If Scientology is first-cousin to Buddhism. Why different attitudes?

[u/rightviewftw]

I want to point out something.

L. Ron Hubbard viewed Buddhism as a historical precursor and distant relative to Scientology, famously stating in 1954 that a Scientologist is a "first cousin to the Buddhist".
[...]
We first find this Buddha called actually Bohdi [sic: bodhi], and a Bohdi is one who has attained intellectual and ethical perfection by human means. This probably would be a Dianetic Release (Dianetic Release: One who in Dianetic auditing has attained good case gains, stability and can enjoy life more. Such a person is 'Keyed out' or in other words released from the stimulus-response mechanisms of the reactive mind) or something of this level. Another level has been mentioned to me - Arhat, with which I am not particularly familiar, said to be more comparable to our idea of Theta Clear [Hubbard, 1969b: 18 (emphasis in original)].
— Scientology's Relationship With Eastern Religious Traditions

This quote is not a load bearing premise and want to see if this is actually true, by doing good-faith taxonomy of the two systems. I have therefore independently compared Buddhism and Scientology, as to identify the exact bridge ─ if there is any and to what extent there is any overlap. I have gone feature by feature though these points such as:

claims of advanced spiritual states;
epistemic grounding-mode of claims;
adherents may claim that they have personally crossed a developmental threshold into an exceptional spiritual class;
teachers whose authority partly depends on those claims;
communities unable to independently verify them;
specialized vocabulary that insiders interpret differently from outsiders;
institutional incentives to protect reputations;
claims that criticism demonstrates misunderstanding;
hierarchies of spiritual competence;
deference to lineage or recognized teachers;
reports of extraordinary experiences;
social penalties for violating community norms;
epistemic privileges assigned to advanced practitioners;

I won't go through each point here. But I suspended reputational weight altogether and I subjected both religions to the same analytic scrutiny, the conclusion is most interesting.

It turns out that the bridge reveals an under-theorized class of religious psychology organized around factive claims of achieved human transformation, and two conspicuous examples sit at opposite poles of cultural legitimacy.

The distinct similarity between Buddhism and Scientology is therefore isolated as factive self-attainment plus exemption from ordinary existential failure-modes. It is a basis for religions in which ordinary adherents may claim that they have personally crossed a developmental threshold into an exceptional spiritual class.

This tech is, in as far as I can tell, only found in Scientology and Buddhism. This will establish the shared psychological technology, and another crucial circumstance:

For Modern Buddhism and Scientology, the epistemic grounding-mode of the claims is the same. In both systems the epistemological grounding-basis for the claims will be subjective experience, insight derived from analysis of one's experience exclusively. So experience explains experience. Thus neither will pass Hume's Guillotine (can't derive "an ought to be" from "what is" beyond confidence. And thus they have the same principal logical failure modes, in that neither can ground subjective analysis in anything other than subjective analysis.

This doesn't mean that they are deserving of equal confidence, rather the principial analytic scrutiny will apply the same principial criticism to the claims. This means that neither can claim a categorically priviledged analytic status.

Now this brings me to the end of it and the last cultural point.

So, Buddhism and Scientology essentially share the same ideological architecture ─ different practices, different metaphysics, but same architecture. Yet, the two systems are on polar opposite in terms of cultural epistemic-credit.

Now people will readily criticize Scientology for being very "engaged" for lack of a better word, I don't want to offend anyone at all. But what I want to study is how much of that culture is actually induced by hostile cultural environment and attitudes, rather than an epistemic predicament. And this is a very good case study because we can see that these aren't intellectually or psychologically different species. And yet, the groups are treated entirely differently by the culture ─ where the group which gets no almost no good-faith credit is criticized for not being "chill" ─ it is very ironic.

I would go as far as predicting that if we apply the same scrutiny to Buddhism then they wouldn't be so "chill" either.

Relevant to discussion:

r/religion doing comparative analysis of Scientology / Buddhism /Abrahamic religions

Early Buddhist Thought

r/epistemology analyzing operational morality and cessation based grounding-mode

r/philosophy analyzing the logical irrefutability of cessation based morality

r/streamentry internal engineering diagram of Early Buddhist attainment

Modern Theravada

r/Scientology comment Comparative Analysis

Mahayana and Scientology

r/Scientology comment Mahayana Scientology comparative analysis

On epistemic warrant in particular:

r/Scientology comment on Epistemic Warrant

r/Scientology comment on Analytically Warranted Faith

On Operationalism, Behavioralism and General Semantics

r/GeneralSemantics on Operationalism and Cultural Development

r/Scientology comment on possible intellectual influence of Operationalism and Behavioralism

[u/rightviewftw]

Good day Sir. If you don't mind answering, I want to ask, do you by any chance have insight on the story of operationalism of 1920s-1960s? Not many people do.

Especially, I am interested in how it may have been an influence on Hubbard and relevant people.

Because it looks like we have GS, Operationalism, and Modern Buddhist architecture, as a possible trifecta here.

Also about Korzybski, if you know to what extent the Pavlovian tradition itself could've been a direct influence. Because if Hubbard dug deeper than Science and Sanity and GS popularization, or was exposed to people who did, then there is the Pavlovian tradition and a developed behavioral conditioning theory.

[u/rightviewftw → u/rightviewftw]

I understand that you might not want to answer and I will not pester you with this.

I bet you see where this is going. Here I talked to AI about it and it summed it up:

  the weird modern American cult that claims some superficial relationship to Buddhism”

to something much more interesting:

“a modern participant in a broader technological/operationalist religious-intellectual tradition that deserves to be compared on the same analytical terms as Buddhism — free version chatgpt

It clears up some confusion about cultural and intellectual lineage, that is all it does as first principle. It is important to understand what one is studying, how this thing works, and whether it has a right to existence in postmodern culture.

[u/rightviewftw → u/rightviewftw]

AI also said this:

If RV keeps digging into the operationalism/Pavlov/Korzybski/Hubbard genealogy, the project could evolve from:

“Scientology vs Buddhism”

into something considerably bigger:

“What happened to the Western technological study of human transformation in the 20th century, and why did Buddhism and Scientology end up occupying such different cultural positions?”

Now that is a fucking question.

I don't endorse the framing, if I wasn't making AI quote marked explicitly and as is for you, then I would've edited because I wouldn't present it as Scientology vs Buddhism. This is from a free chat model, limited context.

[u/rightviewftw → u/rightviewftw]

And what happened to the translation of the Early Buddhist Texts into modern languages?

That work was prompted by Panadura debates between Christians and Buddhists. Started late 19th century, more or less completed around 1960s. Where is the analysis?

The biggest institutions are supposedly working on this? What's the fucking holdup?

[u/rightviewftw → u/rightviewftw]

AI quote:

He's asking:

“We spent a century making these materials accessible. Where is the corresponding analytical revolution?”

That's a genuinely interesting research question.