Something I have noticed is that people that had major difficulties handled in scientology later cling to the tech after ending their affinity with the church as it was the stable data that ended a long term confusion. So it was for me; scientology taught me to read, scarily enough, it was on the student hat course. I cleared almost every third word on that course. But that gave me an unshakable certainty, that this was the way out of the 'trap' that I was told we were all in. I became the fastest student in the academy, I eventually joined staff with my new wife and trained as an auditor.
This is the doctrine of "the confusion and the stable datum". See, for me in any case, I had a big ruin and a lot of confusion that came with it. The dissem drill plays on this; the FSM (field staff member) or reg asks "what is ruining your life ?" Most "ruins" have a tremendous amount of confusion connected to them, which restimulates at this point, then after listening to the answer the FSM/reg says "scientology can handle that" or some such thing. Confusion and the stable datum. It is much more profound and far reaching when it occurs for real, scientology handled my illiteracy, something which had made me feel very, very stupid for most of my life to that time.
Now the tech on this, which is covered in several areas of scientology; "FPRD" (the false purpose rundown, which is designed to rid one of their bad intentions) , "the prior confusion" and the "service fac tech" (a service fac is a computation generated by a person to deal with an un-confrontable confusion) states that the postulate prevents the confusion being viewed, and the confusion prevents the postulate (stable data) from lifting. So many years later I endured 15 years of solo nots ( one of scientologys highest levels), without a lot of gain and 13 intensives of FPRD (auditing is sold in 12.5 hour blocks called intensives or "ints") and another 4 ints of sec checking (confessional), all on the 6 month eligibilities, plus traveling to flag about 20 times, all of which I hated, add to that the mind bending ethics trips where kids, with no life experience tell you what is expected and how to run your life, based on you session KRs (a KR is a knowledge report, in scientology one is obliged to write up their knowledge of others out ethics, it applies to auditors as well). I went through all that because I had that stable datum "scientology works" and I could not inspect it after that. The big irony which I have since learned, is that the tech that worked for me, was the life work of a couple by the name of Ava and Charles Berner. Ron had plagiarized it. It was only when writing this, that the penny dropped, it was that win which had cemented my loyalty.
Later, when one is in scientology, and various insane things are seen in the administration of the cult, a similar mechanism occurs. You explain away each outpoint you see, the group will help you do it too. This is covered in the data series "the brain strains to explain the illogic". Well it is uncomfortable to be in the "island of sanity" and see things far crazier than out on the street. So you look at the SO exec who is screaming at the staff and the failing org or the OTs that fall far short of anything expected and you say "they are just not trained" "they have MUs' "he did his bridge before the GAT". Each of these postulates/ justifications/explanations, call them what you will PREVENT further inspsection of the area, it also stops you keeping count or connecting these things and viewing them in their sheer number.
Also, when you accept the dogma you know the moment you have any doubts that they are based on your own mis-deeds and the subsequent critical thoughts. So what happens is you interrupt your own thought process to wonder what crimes you have. It is trained into you by the tech and org staff, particularly ethics officers drill it into you. THE RESULT IS THAT YOU DON'T HAVE A CHANCE AT EVALUATING THE CHURCH IMPARTIALLY. Hubbard also pointed out that the breaking down of a persons ability to withold reduces their intelligence, it was an early discovery to do with confessionals and early on there was a remedy for it. Not now. I am sure we are all meant to be as dumb as possible and not able to withold (a mis-deed or a dollar) when it comes to the church. So natural and balanced critical thinking skills are disabled, in the direction of scientology, in any case.
Later when I recovered a bit from this mind fuck I did a thorough doubt condition with the true data of the church's intentions. I was able to make a list of the "activities" of the group, that list was divided into pro and contra survival actions. The contra survival list was many times bigger than the pro list. It surprised me, as I did not include anything I had not seen myself, so nothing I read on the web went into it. I was seeing scientology for the first time. In saying this I am not saying the tech is rot, but it is not the tech to achieve OT or total freedom, a claim whereby it gets most of its mystique. It is what it is, and does what it does, that seems to be a different thing person to person.