The anatomy of the trap is rather like this.
(Note that I've never been in the Church, and Inelia observed all this from the inside: she may be better able to comment.)
- Create a dependency.
- Tell the new member that they have serious problems - but they can all be fixed (at a high price, of course).
- Find subtle ways of making the new member feel bad about themselves.
- When the fixes are attempted, make all kind of 'mistakes' which then have to be fixed again (which is like going to a doctor, being given the wrong remedy, feeling even worse, and then having to pay for another remedy - ad infinitum).
- Exert continual suppressive control (ever-present but sometimes very subtle) over every aspect of the member's life, beliefs, thoughts, feelings and attitudes. This erodes away self-belief and self-preserving intention.
- Hammer into the member that the only way out is to continue, and that no other 'help' will be effective.
Free Zone Scientology is absolutely opposite to any of the above, and honors and always works towards free choice and self-determinism.
The only factor in common with the Church of Scientology is the basic processes that Hubbard developed (correctly applied - and correctly applied, they can work miracles).
Like the surgeon's knife, Hubbard's techniques are very powerful and can be used to cure or kill, free or enslave, liberate or indoctrinate. The processes themselves, which are mostly in the form of structured therapeutic questions, have no 'intention': it's only the intention of the practitioner (or the organization that trained the practitioner) that determines the outcome.
