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Marty: Scientology, Science and Squirreling
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/scientology-science-and-squirreling/
The article is worth reading in its entirety at Marty's blog.
Excerpts:
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/scientology-science-and-squirreling/
The article is worth reading in its entirety at Marty's blog.
Excerpts:
The further Scientologists proceed in their study, the more they are precluded from comparing their learning to any other discipline. They are trained to treat any independent, evolved learning about the mind and spirit with disdain. The greater the degree of arrogant certainty with which the Scientologist identifies and authoritatively rejects incursion of data originated by someone other than Ron, is the degree to which an individual is considered valuable and is validated and promoted within the ranks of Scientology. There is no more important standard of credibility within Scientology than this.
I began the search that lead to this course by attempting to do what L. Ron Hubbard proclaimed Scientology sought to do. That is to reconcile science with spirit. Quite evidently somewhere along the line Scientology divorced itself entirely from science and became a full-fledged religious belief system. My journey gave me to a much deeper appreciation for where and how that departure came about – some of which has already been summarized in books and blog essays.
For decades I was of the belief that there was good reason for Hubbard becoming so defensive of his creation. After all, I had been thoroughly indoctrinated in Hubbard’s version of the war that the medical monopoly and psychiatry declared and waged against him. Even as late as 2013 (Memoirs) I was defending Hubbard on that basis. But, in researching deeper into the philosophical seeds from which Dianetics and Scientology sprang I came to doubt the primary cause of Hubbard’s travails.
There are ample references in Hubbard issues and lectures to Dr. Joseph Winter as the original ‘squirrel.’
Winter noted that Hubbard’s invented, eminently disprovable claims of 100% invariable success were put in writing by Ron a year before he had even published the first handbook on the subject:
‘A very exhaustive research has located no exception to any axiom and broad application to types has discovered no exception to treatment technique – anything surrenders.’ – 1949 letter from Hubbard to Winter
Ultimately Winter discovered no such research existed beyond Hubbard’s claims of one-hundred percent success. Hubbard originally approached Winter hoping to use him to infiltrate Dianetics into the medical/psychiatric field. Winter attempted to do so. He reported initial receptivity:
‘The professional people evidenced an interest in the philosophy of dianetics; their interest was repelled, however, by the manner of presentation of the subject, especially the unwarranted implication that it was necessary to repudiate one’s previous beliefs before accepting dianetics.’
Winter goes on to chronicle how the absolute prohibition against putting Dianetics to any objective test was fully in force from the earliest days, a policy that sealed the fate of Hubbard’s creation becoming a system grounded not in science but instead upon assiduously policed religious belief.
The result is that today to Scientologists, their discipline reigns supreme in all respects irrespective of any evidence to the contrary. If another idea conflicts with Scientology it is energetically rejected and discredited, with no inspection or test for worth. The most common method of discrediting is done by assignment of guilt by association to its originator. The most common and convenient association ‘found’ by the Scientologist to discredit such ideas is some link, real or imagined, to psychiatry (actually ‘psychs’, which includes psychologists, psychotherapists or any other established mental practitioners).
