Language, Jargon and Mind Control

Language is the tool humans have given themselves to transcend time and transmit their ideas, their view of the universe and their way of getting a grip on it, to their descendants. It maps a territory of ideas and concepts that is a map for survival. As such, it is entirely too subjective yet, on examination, one finds that the vast majority of concepts seems to overlap between speakers of one specific language and the speaker of another, as if these concepts were a common thread for all humans.

They might very well be. Baring extreme differences in environment (Inuits have seventeen words for snow, Arabs have around twenty or so for camels), it is as if all languages were maps of the same terrain, with cities (as concepts). As if humans saw the universe through the same keyholes. And all of those concepts are represented by little sound bites called "words".

But when we examine the way different people get from concept to concept, the roads between each cities start wavering and sometime even disappear completely as each ethnic group will get to his view of the universe his own way. This last point is of extreme importance in relation to mind control as everything the mind does is based on words.

When the language specializes, that is, touches a subject that is not usually talked about on the market place but is reserved for some high-priest-like caste (can you spell "medical doctor", "lawyer", ...you got the point), words are evolved by this caste to symbolize more easily their peculiar point of view of the universe and the specific grip on it it gives them. A consistent set of those evolved words is called a jargon.

Having a jargon is very usefull for specialist to express their thoughts in the minimum amount of words. It also keep the meanings straight, since everyone know the official primitive meaning.

One good mark of an established science is a consistent jargon. A glueball is only one thing to any atomic physicist. So is a clutch to any auto mechanic.

However, jargon is also a great way to trap people in certain ways of thinking. There is a theory (and it's been proved to my satisfaction by what the COS (read Church of Scientology) does with words) that a concept you don't have a word for cannot be manipulated in your mind: words are needed as symbols for manipulating concepts for anything deeper than just having a warm fuzzy feeling about something.

One must also consider that since time immemorial, all the basic concepts of the human language have been covered, "discovered" and "rediscovered". One can say that they all have been "positioned" (exacly like a commercial product) clearly in the mind of word users. Anybody can recognize the "real thing", right ?

So whoever wants to manipulate the minds of people would do two things: redefine existing words to displace the positioning this word previously had in the mind of the speakers, and define new words to describe things that are specific to this new way of thinking, this new *science*.

Both operations can be done in one smooth movement. It starts with the redefinition of existing words, first giving a slight rewording of the commonly accepted meaning in common occurences, then giving them an additional slanted meanings for slightly special occurences, then adding a totaly new definition with loaded senses under specific condition and then stretching *that* new definition to both cover, undermine and replace the previous reasonable ones.
The way this is done is by enlarging, by rescaling the ultra-specific occurence footprint, as it were, to now cover first the specific occurence and then more and more common occurences. This is done both in quality and number of happenstance of use. When the person would try to think on that subject, she would of course use the words of jargon for that subject. The symbolic construction she would get mentally would trap her in a certain way of thinking that would be as insidious as it is invisible for the simple reason that the eye does not see itself, the symbol cannot describe itself, cannot be both question and answer. If the trap supplies automatically "prefabricated answers" and "reasonable-seeming (that is stress-solving) solutions", the persone does not *have to* think anymore about that subject. That techique is known as thought stopping: it stops the thought by mentally supplying "answers" that are not deduced but rather learned and repeated until made automatic, hence cannot be used for logical thoughts. the word "Ethics" is a good example: the first definition is : "ethics is what the person does by herself to keep herself on the straight and narrow path of virtue", which in my mind is quite a usable and workable definition (used, it leads to decision and can be manipulated as a symbol, it leads to choices that themselves open up more choices instead of limiting them to ever narrowing solutions that soon turn into problems). The trap is set in the second definition : "Ethics" is defined as "what Scientology does, period". Trying to bring real (meaning public and not internal COS style) justice to bear on the COS would then be met by the COS members, as a knee jerk reaction, by automatic response that whoever was trying to bring justice to bear is a *baddy*, since "we are all so ethic in the COS" (Church Of Scientiology) .

Of course, persons who go into a movement also already have a complete working vocabulay to which they refer for reality checking, for day to day dealing with "base subjects" (cooking and jobs) and just recreation (cross-words / sudoku anyone ?). Now, if one were to impose a new vocabulary on such an uninformed person, resistance would be met by the contradiction between meanings of words already in the person's mind and the one being taught to her (sorry, person in French is feminine) for the simple reason that the new one is less workable, being more restricted in application.
What Ron Hubbard did that was so ingenious, he devised a new synthetic vocabulary that could be used and was workable "in the COS", and since it had all been devised at one sitting, or almost, the definitions of all the words were devised not to be in opposition between themselves on anything important, but they even reinforced the mental trap by making sure that words in that dictionnary would not lead out of the dictionnary itself, even with common words (enter the KeyToLife Course for those in the know).

Once a person has started to train, she uses the words in that dictionnary (two in fact: one for auditing techniques and another for administrative techniques), first in her COS milieu, that is, in the Academy, which then leaks to the whole assembly of the "faithfull" (out of which she has a growing number of friends who comfort her in her new "faith"), which then leaks in her wog (out-of-COS) work and personnal life environment. When that has happened, the person *is* a COS member, mentally, for life, unless she makes the mental effort to redefine all those words that were taught to her while in the COS courseroom and environment. Believe you me, not an easy thing to do!

Now some might imagine that these are drilled forcefully, with sargeant-like yelling at recruits, into the thought processes of all members. It's not the case. It's been said and read and used so often that in-COS people just accept it as truth. It's now a given. It's not even perceived as something that can be questionned.

But now we are touching on the "loaded language" principle ! Let us go back and lay down another layer of power on this.

Emotionnaly loaded language is detected quite easily by the blatant appeal to base emotions through vivid imageries, colorfull comparisons, even jokes that are designed to elicit quick sympathies, first by making a "me" be a part of an "us" then by appeal for that "us" to react violently against some chosen "them". Alas, it eventually works and when it does, it invariably continues to do so.

Logicaly loaded language is something else entirely. Since it does not appeal to emotions or impulses for it's impact, it has to be absorbed into the mind gradually, without waves, and used reasonably and parsimoniously at first, the new meaning getting more and more ingrained, and quite deeply, before somebody can detect it. By that time, it is already too late: it is part of the mental toolset of the person. The COS vocabulary loads the thinking process itself by a slanting and curving approach: first a few reasonable definitions that are used in lower level courses, then, later on, one has to word-clear the "other" definition which is a floating mine. But since the person already has a word to that index in her mind, the new meaning is grafted noiselessly to the previously learned ones without any undue stress, connecting as it were on the same "index" only deeper in the list. It is then used more and more and gets integrated into the working vocabulary of this person. Thus, it's almost undetectable to someone not looking for it or who does not stop and analyse everything they read, *before* integrating it.

And even then, if the composer thinks (or instinctively feels) there is too big a step in credibility, he would follow the new meaning with an attention getting ploy (a joke, a provocative question, a photograph, anything...) to distract from that word or concept to something else, anything else, so the new concept gets to pass unexamined by consciousness into the inner sanctum of the mind where, for all intent and purpose, it is irretrievably set as an *accepted* symbol.

Actually, it's so gradual that one cannot notice it. Little by little, the vocabulary is learned and, with it, the attitudes, word by word, in the courseroom, where no fuss is made over it. If there is a fuss, it's "..which word did you not understand.." routine and the person redoubles in her efforts to do it right, that is , to "learn" the new word and integrate it, since now her appurtenance to the group depends on her doing so. The person indoctrinates *herself*. So there is no resistance, none at all, to the new learning. And that is what makes it so devastating. Nobody is indoctrinating that person but herself. Nobody has to stand there to make sure the tought is pure. It's all done by the person herself to herself.

And there lies the major danger. Such a person, having learned through some duress those words and made them her own, will defend them and the group behind them for a very simple reason: nobody likes to confront the fact that what one believes is either dangerous crap for herself or not even worth the time it took to learn it.

People use words to perceive, identify and handle the universe around themselves. Take away any big slice of those words from a person's vocabulary, and a whole system of values and method of handling her very life will come crashing down on that person and make her ineffectual *again*, as she was before she joined the group (she thinks). Such wholesale redefinition will be resisted with the energy of a cornered rat as the (perceived) survival of the person herself is at stake. Even the demonstration of the unvalidity of it will be perceived as an attack on the "creed", and will be resisted in the only way possible: the attacker must not only be silenced but be so permanently so as not to be able to spread the heresy. I will merely say the words "Satanic Verses" to give an idea to those in the know about the reaction of those so offended and let my case rest on this.

But all is not lost. There is a way to counter such learning / programming. Since the person uses those words to understand the universe, present her with data that, without invalidating her vocabulary, forces her to use the words in their fullest, widest senses, that forces her to use them in the *original* meaning, and that finally forces her to acquire and compare datas on the subject that just have to be confronted, since they are there and will not go away. For someone still *in* the COS, an examination of the real references on the life of the founder, or the viewing of the documents on Lisa MacPherson's death, might be a good start, since they only present facts. There is no lack of critical litterature on the subject, but the person herself must approach those, as a "handling" or just to prove "them critics" wrong.

Let time and the words themselves do the job, while we are *just* helping along by putting them on her New Road to Freedom.

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barncatsoftware@sympatico.ca                                         
“Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker”
“That which does not kill me,  makes me stronger”            Nietzsche
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