You must be controlled

[Boojuum]

Control. What would Scientology be like without control being applied at every opportunity?

Think about it. The PL's even advertise the fact that it's the cos' job to control you completely. They even talk about "good control", 8C, the basic TR's. Control. Control. Control.

I remember in one of LRH's biographies, an ex girlfriend from the 40's talks about LRH guiding her gently around his apartment. I think Ron figured out that if you simply tell and show and act as if your customers need to be controlled, they'll respond quite well, if they've been correctly indoctrinated.

Think about the re-sign line. Or the ethics routing form. Even the classrooms and certainly the auditing rooms. Every staff member is trained to move people to their next steps. Control. Control. Control.

The idea that anyone could simply stand up and leave is regarded as a HUGE PROBLEM. We were all subtly indoctrinated into this preposterous state of mind where simply leaving is TREASON, HIGH CRIME, SUPPRESSIVE ACT.

Leaving was NOT TREASON, NOT A HIGH CRIME, NOT A SUPPRESSIVE ACT.

LEAVING IS OKAY.

One time, I visited the local org because they wanted all my life and all my money again. After about an hour of telling them no, no, no, no I decided to simply stand up and walk out to see what would happen. There were about 8 scios in the room. "HCO Come to Order" was barked out. I thought that I could have made if I really wanted to make a fight out of it. I also thought that the open window above the desk was a ready opportunity. I settled back into my chair and was nice for an additional half hour and left politely. That was the last time I was in that org. How could I go back to a place that held me against my will. I knew full well that I could have sued them or at least caused them a great deal of trouble over that one incident. But I still believed in the tech at that point. This proved to me that I had changed from being a good scio, willing to do virtually whatever was being asked to someone who was fully confident that it was certainly okay to leave when being regged. I'd been in wogdom for about a year, without the wog experience, I'm not sure I would have known that it really was okay to leave--such was my level of indoctrination.


I think the PTS tech is largely about people who can't be controlled and thus don't fit into the system and need to go. Type H? Open minded? You can't have an open mind? What kind of group would kick one of those people out? I understood at the time I was in. Now that I'm out, I'm very much in favor of critical thought. Type A? You mean all of your friends and family can't challenge your participation? And you now need to have friends who aren't concerned about you? Control. Control. Control.

In the cos you agree to be controlled and that's a key functional strength. And that's why wog organizations can't be run like scieno orgs, normal customers won't be indoctrinated into a control structure.

This realization is ridiculously obvious and I pondered whether posting it would have any meaning.

Lots of control = scientology working; no control = no scientologist and no scientology.

Or, No freedom = scientology working; True freedom = no Scientology and no Scientologists.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

That's a good analysis of the flavor of 'spiritual freedom' that Scientology sells!

 

[uniquemand]

Yes, Boojum. The problem I represented to the Church in Boston was that I couldn't be controlled. I wouldn't stop asking questions. I wouldn't suddenly adopt their moral code simply because some of my behaviors violated it. At first, I received a lot of ethics attention. Then sec checking. When I refused to say I had more dirt, or even to look, and finally lost patience with being ordered in every aspect of my life, I left.

I left with a lot of tears. I left with a lot of confusion. What was important, though, was that I left. Some people will never leave because they feel threatened, or because they have learned to mistrust themselves. I still don't trust myself! I just trust me more than them.

 

[Boojuum]

Control me will you?

I wouldn't have thought it at the time but looking back, if the org can't control you, you'll have a very hard time being a member.

Ethics and sec checking and long D of P interviews and PTS courses and O/W write-ups--all over issues that you didn't really seem to care that much about.

If you won't toe the line, then the wrong items start appearing.

"You're PTS to the middle class."
"You've got other fish to fry."
"You sound like a wog".
"Oh, you are such a noble person."
"You've got overts."
"You're theedy-weedy."
"You've got other-intensions."
"You're a dilletante!"
"What you're doing is so off purpose, it's ridiculous."
"Your comments are so full of outpoints that I can't even have a conversation with you."

Hey, that's a pretty good list!!! I think LFBD on every item reading as NOT MY ITEM.

All the above were silly control mechanisms, phrases designed to keep you in and active and on course or in the SO or on staff or essentially, giving the cos ALL of your life and ALL of your money.

Gimme a freakin' break. I'm giving you guys 100+ hours a week and doing pretty much whatever you want and that's not enough????????

In other words, you won't join staff or you won't join the SO or you won't demand that grandma gives you 50K$ for your next battery of intensives.

UM. Glad you got out. I'm sure it was very difficult, especially back in the day when there was no internet to get good information from.

 

[IMMORTAL]

Control. What would Scientology be like without control being applied at every opportunity?

Think about it. The PL's even advertise the fact that it's the cos' job to control you completely. They even talk about "good control", 8C, the basic TR's. Control. Control. Control.

I remember in one of LRH's biographies, an ex girlfriend from the 40's talks about LRH guiding her gently around his apartment. I think Ron figured out that if you simply tell and show and act as if your customers need to be controlled, they'll respond quite well, if they've been correctly indoctrinated.

Think about the re-sign line. Or the ethics routing form. Even the classrooms and certainly the auditing rooms. Every staff member is trained to move people to their next steps. Control. Control. Control.

The idea that anyone could simply stand up and leave is regarded as a HUGE PROBLEM. We were all subtly indoctrinated into this preposterous state of mind where simply leaving is TREASON, HIGH CRIME, SUPPRESSIVE ACT.

Leaving was NOT TREASON, NOT A HIGH CRIME, NOT A SUPPRESSIVE ACT.

LEAVING IS OKAY.

One time, I visited the local org because they wanted all my life and all my money again. After about an hour of telling them no, no, no, no I decided to simply stand up and walk out to see what would happen. There were about 8 scios in the room. "HCO Come to Order" was barked out. I thought that I could have made if I really wanted to make a fight out of it. I also thought that the open window above the desk was a ready opportunity. I settled back into my chair and was nice for an additional half hour and left politely. That was the last time I was in that org. How could I go back to a place that held me against my will. I knew full well that I could have sued them or at least caused them a great deal of trouble over that one incident. But I still believed in the tech at that point. This proved to me that I had changed from being a good scio, willing to do virtually whatever was being asked to someone who was fully confident that it was certainly okay to leave when being regged. I'd been in wogdom for about a year, without the wog experience, I'm not sure I would have known that it really was okay to leave--such was my level of indoctrination.


I think the PTS tech is largely about people who can't be controlled and thus don't fit into the system and need to go. Type H? Open minded? You can't have an open mind? What kind of group would kick one of those people out? I understood at the time I was in. Now that I'm out, I'm very much in favor of critical thought. Type A? You mean all of your friends and family can't challenge your participation? And you now need to have friends who aren't concerned about you? Control. Control. Control.

In the cos you agree to be controlled and that's a key functional strength. And that's why wog organizations can't be run like scieno orgs, normal customers won't be indoctrinated into a control structure.

This realization is ridiculously obvious and I pondered whether posting it would have any meaning.

Lots of control = scientology working; no control = no scientologist and no scientology.

Or, No freedom = scientology working; True freedom = no Scientology and no Scientologists.

I agree with this. I hadn't looked at it this way until I considered myself out. Then, I started looking at the PTS tech and realized the manipulation and control factors not only in that "tech" but everywhere in the cult.

 

[Sindy]

IMO, auditing sets you up for this from the beginning. For auditing to work, at least mechanically, you have to be willing to be controlled. It all goes downhill from there. The dangling carrot of further auditing and promise of higher states is all that is needed and people will put up with HUGE amounts of bullshit.

LRH was right when he said that, "Man will put up with a tremendous amount of pain for just a little amount of pleasure." or some such words.

 

[MostlyLurker]

LRH on Control

I think this is one of the best LRH statements, it's sooo true!

"...

When you speak of The Creator, you are probably speaking of something entirely different than implanted religion. Religion is always different than truth. It has to be. Because the only way you can control people is to lie to them. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. The only way you can control anybody is to lie to them.

Now look: When you find an individual is lying to you, you know that the individual is trying to control you. You put that down. One way or another this individual is trying to control you. That is the mechanism of control.

This individual is lying to you because he is trying to control you - because if they give you enough misinformation they will pull you down the tone scale so that they can control you.

Conversely, if you see an impulse on the part of a human being to control you, you know very well that that human being is lying to you. Not "is going to", but "is" lying to you.

Check these facts, you will find they are always true.

That person who is trying to control you is lying to you. He's got to tell you lies in order to continue control, because the second you start telling anybody anything close to the truth, you start releasing him and he gets tougher and tougher to control.

So, you can’t control somebody without telling them a bunch of lies.

You will find that Command has very often this as its greatest weakness. It will try to control instead of leading. And the next thing you know, it is lying to the crew, lying to the crew, lie, lie, lie, and it gets worse and worse, and all of a sudden the thing blows up. Well, religion has done this.

Organized religion tries to control, so therefore must be lying, and therefore must know its lying. After a while it figures out even itself knows it is lying, and then it starts on down tone scale, get further and further and all of a sudden people get down across this spring-like bottom "Are we going into apathy and die, or are we going to revolt?" and they revolt, you can only lie to people so long.

Unfortunately there is always a new cycle of lying.

..."

LRH, Tape 5206C24F “Overt Acts Motivators & DED's B(Cont.)”, starting at 7’:45”​

It's great, isn't it? It's Co$ description in LRH words.
He knew what was wrong with Religion, yet he went on and created one!

 

[Boojuum]

...The dangling carrot of further auditing and promise of higher states is all that is needed and people will put up with HUGE amounts of bullshit.

Yup! That's a pretty fair summation. Hypnotism relies on control and distraction. A hypnotized subject can't be looking around at other stuff. The analogue to Scientology is immense.

I was never in a group before or since that had me under such total control. I had nothing to compare it with.

"You need to see the reg now."

How about, "No, I don't want to see the reg. She just wants money that I don't want to give her. I'll be back when I have the time and money. Or how about this, I'll be back when I feel like it."

Inconceivable!

 

[Boojuum]

I think this is one of the best LRH statements, it's sooo true!

​

It's great, isn't it? It's Co$ description in LRH words.
He knew what was wrong with Religion, yet he went on and created one!

ML Thanks for sharing this one.

Control control control control.

 

[Captain Koolaid]

It's great, isn't it? It's Co$ description in LRH words.
He knew what was wrong with Religion, yet he went on and created one!

No, he didn't.

Since we're talking about lying, an excerpt from The Aims of Scientology

“Man suspects all offers of help. He has often been betrayed, his confidence shattered. Too frequently he has given his trust and been betrayed. We may err, for we build a world with broken straws. But we will never betray your faith in us so long as you are one of us.”

The way I see it the betrayal begins with the Personality Test. Amd the last sentence is quite telling: When you're no longer with us, all bets are off.

 

[uniquemand]

The obsession with control was clear from the beginning. I can understand the need for control, but the obsession with it is over-the-top.

 

[Boojuum]

The obsession with control was clear from the beginning. I can understand the need for control, but the obsession with it is over-the-top.

I maintain that the focus on control was one of the clearest discoveries LRH had.

When he said that Scientology worked, I'm sure he was thinking that control worked. It worked fabulously well for LRH.

When he'd tell us ANYTHING that seemed somehow plausible, it was the control factors that made us believe it. A controlled environment, what word was mis-understood, hours of word clearing or even false data stripping in order to understand something all refer to the need of the organization to control you and guide you. I've heard Christians with similar comments about God or the Bible, e.g. I'm sure Jesus put me here for a reason and I study the Bible daily to see what I'm supposed to do.

The insistence from the beginning that the tech works 100% of the time--a hypnotic suggestion, by the way--sets the atmosphere for letting one be controlled.

I clearly remember being a willing newbie to Scientology, eager to experience great internal changes. I was completely at the effect point.

I still carry some of the control baggage to this day and permit myself to be pushed around to some degree.

Thank goodness for this board, where we can inspect our past moments of weakness and seek to understand how it happened.

The more the cos controlled me, the less of me I became. All the while, I was convinced that I was getting better and more able and brighter. Perhaps what was really going on was more insidious. My attention was being thoroughly controlled and I was made to believe that I was brighter, more able and smarter.

In truth, my personal goals were ignored while my energies went to the cos.

Control was key.

 

[guanoloco]

I maintain that the focus on control was one of the clearest discoveries LRH had.

When he said that Scientology worked, I'm sure he was thinking that control worked. It worked fabulously well for LRH.

When he'd tell us ANYTHING that seemed somehow plausible, it was the control factors that made us believe it. A controlled environment, what word was mis-understood, hours of word clearing or even false data stripping in order to understand something all refer to the need of the organization to control you and guide you. I've heard Christians with similar comments about God or the Bible, e.g. I'm sure Jesus put me here for a reason and I study the Bible daily to see what I'm supposed to do.

The insistence from the beginning that the tech works 100% of the time--a hypnotic suggestion, by the way--sets the atmosphere for letting one be controlled.

I clearly remember being a willing newbie to Scientology, eager to experience great internal changes. I was completely at the effect point.

I still carry some of the control baggage to this day and permit myself to be pushed around to some degree.

Thank goodness for this board, where we can inspect our past moments of weakness and seek to understand how it happened.

The more the cos controlled me, the less of me I became. All the while, I was convinced that I was getting better and more able and brighter. Perhaps what was really going on was more insidious. My attention was being thoroughly controlled and I was made to believe that I was brighter, more able and smarter.

In truth, my personal goals were ignored while my energies went to the cos.

Control was key.

Sooth, you say, Boojuum.

Scientology is NOT a scam. It's a conspiracy. (Damn it! That's another ITSA line I'm doing!!)

It wants to infiltrate all levels of society and to do so covertly - just like it moved into Clearwater all "under the radar" and before anyone could cry "spooK" there they were and it was too late. This is the entire doctrine of Scientology with CCHR, TWTH, Narconon, Criminon, WISE, ABLE, etc.

To be an active Scientologist one HAS to be duplicitous. For instance, to study "truth" you have to be able to "not is" shit like Hubbard running into Venusian trains. We've all studied that tape and had to think things like "maybe it's allegory" or some shit. Completely duplicitous.

And then there's the Scientologist that recruits or regges. OMG!! Talk about duplicity!!

I recall one time watching Rinder on FOX or something like that and he's being grilled as to why OT V costs $30,000 K and after he's done the unwitting viewer would definitely have the impression that the parishioner paid that amount because she felt it was worth that much to her. In other words one got the idea that anyone can do OT V and pay whatever amount they felt it was worth - be that nothing, $5 or $50,000 grand. Duplicity and the higher up you go the more duplicitous one becomes.

All the warm and fuzzy PR when the real PLs yap endlessly about the bank having no rights and the circuits talking and aberrees, etc. Someone mentioned the PR over last Christmas about CC INT or someplace reading childrens' Christmas stories because children are cherished in Scientology, etc. Merely read any PLs regarding children and merely use "Look, Don't Listen" regarding Scientology and children...duplicity.

Going back to OT V and the $50,000 it is FACT that NOBODY wants OT V. All OT V is is a necessary step to get to where you WANT to go. Like so much of the Bridge nobody wants it. They have to take it and do it to get to what they want. It's exactly like 3rd grade or junior high or being a sophomore in college - nobody wants any of that. What they want is the big money making job and all those steps are to be taken to get there.

Anyway, great post!

 

[Boojuum]

To be an active Scientologist one HAS to be duplicitous. For instance, to study "truth" you have to be able to "not is" shit like Hubbard running into Venusian trains. We've all studied that tape and had to think things like "maybe it's allegory" or some shit. Completely duplicitous.

And then there's the Scientologist that recruits or regges. OMG!! Talk about duplicity!!

I recall one time watching Rinder on FOX or something like that and he's being grilled as to why OT V costs $30,000 K and after he's done the unwitting viewer would definitely have the impression that the parishioner paid that amount because she felt it was worth that much to her. In other words one got the idea that anyone can do OT V and pay whatever amount they felt it was worth - be that nothing, $5 or $50,000 grand. Duplicity and the higher up you go the more duplicitous one becomes.

All the warm and fuzzy PR when the real PLs yap endlessly about the bank having no rights and the circuits talking and aberrees, etc. Someone mentioned the PR over last Christmas about CC INT or someplace reading childrens' Christmas stories because children are cherished in Scientology, etc. Merely read any PLs regarding children and merely use "Look, Don't Listen" regarding Scientology and children...duplicity.

Going back to OT V and the $50,000 it is FACT that NOBODY wants OT V. All OT V is is a necessary step to get to where you WANT to go. Like so much of the Bridge nobody wants it. They have to take it and do it to get to what they want. It's exactly like 3rd grade or junior high or being a sophomore in college - nobody wants any of that. What they want is the big money making job and all those steps are to be taken to get there.

Anyway, great post!

Insightful. Once out, I labeled all the double-think, "cognitive dissonance". For example, we're supposed to be the ablest group on the planet but we're making less than minimum wage and live like paupers (except the paupers get time off).

You bring up a good point in that no one wants the in-between levels, like OT V, nearly as much as we want the very top of the bridge. We're all wanting that big wonderful place known as clear or OT III, no, I mean Expanded OT III, no OT VII, no Full OT VII, no, I mean OT VIII completion. Well, I want to go to the place where I'm more able, even if it costs me $500,000. So many get lost in the shuffle, that dangling carrot has us doing all sorts of weird dances.

And the only, the only way to get there is by allowing myself to do what Ron wants. 100's of hours of confessionals. 100's of hours of the Dianetic Drug Rundown. Lots of time on Objectives. Another battery of intensives on the whether or not I'm Clear. Or, I need the Int RD.

Here, take all my time or all my money. I want 2 tickets to paradise.

 

[uniquemand]

I didn't want the OT Levels at all. I didn't really even want Clear. I wanted to be able to deliver Clear to OTHERS. I wanted Grade IV and FPRD for me.

 

[Boojuum]

I didn't want the OT Levels at all. I didn't really even want Clear. I wanted to be able to deliver Clear to OTHERS. I wanted Grade IV and FPRD for me.

No wonder you had trouble with ethics.

You were un-controllable.

You were supposed to be looking at the carrot. You were supposed to want the un-attainable. Grade IV and FPRD is too defined and attainable.

 

[uniquemand]

It's possible to control me, but I advise whoever tries to keep their hands distant and wear chainmail. I don't like it. Even when it is ostensibly good for me.

I wanted FPRD and Grade IV because I KNEW I was a bad person. Nobody had to tell me that. I was a competent bad person, though. It was this belief that I was a bad person that made me finally accept the declaration as a suppressive person, and led to estrangement between me and the people that I loved the most.

A terrible thing to exploit. I hope the money and control were worth it.

 

[Lucretia]

I wanted FPRD and Grade IV because I KNEW I was a bad person. Nobody had to tell me that. I was a competent bad person, though.

This is interesting in the context of control, and IMO is the way the control mechanism works in the cult. We are all bad, and if we weren't bad went we walked through the door then we were certainly bad 5 minutes later.

You go into the cult to address something you want changed about yourself - ie something that is bad about yourself and you submit to control to have this eradicated. Then you learn about the bridge and you find that your communication is bad, you have lots of problems, you have lots of overts, you make other people wrong all the time, and that's just the start. Then you realise that everyone on the planet is bad in these ways too. You submit to all this awful control to eradicate the bad, and release the basic goodness which is buried under half a million bucks worth of auditing and courses.

Does the badness ever go away? No, but the diehards can afford to feel very self righteous about how hard they are trying and how bad all the wogs are not trying. More control.

Yes control is the key, on top of the conviction that we are bad.