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Does Scientology Believe in Brainwashing?The Strange Story of the Brain-Washing Manual of 1955Massimo Introvigne (CESNUR)Antwerp FVG, January 25, 2014

Contradiction? The Church of Scientology today is happyto quote scholars who criticize anti-cultbrainwashing theories Yet in 1955 L. Ron Hubbard published abooklet called Brain-Washing, implying thatbrainwashing was practiced with somesuccess in several countries Did Hubbard believe in brainwashing? Inorder to answer this question, we need firstto study Hubbard’s attitude towardsCommunism

Hubbard’s Pulps: No Sympathy for the Czar In The Cossack (1935) the Czarist Duchessof Novgrod [sic] is a murderer who endsup as a prostitute (falsely) accused to bea Communist and lynched by a mob innationalist China, where «the beardcurling cry of “Communist!” was enoughto send these peoples into swirling mobsof fiendish activity» «Although we hardly approved ofNicholas II [right] as a ruler, we needed ahead for the state we thought we couldform, and the best marionette we couldfind would be Nicholas» (American agentStuart in The Price of a Hat, 1936)

Red Death Over China In Red Death Over China (1937)pilot John Hampton flies «the onlyplane Mao possessed» While initially he works only formoney, Hampton experiences areligious conversion of sort – in atemple – and willingly sacrifices hislife for the Maoist cause «It was not power which Mao andhis men craved, but freedom. Intheir domain the peasants couldown their own land – a fact whichwas not equaled in all of China»

Hubbard vs Chiang Kai-Shek «Consider the U.S. support of China’s totalitarianregime headed by Chiang Kai-shek. While weweakly spoke of freeing the Chinese from theyoke of imperialism, we poured huge sums ofmoney and war material into the hands of agovernment which practiced the very principleswe spoke against! When this government finallyfell there was no one ready to teach the Chinesethe human way of life. [.] Somebody was therewith a propaganda aimed directly into thedesires of the people who want just a tiny taste offreedom. Russian agents were there» (DianeticAuditor’s Bulletin, July 1951)

The Threat of Soviet Mind Control 1949: Country of the Blind. U.S.anti-Communist academicsGeorge Sylvester Counts (18891974) and Nucia PerlmutterLodge (1894-1983) accuse theSoviet regime of widespread«mind control» «We make the brain perfectbefore we blow it up [ ]. Noone whom we bring to hisplace ever stands out againstus. Everyone is washed clean[ ]. By the time we had finishedwith them, [ ] there wasnothing left in them exceptsorrow for what they have doneand love of Big Brother»(George Orwell, NineteenEighty-Four, 1949)

Edward Hunter and Brainwashing In 1950 Edward Hunter (1902-1978, left), an OSS and later CIA agent whose coverjob was that of reporter, coined the word «brainwashing» in an article of the MiamiDaily News. In 1951, he published Brain-Washing in Red China Hunter claimed to have found the word in Chinese sources (hsi nao) but in fact hecreated it based on Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four

Hubbard and Pain-Drug Hypnosis «There is another form of hypnotism which falls betweenthe surgical operation and straight hypnotism withoutphysical pain. It is a vicious war weapon and may be ofconsiderably more use in conquering a society than theatom bomb. This is no exaggeration. It required dianeticprocessing to uncover pain-drug-hypnosis. Otherwise, paindrug-hypnosis was out of sight, unsuspected, andunknown»(Hubbard, Science of Survival, 1951; pain-drug hypnosis,according to Hubbard, was practiced by the Soviets)

Hubbard and Hunter In one of the lectures delivered at theGames Congress in Washington, D.C. in1956, Hubbard called Hunter’s text onbrainwashing «a fascinating book» Consistent with his idea that the ChineseRevolution started from legitimate claims,and was later infiltrated and controlled bythe Soviets, Hubbard insisted that Hunter’sbook confirmed that brainwashingtechniques were imported into China byRussian Communists

The Pavlov Connection Hubbard praised Hunter for showing «how all of Pavlov’s experiments on dogs could beapplied to human beings in order to produce a certain given result» At the Games Congress of 1956, Hubbard also claimed that the secret of brainwashingwas revealed in a mysterious «book written by [Ivan] Pavlov [1849-1939] for Stalin andwhich hitherto has never been outside the doors of the Kremlin» «That book never left the Kremlin». But now «I have that book», Hubbard announced

Jack Parsons and Communism One of the most controversial portions of Hubbard’sbiography is his association in 1945-1946 with theAgapé Lodge of the occult organization Ordo TempliOrientis (O.T.O.) led by Cal Tech scientist Jack Parsons(1914-1952, left) Parsons at that time was sexually involved with SaraElizabeth «Betty» Bruce Northrup (1924-1997), his wife’shalf-sister Sara’s father, Burton Ashley Northrup (1872-1946), whoworked for the U.S. intelligence, investigated Parsonsand discovered that he had joined a secretCommunist cell in the 1930s

Hubbard and Sara Hubbard fell in love with Sara Betty Northrup,and the two broke with Parsons and weremarried on August 10, 1946. Since Hubbardwas not yet divorced from his first wife, PollyGrubb (1907-1963), the marriage was legallyinvalid The marriage quickly deteriorated, and Sarafound a lover in one of Dianetics’ earlyassociates, Miles F. Hollister (1925-1998). After abitter divorce with Hubbard, she marriedHollister. Hubbard attributed both his maritaldifficulties and problems within Dianetics toCommunist infiltration and mind controltechniques

Communism vs Dianetics? Hubbard reported to the FBI that Sara hadbeen subject to Communist mind controltechniques and that a Communist cell hadtried to infiltrate and destroy Dianetics Suspect Communists in the early Dianeticsgroup included, according to Hubbard, MilesHollister (left), Sara’s lover, and GregoryHemingway (1931-2001), the son of the famouswriter Ernest Hemingway (1895-1951), atranssexual medical doctor who laterchanged his name into Gloria (right)

The Manual September 4, 1955:Hubbard sends to hispublisher a booklet to beprinted «on a hurryemergency basis» Brain-Washing: A Synthesisof the Russian Textbook onPsychopolitics is releasedshortly thereafter

Official Reactions FBI National Security Council: «If the booklet is a fake, the author or authorsknow so much about brainwashing techniques that I would consider themexperts, superior to any that I have met to date» Edward Hunter: «The book is a hoax, and what it has mostly achieved is tofool people who think they are getting my Brain-washing in Red Chinawhich was based on first hand sources, and put the word into thelanguage»

1956: The Book is Withdrawn January 1956: Hubbard withdraws the bookletfrom circulation and asks that all copies shouldbe returned to Scientology, following, or so heclaims, «the friendly opinion of thegovernment» August 15, 1956: Hubbard tells his publisher he iswriting a new book on Russian brainwashingsince he has «Pavlov’s secret that was neverbefore out of the Kremlin» – but it will never bepublished

A Speech by Beria? The Manual claims to be a synthesis ofbooks that were in circulation in the SovietUnion, originating from Lavrentiy PavlovichBeria (1899-1953), the chief of Russian’ssecret police NKVD until he was arrestedand executed for treason in 1953 The booklet opens with a speech Beriaallegedly gave to the «American students atthe Lenin University»

Pain-Drug Hypnosis as Brainwashing «It is in the interest of Psychopolitics that a population betold that a hypnotized person will not do anything againsthis actual will, will not commit immoral acts, and will notact so as to endanger himself. While this may be true oflight, parlor hypnotism, it certainly is not true of commandsimplanted with the use of electric shock, drugs, or heavypunishment»(Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook ofPsychopolitics, 36)

Soviet Brainwashing in the West The Manual, published by Scientology when it was starting its internationalcampaign against psychiatry, explains that Soviet agents have infiltrated theWest, where brainwashing is disseminated through psychiatrists In the US, Soviet agents work against American individualism and single outcertain religions, including «that terrible monster, the Roman Catholic Church»,Christian Science and Scientology

Kenneth Goff Kenneth Goff (1909-1972), a formerCommunist turned right-wing Christianactivist, claimed to have compiled theManual based on Communist internaldocuments Both Morris Kominsky (1901-1975), a leftwing opponent of Goff who published adetailed critic of the Manual, andColonel Gordon «Jack» Mohr (19162003), Goff’s friend and associate,claimed that Goff, rather than Hubbard,wrote the Manual Goff’s earlier versions of the Manualwere published without date, and thereis no evidence that they pre-date theScientology publication of 1955.Differences between the two versionsare minimal

«Dad Wrote Every Word of It» For anti-cultists, it is quite obvious that the Manual is simplya figment of Hubbard’s imagination Anti-cultist Bent Corydon (above) claimed in 1987 thatHubbard’s son Ron DeWolf (1934-1991, below) stated that«Dad wrote every word of it». After Hubbard’s assistantJohn Sanborn (1922-2011) had recommended to discreditpsychiatry by connecting it to Communism and Soviet spyrings, «you could hear him [Hubbard] dictating the book»,DeWolf claimed

Hubbard’s Story «Fortuitously, in Phoenix [Hubbard’shome, right] there came into our handstwo manuscripts [ ] they were leftthere at the front desk with the requestthat they be mailed back to theirowner» (allegedly «Charles Stickley»,«supposed to be a professor atColumbia University in New York City»),and «we are not sure exactly fromwhom these came» (Hubbard,Operational Bulletin no. 9, 1955) There are other, slightly differentversions, but this is Hubbard’s story. Noprofessor Charles Stickley has beentraced, in New York or elsewhere

Paul Feldkeller? «Some of the mystery concerning the manuscripton brainwashing which came into our hands inPhoenix was resolved when it was discoveredthat a book called Psychopolitics (spelled with aK) is in the Library of Congress. It is in German. Itwas written by a man named Paul Fadkeller, andwas published in Berlin in 1947. Although I maybe misinformed and I definitely do not readGerman, this book [the Manual] is probably theRussian translation» Hubbard mentioned again «Fadkeller» (i.e.German philosopher Paul Fedkeller, 1889-1972)both in public and in private correspondence.Fedkeller’s book, however, shares with the BrainWashing Manual only the word «psycho-politik»in the title – and the meaning it’s not even thesame

Why Does It Matter? Scientology critics such as Stephen Kent (right)and the authors of the Australian AndersonReport (1965) claim that the Brain-Washingbooklet is important because it was later usedas a manual in order to practice brainwashingwithin the Church of Scientology They claim that Hubbard admitted this in aTechnical Bulletin dated 22 July 1956, where hewrote that «we can brainwash faster than theRussian (20 secs to total amnesia against threeyears to slightly confused loyalty)»

A Misunderstanding In fact, Hubbard’s works denouncebrainwashing as something that epitomizeseverything that Scientology finds reprehensiblein modern psychiatry and should not bepracticed According to Hubbard, Scientologists «knowmore about psychiatry than psychiatrists»(Technical Bulletin, July 22, 1956) and «can»replicate their evil techniques, includingbrainwashing, but should not do it, otherwisetheir «moral sense» would be as low as thepsychiatrists’