Organized Crime Masquerading as Religion

Enormously profitable Mafia-like organizations have arisen in recent years, using deception, intimidation, and sophisticated techniques of persuasion - sometimes hiding behind a smoke screen of "religion." They ruin thousands of lives and take millions of dollars from their victims. They have bought or extorted dangerous influence over our courts, mass media, and other institutions. Their wholesale and unrestrained use of undue influence poses a very real threat to our civil liberties.

They get away with it because our "street smarts" do not prepare us for tricks like this. We don't want to admit that we can lose control over our lives. This page describes one of the best-known examples.

How Scientology Works

The cult uses a variety of covert influence techniques, so that no one is too obvious - or legally culpable. They use multiple techniques repeatedly over time, to eventually implant the desired agreements and wear down the critical thinking of their victims.

One technique is ASSERTION. When an "authority" claims something as "fact," and you have no concrete reason to disbelieve it, you tend to accept it as true. In Scientology, there can be severe penalties for expressing an opinion even mildly contrary to Hubbard's. You hear no opposing viewpoints to stimulate critical thinking, and eventually acquire the habit of accepting the group-think as unquestionable truth.

Example. Before starting a course in Scientology, you are asked a series of questions (called an "A to J") which put you on the defensive with highly intrusive questions about drug use, criminal history, psychiatric history, etc. - while asserting the desired attitude:

"Are you connected with anyone hostile to BETTERMENT OR SCIENTOLOGY" (falsely asserting that these two things are the same). Example. In his writings, Hubbard makes many unsubstantiated assertions, intended to be read by people in a suggestible, trance-like state, such as: "We have long since passed the point of achieving workable technology." See Hubbard's Keeping Scientology Working and Safeguarding Technology. A related influence technique is HYPNOSIS - not like in the movies; no one dangles a watch from a chain; people don't look like zombies from Night of the Living Dead. That is the Hollywood version of hypnosis - which Hubbard used as a decoy: you know that YOU don't look like a zombie from Night of the Living Dead, therefore (you are led to believe) this "proves" that Scientology is not hypnosis.

But in fact, we all have our more sharp and less sharp moments. When tired or ill we tend to be less critical and more suggestible. Fixed attention and repetition can create a light trance state, characterized by a pleasant, relaxed euphoria and sensations of floating and lucidity -similar to what one may experience when falling asleep at night.

This euphoria can be strongly addictive, especially when combined with the ego-feeding strokes of "love bombing" and the pleasant illusion, asserted by the group, that one is saving the world.

Such states are created routinely by Scientology activities such as TRs ("training routines") and auditing. While being hypnotized, the victim studies Hubbard's assertions that this is not hypnosis. Another influence technique is MANIPULATED LOYALTY. The Moonies called it "love bombing." When people act friendly or do something for us, it seems natural to reciprocate - to like them, to feel loyalty toward them, and to want to do things for them. Cults play on this natural tendency by training devotees to assert an artificial friendship and to assert that they care for us and offer genuine help - in order to assert an obligation, and claim a loyalty, which really have no basis in fact.

The supposed friendships vanish instantly if one falls from favor with the group. The supposed help and mutual betterment turn out to be exploitative illusion. But, like battered women, we remain fiercely loyal to our abusers. We are good and loyal people. Hypnotism alone is not the "reason for" financial irresponsibility, trashed families, or abandoned careers. The influences described here have the more modest, but far more powerful, purpose of making us rigidly and unalterably attached to the group, unable and unwilling to think beyond it.

The message implanted by this organized and disciplined use of deception, lies, restricted infor- mation, assertions, hypnosis and coercive group influence is: that Scientology is a good thing and L. Ron Hubbard was a good guy. Applauding LRH at after-class musters - after auditing or TRs - is the essential message and reinforcement of mind control. Your agreement with staying in the trap is thus ob- tained with deceptive and covert technologies of social influence which do not have your informed consent. Once you have agreed with the basic premise, then standard hard-sell techniques can be used as needed to make you sell your house, leave a less-fanatical spouse, trash your kids' college fund, stoop to credit-card scams, or do anything else desired by the cult.

Often, the hard-sell is not even needed - because, as good and loyal group members, we enforce agreement and censorship upon ourselves and each other. Deception and coercive influence make us unable to overcome or even question the group's control of our own minds. We'll trash our own families.

That is how Scientology works. This essay expresses the opinions and conclusions of its author, an Ex-Scientologist OTV. It is in the public domain and may be reproduced and distributed freely by any person or organization.

For More Information

narrative account of life in Scientology-what goes on in there: Road to Xenu, by Margery Wakefield, 1991. $20 from Coalition of Concerned Citizens Box 290402, Tampa, FL 33687

How the trap works:

Things That Can Be Said to Work by Getting People to Agree that They Did, by Bob Penny. Bound in the same volume (no extra cost) with Road to Xenu, described above.

definitive work on the history and organization of Scientology: A Piece of Blue Sky, by Jon Atack. Carol Publishing Group, 1990, 428pp. [see also Atack's bibliography and sources]

also by Jon Atack, but only 30 pages instead of 428:

The Total Freedom Trap, by Jon Atack, 30p. booklet, 1992. $5 from the Coalition

the standard handbook for victims, families, and others who care: Combating Cult Mind Control, by Steve Hassan. Park Street Press, 1988`, 226pp.

financial and legal activity of the "inner Scientology": Scientology's Alleged One-Half Billion Dollar Fraud, compiled by Larry Wollersheim, 1992. $3 from the Coalition.

medical fraud exposed by Oklahoma state authorities:

Findings of Fact regarding the Narconon-Chilocco Application for Certification, by the Board of Mental Health, State of Okla- homa, Dec. 13, 1991.

Sterling Mgmnt and other front groups selling "LRH Mgmnt Tech" Scientology and Practice Management Seminars, p. 23, Podiatry Today, March 1990

how can normal and intelligent people....?

The Wave, by Todd Strasser. Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1981, Get the ABC TV drama from Films Inc., 5547 N. Ravenwood Avenue, Chicago, IL 60640-1199. (312) 878-2600

about L. Ron Hubbard and his creations:

L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman, by Bent Corydon. Lyle Stuart,1987

Bare-Faced Messiah, by Russell Miller. Michael Joseph, Lon- don, 1987 (suppressed in USA but available in Canada, UK, Europe)

and of course... TIME, magazine, May 6, 1991 Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1990

Coalition of Concerned Citizens P.O. Box 290402

Tampa, FL 33687

(The Coalition of Concerned Citizens is no longer operating for more information contact Arnie Lerma Lermanet.com Exposing the CON 6045 N 26th Rd Arlington VA 22207 703 241 1498

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