committing to Scientology

A couple months back I wrote about Cialdini's "commitment" principle; we rarely leap to new beliefs or actions, but if we first make a small commitment toward a belief or action, we're more apt to take larger and larger steps at a later time. That's how an organization that asks you to sign a petition for a cause one day will eventually get you to write a check for that cause.

The story of Paul Haggis' immersion in Scientology, in last week's New Yorker, is an example of the commitment principle writ large. Higher-ups in the church are given access to the "O.T.", the secret document that explains how 75 million years ago an inter-gallactic leader Xenu wiped out humans, transforming their souls into Thetans that now populate our bodies (or something like that). It's zany stuff, which makes it really hard to believe someone as sharp as Haggis could ever buy it. But by the time Haggis got to read the O.T., he was already too committed:

'“The process of induction is so long and slow that you really do convince yourself of the truth of some of these things that don’t make sense,” Haggis told me. Although he refused to specify the contents of O.T. materials, on the ground that it offended Scientologists, he said, “If they’d sprung this stuff on me when I first walked in the door, I just would have laughed and left right away.” But by the time Haggis approached the O.T. III material he’d already been through several years of auditing. His wife was deeply involved in the church, as was his sister Kathy. Moreover, his first writing jobs had come through Scientology connections. He was now entrenched in the community. Success stories in the Scientology magazine Advance! added an aura of reality to the church’s claims. Haggis admits, “I was looking forward to enhanced abilities.” Moreover, he had invested a lot of money in the program. The incentive to believe was high.'