Experience: I was in a Scientology jazz band (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Experience: I was in a Scientology jazz band (2021)

theguardian.com

67 pointstintinnabula12 comments

I was a bit disappointed when I found out Chick Corea was a Scientogist. He and Edgar Winter played on some terrible albums.

How disappointing

I've listened to the album a few times and I think it's actually pretty good. Rough edges, sure - but it's got energy (metaphorically speaking).

He mentioned “conditioning” often made him discount his skepticism. What exactly do we mean by conditioning in these circumstances?

Have you read 1984? Scientology is an outpost of IngSoc which will inevitably win but is under constant attack. Everyone in Scientology is naturally better than everyone outside, because they've accepted the truth. The worst thing you can be is a Scientologist who has left the organization, because you know the truth and you are actively working against civilization, a traitor to the future. You spend all your money on courses from the organization that will get you to Clear, a mystical status that will enable you to completely control your own mind. You spend hours hooked up to a skin galvanometer called an E-Meter while an auditor asks you questions. Anyone who is pre-Clear but not taking the courses and answering the questions needs to be encouraged to join the organization and save themselves so they can help save humanity.

When you go Clear you discover that you are actually just an Operating Thetan I, and you need to pay more money to take the courses to become an Operating Thetan II. Then you learn the real truth: that an alien named Xenu...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_%28Scientology%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Thetan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishman_Affidavit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu

... and by then you're willing to do anything to save the world, including torture people by putting them in solitary confinement and starving them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies

That's conditioning.

Thanks, it doesn't give a succinct definition, but the parts about knowing the "truth" and being under constant attack seem essential parts to "conditioning", and how such are applied to some sketchy religious sects and conspiracy theories. But, I guess, my question is how can it be so effective and why are people so susceptible, since I'd guess if you went up to most people on the street to tell them you had the truth and they're under attack they'd probably give you the finger, yet some people are highly attracted to such suggestions.

Humans like being a part of society. This appears to be ingrained in hominids, if not mammals as a whole -- cats like groups of 5 to 50, depending on environment; some whales seem to be happy being alone for months at a time.

Some percentage of humans are willing to submit to significant demands from tribal leaders in order to demonstrate their loyalty to the tribe, including wearing tribe colors, displaying tribe emblems and flags, and changing aspects of their life to conform to the tribal leader's statements about what is right and good and proper. Quite a bit of money can be spent on this.

And, at an extreme, some humans go looking for a tribe that promises more, and demands more from them. It's a continuum.

They do it very gradually: from what I understand, the first time you meet them they use a device called an e-meter and take a fake "reading" and then give you some common sense advice. They don't tell you about Xenu until 4 years later when you're estranged from all your friends and emptied your bank account. See: 1. boiling frog syndrome and 2. sunk cost fallacy.

Positive feedback for being rational is naturally delayed indefinitely (e.g. the dude taking years to realize what was going on around him, get out, get his shit together, finally get his story published as a short piece), while negative feedback for disagreeing with established consensus is made immediate and severe (e.g. Hubbard and his flunkies yelling at people).

Real achievement takes time to bear fruit, while a sufficiently advanced manipulator can near instantly create emotional feedback loops based in illusion. It's something that happens all over the place all the time - Scientology is an interesting aberration purely because its scaled.

Milieu control, brainwashing, undue influence, etc.

If you want to know more specifically what happens, there are many public accounts from survivors of Scientology and countless other cults (or high control groups - if you prefer).

There is a body of literature. Authors include: Robert Jay Lifton, Steven Hassan, Margaret Singer, Alexandra Stein, Jon Atack.

I don't know much specifically about Scientology but I found an interesting article on how cults in general use propaganda, indoctrination, fear and isolation to brainwash members and impair their critical thinking:

https://aeon.co/essays/how-cult-leaders-brainwash-followers-...

Thanks. I've not read it all, but it seems like emotional exhaustion through manufactured fears, failed agency and isolation resulting in hopelessness of which a charismatic someone can take complete advantage by offering to replace their failed agency in return for peace. "These people threaten you. I am the only person who understands and can help. And I am too a threat. I will give you peace if you submit to me (believe this truth)."

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