Scientology Study Tech

Sucking the Joy Out Of Learning

Hubbard claimed to have invented the tech that made a person know how to study. He claimed that anyone could learn as long as they could overcome the three barriers to study. And, of course, Hubbard claimed he had invented the tech that made this possible. What he invented was something that sucked any joy a person derived from obtaining knowledge.

The three barriers to learning, according to Hubbard, are:

1. Absence of Mass – which he claims was manifested by a person to feeling squashed, dead, spinny, bored or exasperated; 

2. Too Steep a Gradient; – per Hubbard, this is manifested by a student feeling a confusion or reelingness; and

3. Misunderstood Words per Hubbard, this is manifested by a person having a blank in what they just studied, feeling nervous hysteria, a not there feeling. If any of these things happen while studying Hubbard says that you look for the word you were reading JUST BEFORE that happened and that is what was not understood. If a person gets enough misunderstood words, they will leave Scientology. Note. There are several policies that Hubbard states that “the only reason a person leaves Scientology is because…” This is one of them. So one of the only reasons a person leaves Scientology is because they have misunderstood words. The more you read about Scientology, the more you will discover that there are other things that are “the only reason a person leaves Scientology” as well.

So, according to Scientology dogma, all you had to do to learn happly is avoid all these barriers..

When I started Scientology, I actually enjoyed reading, I loved learning new things, I had a curiosity about the world around me. The years spent using Scientology’s study technology crushed that insatiable thirst for knowledge right out of me and it took years after I had left to recover the desire to read anything, because I always felt that I was under a microscope while reading it, even though no one was watching me learn.

How is it those three concepts can make study so tedious? Because they were stressed above learning, they were drilled into the people’s heads. 

Let’s start with the very basic concept that there was “no verbal tech” allowed. If a student asked a Supervisor or another student a question, they were not allowed to answer. They had to tell them where to look up the answer or ask questions like “what do your materials state?” or “is there a word you didn’t understand in the policy?” The blame, of course, was never put on the fact that some of the materials were simply incomprehensible. There were ways, Hubbard claimed , that a person could figure out what he was talking about. 

The Supervisor had to recognize which of the barriers to study the student was manifesting and treat it in the standard way that Hubbard dictated. 

Absence of Mass: Hubbard said that if a person could not feel or see the thing they were studying, it made them harder to learn about it. This is an interesting concept, but the way Hubbard made a student compensate for the absence of mass made it basically useless. A student was able to compensate for absence of mass (having the real thing in front of them) in two different ways according to Hubbard study technology:

Clay Demos. The student would create something out of clay that was supposed to represent the concept they were trying to learn and their supervisor would have to pass them on the representation before they could continue onto the next step on their checklist. This slowed things down for fast learners and made things exceptionally frustrating for people who got the concept in the first place but were still made to make a clay model just to move forward. 

A pass by a Supervisor was also arbitrary, so if the Supervisor didn’t feel that the student hadn’t properly demonstrated the concept, they had to start all over until they got it the way the Supervisor believed it should be. Clay demos were generally used only when the checklist required them, but if a supervisor really felt the student was struggling, they had the right to require a student to create a clay demo. There is a simpler, more used demo this is:

The Demo Kit. A demo kit consists of things like paper clips, chess pieces, bottle caps, just things that are laying around. Each student has one at their work station. If there is a concept they are trying to figure out, they can use the demo kit to push things around and help them understand what it means. A Supervisor can also ask the student to use their demo kit to help them figure out a concept if the student asks a question about something as the Supervisor is not allowed to just answer the question.

Too Steep A Gradient. If a Supervisor determines that a student is demonstrating signs of a skipped gradient, the student is required to start over at the beginning of that course or that section of the course, or if they have just started a course, they are required to redo (at their cost) the prior course. 

But, the absolute worst thing Hubbard did was to introduce the concept of the Misunderstood Word. Hey, I like a dictionary, always have, and have no problem with looking up a word here and there, but Hubbard took it to the absolute maximum extreme to the point where words were so important that they overshadowed the entire basis for everything else. Hubbard even created the Primary Rundown. This “course” required the student to “word clear” (look up and understand the meaning of) every single word in the dictionary, including its’ derivatives on an e-meter. Over time the dictionary changed, depending what was in vogue at the time, but the End Phenomenon of the course was Superliteracy, and the student was declared Fast Flow, which meant they didn’t have to get checked out on certain checklist items by a Supervisor.

The glossary describes all 9 methods of word clearing, called M1 through M9, that are used in Scientology, but the problem is that so much emphasis is put on how to study, and the way to study as Hubbard says you have to, not studing in a way that makes you comfortable, study becomes a tortuous activity. 

Study, like all other activities in Scientology is done in a controlled courseroom situation with checklists that must be followed item by item, step by step. They claim that this the best way to learn, but any student who has gone to Delphi or any of the Applied Scholastics schools has learned the hard way that they don’t even know the basics of education should they try to go to a mainstream school at a later date.

Hubbard knew nothing about education, yet like all other “technology” he claimed to have “reasearched,” his followers were put on a rigorous form of study which, though not actually productive, is hard to break free of should they desire to leave. Hubbard’s “study tech” is just one more Scientology control mechanism.