make this part of OSA US DR on RVY)

Parallels between "1984" and Scientology. Substitute "Scientology" for "the Party."

On "doublethink"

From George Orwell's "1984": "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

Commentary: After nearly 22 years in the cult, I came away puzzled how I could know the truth and think otherwise. Many people asked me how it worked but it wasn't until I read "1984" that I read a description that fit the mindset to move up the command ladder in Scientology.

This is what one is encountering with Sea Org/Dept 20 personnel. One wonders, can they believe this? Don't they know the truth? Yes and no. It is doublethink, right out of "1984." And if you tell them this, they will doublethink their way out of it as self-protection. As one moves up the Scientology ladder of command, this is how one begins to think and if one doesn't think this way, one does not move up the ladder. One begins to learn that there are facts being withheld but there are reasons and so one begins to hold both facts in one's mind while learning to think with Scientology's "logic." Then one does what Orwell says, the process is applied to the process so that one if finally deluding oneself that up is down or black is white. For example, one of Scientology's favorite come ons is, "What is true for you, is true for you," as if a person can believe what they want. It doesn't take long to learn that this is true only as long as what you want to believe is what L. Ron Hubbard wants you to believe. To do otherwise sends you to their "thought police." Further trouble and - if you are Sea Org - you are sent to a camp for "rehabilitation," a word and a concept that Orwell would have loved. In the meantim, the staff member also believes the original promise: that what is true for him is true for him. This is doublethink. It is also what one is astounded to see, when one steps out of it and says, "I was believing WHAT?"

Robert Vaughn Young
writer@eskimo.com