Policy, Management and the 'WHO'

Original article was written by Unindoctrinate (screen name) and posted to news groups on the web. It was reposted by Greg to ARS and ACT news groups.

Correct Evaluation and Charge

  Some Scientologists fail to correctly evaluate some things. The result is that instead of becoming better, more aware, more responsible Scientologists, they become disaffected. 

Some become disaffected to the point of becoming ex-Scientologists. Some just go into apathy on the subject. I imagine there are all sorts of gradients and manners of disaffection. 

I consider any degree at all of disaffection to be an outpoint. This doesn't mean that when one finds out something about Ron Hubbard (LRH) or Office of Special Affairs (OSA) or whatever, that one can't get annoyed or very, very annoyed, upset, arc broken, or anything else. Responses such as these are often plus points, of course;  they're understandable, rational responses to the surprises one experiences. 

If, however, and after one has had some time to cool off and reason things out, one also leaves oneself with upsets (ARC breaks), heavy emotional reactions (HE&R) of some kind or other reactive considerations, motivators, etc. - I consider any and all of such things to be outpoints. There's just no reason for these negative things to persist. One should be able to get through such stuff and out the other end. 

Accurate Appreciation

After having re-evaluated all sorts of things myself, I don't, for example, have less ARC for LRH. As he observed, understanding is composed of affinity, reality, and communication (ARC). So, I now have greater ARC and greater understanding of LRH. I no longer have some of the awe I had before, but that's cool because it was misplaced to begin with. 
I no longer have some of the awed considerations I had before, but this is cool because they were misplaced too. 

What I have now is a far more accurate appreciation of the man. And it is appreciation. A lot of it. In fact a whole heck of a lot of it. 

All that's gone is stuff that shouldn't have been there in the first place. Just like in auditing or False Data Stripping. The result is that I have far more actual and genuine understanding and appreciation. This is what I consider any Scientologist should end up with after re-evaluating some things. If they end up with something else, I can only conclude that it's because they've managed to accomplish a good deal of misevaluation instead of evaluation. This leads to lower understanding and ARC breaks.

 Instead, and as mentioned above, all Scientologists should be able to become better, more aware and more responsible Scientologists.

The Conspiracy Theory People

 Regarding The Veritas Web site. It's a games condition. They are in a games condition with existing Church of Scientology's (CoS') management. If you're interested, do a search for "The McDonald Papers." (on Google.com's News groups: Alt.religion.scientology (ARS) and Alt.clearing.technology (ACT))

 In the mid-nineties, if I recall correctly; a small group of well indoctrinated Scientologists led by Randy McDonald went into a games condition with management. They were out to get them. Management had begun issuing SP Declares which oblige the now ex-members to pay all of their taxes. This was after the "war" with the IRS had ended. Many or maybe all of the McDonald people were eventually declared Suppressive. They have remained thoroughly indoctrinated. LRH Policy was 'perfect'. They were and remain conspiracy-theorists. They've done a lot of investigating into the corporate structure of the Church of Scientology™ and they have published documents which show, that the CST (Church of Spiritual Technology), owns the copyrights and trademarks. 
Also they made a big point out of  Meade Emory, ex-Assistant Commissioner of the IRS, is a member of the board of directors of CST. And there's more like that. 

Their conspiracy theory insists upon that Scientology™ was taken over by the IRS or God knows who; that LRH was drugged/controlled/etc. in his later years; and that Miscavige is just a pawn of those who are actually in charge of CoS. 

As even some of the less intelligent people on ARS have pointed out, whatever the legal papers may say, it is naïve to think that they are more than legal papers or believe that anyone other than Miscavige is actually running things. 

But the Veritas (Latin for truth) crowd (McDonald and co.) are too stuck in their games condition to understand this. They are out to get the leadership. "The McDonald Papers" give the history of the genesis of this scenario and scene. 

Looking for "The WHO"

If I were to write a checksheet to train people on the subject of games conditions, I'd consider including them in the theory section. The 'criminal time track' which they have been  reconstructing and constantly updating for a year or two, says basically that management has been squirreling the tech and screwing up other things as well, so management are the bad guys. 

It's a similar take or conclusion as the "Idaho Triplets"  on Scientologyintegrity.org  (with the "squirrel sec checks" on OT7 etc.). What these fellows and the Veritas people keep missing, because they just won't confront it, is that although management is screwing up some things, they are not the primary Who. 

LRH is the primary Who. Most of management's screw-ups are nothing more than their attempts to apply various LRH policies and programs and orders and advices etc. 

Now, if you've been management for nearly twenty years, and if you just keep making the same kind of screw-ups over and over again in the name of Keeping Scientology Working, well, that isn't too bright, either - and it makes these people responsible too. 

But if all of the management were replaced and no policy cancelled/revised, we'd just have other people committing and then repeating the same screw-ups over and over again. 

Who are the good guys and who are the bad ones? 

An area you'll have fun re-evaluating is PTS/SP tech and philosophy. LRH developed some spot-on philosophy and some absolutely amazing tech. 

 For example, the Suppressed Person R/D, is exactly what he wrote it was: magic. 

I'd add, though, that some parts of the philosophy could be far better researched, especially when it comes down to the dirty business of SP's and declaring people suppressive persons. 

In other words, and this just one example, I don't know that I'd be so quick to label some people SP's or PTS's. Most Scientologists, for example, would consider many or most of the critics on ARS to be SP's - just because they're publicly criticizing/attacking Scientology. That's a suppressive act. Well, things aren't quite that simple. What is true is that ARS critics, virtually without exception, have lots of false data and have Scientology™ and LRH misevaluated big time.

 They've got some of the criticism right, but have the rest of the criticism and everything else wrong. This doesn't make them SP's automatically. 

I think the biggest problem with critics of Scientology™ is that it's impossible to be a good critic without understanding Scientology™ very well, and none of these people do. Even the ex-scientologists we see on ARS end up screwing up much of what understanding they originally had; this is  part of the "way bad reaction" they experienced becoming ex'es (being expelled, SP declared and all that). All of these people experienced an overwhelm when they left. They only differ in degree. Their stable data went for a loop, and they don't handle the resultant confusions as well as they otherwise could have. 

Something has to Go

As mentioned, some stable data need to go; others need to be revised; some old ones might be restored; and some new ones probably need to be formulated and adopted. These people get some or a lot of this wrong. They don't dump some of their stable data that needs dumping;  sometimes they dump some that shouldn't have been dumped; God knows what some of them restore; and they may be less than adequately intelligent sometimes in formulating and adopting new ones. 

From what I've seen, many of these critics readopt old stable data; sometimes these even include 'real winners' like, "I think with my brain." So, we have an extraordinarily weird scene overall. Critics who aren't particularly good critics; Scientologists who don't know there's anything major to fix in Scientology, let alone what exactly that should be. 

Endangered Critics

We do have a very few Scientologists who have a good estimation of what's wrong, but who can't speak freely because if they did, they'd be declared - for starters. Another thing that contributes to making this such a weird scene is, that even when a critic in good standing gets some criticism right, instead of being given an acknowledgment or a "Hmm, I hope you're wrong, but we're going to look into this," he's roundly ignored. If he persists with his criticism, he may be able to get their attention,  which in many cases will be in the form of private investigators investigating him.

In other words, the criticism scene is, and has always been, considerably more weird than it has any business to be. The WHY and the WHO, however, are not the critics. 

The WHY is some of the policies concerning criticism of Scientology™ and LRH. The WHO is LRH. 

Do you think that this can in fact be changed from within? What I'm entirely certain about is that things can and will be sorted out. How and how long it might take is hard to say - this is perhaps what makes this scene more interesting than anything else. 

I'm thrilled, actually, that ARS and activities connected to it are an element of the scene. Regardless of how bad some of the criticism is, Scientology™ needs external criticism. Any criticism would be better than none. Fortunately some of the criticism is quite good. Chris Owen's research into LRH's actual military record is an example. 

The most important thing about ARS and the rest of the critical stuff on the Net is that it's there. It's just a matter of time before more and more Scientologists get onto it. 

Some of them will become disaffected and blow, just as some already have. Others will become more responsible. 

The Un-Indoctrination

Slowly but surely, the Scientology™ indoctrination will become real as such to more and more Scientologists. Something else could happen. Miscavige having a few cognitions for example and deciding to change things. It's more likely to come about by means of outside pressure, and more and more Scientologists un-indoctrinating themselves certainly will bring that about.

 So, while there are aspects of this scene which can justly be considered 'serious', seriousness can be overdone. In part the Scientology™ indoctrination itself, results in Scientologists taking Scientology™ and life way too seriously. 

Rather than the exaggerated seriousness heaped onto 'Scientology'  in KSW #1 (another and big false datum), we should consider the many LRH references along the lines of "seriousness equals mass" and "life is a game". Here we should find some relief and sanity and find some encouragement to do the right thing.

Unindoctrinate          
(screen name)            

The short Essay below about Games conditions has some relevance to the above.  Uni explains his insights in the subject, but leaves it at that. In other words he does not go into using it for analysis in the CoS situation, but leaves that up to you. 

Un-indoctrination Hat part III

Games Conditions

Along with the data series, a working knowledge of games conditions is something  I consider vital to understand this scene or, for that matter, a great many other scenes. 

I ended up studying this subject extensively over ten years ago when I decided to do some "serious" evaluation of an area and realized in the middle of this that a games condition was at the bottom of any real difficulty I'd ever had. I went on from there to take my games condition apart, which was fascinating. 

Games condition is a term some of us use now and then, and with at least some concept of what it is; but I discovered when I began to actually study it that I wasn't the only Scientologist whose knowledge of this phenomenon was only partial at best. 

LRH's early, and some of his best, work on it was in the mid-fifties. He takes it up very briefly at one point during the Briefing Course, but then drops the term altogether. What he didn't drop was research into the aberrations that make up the elements of a games condition. 

With a bit of cross-referencing and combination of definitions of several Scientology™ terms, it becomes clear that a games condition is made up of service facsimilies, false purposes, and other irrational considerations; some of these irrational considerations just don't have a specific technical term in Scientology™ like the first two do. All of them, however, are simply irrational considerations.

 It's with an understanding of games conditions as a background that one is able to envisage more accurately and more realistically - or sometimes to envisage at all - what the actual ideal scene for an activity is. 

This is because an essential component of any ideal scene is pan-determinism. I assume you have some familiarity with the short scale that goes up from other-determinism, through self-determinism, and up to pan-determinism. 

None of these conditions is a narrow line; they are bands. In other words, there are many gradients in each of these conditions. There are also many grades of 'ideal' in any ideal scene. For a scene to be considered ideal at all, however it must be at least on the bottom rungs of the pan-determinism band. Anything short of this isn't really an ideal scene. 

A knowledge of games conditions comes in handy because they're what prevent ideal scenes from being achieved or maintained. 

A person in a games condition is convinced that he's acting in a pan-determined or at least a self-determined and rational manner. What he fails to recognize is that despite how determined he may be, and despite how much he may be convinced that he is being rational, all or some of his thinking, decisions and actions are not rational at all. 

So, instead of someone who's at least self-determined, let alone pan-determined, we have someone who is other-determined by his own irrational considerations. 

Example. Richard says, "I take a great deal of responsibility for Ralph. And I'm willing to take even more responsibility for Ralph. But if Ralph does (so and so), well, that would be too much. There are limits to how much responsibility I should take for Ralph." 

This may look quite rational. It is not. If the last sentence were to read, "There are definite limits to how much responsibility I will take for Ralph," and if Richard's reasoning about this were rational, then it would be a rational consideration. Instead Richard's consideration is that there are limits to how much responsibility he should take for Ralph. There are no such limits or law set for this. Richard is free to take however much, or however little, responsibility he likes. It is his choice to make, and no one else's. He accomplishes only one thing with his first consideration with 'should', and that is to limit his freedom of choice. In so doing, he creates a trap for himself. What may happen as a result of this? When Ralph does (so and so), Richard may find himself, sooner or later, sitting with the consideration that he should not take responsibility for Ralph in this instance. If he "agrees with himself", he would merely be agreeing to maintain the irrational consideration he had formed earlier; he will not take responsibility for Ralph. What may be the consequences of this? There might be no particular consequences. Or there might be ill consequences for Ralph. Or there might be ill consequences for Richard. Or there might be ill consequences for Ralph and Richard. Or there might be ill consequences for someone else. Or there might be ill consequences for Ralph and for Richard and for someone else. We might see any of the consequences even if Richard had not had his 'should' consideration in place, but had decided that he simply did not want to take responsibility for Ralph when he did (so and so). The difference here is that Richard would have expressed a self-determined free choice based on whatever reasoning he might have done at the time. With his 'should' consideration left in place, however, Richard is locked into taking no responsibility for Ralph because he considers he should not (other determined). In other words, there may be ill consequences in both scenarios. But in the first we have Richard trapped by his irrational consideration and limited, therefore, in his capacity to reason, to decide, and to act. In the second scenario we have him free to make choices based on whatever reasoning he may summon to the occasion. It is obvious which one is likely to result in more desired, and fewer undersired, consequences. A person in a games condition is convinced that he is acting entirely rational or at least adequately rational to the task at hand. He is also convinced that he is being pan-determined or at least self-determined, and in some respects he very well may be. What he doesn't understand is that he is also other-determined, to a greater or lesser extent, by irrational considerations. Until he does, these irrational considerations will remain unrecognized as such. And when he dramatizes them, he will undo or undermine whatever else he may be accomplishing. We're all pan-determined in some areas or at some occasions or under certain circumstances. Where we tend to have any real difficulty is in areas where being stably pan-determined is essential, but where instead we're chronically in, or too frequently drop into, a games condition. The anatomy of a games condition is not difficult to understand. It just takes some study of a dozen or so technical terms and putting them together to see how they might add up.

Unindoctrinate          
(screen name)           

Read Un-Indoctrination Part I

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(link to Greg's posting on ACT)

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What I have now is a far more accurate appreciation of the man. And it is appreciation. A lot of it. In fact a whole heck of a lot of it.

it is naïve to think that they are more than legal papers or believe that anyone other than Miscavige is actually running things. 

LRH is the primary Who. Most of management's screw-ups are nothing more than their attempts to apply various LRH policies and programs and orders and advices and who knows what else. 

 if all of the management were replaced and no policy cancelled/revised, we'd just have other people committing and then repeating the same screw-ups over and over again. 

I think the biggest problem with critics of Scientology™ is that it's impossible to be a good one without understanding Scientology™ very well

 some stable data need to go; others need to be revised; some old ones might be restored; and some new ones probably need to be formulated and adopted.

The why and the who, however, are not the critics. 

The why is some of the policy concerning criticism of Scientology™ and LRH. The who is LRH. 

Regardless of how bad some of the criticism is, Scientology™ needs external criticism. Any criticism would be better than none