I just finished Janet Reitman's "Inside Scientology." A captivating book to say the least. This is one of those books that you keep shaking your head to all the way through. This forum has repeatedly looked at the psychopath, sociopath, and narcissist and their influence on people and society at large. If you want to see that at work, then just crack open this book and look in detail at L. Ron Hubbard's endless efforts to make money, inventing a new language and doctrine, and a mind control technique that clearly rivals Jim Jones only without the Kool-Aid...and CIA assistance!
A few examples of language:
wog-non-Scientologist
enturbulated-agitated and disturbed
the dull past-before Dianetics
AD-after Dianetics
operating thetan or OT-the most enlightened being in the Universe, capable of operating totally independent of his body whether he had one or didn't have one.
SMERSH-the World Federation of Mental Health
The special zone plan-selecting a zone of life and bring order and victory to it.
Chinese School-a social conditioning program that was an effective means of robotically learning almost anything.
The first section of the book deals with the background of L Ron Hubbard. A couple of highlights from the book...
L. Ron Hubbard became friends with Jack Parsons, a self-taught chemist and explosives expert and a leader of the fledgling rocket program at the Cal Institute of Technology. This was also the birthplace of American rocket science. Parsons was also an occultist, a devotee of black magician Aleister Crowley. Crowley took over the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis and the Los Angeles branch was known as the Agape Lodge. Parsons was inducted into the Lodge in 1940 and became the leader. Hubbard became friends with Parsons and lived at the Lodge even though he was not a member. He ended up stealing away Parson's mistress, Sara Northrup, and nearly conned Parson's entire savings of $21,000.00 from him. The work involved going after Hubbard and his former mistress left Parson's "in near mental and financial collapse."
Hubbard took on the psychiatric world by publishing his book called "Dianetics: The Evolution of Science." Hubbard believed that "birth trauma" lay at the root of many contemporary neuroses and psychosomatic ills. Painful or traumatic moments are recorded in the reactive mind as lasting scars that Hubbard called "engrams." To get rid of these 'engrams' he developed a new therapeutic process called "auditing." In an auditing session, a patient was led through a series of commands intended to call up the minute details of an incident. The patient would lay on a couch with eyes closed and go as far back into the past, all the way to the prenatal incident. The subject was then asked to reexperience the incident numerous times until it was neutralized. This form of therapy was not new. Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer uncovered buried memories of patients using hypnotism in a process called "abreaction" therapy.
In the summer of 1950, Dianetics took off on the bestsellers list. Hubbard opens Dianetic Research Foundation in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Washington DC. Pretty soon the revenues couldn't cover the expenses and the foundation had to file bankruptcy. Hubbard thought nothing of drawing cashier's checks against the foundation. The organization spent $500,000.00 in 9 months and went broke. One official resigned after watching the foundation take in $90,000.00 in one month and only account for $20,000.00 of it. Hubbard grew increasingly paranoid, and in 1951, wrote a letter to the FBI denouncing more than a dozen members of his organization as suspected members of the Communist Party including his own wife.
In his 1952 book called "The History of Man," Hubbard began the book with "a cold-blooded and factual account" of man's 60 trillion years of existence. Scientology filled in gaps of the historic record through engrams. Some engrams traced back to the mollusk-centered era, dominated by a deadly incident known as the Clam. Auditing a person on this incident could be dangerous; simply asking the question-"Can you imagine a clam sitting on a beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?"-could cause the person severe jaw pain. "One such victim, after hearing about a clam death, could not use his jaws for three days. Another 'had to have' two molars extracted because of the resulting ache."
Emotional tones ranged from +40(serenity of being) to -40(total failure). Auditing of engrams should make you a high toned individual. Hubbard made a controversial assertion that low-toned individuals should be exiled from society.
In 1958, the FDA confiscated and then destroyed a shipment of twenty-one thousand Dianazene tablets, which Hubbard was selling as a substence that prevented radiation sickness. This resulted in the CIA opening a file on his organization which at the time was a tangled morass of ad hoc corporations and shell companies that composed the Church of Scientology.
Hubbard believed he was the reincarnation of Cecil Rhodes, founder of Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe. Hubbard went to Zimbabwe hoping to establish a safe haven for Scientology. According to his aide, Hana Whitfield, the objective was to find a place that Hubbard could eventually turn into his own kingdom, with his own government, his own passports, his own monetary system, in other words his own principality, of which he would be the benign dictator.
In the early 70's the highlest level a church member could attain was Operating Thetan Level 3 or OT3. Before one reached the OT state one had to reach the 'Clear' state. A person operating at OT3 would be completely powerful, would have total control of matter, energy, space, and time. According to Hubbard, not even Jesus or Buddha had reached the OT level, they were just a shade above Clear. Oh, by the way, when Tom Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman, she reached OT2 in a year. It took Tom Cruise 7 years to reach OT3. His reaction to reading the secret paper that explains OT3 is priceless. According to Marc Headley, "He freaked out and was like, What the (bleep) is this science fiction (bleep)?"
The book goes on to cover the next leader of Scientology after L Ron Hubbard died. His name is David Miscavige or DM, and as time goes on he rivals L Ron Hubbard on the authoritarian scale. The most moving section of the book involves a woman named Lisa McPherson who died under the care of Scientologists in Dec. 1995 and caused an uproar over Scientology in Clearwater, Florida.
The book also covers the celebrity aspect of Scientology including the chapter on Tom Cruise. The book also goes into a great deal of detail how through the use of harrassment and litigation, Scientology won tax-exempt status and beat the IRS as well as going after anyone who wrote negatively about the church or going after members that left the church.
I couldn't put this book down and time after time when you think you've heard it all about Scientology you turn the page and go...hmmm, apparently not!
A few examples of language:
wog-non-Scientologist
enturbulated-agitated and disturbed
the dull past-before Dianetics
AD-after Dianetics
operating thetan or OT-the most enlightened being in the Universe, capable of operating totally independent of his body whether he had one or didn't have one.
SMERSH-the World Federation of Mental Health
The special zone plan-selecting a zone of life and bring order and victory to it.
Chinese School-a social conditioning program that was an effective means of robotically learning almost anything.
The first section of the book deals with the background of L Ron Hubbard. A couple of highlights from the book...
L. Ron Hubbard became friends with Jack Parsons, a self-taught chemist and explosives expert and a leader of the fledgling rocket program at the Cal Institute of Technology. This was also the birthplace of American rocket science. Parsons was also an occultist, a devotee of black magician Aleister Crowley. Crowley took over the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis and the Los Angeles branch was known as the Agape Lodge. Parsons was inducted into the Lodge in 1940 and became the leader. Hubbard became friends with Parsons and lived at the Lodge even though he was not a member. He ended up stealing away Parson's mistress, Sara Northrup, and nearly conned Parson's entire savings of $21,000.00 from him. The work involved going after Hubbard and his former mistress left Parson's "in near mental and financial collapse."
Hubbard took on the psychiatric world by publishing his book called "Dianetics: The Evolution of Science." Hubbard believed that "birth trauma" lay at the root of many contemporary neuroses and psychosomatic ills. Painful or traumatic moments are recorded in the reactive mind as lasting scars that Hubbard called "engrams." To get rid of these 'engrams' he developed a new therapeutic process called "auditing." In an auditing session, a patient was led through a series of commands intended to call up the minute details of an incident. The patient would lay on a couch with eyes closed and go as far back into the past, all the way to the prenatal incident. The subject was then asked to reexperience the incident numerous times until it was neutralized. This form of therapy was not new. Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer uncovered buried memories of patients using hypnotism in a process called "abreaction" therapy.
In the summer of 1950, Dianetics took off on the bestsellers list. Hubbard opens Dianetic Research Foundation in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Washington DC. Pretty soon the revenues couldn't cover the expenses and the foundation had to file bankruptcy. Hubbard thought nothing of drawing cashier's checks against the foundation. The organization spent $500,000.00 in 9 months and went broke. One official resigned after watching the foundation take in $90,000.00 in one month and only account for $20,000.00 of it. Hubbard grew increasingly paranoid, and in 1951, wrote a letter to the FBI denouncing more than a dozen members of his organization as suspected members of the Communist Party including his own wife.
In his 1952 book called "The History of Man," Hubbard began the book with "a cold-blooded and factual account" of man's 60 trillion years of existence. Scientology filled in gaps of the historic record through engrams. Some engrams traced back to the mollusk-centered era, dominated by a deadly incident known as the Clam. Auditing a person on this incident could be dangerous; simply asking the question-"Can you imagine a clam sitting on a beach, opening and closing its shell very rapidly?"-could cause the person severe jaw pain. "One such victim, after hearing about a clam death, could not use his jaws for three days. Another 'had to have' two molars extracted because of the resulting ache."
Emotional tones ranged from +40(serenity of being) to -40(total failure). Auditing of engrams should make you a high toned individual. Hubbard made a controversial assertion that low-toned individuals should be exiled from society.
In 1958, the FDA confiscated and then destroyed a shipment of twenty-one thousand Dianazene tablets, which Hubbard was selling as a substence that prevented radiation sickness. This resulted in the CIA opening a file on his organization which at the time was a tangled morass of ad hoc corporations and shell companies that composed the Church of Scientology.
Hubbard believed he was the reincarnation of Cecil Rhodes, founder of Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe. Hubbard went to Zimbabwe hoping to establish a safe haven for Scientology. According to his aide, Hana Whitfield, the objective was to find a place that Hubbard could eventually turn into his own kingdom, with his own government, his own passports, his own monetary system, in other words his own principality, of which he would be the benign dictator.
In the early 70's the highlest level a church member could attain was Operating Thetan Level 3 or OT3. Before one reached the OT state one had to reach the 'Clear' state. A person operating at OT3 would be completely powerful, would have total control of matter, energy, space, and time. According to Hubbard, not even Jesus or Buddha had reached the OT level, they were just a shade above Clear. Oh, by the way, when Tom Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman, she reached OT2 in a year. It took Tom Cruise 7 years to reach OT3. His reaction to reading the secret paper that explains OT3 is priceless. According to Marc Headley, "He freaked out and was like, What the (bleep) is this science fiction (bleep)?"
The book goes on to cover the next leader of Scientology after L Ron Hubbard died. His name is David Miscavige or DM, and as time goes on he rivals L Ron Hubbard on the authoritarian scale. The most moving section of the book involves a woman named Lisa McPherson who died under the care of Scientologists in Dec. 1995 and caused an uproar over Scientology in Clearwater, Florida.
The book also covers the celebrity aspect of Scientology including the chapter on Tom Cruise. The book also goes into a great deal of detail how through the use of harrassment and litigation, Scientology won tax-exempt status and beat the IRS as well as going after anyone who wrote negatively about the church or going after members that left the church.
I couldn't put this book down and time after time when you think you've heard it all about Scientology you turn the page and go...hmmm, apparently not!
