At first, I thought Tom Cruise’s new Scientological antics were all just “weird.” Then I started to think that it was due to the fact that he replaced his publicist with his sister, who is also a Scientologist. But now I’m thinking that this is a whole lot bigger than that.

Up until maybe 2-3 weeks ago, what’s the first word that would pop into your mind when you heard the word “Scientology”? For most people, I would wager that word of choice would be “cult,” or else something equally negative. But now when you think Scientology, what’s the first word that pops into your mind? For me, it’s “Tom Cruise.” How bout you guys? And I realized this works backwards too. Before when I saw stuff about Tom Cruise, I automatically passed it over. But now when I see a photo or a headline about him, I automatically think: “Maybe this will have something weird about Scientology in it!” And 99 times out of a 100 right now, that is exactly the case.

Which leads me to believe this is an intentional linkage. We are being re-patterned, and it’s working. It worked on me, I realized. There’s almost no escaping it. Certainly it’s worked in sort of an opposite direction for me, because I still think they are creepy and highly questionable. But for the average person, the word “cult” has been effectively replaced with ridiculous antics and celebrity showmanship. I realized also that I inadvertently struck upon this truth a few days back without realizing it. L. Ron Hubbard himsefl is said to have written about a common propaganda technique:

The trick is - Words are redefined to mean something else to the advantage of the propagandist.

Many examples of this exist. They are not natural changes in language. They are propaganda changes, carefully planned and campaigned in order to obtain a public opinion advantage for the group doing the propaganda.

Given enough repetition of the redefinition public opinion can be altered by altering the meaning of a word.

This very technique makes up a large part of Scientology training, as far as I understand it. There is even something called “Study Tech” which is a controversial teaching “technology” (ie, technique) pioneered by L. Ron Hubbard. According to their website, the third barrier to effective learning is “The Misunderstood Word”. Compare the following to the Hubbard quote above, and decide for yourself if it is another way of describing the same technique:

This third barrier is the misunderstood word. A misunderstood definition or a not-comprehended definition or an undefined word can thoroughly block one’s understanding of a subject and can even cause one to abandon the subject entirely.

[…] Going past a word or symbol for which one does not have a proper definition gives one a distinctly blank or washed-out feeling. The person will get a “not there” feeling and will begin to feel a nervous hysteria. These are manifestations distinct from either of the other two barriers.

[…] Have you ever come to the bottom of a page only to realize you didn’t remember what you had just read? That is the phenomenon of a misunderstood word, and one will always be found just before the material became blank in your mind.

Arguably, in this example, they are not suggesting that you alter or make up a definition of the word to confuse people. They are suggesting that you learn how to clear up misunderstood words and increase your comprehension. So does that mean that we as a culture have been merely misunderstanding Scientology’s popular image as a cult, and that our new association of it with Tom Cruise is increasing our comprehension?

Maybe we should go back for more quotes from the widely circulated L. Ron Hubbard piece on propaganda. Hundreds of publicly available copies of it can be found online, and here is one. It was allegedly written by him in a policy directive titled “HCO PL 5 October 1971″. It continues:

The redefinition of words is done be associating different emotions and symbols with the word than were intended…Scientologist are redefining “doctor”, “Psychiatry” and “psychology” to mean “undesirable antisocial elements”…The way to redefine a word is to get the new definition repeated as often as possible. Thus it is necessary to redefine medicine, psychiatry and psychology downward and define Dianetics and Scientology upwards. This, so far as words are concerned, is the public opinion battle for belief in your definitions, and not those of the opposition. A consistent, repeated effort is the key to any success with this technique of propaganda. One must know how to do it.

I’d be interested in finding out whether or not Scientology has ever officially refuted this document, and what they have to say about it if they have not. In any event, whether it’s a nefarious propaganda objective, or simply a clever marketing strategy to boost public interest and membership, I think it’s important to be aware of it when your perceptions are being modified. In some cases, even being aware of it isn’t enough to stop it though. But it is enough to let you make up your own mind and decide what you think, rather than having someone else create it for you.