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to the fact that the new student is doing these drills to become more
effective as an "auditor" ("auditor" being the name for a Scientology
counselor). For example, in the instructions for TR-0, Hubbard states:
To train student to confront a preclear (someone not yet a Clear)
with auditing only or with nothing.
In other words, the student comes to accept the fact that one of the
reasons for this course is to train him to be an "auditor." It is
amazing that students on this course accept this subtle transition
without question.
One analyst of the Communication Course, Ford Schwartz, wryly
observes in an unpublished paper that the certificate for completing the
Communication Course does not even mention the word "communication." The
certificate for completing the Communication Course certifies the
student as a "Hubbard Apprentice Scientologist", or "H.A.S." Whether he
likes it or not, upon completing the Communication Course, the new
student has become a Scientologist. Pretty slick!
In TR-1, the student is taught to give a command "newly and in a new
unit of time," by picking phrases out of the book Alice in
Wonderland and reading them to another student. Phrases such as:
"Would you please tell me why you are painting those roses?"
"Oh, please mind what you're doing!"
"Off with her head!"
"Curiouser and curiouser!"
"You shouldn't make jokes if it makes you so unhappy."
"Call the next witness!"
"Oh, you wicked, wicked little thing."
"Oh, you can't help that, we're all mad here!"
are used in this drill.
In TR-2, a student is trained to control the communication of the
other person by the use of acknowledgements. So for each phrase read to
him out of Alice, he will respond with a firm: "Thank you!" or "All
right!" or "I got that!"
In the third and fourth drills, a person is trained to get an answer
to a question asked despite all efforts of the other person to distract
him. The questions used in these drills are: "Do fish swim?" and "Do
birds fly?" The drill is not passed until the person doing the drill
gets a satisfactory answer to his question.
By the time this drill is passed, the student has learned to manipulate
the communication of another person.
On one of the four "advanced TRs," the student learns to control the
movements of another by shouting commands at him or her, such as:
"Walk over to that wall!" (Then when it is done:) "Thank you!"
"Touch that wall!" "Thank you!"
"Walk over to that chair!" "Thank you!"
"Touch that chair!" "Thank you!" Etc.
When the student has learned to control another person, then he
learns to control objects as well. He is seated facing a chair with an
ashtray on it, and he must shout commands at the ashtray with such
intensity that the ashtray will rise up off the chair on its own. Of
course it never does, but this does not deter the Scientologist from
continuing to try! The commands used on the ashtray are:
"Stand up!" (The person doing the drill then raises the ashtray with
his hands and shouts:) "Thank you!"
"Sit down on that chair!" (He lowers the ashtray to the chair.)
"Thank you!"
"Stand up!" "Thank you!" Etc.
What do these drills have to do with communication? Perhaps not as
much as they have to do with the subject of control -- specifically,
learning to control and to be controlled by others.
In her book, Cults in America, Willa Appel outlines the three
stages in any thought reform conversion process. First the person is
isolated, physically and symbolically, from his past. Second, he is
stripped of his identity through the mechanisms of humiliation and
guilt. Third, the person is converted to a new identity and world view,
the world view of the cult. (1)
This process is clearly evident in the Communication Course in
Scientology, and this process exists in Scientology not by accident, but
by careful design.
The process of isolation from the past is both subtle and overt. The
propaganda of Scientology overtly degrades many of the institutions in
which the recruit has previously placed his trust: family, friends, the
government, educational institutions, and the established healing
professions, to name a few.
Some of the ways in which this process of devaluation take place are
more subtle, for example the use of the term "wog," a derogatory term
used in Scientology to refer to all non-Scientologists. Through the use
of this word, the new Scientologist soon comes to understand that he, by
virtue of being in Scientology, is now superior to everyone not in
Scientology,
Another technique used to separate the individual from his past is
the renaming of everyday objects and experiences to new names unique to
Scientology, and understood only by Scientologists. For example,
"reality" becomes "agreement"; "love" is renamed "ARC"; the marital
relationship is called the "second dynamic"; the soul becomes the
"thetan"; an argument becomes an "ARC break"; a problem becomes a "PTP";
a secret becomes a "withhold"; even God is renamed the "eighth dynamic."