One of the strange things about Scientologists – and yes, I’m aware this sentence could end in several thousand legitimate ways – is their use of language. Recently, an interview in a Scientology magazine with the actor Laura Prepon was leaked online, and arguably it didn’t matter much, since it was impossible to understand. Prepon spoke of undertaking the “purification rundown”, eliminating “mis-emotions” by “doing my objectives”, and explained how much easier life becomes “when you really cognate that you are a Thetan”. Other Scientologists talk of “enturbulation” and “alter-isness”, “randomity” and “out ethics”, almost as if their entire religion were dreamed up (cognated?) by a pulp sci-fi author pulling everyone’s leg.
A private language helps groups like Scientology maintain control over followers; when no one on the outside knows what you’re talking about, there’s a strong incentive to communicate only with insiders. (For another sinister outfit that uses specialist language to preserve the power of a select priesthood, see academia.) But Scientologese isn’t simply jargon. It’s striking, specifically, for its reliance on made-up nouns. “Nounism”‚ as the social scientist Jeremy Sherman puts it, echoing Wittgenstein, is a way of “declaring things solid”. Nouns are the language of certainty, of things that can be grasped and dealt with. It’s easy to see how this might appeal to Scientology’s customer base, people adrift and desperate for firm ground. How reassuring to think that the cause of your woes isn’t human relationships, with all their messy unpredictability, but rather a straightforward case of enturbulation, plus a couple of mis-emotions, all easily expunged by means of a rundown!
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from Health & wellbeing | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1LHApEi
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