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"Now, if it comes to a pass where it's very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically."
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- L. Ron Hubbard Lecture: "Decision." 20 May 1952.
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"A confused person has their conscious mind busy and occupied, and is very much inclined to draw upon unconscious learnings to make sense of things. A confused person is in a trance of their own making - and therefore goes readily into that trance without resistance. Confusion might be created by ambiguous words, complex or endless sentences, pattern interruption or a myriad of other techniques to incite transderivational searches."
The Confusion technique (as this is known) is best used on intelligent people interested in how hypnosis works and those consciously unwilling to go into a trance despite an unconscious willingness."
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- Milton H. Erickson with respect to using the "Confusion technique" in Ericksonian Hypnosis, circa 1948.
L Ron Hubbard studied Ericksonian Hypnosis, was an accomplished hypnotist and was very familiar with the "confusion technique".
Hubbard employed the confusion technique in pretty much all his writings and lectures as a means to get the reader to passively accept the concepts he wanted them to. This ability became 2nd nature to him.
He even taught it to members of his own organisation as a means for them to gain agreement or acceptance; the quote is from the main lecture in which he did this.
Hubbard was very clever in being able to teach the confusion technique to those he'd used it on in a manner in which they failed to recognise he'd used it on them.
Incidentally although Hubbard employed a lot of hypnosis techniques he rarely referred to them as hypnosis or in terminology associated with hypnosis. In later lectures he manages to almost completely expunge hypnosis type language and replace it with his own terminology.
The unconscious state one reaches through hypnosis was renamed from "Trance" to "anzten", "boil-off" or "dope-off". A state where one believes one has left ones body is known as "dissociation" in both hypnosis and psychiatry but was renamed by Hubbard to "exteriorization"; Hubbard includes the death experience in his definition though. Hubbard also referred to hypnotically induced hallucinations as "mental image pictures".
This changing of terminology served two purposes. First to distance his teachings from hypnosis (It isn'y hypnosis) and 2nd to make his teachings sound more than just hypnosis (worth paying a lot more money for).
Study tech reinforces the confusion technique mechanism by pushing the student towards word clearing when they feel confused, so pushing the student towards the desired state of blind acceptance, a trance if you will.
(Incidentally mecca anon this explains why when you read Dianetics using study tech you felt mezmerized.)
So how does the technique work in Hubbard's lectures?
As far as the written words are concerned Hubbard seems to ramble: he uses ambiguous words, mainly his own special terminology; complex or endless sentences and many pattern interruptions, he keeps introducing new ideas and reintroducing earlier ones and mixing them up so the brain has difficult maintaining a good flow.
This causes the brain to overload and in an attempt to gain understanding it tends to either stop and question (discouraged by study tech) or go in to blind acceptance mode - coming to it's own understanding if you will.
Although intentionally confusing Hubbard's ramblings seem agreeable because he uses easily accepted statements but within these he slips in what he wants the subjects to accept unquestioningly, which is what they do in their confused state.
This technique of slipping in concepts between readily agreeable statements (stories within stories) is referred to as "stacking realities" by practitioners of Neuro Linguistic Programming, although to be fair to Hubbard NLP post dates both Ericksonian hypnosis and Dianetics.
The personality or stress test are used as a hook to introduce people to L Ron Hubbard's teachings, ideally in the form of the Dianetics book*. 3 types of people take such tests: those "having a laugh"; the curious and those looking for answers.
After the tests there are 2 types of people who may read Hubbard's texts as an introduction to the organisation. Those who are curious as to "what is it all about?" and those who are looking to it for "answers".
(Aside from those who walk away there is a 3rd type, those who bought the book to "shut them up", although weak willed they tend not to read much if any of it.)
(*The Way to Happiness is a shorter booklet that Hubbard developed later that works well too because of its apparently benign and secular nature, although it is neither and is correctly understood within the organisation as being a bridge for people to get on to the bridge; the bridge or gateway in to the organisation.)
Those who were just curious are more likely to give up within around 20 pages in to the Dianetics book, finding it a hard slog or gibberish.
Those who are looking to the text for answers will be more likely to presume any confusion is down to their misunderstanding and seek clarification, which is an opening to the organisation's indoctrination courses.
The presumption that their misunderstanding is down to them includes and reinforces an assumption the text contains the answers they seek.
Others will believe they understand Dianetics although it may take some a 2nd or 3rd+ reading for them to be "sure".
Either way Dianetics, while appearing to answer their questions quite profoundly doesn't "quite" satisfy so when an offer comes along of more "answers" or in how to employ the answers the chances are the subject will snap it up.
People who either come to an understanding of Dianetics on their own or through being told to use study tech will generally believe it quite profound; it is at once apparently straight forward and yet somehow complex - which is how profound things are believed to be - and typical responses to such things are:
"I never thought of it that way before"
"It's like, wow!"
"And Woosh! Kapow"
These people have fallen for the trap of making the assumption that because the overtones of the text appear sensible that all the concepts also make sense so they just accept them.
Having accepted the "hidden" concepts as sensible they are then ready for the next level of indoctrination - the main reason Hubbard didn't want people skipping levels is that they really weren't ready to "understand" the next level until they first "understood" the previous, only by "understand" and "understood" Hubbard meant "accept" and "accepted" respectively.
As they progress through the teachings of the organisation most end up simply accepting anything they read because it's easier; remember study tech dictates confusion is the result of misunderstoods and word clearing is the ONLY solution. This ties in with the repetition of TRs and the mantra "Hubbard is Source".
Here is the full Hubbard quote from the lecture: Decision, May 20th 1952 which I started with:
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Now, if it comes to a pass where it's very important whether or not this person acts or inacts as you wish, in interpersonal relations one of the dirtier tricks is to hang the person up on a maybe and create a confusion. And then create the confusion to the degree that your decision actually is implanted hypnotically.
The way you do this is very simple. When the person advances an argument against your decision, you never confront his argument but confront the premise on which his argument is based. That is the rule. He says, "But my professor always said that water boiled at 212 degrees."
You say, "Your professor of what?"
"My professor of physics."
"What school? How did he know?" Completely off track! You're no longer arguing about whether or not water boils at 212 degrees, but you're arguing about professors. And he will become very annoyed, but he won't know quite what he is annoyed about. You can do this so adroitly and so artfully that you can actually produce a confusion of the depth of hypnosis. The person simply goes down tone scale to a point where they're not sure of their own name.
And at that point you say, "Now, you do agree to go out and draw the water out of the well, don't you?"
"Yes-anything!" And he'll go out and draw the water out of the well.
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To quote Mr Hubbard again, yes it is "one of the dirtier tricks" and one which is sometimes employed here by certain individuals, perhaps believing themselves moderately proficient in the technique, with little success in convincing others rather only in reinforcing their own dogma.