From: Gerry Armstrong <gerry@gerryarmstrong.org>
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: Quick survey of Ex-Scientologists (was: Scientology's Hatred of Medicine, the Real Why)
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 22:21:31 +0200
Message-ID: <tdsogvkbsfohpr0c66eiuun86rasg2usl1@4ax.com>
References: <l9bogvcq1on0k6o4fpt5otqhpriij1lck8@4ax.com> < Xns93B37A85A5683kadywwwaifnet@205.232.34.12>
X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.88.233.216
X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 217.88.233.216
X-Trace: 9 Jul 2003 16:21:39 -0400, 217.88.233.216
X-Original-Trace: 9 Jul 2003 16:21:39 -0400, 217.88.233.216
Organization: Lightlink Internet
Lines: 265
Path: news2.lightlink.com
Xref: news2.lightlink.com alt.religion.scientology:1626021

On 9 Jul 2003 12:02:55 -0400, "kady@wwwaif.net" <kady @wwwaif.net>
wrote:

>Gerry Armstrong <gerry@gerryarmstrong.org> wrote in
>news:l9bogvcq1on0k6o4fpt5otqhpriij1lck8@4ax.com:
>
>To start off, I think you raise an interesting point, and it's enlightening
>to read the Hubbard PL that you claim is the root of this anti-medicine
>bias on the part of Scientology and Scientologists.

No, I didn't claim or imply that it's the "root." The anti- medicine
bias goes back to the beginning of Scientology. The policy Hubbard
articulates in this PL is not even the "root" or the start of his
blaming medicine and psychiatry for the cult's failures. The PL is,
however, clear proof that he did order in 1971 that medicine and
psychiatry be blamed for those failures. It is very useful for
understanding organization-wide anti-medicine hatred.

> However, one of your
>conclusions do not seem to be borne out by the facts. I'll snip, to explain
>what I mean:
>
><non-hostile snipping>
>
>
>> That Scientologists' hatred for medical doctors, and even their more
>> obstreperous hatred for psychiatrists, is simply part of the
>> Hubbard-Miscavige brainwash, is shown by the fact that virtually every
>> person who leaves the cult also discards the anti-medicine hatred.
>> Indeed, many people who escape the Scientology brainwash go on to
>> academic study in the medical and psychological fields. But almost
>> everyone who leaves the cult discovers that doctors are not the evil
>> entities that they had been indoctrinated by Scientology into hating,
>> and that doctors and medicine are certainly not responsible for the
>> failures and overt products of Hubbard's "technology." The "tech"
>> doesn't work, not because of what medicine did to the cult's
>> customers. The "tech" doesn't work because it doesn't work.
>
>This is, from what I can see, simply incorrect. Not the part about how the
>"tech doesn't work", but the assertion that "virtually every person who
>leaves the cult also discards the anti-medicine hatred." In fact, my
>readings of ex-Scientologists right here on this newsgroup, and elsewhere,
>would lead me to precisely the opposite conclusion.

Let us do a survey. I know that every ex-Scientologist to whom I am
connected discarded the Scientology-inculcated hatred of psychs and
medics. Two very good ex-Scientologist friends of mine went on to
study wog (R) psychology. Pretty well everyone I know who became an
ex-Scientologist sought and was grateful for medical insurance, which
was utterly unavailable and scorned in the cult.

Back in the early 1980's we used to talk about the steps out of the
cult that included "talk to a psychologist," or "talk to a
psychiatrist." As in, e.g., 1. leave; 2. criticize management; 3.
criticize Hubbard; 4. criticize the "tech;" 5. blow a little weed; 6.
talk to a shrink; 7. call Mike Flynn.

Hasn't Tory talked to psych professionals since leaving the cult, and
found them not to be the hated and hateful entities she was brought to
believe they were while inside Scientology? I don't know one
ex-Scientologist, among the dozens I know reasonably well, who has
anything remotely resembling the irrational antipathy toward medicine
and psychiatry he or she had while inside the cult.

But let's ask the ex-Scientologists on a.r.s.:

SURVEY FOR EX-SCIENTOLOGISTS

1. Since leaving Scientology do you believe you have discarded the
anti-medicine hatred you had while in the cult?

2. Since leaving Scientology have you studied anything in the medical
or psychological fields that you would not have studied as a
Scientologist?

3. Since leaving Scientology have you discovered that doctors and/or
psychiatrists are not the evil entities that you had been
indoctrinated by Scientology into believing they were?

4. Since leaving Scientology have you realized that medicine and/or
psychitary are not responsible for the failures and overt products of
Hubbard's "technology?

Any comments you care to make on this subject would be helpful and
appreciated.

END OF SURVEY

>
>The distrust of the AMA and conventional medicine seems to be one of the
>last aspects of Hubbard-think to fade from an indoctrinated Scientologists,
>if it fades at all.

Well, of course it fades. It faded in me while I was still inside the
cult. We even had an ex-Scientologist show up here on a.r.s. just a
few weeks ago extolling the virtues of conventional medicine. In
fact, I believe he mentioned that he had himself gone on to get a
psych degree. Perhaps someone else could cite to his post.

And it should be noted that I did not mention a "distrust of the AMA
and conventional medicine." That is probably about as healthy as a
distrust of lawyers and the ABA. In many cases, you'd have to be brain
dead not to get another opinion. I am not talking about a healthy
distrust. I am talking about an unhealthy hatred, a hatred which is
whipped into Scientologists by the cult leaders' application of
Hubbard's policy letter of June 29, 1971, and earlier similar
sentiments.

> In many cases, ex-Scientologists maintain a strong
>interest in, and adherence to alternative health theories and -- in some
>cases -- quackery.

I'd bet that the percentage is probably about the same as in the
general population. I have seen no evidence to support another
conclusion.

But the antipathy inside Scientology to medicine and psychiatry is so
universal as to be an indicator of brainwash. Hubbard's policy shows
that the brainwash is deliberate, and its purpose, or one key purpose,
for the brainwash, is to have a scapegoat for the cult's failures.

> There are also, of course, many groups and individuals
>out there who have never been involved with Scientology, yet hold the same
>attitudes towards "conventional" medicine.
>
>Within Scientology itself, from what I can tell, the nearly fanatical
>hatred and mistrust of medical experts and conventional treatment seems to
>be more cultural, and does not simply apply to health problems that the
>tech doesn't seem to fix.

As Hubbard's PL shows, the hatred and mistrust of medical experts is
"cultural" because it's ordered. If an order came down from Miscavige
that all Scientologists were to cease criticizing medicine and
psychiatry, and to cease blaming medicine and psychiatry for
Scientology's tech failures, the "cultural" hatred and mistrust would
disappear in an instant.

> For instance, there have been a number of cases
>where active, faithful Scientologists delve into other branches of
>quackery, particularly fraudulent cancer treatments, like the ones offered
>by "Jimmy Keller", as well as vitamin/allergy treatments for autism - see
>the involvement of the infamous Dr. Minkoff in NAET (www.naet.com).

Well yes. And of course Dr. Minkoff is a conventionally trained MD.
And the cult probabably even had conventionally trained Thomas Szasz
on its payroll. But they use these people to support their
anti-conventional medicine hate campaign.

There is no doubt that a high proportion of Scientologists are
involved in scams. Especially "alternative medicine scams." But
alternative medicine is not necessarily fraud. And conventional
medicine practitioners are not necessarily not fraudsters.

>
>These Scientologists maintain their belief in Scientology, but are willing
>to seek alternatives to treat illnesses for which Scientology or Hubbard-
>based treatments are not explicitly indicated, and this does not seem to
>shake their faith in the 'tech' at all. The overriding theory on which they
>base such decisions appears to be that if the AMA claims that a treatment
>is unsubstantiated quackery, then it MUST work.

I haven't seen enough data to support that conclusion, although I've
seen throwaway comments to that effect. Hubbard said something similar
about smoking. But both Hubbard's idiocies and this "overriding
theory," if it exists, would support the observations that the
Scientological hatred of medicine and psychiatry is organization-wide,
a part of the brainwash, and discardable as soon as and as easy as the
Scientologist identity is discarded.

The Scientological problem with such Hubbardian stupidities is that if
you question them you get targeted as an SP, a criminal and fair game,
your family gets destroyed, and there are fifty thousand
violence-prone Scientologists primed to obliterate you if the
opportunity or order arises.

>
>Finally, it would appear that the anti-medicine attitude is, and has always
>been a self-selecter, and a common characteristic of those who become
>involved with Scientology.

If that were true, I would think you'd see no change in the anti-ness
from pre-Scientology, through Scientology, to post-Scientology. My
observation is that there is a radical change -- elimination or
radical reduction -- in the antipathy to medicine and psychiatry
after leaving and in the process of becoming an ex-Scientologist.

It is harder to evaluate numbers in the pre-Scientology period, so I
can only speak for myself. I had no hatred or fear of medicine or
psychiatry before becoming involved with the cult that came close to
what I developed during involvement. I doubt too that a survey would
reveal that other recruits' attitude toward medicine and psychiatry
did not change, that is, grow more antipathetic, as they entered the
cult and proceeded up its "bridge."

My belief is that it was not an anti-medicine or anti-psychiatry
attitude that attracted most people to the cult. I think it was the
promises the cult was making, promises which, of course, these other
subjects were not making.

And I think that it is these same promises which are key to
understanding why Hubbard would *order* that psychiatry be blamed for
all his cult's failures. The failures are failures to deliver on the
promises. The promises lured the customers in. The "tech" was how the
promises were obtained. The promises were lies. The failure to deliver
on the promises generated the "cases," the "upsets," the flaps, the
refunds and the lawsuits.The scapegoating of medicine and psychiatry
was the way to keep the scam operating. Blaming medicine and
psychiatry excused the failures, gave the troops an "enemy" to hate,
and charged them up for war.

I did not get into Scientology to solve a medical problem, and I don't
think all that many people do. Some certainly do, and Scientology
certainly does suck in whomever it can with promises of curing their
physical or mental ailments. The promise that Scientology would raise
IQ about a point per hour, on the other hand was significant to me.
That it promised to make the able more able was also significant.

>An interest in alternative therapies could often
>lead to Scientology as a natural part of an individual's investigation into
>alternative treatments, and of course, once indoctrinated into Scientology,
>Hubbard's writings - or should I say frothings - on the subject of medicine
>would, in fact, confirm many of their own previously-held beliefs on the
>subject.

I'm sure it works for a few that way. But I think that not that high a
percentage of Scientology recruits is seeking alternative treatment.
Or at least was seeking alternative treatment during the period when I
became involved.

I think we see "success stories" by Scientologists that make it appear
that they got into the cult in the search for a treatment for some
condition, because a Scientologists could rarely publicly admit why
they got into the cult. DM says it cured his asthma. Cruise says it
cured his dyxisale. For obvious reasons these lil buddies don't want
to say that they got into Scientology to have their IQs go up a point
per hour, or to become total cause over matter, energy, space and
time. So they fall back on "I was searching for a cure for what
conventional medicine couldn't cure."

It could be said that I was seeking a treatment that guaranteed an
increase in IQ, but that would be like saying that someone gets into a
money-making scheme as a treatment for poverty. Or someone pays to
become OTas a treatment for the condition of not being OT. I think
that Scientology is in most instances not sold as "alternative
treatment" as the world understands "alternative treatment."

> Even if that individual eventually leaves Scientology, as so many
>do, it doesn't necessarily follow that they would be as quick to shed that
>antipathy for the medical profession that may have been one of the reasons
>that they became involved in Scientology in the first place.

As I said, my observation has been that a radical diminution or a
complete loss of the standard Scientological antipathy to medicine and
psychiatry has occurred in conjunction with the Scientologists I've
known becoming ex-Scientologists. But perhaps the survey above in
which I've invited ex-Scientologists to participate can give us some
more data with which to work.

Gerry

>
>K

© Gerry Armstrong
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org

Thread