On "doublethink".
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make this part of OSA US DR on RVY)
Parallels between "1984" and Scientology. Substitute "Scientology" for
"the Party."
On "doublethink"
From George Orwell's "1984": "To know and not to know, to be conscious of
complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold
simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be
contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic,
to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy
was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to
forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into
memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget
it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself
-- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness,
and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had
just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use
of doublethink."
Commentary: After nearly 22 years in the cult, I came away puzzled how I
could know the truth and think otherwise. Many people asked me how it
worked but it wasn't until I read "1984" that I read a description that
fit the mindset to move up the command ladder in Scientology.
This is what one is encountering with Sea Org/Dept 20 personnel. One
wonders, can they believe this? Don't they know the truth? Yes and no. It
is doublethink, right out of "1984." And if you tell them this, they
will doublethink their way out of it as self-protection. As one moves up
the Scientology ladder of command, this is how one begins to think and if
one doesn't think this way, one does not move up the ladder. One begins to
learn that there are facts being withheld but there are reasons and so one
begins to hold both facts in one's mind while learning to think with
Scientology's "logic." Then one does what Orwell says, the process is
applied to the process so that one if finally deluding oneself that up is
down or black is white. For example, one of Scientology's favorite come
ons is, "What is true for you, is true for you," as if a person can
believe what they want. It doesn't take long to learn that this is true
only as long as what you want to believe is what L. Ron Hubbard wants you
to believe. To do otherwise sends you to their "thought police." Further
trouble and - if you are Sea Org - you are sent to a camp for
"rehabilitation," a word and a concept that Orwell would have loved. In
the meantim, the staff member also believes the original promise: that
what is true for him is true for him. This is doublethink. It is also what
one is astounded to see, when one steps out of it and says, "I was
believing WHAT?"
Robert Vaughn Young
writer@eskimo.com