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ARS Literati $10,000 Challenge---(Ralph Hilton) - subject to revision

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From: ralph@scientology.at (Ralph Hilton)
Subject: ARS Literati $10,000 Challenge---(Ralph Hilton) - subject to revision
Date: 1999/09/01
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It seems that I have said what I wanted to say. I have a few things to add
for the final version but not a lot - a couple of quotes that will need
digging out. There are a few loose ends to add - maybe 500 - 1000 words from
ideas that I had away from the keyboard that will come back to me later.

I'm quite open to suggestions as to major points that I might have missed.

For those considering an entry the stats on Word 7 say:

Pages 17
Words 7572
Chars (incl. spaces) 43487
Paras 169
Lines 764

Total time spent in writing it was about 30 hours including digging out all
the quotes:

Many years ago long before Scientology was announced to the world a plan
came to the mind of the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. It was a plan
calculated to lead him to control of an empire where he could achieve his
goal of being revered as a God by all of mankind.

There were 2 essential steps to the plan. The first was to create a
technology that would produce changes in large numbers of people sufficient
to increase their personal power but to do so in a way that would create a
dependency on Hubbard for further advancement and would never enable them to
become more powerful than him. The second was to build into that technology
a mechanism which guaranteed for him a continuous flow of admiration from
the followers of his methodology.

That is one possible conclusion about a man who has been portrayed as
everything from a God to a deluded paranoid schizophrenic.

To many it may seem an extreme portayal of a man they consider to be the
saviour of mankind. To others it might appear as a very light criticism of
someone who they consider an obvious charlatan.

I find the con-man portrayal somewhat simplistic. The logic behind this
position is that the creation of Scientology purely to make money in the
fashion of a simple trickster is far too much of an over-kill.

Likewise the altruistic servant of mankind image just does not match the
actions.

Many people have written about the actions of Hubbard and criticized him
based upon the words and statements of others. What I would like to do here
is to evaluate Hubbard by his own words and actions and to demonstrate his
character with reference to his own works. In that way no-one could complain
that I am relying upon unproven heresay.

Hubbard himself said that one should judge a person by their products rather
than their words.

So let us examine the products of this man, compare them to his claims and
work back to motivation. In doing so we can analyze the main characteristics
of this man and proceed to a better understanding of his life, intent and
philosophy.

Little is known about his first unpublished work entitled "Excalibur" which
he claims to have written sometime in the late 30s. In HCOB 17 March 1969 he
published a political scale from the book. In that issue he states:

"I will not go into what lies above democracy except that Man is trying with
his ideologies to solve mainly the problem of succession. History has seen
other government forms work far more ideally than those named but in none of
these could one guarantee succession of the beneficial rule. Thus adherents
to all forms of ideology can be made to agree that "benign monarchy" is an
excellent form of government. But they discard it because a truly good
benign monarch is not necessarily succeeded by one in the next reign."

So we see that a belief in dictatorship as a form of rule pre-dated any
development of Scientology. When we examine the later structure of the
organizations of Scientology we can see that this belief carried forward
through to the Sea Organization, his elite leadership body for Scientology.
There is a marked contrast between the early ideas he put forward about
self-determinism and free thought compared which the actual way in which the
organizations were run. Executives in the Sea Org were selected for their
willingness to follow the policies of Hubard as is evidenced in the
"Leadership Survey" used for such where persons believing in the importance
of the intelligence of the executive are rated lower than those believing in
strict adherence to policy.

The Sea Org is a para-military organization with a strict hierarchy where
each rung in the ladder is required to follow the instruction of the level
above. At the top was the now deceased Commodore - a supreme authority who
was portrayed as perfect in his every thought. Any minor alteration of his
work is considered a high crime punishable by expulsion from Scientology.
(HCOB 15 Feb 1979, "Verbal Tech Penalties")

From his statements and actions I can only conclude that he was a man who
believed that the best method of running a successful organization was a
very strict dictatorship with himself at the helm.

His first published book on the subject of his new technology was
"Dianetics, The Modern Science of Mental Health". The product which this
book claimed to be was a mental science capable of raising all of humanity
to a state of "Clear" wherein a being would have total recall of every
perception of an entire lifetime. It was claimed that this book was based on
thorough scientific research yet only a month or so after publication he
withdrew the claims of total recall. Within a couple of years he had
abandoned the concept of a technology addressed to one lifetime and ventured
into an exploration of the time track - trillions of years of past history
of a spiritual being which claimed to unlock the secrets of the ages and
give true freedom to mankind - not just as a super-mortal but as an immortal
spiritual being of immeasurable power.

Dianetics was claimed to be a complete technology as was each successive
development. In 1968 the Class 8 auditor course was developed with the claim
that the technology was complete yet 10 years later the Clearing Course,
initially the only route to Clear, was superceded by "Dianetic Clear" and
Dianetics, which had been the major remedy for people not getting results on
his upper OT levels, was abandoned in favor of "NED for OTs".

From these products one can extract a picture of a man who repeatedly made
false claims about the workability of his technology. Each level of progress
was observed by many to get good results but these were usually only a part
of what had been claimed. A crucial question that I will examine later is
"Did he believe his own claims?"

Many critics of Hubbard have made reference to his early magical experiments
with the Western Occult Tradition, Alisteir Crowley and other practitioners.
Although I have seen some exagerrations regarding these activities I do see
the involvement as one that leads to significant insight into his character.

I'll start with some of what Hubbard said about these studies.

From PDC 18:

"A magician, uh...the magic cults of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th
centuries in the Middle East were fascinating. The only modern work that has
anything to do with them is a trifle wild in spots, but it's fascinating
work in itself, and that's work written by Aleister Crowley, the late
Aleister Crowley, my very good friend. And uh...he...he did himself a
splendid uh...piece of aesthetics built around those magic cults. Uh...it's
very interesting reading to get a hold of a copy of a book, quite rare, but
it can be obtained, THE MASTER THERION, T-h-e-r-i-o-n, THE MASTER THERION by
Aleister Crowley. He signs himself "The Beast", the mark of the beast six
sixty-six. Very, very something or other, but anyway the...Crowley exhumed a
lot of the data from these old magic cults. "

[He is probably referring to the book "Magick in theory and Practice"]

From PDC 35:

"One fellow, Aleister Crowley uh...picked up a level of religious worship
which is very interesting - oh boy! The press played hockey with his head
for his whole lifetime. The Great Beast - 666. He just had another level of
religious worship. "

Others have quoted and commented on his adventures with Jack Parsons. Enough
conflicting data appears in the descriptions that one cannot really be
certain about the truth of either side. What is significant is that Hubbard
studied Crowley and concurred with much of his way of thinking.

Although Hubbard talks about Buddhism as being very close to Scientology
there is little in his writings that indicates a great understanding of that
religion.

Hubbard wrote his axioms not long after his studies of Crowley. Crowley
described Magick as the art and science of causing change to occur in
accordance with the will. Hubbard states early in his axioms that life is
basically a static capable of postulate and perceiving. Both have the
principle as a fundamental in their teachings that what is of paramount
importance is this ability to decide something will happen and have it
happen. An early point where Hubbard clearly states this principle is in PDC
19:

"Well, this is the magician here, he makes a...he goes out and he says,
"Well, let's throw a...a little bit of spiders' brains in here and a few
threads of dawn and let's mix them up with a frog's cough and expose them
out very nicely to this Diogean core of blackness. Say three chants over
them and now uh...let's see, what was I doing here? Oh yeah, well, let's
pour some of this on the ground. Well, look at that, imagine that, a tree
starts growing. And uh...uh...well, well, it just keeps eating everything up
and so forth. Well, isn't that interesting?" And uh...all of a sudden he
says uh.."Gee, it's getting dark around here, uh...wonder what's taking
place?" and he looks up and he says, "Well, this tree is sort of swamping
everything and it's cutting out the sunlight in all directions. And I'd
better find my cave, if I can find my cave. But no, it's now too dark and
there is no cave and - gee whiz, that tree so and so." And he goes on. And
then he starts cursing the tree, and he says, "Look what that tree did to
me. look how mean and ornery that tree was. Look...look...look at all these
horrible things this tree is doing." And another magician sees him one day
as he's ruined, hobbling down along the road and this fellow complains to
him bitterly about what the tree did to him. He did several things wrong.
The first thing he did wrong was to mix up a lot of things without
postulating why he was doing it. He didn't say what the end product would
be. The second he failed to say what the end product - what his goal was and
how...why he was trying to achieve that goal - he immediately abandoned the
plateau of cause and stepped down to the valley of effect. The moment that
he was there in effect, then what he had already caused grew up, shut out
the light, and he said, "Well, I have no responsibility for it and...and
it's...I'm...I'm being affected by it badly." He goes downhill further. "

This emphasis on the person as the sole cause of what occurs in their
existence lost predence for some years but resurfaced heavily in the late
50s for example in HCOB 15 Oct 58 "ACC Clear Procedure" he says:

"The basic clearing process using responsibility is, 'You make a picture for
which you can be wholly responsible.' This, flattened, can make a clear. It
uses the fact that a person is making his whole bank anyway and it persuades
him to realize it. Some version of responsibility is required to end all
clearing. Assignment of responsibility is at the bottom of the search for
phenomena and magic to clear people."

From then on the principle continues as a main theme underlying the actions
and philosophy of Scientology. While it may be a workable approach to
getting people to act more responsibly in their lives in can manifest in a
very ugly fashion when ill people are thrown out of organizations as
"downstat sickies". Total assignment of cause to the individual became no
responsibility on the part of the organizations of Scientology. It was a
philosophy which enabled Hubbard to sit in a state of blamelessness as
everything that went wrong was caused by the overts and withholds of those
who failed to apply the perfect technology.

In contrast to this the current upper levels of Scientology are almost
purely to do with infestation by spiritual entities other than self. From
OT2 through to OT7 one is dealing with the damaging effects of involvement
with these lower beings. One spends thousands of hours resolving the
problems with these beings. This is in total philosophical opposition to the
earlier stated hypothesis of total responsibility.

So from 1967 one had this strange dichotomy of a religion that advocated
total responsibility yet delivered a "therapeutic approach" which insisted
that the person was at total effect of "Body thetans" - parasitic entities.

For the next insight into his character I would like to refer to what is
probably the most well known policy letter in Scientology - it is at the
beginning of every course offered in the organizations.

It is titled "Keeping Scientology Working" and was written on 7 Feb 1965.

"In all the years I have engaged in research I have kept my comm lines open
for research data. I once had the idea that a group could evolve truth. A
third of a century has thoroughly disabused me of that idea. Willing as I
was to accept suggestions and data, only a handful of suggestions (less than
twenty) had long run value and ~none~ were major or basic; and when I did
accept major or basic suggestions and used them, we went astray and I
repented and eventually had to 'eat crow' "

The above quote shows an apparent transition point in Hubbard's thinking. In
earlier days he openly acknowledged contributions from others for example
Evans Farber's process "Try not to be 3 feet back of your head".

In 1965 he openly stated that he was the sole source of the tech and no
others had made a major contribution. This period was one of many changes in
Scientology organizations. It seems to have been the time when Hubbard as a
being began to heavily enforce his beliefs on others. In March he introduced
the "Offenses and Penalties" policy then in May "Staff Member Reports" - a
policy which required staff to write up all observed transgressions of their
fellow staff members, something I find rather reminiscent of the U.S.S.R.
during the cold war.

So in the above we can observe a man who believed himself to have somehow
risen above the mortal condition of his fellows. He referred in the "Keeping
Scientology Working" policy to the degraded state of humanity - "An
individual must rise above an avid craving for agreement from a humanoid
group to get anything decent done". He also states his disdain of democracy
again - "And I don't see that popular measures, self-abnegation and
democracy have done anything for Man but push him further into the mud."

Near the end of the policy he says "This is a deadly serious activity".

Compare that with his statement in PDC 26, 13 years earlier, where he says
"And the more serious you take the game, the less chance there is of
winning."

In Scientology there exists a basic scale of affinity, reality and
communication called "the Tone Scale" Hubbard put forward the idea that one
could determine a person's level on this scale and so predict their
behaviour and determine their survival potential. People higher on the tone
scale were enthusiastic, friendly and invited support in an open appeal to
fun and reason. Lower down on the scale support would be enforced. Below
that survival would actually be inhibited by the person.

1965 seems to be the point where Hubbard started to enforce Scientology on
others. Later it fell to inhibition on the scale with high prices, extensive
prerequisites for auditing and training and the suppression of free thought
on the part of individual staff.

The next aspect of character I think needs to be examined is the desire for
admiration. In April 1953 Hubbard wrote "The Factors" - (Summation of the
considerations and examinations of the human spirit and the material
universe completed between 1923 and 1953 A.D.) It consists of a dissertation
several pages long on the nature of creation and existence.

Item 29 states "In the opinion of the viewpoint, any beingness, any thing is
better than no thing, any effect is better than no effect, any universe is
better than no universe, any particle is better than no particle, but the
particle of admiration is best of all."

The dissertation is ended with the statement "Humbly tendered as a gift to
man by L Ron Hubbard, 23 April 1953".

His name is included in the title of almost every course available in
Scientology. His picture is on the wall of every course room. Each
Scientology organization maintains an office in their building for him which
isn't available to anyone else. Usually the offices are the best furnished
in the building and even go the point of having an open packet of Kools on
the table for him.

It was rare for him to make an open statement of this desire for admiration
but he does so quite plainly in a 1967 policy about the nature of power -
HCO PL 12 Feb 67 "The Responsibilities of Leaders". The revealing part is
toward the end of the policy where he says:

"7. And lastly and most important, for we all aren't on the stage with our
names in lights, always push power in the direction of anyone on whose power
you depend. It may be more money for the power, or more ease, or a snarling
defense of the power to a critic, or even the dull thud of one of his
enemies in the dark, or the glorious blaze of the whole enemy camp as a
birthday surprise.

 If you work like that and the power you are near or depend upon is a power
that has at least some inkling about how to be one, and if you make others
work like that, then the power-factor expands and expands and expands and
you too acquire a sphere of power bigger than you would have if you worked
alone. Real powers are developed by tight conspiracies of this kind pushing
someone up in whose leadership they have faith. And if they are right and
also manage their man and keep him from collapsing through overwork, bad
temper or bad data, a kind of juggernaut builds up. Don't ever feel weaker
because you work for somebody stronger. The only failure lies in taxing or
pulling down the strength on which you depend. All failures to remain a
power's power are failures to contribute to the strength and longevity of
the work, health and power of that power. Devotion requires active
contribution outwards from the power as well as in."

He clearly had full rein for dramatization of this need for adoration with
the foundation of the Sea Organization. The image of him walking along the
deck surrounded by beautiful young girls, one holding his cigarettes,
another with his lighter and a third manouvering the ashtray to catch the
falling ash as he bestowed glances of benefaction upon his adoring followers
who passed nearby in response to the required crisp "Good Afternoon, Sir"
portrays this aspect far better than words could.

The next unusual aspect about this man was the number of enemies he felt he
had. The term "Suppressive Person" was coined for anyone who was acting in a
mainly evil manner and was a danger to his fellows due to continual evil
intentions and actions. However it was generally used in Scientology as a
label for anyone opposed to the absolute rule of Hubbard or later his
messengers and successors. It seemed true that he had enemies but the
thousands of Scientologists labelled as SPs under his reign seems grossly
inconsistent with the original statement that 2.5% of the population were
really evil.

Certain categories of the population were considered to almost universally
evil. Principally newspaper reporters, psychiatrists and FBI agents.

The manner in which he ordered his enemies treated in the fair game policy
have been well covered elsewhere. His beliefs about the conspiracies against
him have been written on extensively but the sake of completeness here I'll
quote a secret Guardian's Order written by Hubbard which summarizes the
plot. The following is from GO 060571 LRH of 6 May 1971 entitled "Working
Theory"

"The Nazis had 3 principal channels into the world.

Intelligence. Nazi intelligence was the largest and most effective
intelligence organization the world ever knew. Many texts exist on this.
After WW I they hid their files, brought them up to date about 1928 and
brought Hitler to power. They had agents by the thousands in every nation -
they set up Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and France to fall by
penetration at the top. Hitler won those countries after they had been won
by intelligence. His force of arms was a disruption to Intelligence take
overs (Geo-politics).

Drugs. The Germans had total domination of the world's drug industry. Their
chemists are firms covered the globe. They even sought political extension
by bargaining new drug cures.

Psychology and Psychiatry. Leipsig is the source of the animal and reflex
theories now believed and taught all over the world. Nazi racial purity,
gene theory etc. are taken from German psychiatry and psychology. German
psychiatrists gas chambered 300,000 insane ~before~ Hitler, originated the
orders about Jews etc. Hitler only okayed them. This kill-think is now in
use in every country - gene theory = must sterilize and kill. Psychiatric
atrocities now disclosed in England and elsewhere are nazi practices. The
death camp practices used to exterminate masses were psychiatric.

~NEW WORKING HYPOTHESIS~

Apparently there exists somewhere a nazi memorial or plan to conquer the
world. By Intelligence infiltration of governments, drug addiction and
dependency and using psychiatry to eliminate political undesirables and
minorities, a group is bent on world political conquest."

Now to the matter of how he treated his friends - those who helped him over
the years building his empire. There are so many stories published about the
fate of higher executives of Scientology and their expulsions from the CofS.
So many times it seemed that Hubbard was not on the lines or out of
communication when the evil deeds were done. But to me the preponderance of
evidence suggests that he knew all that occurred and condoned it. There is
little hard evidence to support that conclusion. But would a man with such a
strong streak of paranoia evident in his deeds and statements allow such
actions to go on unknown to him? Occasionally he was found out - according
to Alan Walter in 1969 as recently posted on the newsgroup
alt.clearing.technology in Message-ID:
<3.0.4.32.19990816101329.009b17a0@cyberstation.net>

"While I was on board the ship LRH ordered a massive campaign by the Pacific
Area CO. Hanna Eltringham and the GO Jane Kember and the GO legal John
Parcell and Lensworth Small to inform the IRS and FBI about me.

What Hubbard did not know was I had a girl friend that worked in IOC(sp) of
Flag.....that was the inner-sanctum where all LRH comms were sent to his
Orgs and Commodore Staff.

Well this girl comes to my cabin with this hand written order from LRH to
CS.1. Brian Livingston to order the GO legal to inform the IRS on my tax
"evasion", etc. (There were none.) But if you can't find any, manufacture
some. Fair Game Policy. This set into play a 28 year battle between me and
the IRS."

The later demolition in 83/83 of missions built up over years by dedicated
Scientologists was on far too massive a scale to have gone on outside the
knowledge of Hubbard.

So far I've examined the negative traits of Hubbard. Thousands would say
that his bad points were far outweighed by the good. He apparently worked
long hours to author the tens of millions of words of tapes, books and
bulletins that compose Scientology. They would also give many testimonials
to the positive gains that they made using the technology.

He was viewed by many as a good speaker - they loved his humor, ability to
hold the attention of an audience and command of his subject.

While there are many tales of outrageous acts committed by him and his
organizations there are also the stories of a wonderful compassionate
humanitarian.

It seems that in this society there exist few who could be classified as
purely good or purely evil.

To summarize so far - Hubbard was a man who believed himself to be above the
rest of humanity and to be their only true spiritual leader. He believed
that a dictatorship was the ideal way to run an organization. He craved
admiration and suffered from a paranoid fear of secret enemies. He was a man
of action who worked far harder than most. He attacked those who seemed too
powerful and threatened his control of the empire often destroying those who
had thought themselves to be his best of friends.

I posed the question earlier - "Did he believe his own claims?". It is the
question that perhaps gives the deepest look into Hubbard. I would guess
that the majority of those antagonistic to Scientology would consider not. I
would suggest the extreme opposite. That Hubbard, despite the
inconsistencies, believed in himself and Scientology far more deeply than
almost all of his adherents. He was a man far more deeply trapped in his
beliefs than his followers. Anyone else could leave Scientology but he ~was~
Scientology and could never leave.

If one accepts that he believed his own claims then this leads on to the
conclusion that his continual false claims of results and technical
workability were based not on intent to perpetrate fraud but a very manic
form of optimism which was quite dissociated from observation of the
physical universe.

To this we can add that he believed that his activities were essential to
the survival of mankind. In "Ron's Journal 67" he says:

"In all the broad universe, there is no other hope for man than ourselves.
This is a tremendous responsibility.  I have borne it too long alone.
You share it with me now."

He saw any criticism of his activities as an attempt to stop the salvation
of mankind as he clearly states later in the same briefing:

"Any suppressive element is bound to lean on us very hard, and
where it is permitted to enter the organization and permitted to make
nothing of our plans and activities, of our purposes and even our gains,
we will lose to that extent.  Therefore we must have a very tight ethics
perimeter inside our organizations, and those people who are making
slighting remarks about what is going on are simply in their own way
trying to stop the forward progress."

Thus all the activities of the GO (later OSA), the heavy "ethics" of the Sea
Organization and the lowly conditions of staff can also be perceived to have
a justification in this fanatic belief that the planet was under attack by
evil beings and that his technology and organizations provided the only
solution -  without him the planet was doomed to eternal misery.

The next area I would like to examine is the effect of this man's personal
eccentricies on the development and effect of Scientology itself. To do so
one has to look at a further part of his make up - a strong disrespect for
the scientific developments of others in this society and an unwillingness
to subject his claims to the testing of those he considered his inferiors -
mere preclears.

As an example he says on 4 July 1958 in a lecture entitled "The Freedoms of
Clear" referring to IQ:
:
"If you tested it and it was good processing, it went up at the rate of one
point per hour. Now, there are some techniques which aren't necessarily part
of Clearing at all, it had to do with withholding. Running various types of
withholding, and running it in various ways, but you could shoot people's IQ
up at about five points an hour."

Although some have claimed to observe increases in IQ with auditing there is
no evidence of a statistical tabulation and verification of the above
statement. It suggests that with a mere twenty hours of auditing that a
person's IQ could be increased from the average in society of 100 to a
staggering 200 - well into the realms of genius. Yet there are thousands of
Scientologists who have had far more than 20 hours of auditing yet have not
achieved this and I have seen no evidence that any have.

As another example one could look at the events taught as a secret level in
"OT3" - one of the upper levels of Scientology - claimed to lay open the
total reason for the deterioration of mankind.

The film script "Revolt in the Stars" was intended to reveal these events to
the current populace of Earth in a way that would send them into Scientology
in droves. The script states that the stars of the Galactic Federation were
:

"Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Vega, Capella, Arcturus, Rigel, Procyon,
Achernar, Beta Centauri, Altair, Betelgeuse, Acrux, Aldebaran, Pollux,
Spica, Antares, Fomalhaut, Deneb, Regulus and Sol"

The "Hamlyn Guide to Astronomy" by David Baker in 1978 lists the 20
brightest stars from Earth as:

"Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Rigel, Procyon,
Achernar, Betelgeuse, Beta Centauri, Altair, Aldebaran, Acrux, Antares,
Spica, Fomalhaut, Pollux, Deneb, Beta Crucis"

These are a wide variety of star types. Arcturus and Aldebaran are stars of
type K0 and K5 - so cold relatively that a planet close enough to it to
support life would be within the zone of captured rotation i.e. one side
would face the star all the time making life as we know it impossible. At
the other end Acrux is a binary of almost violet stars so rich in violent
radiation and so hot that no life could exist in that glare nor could any
planet have stable conditions. The distances of these stars from Earth vary
widely - a developing federation would surely choose stars closer together
rather than those brightest from Earth. I find the conclusion almost
inevitable that his list of stars came not from whole track recall but a
brief study of an astronomy book.

Hubbard claimed that the E-meter was scientifically accurate in dating yet
changed the stated dates of incidents by several orders of magnitude on
occasions. For instance the "Clearing Course" implant was stated initially
to be many orders of trillions of years ago. Then in 1967 the date became 75
million years ago. Around 1978 it was again changed to around 1 quadrillion
years ago. Each time it was dated with this scientifically proven
instrument.

Further examples of his unscientific approach abound and I feel no need to
further belabor the point.

It  can be seen that from the above that Scientology developed from the
beliefs of one man. He obviously incorporated work from others but the
decision as to what was included was his alone. We can see that this work
was not in any way realistically tested in any environment not of his
choosing. Results could be evaluated only by his chosen criteria rather than
those of an external body. These criteria were established in such a way
that the workability of Scientology would only be verified by reference to
criteria which were part of Scientology and stated by Hubbard.

I am not going to discuss here whether or not Scientology works. As a self
referencing system evaluated by subjective changes and/or internally
selected criteria it could hardly fail to work from the position of those
who accept the original premisses on which the techniques are based. Once
one has accepted the original premisses then any apparent failure is
obviously based on either incorrect application or some intention or
predisposition on the part of the individual to make it fail.

From the position of someone looking from the outside in who refuses to
accept the self referencing criteria obviously it could not be adequately
demonstrated to be workable. The only objective tests of its workability
would have to be based on external criteria as measured by objective
observation.

To examine the effect of Scientology on the individual one has to look at 2
separate phenomena. One is the technology of Scientology itself and the
second is the impact of the setting in which that technology is delivered.

What I am suggesting is that whether or not Scientology itself works does
not in any way alter the evidence that it contains a carefully calculated
gradient of indoctrination.

What the budding Scientologist may not realize is that they have been
preselected as being receptive to the indoctrination procedures of
Scientology which form part of the environment in which the actual tech is
delivered.

There are 2 selection criteria for an involvement in Scientology. They are:

1. The person believes that there is something that is ruining their life.

2. The person believes that there is a possibility that this condition can
be changed.

In this first part of the indoctrination the person's attention is placed
firmly on this aspect of personal ruin and while there attention is on it
they are told that Scientology can help them with it.

It is a well known part of brainwashing procedure to create a confusion in
the person then give them a datum while they are in the midst of the
confusion.

Hubbard knew that it wasn't necessary to actually create the confusion -
just reminding the person of it would put them into it sufficiently for the
suggestion to work.

The training on this procedure is given to every Scientology staff member
involved with new people.

If one is a Scientologist reading this one might find it hard to believe but
the steps are clearly delineated in the policy HCOPL 23 October 1965
"Dissemination Drill"

The steps per this policy are:

1. Contact the person.
2. Handle any hostility or attacks.
3. Find what the person believes is ruining them.
4. Get them to understand that Scientology can help them with it.

The staff using the technique do not see it as a selection procedure as they
have already accepted that everyone has a ruin and that anyone who doesn't
perceive it is too unaware to be ready for Scientology.

The next major step that a person experiences is a series of exercises
called TRs. These involve long periods of open interaction with another
person. Initially one is just being with the person directly looking at
them.

Scientologists would say that this is beneficial. Whether or nor that is
true what is easily observable just by trying the exercises with a friend
for a couple of hours is that they do produce a psychological shift of some
sort. Many experience a sense of euphoria.

After each training period the individuals are encouraged to share any
successes (group approval is given with applause for "wins") that they have
had during the period thus re-enforcing any positive feelings and shadowing
anything negative.

The next important step occurs after the person starts their first major
course in Scientology. It is the indoctrination into the infallibility of
Hubbard contained in the policy letter "Keeping Scientology Working" which I
have quoted from above.

The principle points which are stressed:

1. There is an infallible perfect technology of the mind.
2. It was created principally by a superior being who is always right and
who has by mysterious unstated means reached a higher state of awareness.
3. The person has a mental mechanism called a reactive mind which makes them
incapable of rational disagreement with Hubbard.
4. If the individual is to handle their ruin they must be ruthless and
dedicated.

While the individual is reading this work they are under the supervision of
someone who either believes the policy or believes that they must act as if
they believe it. Any disagreement is met with the insistence of the
supervisor that the student has failed to properly define a word in the
issue.

Possibly the strongest control mechanism in Scientology will be introduced
along with the initial stages of indoctrination and is very much part of the
day to day life of the Scientology staff. It is detailed in the policy
letter "Rewards and Penalties" of 6 March 1966.

Hubbard condemns Pavlov and his teachings as control methodologies but then
introduces a policy almost totally derivable from his research.

In that policy he says:

"We award production and up statistics and penalize non-production and down
statistics. Always."

It seems very plausible. However, in a strictly hierarchical organization,
it provides a very heavy control mechanism. Many ex-Scientologists have
recounted that the balance was usually biased toward the penalties and how
the evaluation of who was upstat was based more on agreement with the wishes
of the senior in the organization than on an actual examination of their
production.

There is another factor that enters in here that emphasises the power of
this factor considerably.

A person who goes on Scientology staff can either work in a technical
capacity or as an administrator.

Whther one considers Scientology workable or not the demands placed on its
technical personnel are very exacting. The auditor must agree to never
evaluate for nor invalidate the person being counselled. There is also very
much a necessity on the part of the auditor to make sure that Scientology
works. My own observation is that an auditor who wants the person to improve
can to some extent do it just by talking to the person, acknowledging what
they say and showing that they understand whereas without that intention the
best "processes" will produce minimal results.

I am suggesting here that the people who find this achievable move into tech
positions. Those who cannot do this move into admin positions. I realize
that this is an over-generalization. I'll suggest a lighter form - the
executive positions of Scientology are generally filled by those who have
too low a level of affinity for their fellows to make good auditors. Even
that isn't universal but it was my observation from 10 years in the
organizations that it was mainly true.

Thus those who control the giving out of the rewards and penalties are
usually uneducated in the more humane aspects of Scientology.

There is a thought I will enter here that is speculation: I observed many
executives in Scientology who claimed to be dedicated to the "cause" yet
received little auditing and little training in Scientology. I was therefore
very suspicious of their motivation. One could think that such people were
"True Believers" as described in the well known book "The True Believer" by
Eric Hoffman.

Scientology is, due to its organizational nature, controlled almost totally
by the admin personnel.

The point I am making is that Scientology is a phenomena that acts on the
individual due to the manner and environment in which it is presented as
well as being a set of techniques for self improvement which may or may not
work. For someone to evaluate the effect of Scientology on themselves and
others they must clearly differentiate between these two.

To further differentiate between these two influences I will put forward the
idea that the Scientology techniques and the particular way of addressing
people with those techniques are a new creation from Hubbard. The use of the
E-meter with a series of very detailed procedures has not been done before.
He may well have derived many of the basic ideas but the gestalt was his
creation. Perhaps Freud and Jung and others discovered many of the basic
principles but the compilation and composite creation was his.

The organizational methodology and the framework in which Scientology is
presented consist of some rather old techniques. It is presented in an
environment common to many mass belief systems.

The Scientologist is presented with the idea of the uniqueness of
Scientology. It might very well be a new and useful technology. But could
such a technology be developed fully by a man who believed himself to be
infallible in an environment where he was worshipped as something akin to a
God? He might well have created the foundations shakily built within the
limitations of his own "case" but could his creation really be the end
solution to all the ills of mankind?

His own case was a messiah complex evident in many great men some who took
their followers to war on a holy cause.

He believed that he was the Messiah.
He believed that he taught the only way to truth.
He believed that those who did not agree with him were mentally deficient.
He believed that anyone who deserted the "cause" was a traitor who deserved
no justice.
He believed that all who followed him should live a life of poverty and
dedication.
He saw no conflict between this and his living a life where his every whim
was met.
He believed that all those who opposed his supreme rule were traitors to the
true cause.
He believed that the means were justified by the vision of the end product.

The part of his belief system that seemed most shocking was his belief that
it was quite justifiable to use implants to restimulate people into joining
Scientology. I don't have access to that material to quote. The only
evidence I can present is that the pictures on the covers of his books as
issued in the late 60s appear to come from the implant that he titled "R6"
and that the uniforms that his closest followers wore were those which he
believed to be similar to those of the troops who delivered the implants.
The details are described in a Flag Order entitled "Operations Digest" and a
tape briefing entitled "Symbols". I have copies of neither.

What I am saying to the Scientologist is that Scientology may well be
something valuable but that the cult environment in which one experiences it
is not.

In his earlier days Hubbard seemed to be more intent on the technology and
less into playing war games with his various enemies. In a magazine called
"Ability" he wrote in 1959:

"Data is your data only so long as you have evaluated it. It is your data by
authority or it is your data. If it is your data by authority, somebody has
forced it upon you, and at best it is little more than a light aberration.
Of course, if you asked a question of a man whom you thought knew his
business and he gave you his answer, that datum was not forced upon you. But
if you went away from him believing from then on that such a datum existed
without taking the trouble to investigate the answer for yourself -- without
comparing it to the known universe -- you were falling short of completing
the cycle of learning."

This was later supplanted by "Keeping Scientology Working".

In his earlier work he seemed to be in a way stronger and his later days
seemed to fall into more totalitarian ways. One would have to decide for
oneself whether that was due to the failures of his technology or the
rapidly increasing pressures of the responsibility for a large organization
in which he felt he could trust few or no-one for help.

The profile I have drawn of Hubbard is not dissimilar to that which has been
drawn of some of the most apparently evil such as Hitler. It is the profile
of a man of changes and the changes that such men created were never free of
blood baths and violence. They created change that in the long run affected
society deeply.

Such men had within them the violence and force of will to say that they
felt something was wrong and to do something to change it but seemed to
lacked the love and compassion needed for a balance in the creation of a
better society.

So it falls to others to review his work and judge its value for our future
society. Others who are perhaps not predisposed to great heroics nor of
filling the role of Johny Goodboy Tyler.

So what should one say to those who would look into the works of Hubbard or
those who are recruited by the body routers of the Church of Scientology?

Point them to the lessons of History. Ask them to look at the men in the
past who were similar to Hubbard and those who were different. Have them
look at the creations of the men who were similar to Hubbard and those who
were different. Have them look at the characteristics of the groups and
philosophies created by men of similar temperament to Hubbard.

Have them read history books and philosophy books and psychology books.

Have them look at the internet and read the criticisms of Hubbard and the
success stories.

Show them that there were many in the past who believed that there was only
one true way and that they had found it and have them follow up the
consequences of true belief in that founder.

Give them a nuclear bomb proof bullshit detector.

That might be the most valuable contribution anyone could give to a
prospective student of potential sciences of the mind and spirit.


--

Ralph Hilton
http://Ralph.Hilton.org
Freezone International: http://www.fzint.org