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Comments from Scientologists




Date: Sun, 17 May 1997

OPINIONS FROM A SCIENTOLOGIST by The Pilot


Yes I am a Scientologist.

I believe that L. Ron Hubbard was a brilliant man who made important
discoveries about the mind and spirit.

I do consider Scientology to be a religion because it treats
the person as an immortal spirit who reincarnates down through
the ages.  This did not come about through some devine revelation
but instead resulted from the simple and practical matter that
the use of Dianetic incident running to relieve traumatic experiences
continually lead to uncovering past life incidents.  This was
contrary to the theories presented in "Dianetics The Modern
Science Of Mental Health" and was the original breakthrough which
changed the subject from a therapy into what might better be
described as an advanced form of metaphysics and practical
philosophy.

Unfortunately, the management of the Church of Scientology has
chosen to persue various policies which I believe to be harmful
and distructive.  The backlash against these harmful acts may
result in their eventual demise and bring about the loss of
what I consider to be the most important of all subjects, namely
the study of man as an immortal spirit rather than as a meat
body wallowing in the mud.

On this basis, I am a reformer rather than a loyalist within
the ranks.  There are many who share my views.  But one of the
harmful policies that I wish to see changed forbids any attempt
at reforming the subject.  For this reason, you will see little
talk of reform within Scientology because any member who proposes
it is immediately excommunicated.

This is the reason that I must post this and any other honest
discussion in an anonymous manner.  To identify myself would
result in my being declared a "Suppressive Person" and would
cause friends and family to "disconnect" from me.

If that did happen, the only way I could continue to practice
my religion would be to join the "Freezone" which consists
of disbarred Scientologists who practice without sanction
from the Church.  Unfortunately, Scientology management attacks
these independents with a visciousness that defies description.
This is another point where serious reform is needed.

It has been said that Scientology, which claims a membership
of 8 million world wide, actually only has about 50 thousand
members.  This is incorrect.  The true membership (not counting
the people who only did a beginners course which is where the
inflated figure of 8 million comes from) is probably around
1 or 2 million.  But the critics are right in observing that the
active membership is around 50 thousand.  95 percent of the
Scientologists are currently inactive and standing on the
sidelines thanks to the misguided management that is currently
in effect.

Currently there is a great controversy about material that the Church
has labled "confidential materials".  These are secret scriptures
which management has made a big deal out of and for which they
charge excessively high prices.  Of these, the most secret are
the NOTS materials.  They deal with techniques for the handling
of "entities" (which are referred to as "body thetans" or BTs in
the materials).  These form the tiniest percentage of the
Scientology materials.  When this material was originally researched
in the 1952-3 time period, it was recognized to be a minor factor.
It was not at that time considered to be dangerous or labled
confidential and was only discussed in about two dozen out of
the 600 or so lectures given by Ron during that period
of early research into what is known as "OT" or Operating Thetan.
"Thetan" is the Scientology word for spirit, meaning the person
himself rather than his body and an OT is a being who has regained
his ability to operate as a spirit rather than just as a body.

Considering that there are over 3000 hours of taped lectures
by Ron and many tens of thousands of pages of written materials,
this business of handling entities is only a drop in the bucket
and is not truely representative of the subject.  But Scientology
management has made a grave mistake in attaching fantastic
importance to this minor aspect and has gone lawsuit crazy on
the subject of keeping these materials hidden.

They do this because "confidential levels" are imagined to
be big money makers.  They have followed the same path as did
Christianity in the middle ages, placing money ahead of truth,
but Christianity has mostly overcome this (with a few exceptions)
and so can Scientology.  The presence of greed in the upper ranks
neither validates nor invalidates the religion itself, it is
simply an unfortunate fact of human nature that sometimes gains
the upper hand.

But not only are these money making ideas morally wrong, they
are also quite stupid.  Really big income comes from high volume
and low prices rather than trying to gorge the rich for some
exclusive service.

The backlash to this lawsuit madness has been to make people so
mad at the Church that great efforts and risks are undertaken to
present these confidential materials to the public.  As of this
writing, a copy of the NOTS auditors pack is available at Andreas'
web site.  I personally do not have any objection to your
downloading it (but I am in total disagreement with Scientology
management in this regards).  I don't think it will harm you to
read it and you might even find the techniques useful on some
rare occasion.  But please realize that this is only one out
of many dozens of areas addressed by Scientology.  It would be
far more useful to most people to get copies of the Scientology
materials on handling things like problems or upsets.  I have
run the NOTS materials myself with benifit (and the NOTS pack
I have seen on the internet does match the one used by the
Church) but it would not have been of great interest to me or
been very useful until after I had worked over the more important
areas (such as communication, problems, guilt, etc.) extensively.

The internet is also carrying a good bit of what Scientoligists
call "whole track" material.  By whole track, we mean the whole
time track of a beings existance rather than the current lifetime.
Again this only represents a small percentage (perhaps a hundred
taped lectures) of a vast body of work.  It is slightly speculative
and is labled "para-Scientology".  These things are primarily
based on data accumlated from running past life incidents that
took place in earlier space travelling civilizations.  As
such, they suffer from the vaguries of individual recall.  A
number of the sessions where these kind of things came up are
recorded among the numerous taped lectures and it is left up to
the membership to judge these things for themselves.  It is
an adventure of exploration rather than an accurate and
confirmed history.  You don't have to believe these things to
practice the subject.  Modern Dianetic practictioners are expected
to let the PC (preclear - the person being helped) run past life
incidents but they are expressly forbidden to suggest or evaluate
what is to be found in these earlier lives.  It is an individual
matter.

Scientology management currently finds itself in the hypocritical
position of suppressing free speach and open communication while
worshipping a founder who's most famous quote is "When in doubt,
communciate".  And its not just the external critics that they
suppress.  They also suppress the communications of their own
membership.

Isn't it amazing that there isn't an army of enthusiastic
individual Scientologists honestly communicating about the subject
on the internet?  You many not know it, but most Scientoligists
have a fantastically high communication level.  They have it
on any subject except Scientology itself.  And they have it
there too as long as they are not talking publicly.  But any
public communication requires getting "Issue Authority".  Any
openly critical remark will land them in Ethics.  And
even a lighthearted joke could get them in trouble because of
the "Jokers and Degraders" policy.  They are literally scared
to say anything publicly about Scientology.  And its Scientology
management that enforces this and keeps them afraid.

This is why I am a reformer within Scientology, and will continue
to be one as long as I remain anonymous.  And when I can no longer
remain anonymous, I will continue to be a reformer.  Unfortunately,
at that point I will be a reformer on the outside since attempting
to reform the subject is one of the many acts listed as "High
Crimes" which will cause one to be thrown out and excommunicated.

There are many of us within the subject.  We begin with veiled
remarks to feel each other out.  Gradually, free communication
begins to develope.  Eventually you discover that only a small
percentage believe in Int (International) Management.  Most dislike
prices, registrars, ethics, and the various high pressure tactics
empolyed by the Sea Org.  Most of the membership remains in because they
believe in the tech and in the expressed goals of the subject.
This is why I have stayed in for so long.

My opinions do not reflect those of Scientology management.  They
do, however, reflect the opinions of many Scientologists, most of
whom are afraid or unwilling to speak publicly.

Many of those who do disagree with management will not say so
publicly because they are afraid that the subject will be distroyed
if they give any support to the critics.  Management encourages
this.  They might even be encouraging some of the attacks on
Scientology.  Any attack that does not publish confidential data
(because that is a money maker) works to their benifite because
it supports their contention that there is a war on between
Scientology and the "evil suppressives" (or psychs or squirrels
or wogs or whatever).

In peacetime, many citizens consider it their right and duty to
criticize the government.  But if a country is at war, such
criticism can be labled as treason.  The same goes for Scientology.
If they can promote a war zone mentality, they can lable any
internal critic as a suppressive person and toss him out.

I sincerly believe that Scientology is critical to the future
of this planet.  I also believe that the current management is
stearing the religion stright towards distruction.

Their rabid attacks create enemies where there were none.

Their suppression of communications violates every basic principle
of Scientology auditing.

Their exploitation of their own staff members drains the backbone
of the organization and leaves them ever weak and endangered.

And their endless "stops" on the lines prevent the membership from
learning and using the tech of Scientology, which was the purpose
of the whole thing in the first place.  These stops not only
include the super high prices but also endless unnecessary
security checks, ethics stops, confidentiality, and a dread
fear of anybody actually using the subject who is not totally
under the control of the Sea Organization.

Who is "they" you might ask?  Well that's a little hard to
determine.  There is the "Watchdog Committee" ("Who are these
dogs?" another Scientologist in good standing once said to me),
and there is the RTC, and there is the Board of Directors, and
there is Author Services, and lots of other stuff.  It is very
unclear who is really running things and who is just a figurehead
like Heber.  Rumor has it that Miscavige is calling the shots,
but that is not stated clearly to the membership.

The membership is asked to put their trust in Flag and Int.
Management and to believe that LRH (L. Ron Hubbard) set things
up to leave the subject in the best of hands.

But I would point out that everybody who Ron ever gave serious
power to was subsequently declared suppressive.  This includes
Reg Sharp, Otto Roos, Ron Shafron, Bill Franks, and David Mayo
just to name a few.  Either he had extrodinarily bad judgement
or something else was going on out of sight.  I will not even
guess at the reason.  All I can say for sure is that whoever
he left in control has long since passed the point where he
would have been declared suppressive if Ron were still around.

This is a call to all Scientologists to actively push for
reform.  I know it is dangerous.  It is also necessary.  I urge
you to study the actual LRH tech, especially the materials of
the 1950s, and to ignore the dictates of management and the
Sea Org.

------

Here are some quotes from LRH tapes of the 1950s.

"We in Scientology could put together a group strong enough
to run over everything it came to.  But then someday, when I
and others are gone, it would have to be overthrown and the
cry will be 'Auditors of the World Unite, you have nothing to
loose but your certs'".

- From LRH Tape lecture 15 of the "Anatomy of the Spirit of Man
Congress" titled "What Scientology is doing" given on June 6, 1955.

"Security is the answer and solution for the fact that nobody
in government can communicate"... "An organization takes on
a life of its own" ... "The head of something shouldn't tell
people what to do, his job is just making sure that the lines
and terminals are in place".

- from LRH Tape lecture number 18 of the "London Congress on Human
Problems", titled "Today's Battle of Britain" given on Oct 8, 1956.

-------

For those of you who are reading this who are not Scientologists,
please realize that the organization and the subject are two
different things.  And please recognize that we are currently
going through the equivallent of the Spanish Inquisition in
Christian History.  Just as you would not damn all Christians
for the actions of the Lord High Inquisitor, you should not
damn all Scientologists for the current atrocious behaviour
of their Church.

-------

I have anonymously posted a great deal of material to the internet
using the pen name of "The Pilot".

Get the Pilot materials (the 32 part SUPER SCIO book) at:
ftp://wpxx02.toxi.uni-wuerzburg.de/pub/ss/index.html
or pick up the ss## files from Homer's archive at lightlink.com.

Subsequent follow-ups, arguments for reform, defenses, criticisms,
occasional jokes, and even more tech can be found by searching dejanews
http://www.dejanews.com/ either for "Super Scio" or for all
pilot postings to ARS by using the following search string:
    ~a (The Pilot) & ~g (alt.religion.scientology)

------------------

Working to create a sane CofS,

The Pilot


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