When I was a Scientologist, I had a phobia about being “exposed” to upper OT Level data in Scientology. It actually gave me attacks of anxiety to think about how damaging it might be to my sanity and to my health just to be exposed to that information and to think those thoughts.

Now that I have realized that this anxiety was caused by the installed phobia that L Ron Hubbard created around the OT levels, I can classify this as another way he tricked Scientologists.

Hubbard, in his lectures, often talked about the tricks he would play on Scientologists by outlining the principle around the trick itself – while never mentioning, of course, that the trick was being played on them elsewhere in Scientology.

For instance, in a lecture LRH gave about ARC and Agreement, he talked about how to get someone to agree to something that they would normally never agree to. He gave an example of a little girl who wanted her father to allow her to do something. And LRH started out by saying that the little girl would say to her father “Are you trying to kill me?”

And the father would say “No! Of course not!” The father would become alarmed at what was going on with his little girl that she would think such a thing. So he immediately felt the need to show her that the truth was the OPPOSITE of what she was thinking. So he fell all over her, re-assuring her about how much he LOVED her and would never want anything bad to happen to her.

And so the little girl responds with “Are you trying to make me ill?” (See – coming down the gradient) And the father, still concerned, would feel the need to prove to his little girl that he would never do that.

And so on. Ron showed how this little girl used agreement, gradients, and the ARC triangle to manipulate her father into allowing her to do what she wanted. There is a lot of “tech” on manipulating people like that in Scientology. Staff members accuse Scientologists of being “SPs” all the time, in order to get them to fall all over themselves PROVING that they are not, just like the little girl’s father did in Hubbard’s story.

In the Mission Earth Series, Solton Gris (the comic bad guy) had lots of people implanted with devices that would kick in on them if they ever discussed or thought about certain ideas. Their stomachs would become very upset, and all kinds of other highly anxious and very terrifying sensations would come over them from these implants that were used to control them for his own purposes.

Much earlier, Hubbard told Scientologists stories about how a book he wrote, “Excalibur” made people “go insane” and jump out of windows to their deaths.

Many cults teach their members that if they ever did such and such, they would “burn in hell forever”, or “God would strike them down”. These, in the lingo of the trade, are called “installed phobias”. The best description of installed phobias can be studied in Stephen Hassan’s book called “Releasing the Bonds” available here on his website.

Installed phobias are very common in cults like Scientology.

Installed phobias are used by cult leaders to control the thoughts and emotions, and thus the behavior, of their followers.

Here is a quote from L Ron Hubbard, telling Scientologists about the horrors of finding out about the materials of OT 3 without paying the Church of Scientology to “audit” it out inside the Church.

” ..The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development. One can freewheel through the implant and die unless it is approached as precisely outlined. The “freewheel” (auto-running on and on) lasts too long, denies sleep etc and one dies. So be careful to do only Incidents I and II as given and not plow around and fail to complete one thetan at a time. “In December 1967 1 know someone had to take the plunge. I did and emerged very knocked out, but alive. Probably the only one ever to do so in 75,000,000 years. I have all the data now, but only that given here is needful. “One’s body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.”

– The above quote is one of many installed phobias that L Ron Hubbard tricked Scientologists with surrounding OT 3.

I believe that the proscriptions surrounding the OT levels in Scientology serve to create an installed phobia in Scientologists. It certainly does control their thoughts and emotions, and it does instill fear in them. Even terror.

When you look at the fact that OT Level data has been discussed for decades, published in newspapers, appeared in TV shows and seen by millions of people – with not one person ever getting sick, let alone dying – this provides evidence that the rules surrounding discussion of the OT levels in Scientology act as a control mechanism only.

It is a control mechanism which I would like Scientologists to be free of.

So I’m just putting this thought here for a Scientologist to consider:

Consider the possibility that you do not have a “kill switch” in your mind that will give you an illness and make you die if you think certain thoughts or read certain information.

Just consider it.

Consider that you are actually free of any controls on your mind, and your speech, and that none of your thoughts have the power to kill you – or even make you sick. Some, such as cognitive distortions, can certainly be unhealthy for you if you think them over and over again without any self-discipline.

But consider that this is a trick that L Ron Hubbard pulled on Scientologists. And when you think about the terror a Scientologist experiences, and the ways their inner thoughts and environment are controlled by this trick – it’s a very vicious and uncaring one.

It was a trick Hubbard used without regard to a Scientologists interests at all – but only to enrich himself off of their own inner terror.

Not a very nice thing to do to people.