anything about Scientology extremely difficult for members, as it is reflected back on them as something they did wrong. Hubbard's message is clear: critical thought is not the sort of thing any good Scientologist should be engaged in. The theme of critical thought occurs throughout Arendt's analysis of the totalitarian ideology. Totalitarian movements always work to stifle critical thinking because it challenges the unifying mentality which their ideology necessitates. The fact that Hubbard specifically chose to redefine "critical thought" as a crime is no mere coincidence. Totalitarian movements cannot function with the plurality of viewpoints that independent critical thought provokes. Using language to smother such thinking is a significant step in the movement toward totalitarianism. ....continued..... Copyright (c) 1999 Laura Kay Fuller