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The draw of the cult and why the CoS is "perfect"

Free to shine

Shiny & Free
What I sensed in $cientology was a certain rigidity. A sense that if anything in them were to change in a real way, then the organization as we know it wouldn't exist any more. To use a cliche, black and white thinking. Scientology is good. The tech is good. LRH is good. Therefore, what opposes scientology is bad, what opposes the tech is bad, what opposes LRH is bad. It's very simple really.

I suffered from a mentall illness I won't get into here. About the time I started posting here was the time I started making really huge strides to pull myself out of it, that all the effort I'd been putting into trying to change started paying off. And to me, my experience felt a lot like the experiences I was reading coming out of the cult. I'm not sure exactly how to say this, but here goes.

Just a Guy - you are not just a guy. :D It's so interesting to read your thoughts. I know it's not easy to do, and it is appreciated.

I don't know if this will make sense or help in any way...a small story. As an artist, lately I have been doing some combinations of circles and geometric shapes in an abstract way. I first draw the correct shapes with compass and ruler etc, then paint by hand. This means the shapes are not perfect, only as close as I can get them to be, or want them to be. They overlap, they are layered, they are all different.

Someone who had been in scio for a very long time commented "if you are doing geometric shapes they should be perfect!".

Hmmm...ok. I thought about this a lot. We are talking art here, it doesn't have to be an exact representation of anything, it's my view and ability to paint that determines the end result. If one of my circles is wonky, or I do an outline and then fill it with abstracts, then that is just as valid as a perfectly executed, one colour circle.

It all depends on how you view it, doesn't it?

The push for perfection within scientology is paramount. It can't be changed and yet it does not work. You can't draw outside the circles, and those circles have to be perfect according to the views of others.

It can be so comforting within those exact circles. You hand over your thinking and goals and views of the world.

But you know...wonky circles have a beauty...they show the world is not perfect and there is room for individual expression, experimentation and experience. Scary sometimes but certainly more fulfilling. A life that is rigidly held within boundaries is not going to be a happy one, because even if the delusion of safety and group comfort lasts for a long time, it is not the nature of life to be confined and enclosed with no wiggle room and eventually there will be a need to push that circle into another shape. :D
 

justaguy

Patron Meritorious
LuluBelle, I wanna say "no, thank you", but that seems really, really cliche, even though it's how I feel. So here's a smiley instead :)

Freetoshine: yeah. yeah! Duplicate everything you said (that is how they say in the Co$, right?). I was with an artist once (a sculpture gal) who said "this is how the people who been doing this a long time say I should do it, but I think what I'm doing is prettier" and I was like "me too!". Your post reminded me of that. But besides that, I totally duplicate.

Keep on drawing whatever circles you want. :yes: When I try to draw a circle I always end up in a different place then when I started and it ends up not being a circle at all but a weird oval shape with a line connecting the end and beginning points :melodramatic:

I woke up today thinking about how miserable I would've been if I had to face my day if I were still in my old traps, and I was just so happy to be free. I know that's something the exes here can relate to.

Yay for freedom! :buzzin:
 

Wisened One

Crusader
Just a Guy - you are not just a guy. :D It's so interesting to read your thoughts. I know it's not easy to do, and it is appreciated.

I don't know if this will make sense or help in any way...a small story. As an artist, lately I have been doing some combinations of circles and geometric shapes in an abstract way. I first draw the correct shapes with compass and ruler etc, then paint by hand. This means the shapes are not perfect, only as close as I can get them to be, or want them to be. They overlap, they are layered, they are all different.

Someone who had been in scio for a very long time commented "if you are doing geometric shapes they should be perfect!".

Hmmm...ok. I thought about this a lot. We are talking art here, it doesn't have to be an exact representation of anything, it's my view and ability to paint that determines the end result. If one of my circles is wonky, or I do an outline and then fill it with abstracts, then that is just as valid as a perfectly executed, one colour circle.

It all depends on how you view it, doesn't it?

The push for perfection within scientology is paramount. It can't be changed and yet it does not work. You can't draw outside the circles, and those circles have to be perfect according to the views of others.

It can be so comforting within those exact circles. You hand over your thinking and goals and views of the world.

But you know...wonky circles have a beauty...they show the world is not perfect and there is room for individual expression, experimentation and experience. Scary sometimes but certainly more fulfilling. A life that is rigidly held within boundaries is not going to be a happy one, because even if the delusion of safety and group comfort lasts for a long time, it is not the nature of life to be confined and enclosed with no wiggle room and eventually there will be a need to push that circle into another shape. :D

Oh my, FTS, excellently-said! :yes: :goodposting:
 

EP - Ethics Particle

Gold Meritorious Patron
A circle in a spiral...

LuluBelle, I wanna say "no, thank you", but that seems really, really cliche, even though it's how I feel. So here's a smiley instead :)

Freetoshine: yeah. yeah! Duplicate everything you said (that is how they say in the Co$, right?). I was with an artist once (a sculpture gal) who said "this is how the people who been doing this a long time say I should do it, but I think what I'm doing is prettier" and I was like "me too!". Your post reminded me of that. But besides that, I totally duplicate.

Keep on drawing whatever circles you want. :yes: When I try to draw a circle I always end up in a different place then when I started and it ends up not being a circle at all but a weird oval shape with a line connecting the end and beginning points :melodramatic:

I woke up today thinking about how miserable I would've been if I had to face my day if I were still in my old traps, and I was just so happy to be free. I know that's something the exes here can relate to.

Yay for freedom! :buzzin:

Thanks to everyone for the insightful postings and sharing of experience and thoughts.

A perfect circle does not wander, reach, withdraw, advance or retreat...it is in fact, essentially two-dimensional and gets nowhere.

What we do here on this forum is much prettier, and runs a splendid gamut of possibilities...at least that's how I see it. :wink2: :yes: :happydance: :thumbsup:

EP
 

Zinjifar

Silver Meritorious Sponsor
I think Just's problem with drawing circles is that he's *not* drawing circles, and he's doing violence to his brainchildren :)

Stop trying to 'Close' those pretty *spirals*!!! :)

Zinj
 

SchwimmelPuckel

Genuine Meatball
Great posts JustaGuy! :)

I felt nudged to comment on something in the OP.. About CoS/Hubbard saying: "Don't think!"

Uhm.. You are persuaded that 'thinking' is your 'Reactive Mind' acting up. This is the 'implication' of the Dianetics Theory.. Engrams and Implants, containing words/commands that affect your mind without you being aware of it.. So the 'revelation' is that we are all insane.. Our minds don't work right.

That's why you agree to 'not think'..

This point is hammered into the scientologists in lots of ways.. The Tone Scale sorting 'unwanted' thoughts as bad, evil or criminal. The 'stats' system and ethics conditions replacing your own judgement.. Human Emotion & Reaction, HE&R, being seen as bad as BO... Going in session to get Auditing is a act that reinforces your own agreement that you ARE abberated.

I could go for a while with this.. But I'm getting a PacMan Elbow from typing..

:yes:
 

clamicide

Gold Meritorious Patron
Great posts JustaGuy! :)

I felt nudged to comment on something in the OP.. About CoS/Hubbard saying: "Don't think!"

Uhm.. You are persuaded that 'thinking' is your 'Reactive Mind' acting up. This is the 'implication' of the Dianetics Theory.. Engrams and Implants, containing words/commands that affect your mind without you being aware of it.. So the 'revelation' is that we are all insane.. Our minds don't work right.

That's why you agree to 'not think'..

This point is hammered into the scientologists in lots of ways.. The Tone Scale sorting 'unwanted' thoughts as bad, evil or criminal. The 'stats' system and ethics conditions replacing your own judgement.. Human Emotion & Reaction, HE&R, being seen as bad as BO... Going in session to get Auditing is a act that reinforces your own agreement that you ARE abberated.

I could go for a while with this.. But I'm getting a PacMan Elbow from typing..

:yes:



Amazing how the more one looks at Scio, the more aspects of it that train a person to unthink in this way come to light. False data stripping is one that really comes to mind. For JaG & others maybe unfamiliar, when one comes up upon something in Scio one "can't think with" (ie assimilate as true), an exercise is done to find and 'blow' the earlier, contrary (to Scio--therfore FALSE) data, so one can accept the Scio version. In order to pass an auditor internship, one has to turn in a videotape of a perfect session. I've seen quite a few auditors need to false data strip away the idea "nobody's perfect" or similar. It was always such a 'big win', but what an incredible mindfuck. To believe that perfection & 'standard tech' was not only possible, but expectd 100% of the time. (we want FLUBLESS auditors!) Talk about incredible rigidity that has been pointed out!

JaG, I am completely blown away by how much you 'get' about what my experience was like in the cult, viewing it in relationship to mental illness. What a commentary that makes! Thank you for being so open with your experiences. I really enjoy your insights.
 

justaguy

Patron Meritorious
Thanks for y'alls posts. I'd like to respond to some of them by saying that yes, it is my fate to draw spirals. Except sometimes when I try to draw spirals I get circles. But not always. :duh:

Would like to respond to 2 in particular.
SchwimmelPuckel said:
Great posts JustaGuy!

I felt nudged to comment on something in the OP.. About CoS/Hubbard saying: "Don't think!"

Uhm.. You are persuaded that 'thinking' is your 'Reactive Mind' acting up. This is the 'implication' of the Dianetics Theory.. Engrams and Implants, containing words/commands that affect your mind without you being aware of it.. So the 'revelation' is that we are all insane.. Our minds don't work right.

That's why you agree to 'not think'..

This point is hammered into the scientologists in lots of ways.. The Tone Scale sorting 'unwanted' thoughts as bad, evil or criminal. The 'stats' system and ethics conditions replacing your own judgement.. Human Emotion & Reaction, HE&R, being seen as bad as BO... Going in session to get Auditing is a act that reinforces your own agreement that you ARE abberated.

I could go for a while with this.. But I'm getting a PacMan Elbow from typing..

Thanks for the response! PacMan elbow is bad, so I forgive you for not telling me MOAR. The first thing is I have zero, nada, zip problem with you going back to my first post. This is the thread where I've decided to go all selfish and post what I think and hope and pray (and order and cajole?) you all into giving me comments. Really. Actually, I wanted to post my thoughts and see what you guys had to say and maybe even start a discussion.

As to the comments you just gave me, that explains a lot, and I think I have a clearer picture of how people get sucked in. The idea that the reactive mind is a tool (wrong word, but can't think of a better one), a reasonable sounding "in" that the CoS uses to get you to open yourself up to brainwashing, makes a lot of sense. It's like they're saying "Look at this. This makes sense. We can show you why you have your problems.". Having gotten a person to believe that their problems stem from their reactive mind (a statement I neither support or deny, for you freezoners), they then teach them that their critical thinking skills are part of their reactive mind and that makes the rest of the brainwashing (the sec checks, "causing" your own diseases, all the things you mentioned) more effective.

Does that make sense? Looking back on your experiences (anyone who's reading this), does that explanation ring true? Part of this is an attempt for me to understand the cult, and if I'm wrong I'd like to know.

clamicide said:
Amazing how the more one looks at Scio, the more aspects of it that train a person to unthink in this way come to light. False data stripping is one that really comes to mind. For JaG & others maybe unfamiliar, when one comes up upon something in Scio one "can't think with" (ie assimilate as true), an exercise is done to find and 'blow' the earlier, contrary (to Scio--therfore FALSE) data, so one can accept the Scio version. In order to pass an auditor internship, one has to turn in a videotape of a perfect session. I've seen quite a few auditors need to false data strip away the idea "nobody's perfect" or similar. It was always such a 'big win', but what an incredible mindfuck. To believe that perfection & 'standard tech' was not only possible, but expectd 100% of the time. (we want FLUBLESS auditors!) Talk about incredible rigidity that has been pointed out!

JaG, I am completely blown away by how much you 'get' about what my experience was like in the cult, viewing it in relationship to mental illness. What a commentary that makes! Thank you for being so open with your experiences. I really enjoy your insights.

WOW. Now that is scary stuff (but the compliment is nice for my poor little ego :melodramatic:). I've got a whole buncha things I wanna say, so give me a sec to sort it out over in notepad.

Ok, so that was a dinner and a half hour later. Anyways, I found I had two different responses that I couldn't find a way to combine so here they are.

i) Originally, I assumed that the church never really explicitly used words like "the church is perfect", even though such sentiments would be heavily implied. After reading your posts, I wouldn't be surprised if it did. But the church isn't perfect cuz nothing is perfect, and no one. I believe that one deeply, for a wide variety of reasons I won't get into. While I didn't believe I was perfect, I believed things equally unreal, and if I had never gotten over them I'd still be a mess. I think that for as long as the cult believes it is perfect it will be a mess, and, as a collective, do what I would've done if I hadn't woken up: self-destruct.

ii) What I've found, and why I can say that I get what you're going through, is that while the details vary between headcases like us, while the reasons and the thinking and the all that vary, the emotions of it and the reality of it is pretty much the same. My trap functioned differently from yours, and used different ways to keep me stuck. But the more important thing is I was stuck in my own little head-trap-cult thing and you guys were stuck in a collective head-trap-cult thing.

I had a friend who I tried to help but I couldn't. That friend was really, really miserable. And he/she opened up to me and told me a lot of stuff like friends are wont to do. And I remember seeing what he/she was thinking, and realizing that their entire way of seeing the world seemed tailor-made to make them miserable. And because I wasn't them I could see straight through it, and I wanted to scream at them "you could be happy if you just stopped doing that!" but they'd never get what "that" was.

It was that same way of looking at things, that insistence that things have to be just so, that something that's different for me and you but drove us both to lie to ourselves and make ourselves miserable. It's really, really hard to describe in words but it's something I can *feel*. It's that sense of slamming your head into the wall over and over and over and then (hopefully) realizing after years that all you had to do was try the doorknob (yeah, that one, the one you've been carefully not looking at). My friend had it (though I don't know if he/she is free), I had it, the little scilons are still in there banging their heads against the walls of their cages when the door is right there.

I dunno, words are hard, and I think I said it better before. Like I said, it just resonates with me, y'know?

And when I felt that I wanted to join and I wanted to make these posts. I wanted to share the idea, maybe even the comfort, that not only are there other exes who get what you're going through, but people who were never even involved in the church of scientology. That this kind of suffering happens to a lot of people, people like me, people in other cults, y'know, people, and that we've pulled through just like you can and have and will. Even though I haven't had it as bad as most of the people here, I wanted to say that you've got friends in unexpected places. And we get it, we really do.

It's just that we're a wee bit crazy :p.
 
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Wisened One

Crusader
I wanna respond to the 'don't think' parts...something that always screwed with my head was 'HE&R' (Human Emotion and Reaction). It was VERY frowned upon, discouraged, poo-poo'ed, even chitted (you were written up for displaying it).

Well...:wtf:

I mean, I understood that we as Staff (even as scn's) weren't supposed to be overly-emotional while working (which was constantly for us)..but geeez, it even bled into LIFE!

I mean, I never would display grief when loved ones died...nor sympathy when someone was sick or in an accident or anything, ya know?

Like we were all Vulcans and got in trouble for displaying our human side or somethin'...:unsure: :confused2:
 

HelluvaHoax!

Platinum Meritorious Sponsor with bells on
Just a Guy - you are not just a guy. :D It's so interesting to read your thoughts. I know it's not easy to do, and it is appreciated.

I don't know if this will make sense or help in any way...a small story. As an artist, lately I have been doing some combinations of circles and geometric shapes in an abstract way. I first draw the correct shapes with compass and ruler etc, then paint by hand. This means the shapes are not perfect, only as close as I can get them to be, or want them to be. They overlap, they are layered, they are all different.

Someone who had been in scio for a very long time commented "if you are doing geometric shapes they should be perfect!".

Hmmm...ok. I thought about this a lot. We are talking art here, it doesn't have to be an exact representation of anything, it's my view and ability to paint that determines the end result. If one of my circles is wonky, or I do an outline and then fill it with abstracts, then that is just as valid as a perfectly executed, one colour circle.

It all depends on how you view it, doesn't it?

The push for perfection within scientology is paramount. It can't be changed and yet it does not work. You can't draw outside the circles, and those circles have to be perfect according to the views of others.

It can be so comforting within those exact circles. You hand over your thinking and goals and views of the world.

But you know...wonky circles have a beauty...they show the world is not perfect and there is room for individual expression, experimentation and experience. Scary sometimes but certainly more fulfilling. A life that is rigidly held within boundaries is not going to be a happy one, because even if the delusion of safety and group comfort lasts for a long time, it is not the nature of life to be confined and enclosed with no wiggle room and eventually there will be a need to push that circle into another shape. :D

Really lovely post, that!! What a way to drive someone insane. Force people to attain "perfection" that is not only not attainable, IT'S ALSO NOT EVEN PERFECT! haha

On the other hand if we are both wrong, maybe we can twin on The Hubbard PTC Course. (Potential Trouble Circles). The course guarantees that we will be able to shatter imperfect circles, which originally were implanted by psych artists.
 
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