Yep, that's what $cientology does. It implants a "clear" purpose into
the minds of people lured in.
On Fri, 06 Oct 2000 09:59:53 -0400, ptsc (ptsc@my-deja.com) wrote:
>On Fri, 06 Oct 2000 09:08:03 -0400,
>
>
>> Ross (1988) investigated the effects of Scientology membership with a cross-
>>sectional design, controlling for age, between length of time in Scientology
>>and scores on a number of personality measures. Ross found those who had been
>>in the movement longer had a significantly more favorable view of themselves.
Actually they have a more favorable view of their egos. It's the
illusions about themselves that are now more favorable.
A $cientologist (I have experience in this) has to keep making
progress, just as the cult has to continue to be the fastest growing
cult in the world, and you make progress in $cientology by looking at
your ego ($cientology addresses the ego and not the self at all) ever
more favorably.
I must see if I can find or get the cult to deliver to me all the OCAs
(the cult's "Personality Test" lure and psychoinstrument) I took
during my long intensive in $cientology.
You see, you soon learned that if your OCA went down you were ethics
bait. (Yes they really have a term "ethics bait.") A low OCA is one of
the items that could get you sent to the RPF slave labor reprogramming
camp. An OCA that dropped got you unwanted attention from the MAAs,
the C/Ses, auditors, and all your seniors all the way up to the
Commode Door.
It's no wonder that the $cientologists who've stayed in longer have a
significantly more favorable view of themselves; that is, their egos.
The longer you stay in the more cognitions you would have had, the
more processes you would have run, the more grades and levels you
would have completed, the more courses you would have done, the more
stats you would have reported, the more able you would have become,
the more awareness you would have attained. How could you not look on
yourself more favorably than you look on wogs (R) who have done none
of this, who have gone on living their woggish (R) lives.
The way you get to lord it over new arrivals, with your more favorable
view of your ego, also helps to reinforce the unfavorable view of the
recruit, plus the favorable view of the veteran. There's great cachet
in longevity in $cientology. Ask any old timer.
By the time I escaped $cientology, my OCA was right along the top.
There was nowhere else to go. I couldn't get more superior than I was.
Same thing with my IQ. The cult tests IQ with the same test whenever
it wants to throughout a clam's career. By the time I escaped, there
was nowhere in $cientology for me to go. I was getting a perfect score
on my IQ test every time. I couldn't get any smarter.
This reminds me of something funny. On the Apollo in, I don't know,
maybe December, 1973, I began a relationship with Terri Gillham who
was the C/O CMO, the Commanding Officer of the Commodore's Messenger
Organization. I was, I guess, 27, Terri was, I believe, 19. I was in
the Port Captain's Office, Ship's Rep probably. In any event, we have
a love affair and get married. But along the way she tells me that she
decided to pursue me, or allow me to pursue her, I forget which,
because she's gone through my files and seen that I had a high IQ. So
if it wasn't for Ron's stupid IQ tests I would never have had those
few wonderful years with the beautiful Terri.
When I did finally escape from the cult, with my personality test
scores and my IQ off the charts, and after years of becoming more
aware with cognition after cognition, and after more than a thousand
hours of auditing with Heaven knows how many Divs of TA, and after
working so close with the old man, and after going OT, and after 12
1/2 years, and after more than two of those in the RPF (where you
really make case gain, right), I was faced with the obvious and
sobering truth that I was just as I was when I entered $cientology's
door in Vancouver, B.C., with exactly the same problems, abilities and
inabilities. The big difference was that now that I knew that, I also
knew that Hubbard, DM, the GO, the SO, the lawyers, the PIs, and the
rest of the lying, scamming crooks knew that I knew and that I was a
targeted enemy.
>>Ross also found long-term members had increased their sense of duty and ability
>>to work conscientiously, increased their emphasis on organization and planning,
>>increased their attempts to understand their own behavior or the behavior of
>>others, increased their engagement in behaviors that provide material or
>>emotional benefit to others, and increased their seeking and maintaining of
>>personal friendships. Long-term members also decreased their solicitation of
>>sympathy, affection, or emotional support from others.
Boy, tell me about that. $cientologists are lonely creatures.
>>The greatest increase was in orientation toward duty and obligations. Significant
>>correlations were also found with preference for continuity and old values,
>>sympathetic manner and positive reaction for others, unpretentiousness and
>>uncomplicated manner, and analytic and self-disciplined approach.
>
>>Ross (1988) found no support for Scientology being a negative influence on
>>personality, nor that entrants into Scientology are unusual with regard to
>>their previous history. Claims that membership in Scientology leads to ego
>>disintegration was not supported, with the scores of the participantıs ego
>>strength within the normal range.
Absolutely, it's an ego enhancer.
I feel, without reading the rest of this that Ross is describing the
results of nazi life and dedication. Wouldn't a nazi who had been a
member for ten years or so experience a great increase in orientation
toward duty and obligations? Wouldn't a long time nazi have an
analytic and self-disciplined approach? Wouldn't a long time nazi
consider he had increased his sense of duty and ability to work
conscientiously? Wouldn't a good nazi have through the years increased
his emphasis on organization and planning?
>> Results from the PIL (purpose in life) scale,
>>which measures the extent to which individuals have a clear purpose in life,
>>indicated that Scientologists scored significantly higher than members of
>>conventional religious denominations or committed Christians did.
Yep, that's what $cientology does. It implants a "clear" purpose into
the minds of people lured in.
>>Ross, M. W. (1988). Effects of membership in Scientology on personality: An
>>exploratory study. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 27, 630-636.
>
>While this is interesting, I think it's only slightly more valid than a claim
>that all Scientologists are clinically insane. I'm not terribly impressed with
>the sample size or the method of selection, for instance:
>
>"The sample consisted of 24 men and 24 women, with a mean age of 40.2 years, SD
>15.1, median 35.8: range of ages was 16 to 72, with time in Scientology being a
>mean of 14.6 years, SD 8.0, and range 2.5 to 30.0. Thirty-four of the samples
>were married, seven single and seven separated, divorced or widowed. Most common
>occupations were office and sales workers (29.2%), proprietors and managers, and
>skilled workers (18.8% each), and professionals and housewives (10.4%). Parental
>occupation was for 86.4% skilled workers or above, with 45.4% having parents who
>were office and sales workers or proprietors and managers. Modal education was
>completion of secondary schooling (68.1%), with the remainder having had some
>tertiary education or being graduates."
You've also got to dig that $cientologists become experts at taking
tests like Ross administered. They would automatically know how to
answer the test questions to give a higher, but clearly false, impression.
Christians, as a comparative "group," would not live their lives
according to personality tests. Christians don't send their "elite" to
prison if their personality test scores are low. I'll bet there isn't
even a term in Christianity which would be the equivalent of "Low OCA"
in the criminal $cientology cult.
>
>(Re the method of selection)
>
>"Subjects were obtained by taking one hundred names at random from the records
>of the Church of Scientology in Melbourne, Australia from a list supplied which
>included some three hundred of those who had been members for three years or
>longer. Questionnaires with a covering letter were then sent direct to these
>individuals, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for their return. Two were
>returned undeliverable, and 48 completed questionnaires were subsequently
>returned, a rate of 49%. The ACL, Es and PIL were scored by a research assistant
>blind to the source of the instruments, and coded for computer analysis."
Ah this is funny. Maybe someone who participated in this sham will
come forward. Just to whom does any $cientology cult operation give
its mailing list?
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
(c) Gerry Armstrong
>
>http://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/~krasel/CoS/books/ross.html
>(From the abstract)
>
>Now the choice was random, which would be good if it weren't for the source. I
>am assuming the organization itself provided the list. Now if it were any other
>"religion" I would expect this to be OK but we're talking an organization with a
>long-term history of playing games with statistics and even outright lying about
>them.
>
>Incidentally, I am assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the list was indeed
>supplied by the "Church" based on the weaselly use of the passive voice in the
>paragraph on the method of selection, which comments that the names were
>randomly chosen from a "list supplied" and conveniently omits who supplied that
>list. The passive voice is often used by "clever" academics when they wish to
>omit the subject and hope nobody will bother to think about it all that much.
>
>Could it be remotely possible that the list was salted with people they thought
>were more likely to score well on a psychological assessment?
>
>There's no way of knowing that, as the "Church" itself likely provided the
>names, and doubtless wouldn't have provided a list of names to anyone likely to
>find bad results.
>
>I'll correct this if the paper (which I do not have) is more specific about
>these issues. In either case the sample size makes the results at best
>preliminary. I doubt that Scientology members are appreciably more mentally ill
>in a clinical sense than the general population.
>
>(Now whether they're goddamn nuts is another matter!)
>
>ptsc
Copyright © Gerry Armstrong - All Rights Reserved.