I haven’t done any editorializing or analysis of the series of recent posts on the aims of Scientology (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, OSA Statistics). I have simply posted the words of L. Ron Hubbard directing his Scientology troops at various times towards what he considered vital objectives. More books could be written on the hundreds of lives that were ruined (both targets and executors of the objectives) by execution of those directives – and the many more like them that were issued over the years. Most of the commentary on those posts has gravitated toward two poles. At one pole is denial, strained justification. At the other pole is condemnation, wholesale and definitive. What few have assayed to do is explain the behavior of those who adopted and carried out these aims. Those people who really believed the future of humanity was won or lost on whether those directives were thoroughly complied to. I have some views to share on that score which are derived from subjective experience and objective observation.
If you want to change out rotting upholstery you need to get down to the brass tacks. One piece of fundamental ‘scripture’ that most Scientologists – corporate, independent and otherwise – tend to agree upon wholeheartedly is L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘Code of Honor.’ It is so popular amongst them that it could be said to in some ways serve to define ‘Scientologist.’ There is no doubt that the Code contains some sensible and lofty principles that could serve someone well at certain life crossroads. Just as certainly, there are aspects of the code that could serve to suggest destructive, even sociopathic, behavior.
“2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted.”
I watched a documentary on Jonestown wherein the son of Jim Jones reflected on the single most powerful factor that led 900 people to follow his father’s directions to commit suicide – including some murdering their own children and authorities investigating the group. After decades of therapy and soul searching he concluded that the common denominator of this mass insanity was an overriding concern on the part of each individual, ‘what would the rest of the group think of me if I withdrew allegiance now?’ That rang consistent with the Scientology experience to me. It was the very moral question I grappled with for four years before deciding to expose the Jim Jones like behavior of David Miscavige at the international headquarters of Scientology.
I have investigated and studied organized crimes in several forms. One common means to organize crime – from street gangs to white collar – is to establish the agreement early on to ‘never withdraw allegiance once granted.’ Usually, initially the vow is taken because the group somehow serves to protect the individual taking the vow or serves to give the individual a sense of belonging and empowerment. Over time, the crimes of the group and any member of the group become the crimes of each individual member to justify, glorify, and protect from outside exposure and accountability. Ironically, but not surprisingly, throughout the history of Scientology that very cycle has repeatedly played itself out as it continues to today.
If folks feel the ‘Code of Honor’ is something too valuable to eschew wholesale, I think it would behoove them to replace item 2 with something along these lines:
“Only maintain allegiance as long as the recipient of it demonstrably remains true to those purposes and principles to which allegiance was granted in the first place.”
—
“12. Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.”
By Scientology’s own ‘technology’ nobody is ever hurt by another without just cause. A being automatically manufactures just cause when he harms, or fixes to harm, another being. If one credits Scientology ‘technology’ as infallible, as Scientology demands it be credited, then item 12 of the code encourages Scientologists to park their consciences at the thresholds of the homes they terrorize in the name of Scientology.
On death row of any prison you will find just about every cold-hearted murderer absolutely certain that the acts for which he was convicted and sentenced fit squarely within the advice of item 12 of the Code of Honor.
To fear to hurt another is not weakness, it is not unethical, it is not immoral. When that fear is real and consulted – most particularly when one feels he is carrying out a just cause – it has another name. It is called conscience. And so I see item 12 of L. Ron Hubbard’s Code of Honor as tantamount to an invitation to abandon or forfeit one’s conscience.
Again, to those wishing to continue following this code, they might be well served by replacing item 12 with something like this:
“Always give due consideration for the rights and well-being of another before doing something that might hurt that person, most particularly when you or another have pre-justified the act as being in pursuit of a just cause.”
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Great idea, just go over the key top principles of the movement which show what it is doing, how things intertwine, and how the ideas relate to the subject’s behavior today.
L. Ron Hubbard is really what Scientology is to me, more so than the personalities over the years who did good and bad implementation of the ideas, including LRH’s own implementation of his own stated principles.
I think a complete history of any subject is filled in my the commenting people have done over the years about the good and the bad implementation of that subject.
Where the Code of Scientologist and Code of Honor and Auditor’s Code and Supervisor’s Code and Code of a Sea Org Member all lay out the core behaviors to judge the members by, is all totally valid material to judge in all directions to help define this movement.
Great points.
Hallelujah! Thank you for taking the time to point out the horrible truth about this code of “honor.” I remember first reading it and thinking it was rather draconian. It seemingly encourages one to think for oneself, but utterly discourages Socratic dialogue. Of course, Hubbard introduces it as something that cannot be enforced, but just try rejecting anything Hubbard wrote in front of your friendly, neighborhood Ethics Officer and see how far you get before you are before the cans are shoved into your hands and you hear those expensive words, “I am not auditing you.”
My allegiance was always to the goals and principles, which I admired since my childhood, and which Scientology seemed to support. My allegiance was never to any individual or individuality in Scientology.
Wonderful Marty.
I’m reposting this, as I think is apropos to your post.
If we bear in mind that one is I always cause and effect, the idea of being a victim and a victimizer, becomes somewhat modified by the way data is presented to us and simply by not being full evaluated by us.
I think there is some confusion as to what “Brain Washing” and “Mind Control” actually are.
The terms are both interchangeable in pop psychology. I think the common mistake that people make about these terms, is to assume that violent and overwhelming means are mandatory to control people’s attention; that is to control how they perceive the environment, and in that way to control the outcome of their judgments and decisions about something or somebody.
It is not so, it is all about tricks and non-forceful means.
Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, thought control, or thought reform) is an indoctrination process which results in “an impairment of autonomy, an inability to think independently, and a disruption of beliefs and affiliations. In this context, brainwashing refers to the involuntary reeducation of basic beliefs and values”[1] The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual’s sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making.
Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed systematically in indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified by psychologists including Jean-Marie Abgrall and Margaret Singer to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs). A third-generation theory proposed by Ben Zablocki focused on the use of mind control to retain members of NRMs and cults. The suggestion that NRMs use mind control techniques has resulted in scientific and legal controversy.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_washing
I never felt comfortable with code #12: “Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.” It seemed to go against both the Buddhist and Gandhian principles. I don’t think that I ever applied that code.
The very first line of the intro to the Code of Honor states that “No one expects the Code of Honor to be closely and tightly followed.” The next sentence is “An ethical code cannot be enforced.”
Members of the cult will enforce #2,3 and 12 with great passion.
They tend to really ignore #14. “Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.”
Seems I’m not the only one who is advancing along the path of being true to my own goals by keeping my own counsel and not worrying about whether or not I’ll be liked or admired for it.
I really appreciate this blog, Marty.
I would rather discuss and bring another to understanding that hurt that person. If I cannot discuss or bring that person to understanding then I would still keep my hand extended in friendship.
A few points. First, overall, I agree with this analysis.
Second, I took Ron at his word when he said this code was voluntary. Not everyone did.
Third, “Never withdraw allegiance” is an obvious disaster in the making. Never? Never is a long time. Oh, by the way, the church withdraws allegiance from people all the time.
Fourth, “Never fear to harm another in a just cause”. This is so swash-buckly. I remember when I first read this and being terrified because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I’ve seen it used in its most benign interpretations as justifications for layoffs. It’s purpose seems to mean “make the hard decisions.” I would say “make the hard decisions and make them with compassion.”
Fifth: you didn’t mention “never desert a comrade in need.” That was twisted too. I had SO recruiters use that on me. On it’s better side, though, isn’t that why we are all doing this? Not to follow the code blindly, of course, but to help our formers friends and “comrades” because it’s the right thing to do.
“I’ll not always be here on guard. The stars twinkle in the Milky Way and the wind sighs for songs across the empty fields of a planet a Galaxy away.
You won’t always be here.
But before you go, whisper this to your sons and their sons – “The work was free. Keep it so.”
― L. Ron Hubbard
That’s pretty good Marty.
Someone once articulated the following:
The worst lies are the ones that are almost true. The more truth there is on a cognitive set up, the more the amount of truth is acting as a glue to hold the embedded lie in place. Which, the construct is thereafter non inspected, non evaluated, but defended to death.
The scn code of ethics is a clever cognitive construct (fabrication) for covert mind control, or more accurately control of people who do not have their own minds. People who do not know how to think for themselves, will often have someone willing to think for them.
In order to learn what a good code of ethics or code of honor is, the wise thing to do is to apply the datum of “how to study a science” and that is to search out all other codes of honor, codes of ethics, codes of conduct, etc. in the known universe and evaluate them all and glean the best datums, the best principles, the best ideas, and form or construct the most workable code of the highest calibre possible.
The sorority and fraternity clubs usually have incredibly high calibre codes.
They are a good source of examples of data of comparable magnitude to evaluate, to start with.
A good search on line will provide a good amount of data.
Now re: quoting you:
On death row of any prison you will find just about every cold-hearted murderer absolutely certain that the acts for which he was convicted and sentenced fit squarely within the advice of item 12 of the Code of Honor.
End of quote.
Your statement has to be impartially evaluated, and each factor placed in order of significance and taken in proper context to impartially see and understand the big picture and root cause.
I connect well to the madness and frustration of screwed up people. It takes one to know one or understand one.
The question that has to be asked is what causes PTSness and SPness madness, overts and criminal behavior.
The bible says to love and honor your parents. But what if they were not good parents, but were abusers- ( bashed you and damaged your brain) and were suppressors and filled -programmed, implanted you with loads of false and limiting data for operating life. To use an analogy, like bashing in the front end of your car real good to bend the front wheel(s) out of alignment, so that you could not steer the car straight and every time you tried to go, you quickly veered into the ditch or tumbled down a ravine or into a swamp.
Hubbard’s datum: any datum is only as good good as it has been evaluated, has served me well to help me “get my front end fixed and wheels put into at least better alignment”. If I drive slowly and carefully, I don’t hit the ditch or worse, near as much.
(The problem with Hubbard and scn is that for all the incredibly good data it contains, it at the same time, has it has serious flaws and traps within it. That is why I say, it is a trap for fools and a freedom and power for the wise.)
In order to get to the root cause of the problems of man, you have to ask the right questions and evaluate and identify the problem correctly, and find and apply the right data, the right corrective measures, otherwise the problem will persist.
In order to fully understand this and be qualified to evaluate and deal with this matter, you need a heck of a lot of other supporting knowledge and experience. Again apply the data of “how to study a science” to the subject.
Leaping to the point, the answer is failed parenting. All problems in this world are caused by or can be traced back to failed parenting. That is a huge statement. That leads to the question:
What is good parenting?
The majority of people on earth have no clue on what good parenting is.
It is a huge subject and well beyond the scope of this forum.
Hubbard touches on it in Science of survival on the role of women in society and attitude towards children. Book one, last page and a half of ch 18.
He mentions that rare and special woman:
Quote: The arts and skills of woman, the creation and inspiration of which she is capable of, (the woman with true godly womanhood, true godly wifehood, true godly motherhood and true godly parenting and godly home making arts and skills) which -still here and there in isolated places in our culture – she still manages to effect in spite of the ruin and decay of man’s world, which spreads around her, must be brought back newly and fully into life. These arts, skills, creation and inspiration are her beauty, just as she is the beauty of mankind.
End of quote. (Brackets mine)
But Hubbard only identifies the problem, and there are a lot of mistakes in the article. I rewrote it, corrected the mistakes I identified and expanded it. And will post it here later. I think it is an extremely important subject and must always kept in mind.
And again, in order to find the right data on what is good parenting and how to conceive and raise the finest children possible, apply the data of “how to study a science”.
Dio
I totally agree!! those still involved have used this code to justify their horrific actions against others.
Brilliant
Hi Marty;
Codes of Honour and other such codes, “Do unto others … ” etc., are only necessary when the goals and purposes of individual Beings have been so perverted that their own native sense of integrity and justice has been so reduced that they hesitate when they should act. When such codes are introduced they signal great degradation and they have meaning only to those Beings whose sense of personal integrity is at least still warm. Without that warmth such codes exist soley to control group think with the resultant SS and OSA type goons.
My opinion.
Looks like Miscavige’s BBF is about to withdraw his allegiance to the cause, as Tom Cruise contemplates bringing his family together again, in favour of IAS Ponzi schemes. More power to you Tom, you can’t do better than get back together again with Katie and Suri, you make the model family. It would mark a new upturn in your career and send your own stats soaring.
Marty’s point of:
“Only maintain allegiance as long as the recipient of it demonstrably remains true to those purposes and principles to which allegiance was granted in the first place.” seems particularly relevant here. You don’t have to maintain an allegiance to Corporate Scientology since it is off the rails.
L Ron Hubbard put a lot of judgement and classification and catogorization in Scientology wich he acused Psychiatry of.
“Doth protest the Over”
V…. #12 that not only goes against, Buddhist and Gandhian principals but principals of any mans who can think clearly and not just follows with closed minds.
Marty wrote:
One piece of fundamental ‘scripture’ that most Scientologists – corporate, independent and otherwise – tend to agree upon wholeheartedly is L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘Code of Honor.’ It is so popular amongst them that it could be said to in some ways serve to define ‘Scientologist.’
Any identity is defined by its moral codes. LRH knew this very well, and even hinted at what he was doing to Scientologists with moral codes in the BC tape “Moral Codes: What is a Withhold?”.
Classical brainwashing primarily deals with implanted identities. And how are those identities created?
With moral codes.
There is a reason LRH filled Scientology with codes and creeds that he made us all swear to in one form or another, and to memorize (such as the Sup’s Code). These “now-I’m-supposed-tos” would form the borders of the synthetic personality called “Scientologist”, and would be filled with organizational goals which he could control, through Ethics handlings, through the use of human shame and guilt for being “out-ethics”, all in a synthetic Scientology environment that that he controlled with socially coercive commands and tech to get “back in valence” as a Scientologist.
You hit the nail on the head with that one, Marty.
It’s the basic assumptions of Scientology which have to be re-examined, and brought up to scrutiny in a new unit of time. Often, with experience, these basics of Scientology are found to mean something totally different than what you thought they meant when you first accepted them.
Alanzo
Ron’s Integrity and Code of Honor, that he taught Scientologists, were about the protection of Scientology as a business and him as the boss, not a universal blueprint of decent ethical behavior taught by liberated sages.
Ethics as taught by liberated sages protect the conscience of their students because these codes align with a universal code of benevolence.
Going against univerasl codes of benevolence, because to Ron there was no higher transcendence to honor than himself, willing hounds learn to numb their conscience and thus become numb tocommon standards of decency: for the greatest good, for the only hope for man.
I like using the name Ron instead of Scientology because using the word Scientology creates a sort of false insulation between him and the effects of his instructions. Scientology is Ron’s psychological state internalized by his students
LDW.. right you are.. I also recall reading from LRH ” take what you can use and discard the rest.” and ” never compromise your own reality'” I am a firm believer of that..
Fantastic insights, Marty. Very useful (and thanks for thinking this through for me! :-D)
I love the way you are deconstructing Scientology, Marty!
Less.
Oh boy. #14 Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.”
What do you think I’m so distasteful to Scientologists?
I agree with your re-statement of those two points of the code. I don’t think you are yet looking far enough at how such ideas affect the whole of humanity – perhaps you are restricting your look to those who have been affected by Hubbard.
There are so many “absolutes” in Scientology like: “it is never this” and “it is always this” etc… that it is all but impossible to test each one of these statements to see if it is true for you or not. So, you start to “believe” rather than inspect each absolute and this is very a slippery slope. The more you “believe” the more you are blindly “invested” in the cult and you start to hold your world together with your own “thought stoppers” that you apply when the absolutes are observably wrong, unworkable, unconscionable or untrue. So, with each “investment in blind belief” to handle the cognitive dissonance created by absolutes that are not absolute, it becomes harder to escape the cult with your own life intact.
Thanks Marty for helping me to inspect. Taking off the rose colored glasses is an important step in letting go of that rancid organization.
“You either learn your way towards writing your own script in life, or you unwittingly become an actor in someone else’s script.”
– John Taylor Gatto
It always struck me that the practice of disconnection was at odds with #2, “Never withdraw allegiance once granted”. Any friendship worth having contains the element of allegiance, but we have all seen Scientologists drop long-time friendships like a hot potato, often without bothering to confirm the facts.
Damn it. It would be a really good thing if WordPress were to allow editing of comments. I wished to change the last part of what I said above to read…
I don’t know how far you are taking this line of thinking. I believe the vast majority of humanity is under very similar delusions and has been cleverly conned as well. Your breaking down of such ideas could be of tremendous value to the world at large and not just those that have been affected by some of the errors of Ron.
Marty, great series of posts. As I go and learn I am finding one pattern that LRH seemed to have adopted as his standard operating procedure. I would call it the “front office and back office” system. In almost any endeavor he created one “front office”, while in secrecy following another agenda in his “back office”. In a nutshell, the Philosophy and technology of Dianetics and Scientology was designed to draw people in to further the back office agenda of achieving power for LRH.
As any decent trap needs a good lure so the tech contains some valid and helpful elements. Once it becomes “Scientology” it has the hidden back office agenda embedded to produce followers of LRH and further his purpose of attaining power over others. So correctly decomposing Scientology has to start with recognizing and identifying the “back office” agenda. From an understanding of that purpose it is possible to identify the elements in Scientology that were embedded to produce loyal slaves that disconnect from family members and friends just to protect LRH and his churches power.
To achieve such a state in a person, this person has to be estranged from all other influences that form his behavior and decisions: Family, friends, society and most importantly one’s own conscience.
A large part of Scientology is IMO designed to achieve exactly that. You point correctly out: “And so I see item 12 of L. Ron Hubbard’s Code of Honor as tantamount to an invitation to abandon or forfeit one’s conscience.”
One of the pinnacles of the achievements of these aspects of Scientology is the famous: “what would Ron do”. Once somebody proudly operates on that basis, he has successfully mastered the state of a slave and is now aspiring to the next level of becoming a clone.
I am really looking forward to your upcoming work. Still there are many very useful tools contained in the tech and your work of cleaning up the subject so those can be used for the beneficial purposes in helping individuals and not being abused for purposes of power and domination of others.
Thank You for what you do.
Here’s the deal, though. Once again we have people choosing some Scientology over other Scientology, and interpreting tenets negatively, while ignoring other tenets completely.
For example: The Code of Honor also has “Never compromise with your own reality.” Yet, people do all the time.
“Never permit your affinity to be alloyed” and yet, as soon as the MAA points the finger, affinity is not just alloyed, it is corrupted entirely because someone else said that person is “bad.”
“Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it” – And yet SO members get pissed when you tell them not to call after 9pm (or at all).
“Never need praise, approval, or sympathy” and yet we have people vying to IAS statuses and the church promoting “get to your next status!”
And, why is the Creed not followed with such zeal? “We of the church believe:… That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others.” That has been so abandoned as to be a cruel joke. So has the rest. Why did church members abandon this piece of LRH?
And, what of the Code of a Scientologist? Especially number 2: “To use the best I know of Scientology to the best of my ability to help my family, friends, groups and the world.”
Or number 10: “To work for freedom of speech in the world.”
Or number 19: “To set an example of the effectiveness and wisdom of Scientology.” Gentlemen, I give you “The Squirrel Busters.” I give you Tommy Davis and Karin Pouw. I give you Tom Cruise and his “only one who can help” BS.
Anyone can take any code or any subject and corrupt it to evil ends. Yes, Ron laid down some policies that are better left abandoned. He also laid down policies that are truly great, like the Auditor’s Code, for example, or most of the creed.
So, we have people in the church who choose to disconnect from friends and family even though this goes against the core of Scientology. Even though it is wrong. And even though it has ALWAYS been a temporary solution for people to allow them to get over their wimpish-ness (i.e. PTS-ness) to the point where it is no longer a problem to be around people who disagree.
We have the church defending disconnection because of OTHER religions that do it. How cussing crazy is that? As I look over the actual tech of Scientology I see NOTHING written by Ron that says that vindictiveness is a virtue.
Now here is something that Scientologists or people who use Scientology can borrow from another religion (LDS), that I think should be an obvious mantra:
“Choose the Right.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_the_right
When looking at Scientology (or anything, for that matter), choose the right. Or as Spike Lee said “Do the Right Thing.”
Of course, SO members will corrupt even that (“Choose the Right – Join The Sea Org!”) but that is because at core they are corrupted and cussed up. The church hasn’t been doing Scientology for years.
What you are saying is you want to create a new updated Reformed Church of Scientology?
Thanks Gerhard for the insight.
So, one more thing. I swear to God it’s like Ron needed a baby sitter. That baby sitter for a while was Mary Sue, who truly was the voice of reason even though she took the fall for Snow White.
While the tech – the actual tech – rightfully talks about operating with high ARC – Love and Understanding, and compassion (granting of beingness) and the purpose of Scientology was to help people, we also have “pink legs”/Simon Bolivar, and the 6 foot fence, and the RPF and the lower (and incompletely defined) conditions (TREASON! ENEMY! Give me a break).
So I admit it is not easy. It never was easy being a Scientologist. I was raised on the Training / Auditing side of Scientology, not the Admin side. As such, I always looked at Scientology as a beneficial action with the goal of helping people and making them better and happier. Always, as the primary activity. If it’s not fun, it’s not Scientology. If it doesn’t work, it’s not Scientology. Those were my guiding principles. And, I have been helped by people, and have helped people, using Scientology. Many times it was almost miraculous. Admin was only there to help the tech, and was expendable in my mind (and still is). Certainly not sacrosanct.
Ron sets down some good technology, and then goes off and glorifies evil activities, and also advocates them in a machiavellian ploy to protect the good. That was Ron’s flaw, and we have a whole organization set up to run with Ron’s flaws while abandoning Ron’s good. What a cussing mess.
Ultimately it does come down to some of the points in the Code of Honor:
Keep your own counsel. Select your own decisions.
Never let your affinity to be alloyed (decide for yourself what to love and what not to love, and don’t let others influence you).
Never compromise with your own reality. I.e. Don’t accept another’s lies. Don’t abandon what you know is real because someone tells you otherwise.
Man up, basically.
So, I know there is good in Scientology. A lot of good. I also know that there is bad, and that there are people who glorify the bad (inside the church) and revel in exposing the bad (outside the church). I believe the good is worth learning and knowing. It just takes work to do it, and a clear view that it is not all roses and clover.
Good article Marty.
+++……thank you, if I could write as you have I too would say the same… you have spoken for me, expressed my views. Elizabeth.
🙂
My personal view on the application of this code, or any code, or the carrying out of any instructions or orders, is that they should all be secondary to one’s present time evaluation of the situation they are being used to “handle”. Any “pat answer” or rote platitude is simply an excuse to not take responsibility for one’s own cause. (active or passive)
Seemingly unfortunately – but, in reality, fortunately – all of our “cause” becomes a part of our futures, across every aspect of our life.
The whole point of a memory is to save data that may be of use in one’s survival in the future. That applies, on a purely physical level, where it concerns living organisms, On a spiritual level mere survival is apparently not anything that one has to worry about. At the spiritual level survival is measured in terms of “quality”, not “quantity”. It is measured in terms of “love” and “happiness”.
Even “integrity” is a limited viewpoint or “code”, because the concept of integrity contains the concept of following a fixed path, (being true to “oneself” as though it is a predetermined package of viewpoints and doingnesses) albeit, chosen by oneself, but still not free and fluid in present time.
Even insistence upon “Honor” itself can be used to control others, or modify ones own present time evaluation, to bring it into alignment with some past (somewhat currently inapplicable) consideration or postulate.
It seems that the best “path” to follow would be a “path” that is being created, moment by moment, as one proceeds toward the best future they can imagine from their current state of awareness and ability. The only “path” one would have is the the one that got them to where they currently are. But as the song says… “…The future is wide open…”
Eric S
Marty, as each article appeared, I have been thinking about the executors of the objectives posted in The Aims of Scientology series. Why? Personal ties. I haven’t said much because I don’t know what to say. Right now it hurts to think about what these people must feel like inside, and it hurts more to think they may be convinced they were/are right to do so.
I have never been able to agree with #12. I figured I was just too soft.
Neither could I agree with #2. Married until eternity do us part? I’ve always needed mental gymnastics to vault over that one.
Leah Remini certainly applied #14, kept her counsel and selected her own decisions. Now she is deemed an enemy.
I don’t know where LRH said it, but I remember something along the lines of “if your decisions take you out the door, then that’s where you belong!”
Thanks Marty for a very interesting analysis and I like your revised items 2 and 12.
This is 100% conjecture but I don’t think item 12 was written with the intent to bypass conscience and I don’t believe I’m in denial here. He mentioned this code the first time in February 1952, right after he wrote Advanced Procedure and Axioms and Handbook For Preclears and at the infant stages of Scientology. To me it looks probable based on his tape “The Code Of Behavior” and his rough and tumble background, military, etc that he considered such a mentality truly survival with no ill intent. His passage in the lecture went something like this:
“Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.
If you want to have a fellow managing who is going to do a terrible job of it, get somebody who is afraid to hurt people, and you will have a lousy operation. You want somebody that can tear people to pieces any time that it is indicated, and you will have a good, smooth- running organization — not because it is force that is required, but honesty. Because the individual who is afraid to hurt people is going to be dishonest to those people. He is afraid to hurt them, you see, so he will wind up by hurting them a hundred times worse.”
I do agree with your analysis though as far as the ramifications of this code item in Scientology and otherwise.
On item 2 I couldn’t agree more. In the Feb 1952 he goes on to prove it based on sequences of making postulates and I can think of at least 10 places where he is using a 180 degree opposite argument to “prove” that you can change or nullify the power of a postulate in an instant. I also think that in item 3, which is similar in nature to item 2, he outright lied to ding in this point as a scare tactic during that lecture as how could he have so much whole track experiences using an e-meter at that stage to say something with such certainty?
“Never desert a group to which you owe your support.
To which you owe your support: a person sometimes has to differentiate what group he is supposed to support and how wide that support is and what these elements are. But a person who deserts a group will show up on a psychogalvanometer all the way down the line. You apply this testing to the psychogalvanometer and you find the most interesting reactions of the needle. You will find out that an individual who has deserted a group he was supposed to protect, for instance, will show up — even if it was a thousand years ago.”
Oh, never compromise with your own reality? Simplistically – the Earth is flat and Scientology owns it!
Shrewd analysis and sound conclusions.
It helps to understand the depths of the big picture.
• Military and police individuals at all levels, from INTERPOL, CIA, FBI, KGB to State/Provincial police, Sheriffs, municipal, etc. ALL share this common attitude and mode of operation of: “12. Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.” and “2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted.”
Semper Fidelis !! Semper Fi ! Once a Marine – Always a Marine ! Be a good Christian → kill those Communists & Muslims !! . . . in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit …
• I was under the impression that once a person received so much “auditing” the person would stop obeying those primitive impulses and be self-determined. Perhaps a person actually DOES STOP. Thus, the person has to be bound to various Codes of Conduct in order to perpetuate the allegiance, otherwise the person will stop paying money, devote time, and contribute itself to the cause, for the synthetic greatest good.
Very well analyzed and stated, Grashopper. Thank you!
NO
“what would Ron do”
Even L ron Hubbard talks about this effect in one of his lectures about people that have to walk miles to ask their therapist what to do. “He has enslaved so many intellegences……..”
In my opinion, there is a certain breed of person, which includes myself, who reads things in Scientology such as the Code of Honor, and then unconsciously modifies the concept to make it fit ones own positive ideals.
This type of person does not see the potential harm in the way such codes can be interpreted, and it does not occur to them that someone else would apply it in a harmful way.
Such a person would defend the writings in Scientology, when someone else applies them in a harmful way, by saying that that person “misapplied” the data, and “if they would have really understood it, they would have used it only for the truly greater good”. But they do not see how it is possible for someone to follow the advice, as it is stated, in a harmful way.
For example, when I saw the line, “Never withdraw allegiance once granted”, I always interpreted it in a way very similar to the way Marty is suggesting that it ought to be re-written. But it never occurred to me that someone else could follow that point of the code to the letter and in doing so, bring about great harm, such as granting allegiance to Hubbard, and then ruining the lives of people who express their disagreement with him, at his direction. I would have always said that that person did not apply it correctly.
It never occurred to me that these points of the code were written in a way that could be harmful if applied.
I left the church because I was now able to see that the cause that I granted allegiance to was not being fulfilled, so by leaving I was not betraying any allegiance that I had ever granted. But it never occurred to me that someone would interpret that to mean that regardless of the fact that the demand that the church was putting on them were utterly destructive, that because they had once “granted allegiance to the church and Hubbard” that they would think they were violating the Code of Honor by leaving the church, or by not adhering to Hubbard’s and Miscavige’s harmful dictates. And that the person, by doing that, would actually be following the Code of Honor, as written, to the letter.
A friend of mine and I had a discussion years ago, and again recently, that if something contains a lot of effort there must be a not-isnes. And so it is when something must be enforced.
In saying this I’m not necessarily pointing out a flaw in the points of the Code of Honor. I think there is enough other data in the body of the subject and perhaps within the code itself to figure these types of things out, BUT one still must do their own search and/or come to their own conclusions. It wasn’t all laid out before us.
The points you’ve touched on Marty did hang me up for years. The door was left open for others to enforce these precepts. Oddly this has ended up being neither self-determined nor pan-determined in terms of survival.
If one marries an alcoholic or a habitual gambler, the commitment “for better or for worse” taken to the extreme probably means the whole family goes down. This is not survival.
A thought provoking and very well written viewpoint. Thanks for posting.
Doug
LDW: “Members of the cult will enforce #2, 3 and 12 with great passion.They tend to really ignore #14. ‘Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.'”
That’s true . And I believe there are other “checks and balances” to the items the CoS emphasizes and enforces – right within the Code itself. If the Code of Honor were viewed as a whole, the balancing ideals in it would eliminate cultish interpretations. Here are some of them:
6. Never compromise with your own reality.
7. Never permit your affinity to be alloyed.
8. Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it.
9. Your self-determinism and your honor are more important than your immediate life.
15. Be true to your own goals.
When you start to “believe” enough you have a “belief” (system)
And I reiterate from an earlier comment of mine — borrowed from a friend of mine …
“A belief is the penitentiary of the mind”
Amen 🙂
Now that you highlight them, I think the code is more deeply infected than my post even noted.
Great post Dave. I always felt a person’s first allegiance should be to them self. People have their own code of ethics and their own code of honor long before they enter the doors of Scientology.
Great article Marty!
How so, Marty? As I say, I think it takes a balance. It seems to me that an ethical code can’t lay down fixed rules that don’t include other ways to view each, because that just doesn’t work. It takes judgment for any given situation. My understanding of the Code overall, as a system of values, is that LRH was actually allowing the individual to make his own decisions based on the values he listed out, which he considered the important ones.
Great post and, Laughter!
The “front office” / “back office” dichotomy seems to be very common in virtually every model of the mind I have seen in Western models of psychology. I wonder if it is actually inherent in existence?
Most therapies seem to be oriented towards understanding and integrating the dualities of one’s own beingness and one’s own life.
Now that I think about it, it’s not just in Western psychologies life and the minds and beingnesses of human beings are presented this way. It is so also in Buddhism, Hinduism, Greek philosophy and psychology, and others.
Are these dualities imposed by the human mind itself? Are humans hard-wired to see things this way?
What about the people who ask, “What would Jesus do?” Or “What would Gandhi do?” Or “What would MLK do?” Isn’t it built into the human psyche to have ideal role models?
Yes Valkov… it is also called negative and positive.. one cannot survive without the other and that is inherent in human nature.
Funny , i came to the same conclusion as I was reading through them…
Amen to that Christine.
Yet a belief can also be an expectation, that a directly perceived truth once perceived can be perceived again.
For instance, I believe that my next composed song will be the best song ever. And having confidence in my present ability, knowing that I am good, my belief can take form.
I believe in the power of love. Because I have applied it and it has given high quality outcome.
Therefore it is a belief of knowledge experienced. A belief based on reason.
But belief in abstractions, belief in “because Ron said”, belief in things not known or experienced, when reason refuses to support it, based on an emotional need for superstition: is ignorance, and a common religious mindset for true believers.
The CORE of the EVIL.. written, taught and enacted by LRON HUBBARD.
Val, you are just too down-to-earth. Your view of things is way too broad. How is anybody going to be able to get all worked up if you keep up this way? 🙂
Sincerely, I appreciate you throwing in these alternative viewpoints for us to consider.
It would be fruitless because you’ll never compromise with your own reality, permit your affinity to be alloyed, nor receive communication unless you yourself desire it.
And if by some fluke the ideas received superficial consideration, they would run into the next wall in that to seriously consider them might cause you to compromise with your self-determinism and your honor which you can’t do because they are more important than your immediate life.
to understand evil what is… to be able to perceive evil one has to have that evil in their own universe.
Okay, but starting with the first point of not compromising my reality, I would have to say that my reality isn’t a fixed thing, like a machine, and the Code is not a rote set of principles. I think what you said above would be true if there was no such thing as free will. But since there is, I don’t see that it works that way. I do agree with you that the Code has been abused and your re-working of certain points seems like a good way to avoid that.
Great post mails and les. Although one could in fact use this code as he chooses, IF he chooses, the church obviously doesn’t like numbers 6,7,8,9 and 15, and will surely make you pay for trying to apply them.
I hung in there way past the point of knowing many things were wrong. The final straw was learning that using their own codes was no protection against “command intention.”
That is good common sense Chuck. L. Ron Hubbard was someone that actually did care about other people otherwise he never would have researched the tech and advertised it to anyone. The Code of Honor is just extremely workable. Which is why L. Ron Hubbard makes good sense. Chuck, you and I have never met, but I use you as an example to others when discussing the church with people, as to how far that group will go to confuse and trap people (in so far as extensive and unecessary sec-forced checking is concerned). If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is to see a good guy (like you) harmed needlessly. “Never fear to hurt another for a just cause?” I don’t consider what the Church of Scientology pretends it advocates a just cause whether anybody is supposed to know that or not! 🙂
Valkov wrote
What about the people who ask, “What would Jesus do?” Or “What would Gandhi do?” Or “What would MLK do?” Isn’t it built into the human psyche to have ideal role models?
Yes it does seem to be, Valkov.
Human beings are basically social. Most any human group has a leader or leaders, and followers, each in a stratified hierarchy.
Lizards aren’t like this, though. Neither are squirrels.
But humans, and horses, and wolves, for instance are like this. We are social, or kind of like “pack animals”.
A cult however, is a human group taken to very unhealthy extremes, and which has a value system which usually conflicts with the wider culture of humans around it. A cult is often created on purpose, by making rules which exploit the human weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the human group members to work against their own self-interests – often by force with mental and social and physical coercion – and for the purpose to enrich the leader or leaders.
This is why the one trait you mentioned of commonly asking “What would Jesus do?” or “What would Ghandi do?” is very different from a cult like L Ron Hubbard created with Scientology.
So yes, Valkov, it is very good that you spotted a similarity there. But the similarity you spotted is not identical to Scientology, is it?
There are some important differences there between Scientology and other human groups which you seem to miss consistently.
Alanzo
OK, so it is all OK but misapplied. A while ago I used to think so too.
Interestingly one would need to call Scientology by the actual statistics of abuse it has created one of the most grossly “misapplied” body of data of its times.
It is true, if one filters what LRH said in Scientology through a mind capable of common sense, it does not have to be that harsh and brutally cold as the CO$ is practicing. It could be practiced without much of the abuse and slave making. But what keeps it sensible is the common sense filter, – not the material itself.
So, it is actually the other way around the “misapplication” argument applies.
One could say the real “misapplication” is using Scientology with a filter of common sense and a functioning conscience.
Thank God, the COS has put an end to that squirreling and insists on nothing less than 100% on source application.
Here are a couple of quotes from theTao Te King:
“When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty, there arises the recognition of ugliness. When they all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.”
and
“When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.”
The Code of Honor – one of the ultimate Rorschach tests for humanity.
Exactly – on the lecture. Interpreting anything in Scn without love and compassion (and with malice aforethought) justifies the most egregious things – like whacking someone for badmouthing LRH. I know that was not Ron’s intent. But some people can enforce the literal, and other people say “uh, okay” without thinking about it or learning it themselves.
Yes, but then we learn about those eight concentric circles of the 8 Dynamics, and that throws a monkey wrench into the whole concept of having allegiance to ourselves. The first Dynamic of self is the microscopic circle in the middle, while the 8th D is super large on the outside. We must strive for infinity, you know.
Then if you DARE to think about yourself, originate that you care about yourself and family, and have allegiance to yourself, you are screwed. You open the door to the Sea-Org-Thought-Police to enter without a warrant, and confiscate all the thoughts you’ve got, in the name of the Lord of the larger rings. How dare you? → route to sec check. Come out of sec check → you’re escorted back into sec check with a higher-level sec checker. The previous one must have missed something. Just getting audited on the End of Endless Interiorization Repair Rundown, I was petrified that any thought of truth about my plans to escape the Sea Ogre might surface. Of course, they DID, and I got HANDLED snap & pop in Ethics.
You become paranoid to even think! , in order to maintain your own sanity. Ooops, sorry, there’s no such thing as your “OWN” anything. How vicious is THAT for a vicious circle?? ∞
… even now, for example, I would love to get my case repaired, enjoy the benefits of the Grade Chart, the Ls, etc. Many items have popped up over time, but have never been handled and fixed; just left hanging. My involvement in Scientology and the Sea Org straddles 2 lifetimes. There was a lot of crap going on in 1968-69 and MANY of us died in the process of “helping to save Scientology from its enemies”.
But I read & comment on this blog and Mike Rinder’s. What if my future auditor is “anti-Marty” or anti-someone else? The freakin cycle continues. Marty hit it on the nail one time when he posted that the way out of the Cult is NOT to go back in a cult. Nevertheless, the chains seem difficult to break.
Leave it to a Computer Wizard to come up with a great analogy to understand a situation! 🙂
Greta
Second that!
Greta
Thank you Marty
This is a great post and I really appreciate the thought that went into proposing well-worded alternatives to those same two points of the otherwise helpful code, that I had trouble with.
This is typical of many sections of Scientology. In a re-evaluation of the subject I am constantly running into things which are hateful or unworkable, positioned with gems of wisdom. The separating out of these gems is worthwhile, and the recognition of the booby traps is a valuable part of cult recovery for those who were deep “in.”
What I that supposed to mean, Elizabeth? Are you trying to say something profound, or make an implication about me?
Be brave… out with it.
*is, not “I”
Nicely put Marty. I believe that the rewording could have made and may yet make a difference.
David Lingenfelter
Thanks for this fine post. A couple of cognitions that came to me as I read it:
The Code of Honour is a warrior’s code. Some of its points only make sense if you see life as a war of us against them, or good against evil, or some such pretension. ‘Never desert a comrade in need’ evokes pictures of a gallant soldier bearing a wounded friend from the field of battle as bullets whistle overhead. ‘Never withdraw allegiance’ to your captain, your king, or whatever rascal you swore to serve until your last breath. ‘Never desert a group’ as long as they are wearing the same uniform. They’re like the Japanese code of bushido or Europe’s code of chivalry, meant for a military elite or for little boys playing at war, but not so appropriate for the rest of us. LRH said more than once that he had been a soldier or officer in many lifetimes over recent centuries; on the other hand, if he had specialised in being a businessman, a scholar or a farmer he would have come up with a different code.
“Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.” Oh how I clutched at this straw datum when I was a kid confused by questions of right and wrong. I’ve committed more than one pointless overt since then just to prove that I wasn’t afraid to hurt others. It sounds so brave, but it’s not far from ‘to do a great right, do a little wrong’, or ‘the end justifies the means’. We can always portray our own cause as a just cause – service facsimiles see to that.
In case anyone noticed what I’d said above and wondered what I was talking about please watch this. This guy was once a Jehovah’s Witness. He’s come a very long way. He’s on the exact same path as we are when we are looking to weed out false ideas we’ve been sold on for the benefit of a few at the expense of our own lives.
Good point, Aeolus: parts of the code in conflict. Don’t disconnect because it withdraws allegiance. Do disconnect because you never fear to hurt another in a just cause.
Double binds like that show flaws in the development of the code. Or maybe it is designed that way. One of the ways to drive someone nuts is to continually put them in double-bind situations — must do / can’t do — Catch–22 type stuff.
It is clear that Hubbard was fluent in double-binds. They show up in various processes and GPM stuff.
Great article, Marty, and interesting comments. Your blog and its comments continue to be a source of my own healing.
The topic prompted me to reflect on the code based on my own observations and experiences.
What struck me is that each of the code entries seems superficially noble or at least plausible. But on closer inspection as to what actually happens with the code, each one can become a control mechanism to keep you in.
I had always considered the code rather benign, so I was startled to see how every item came to be useful for control once past the indoctrination phases.
1. Never desert a comrade in need, in danger or in trouble.
— Disconnection.
— Control mechanism: the Church is always in need (usually of your money). How can you desert the Church? (It is actually okay, and even good, to desert a former comrade, like a newly minted SP.)
2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted.
— Trying to stay loyal to an applied religious philosophy with lots of very serious flaws. This part of the code locks one in and denies personal growth, new perspectives, and discovery of problems in that which one has granted allegiance.
— Control mechanism: You are a Scientologist now. You are in it for the duration, win or die in the attempt. You will be seen as treasonous if you do not stick to your allegiance to the Church.
3. Never desert a group to which you owe your support.
— How can you disconnect from say your parents, assuming they were good, since you owe them your support?
— Control mechanism: Notice that this is about a group, and a group in Scientology is a 3rd Dynamic. So your other dynamics are out of the picture for this part of the code. And the 3rd dynamic to which you owe your support — your eternal “salvation” — is of course Scientology.
4. Never disparage yourself or minimize your strength or power.
— Control mechanism: It sounds good and sounds like the system is on your side. Yet you give away your power right and left. Your money. Your life. Your time. Your innermost confidential memories. It is as if the rapist is saying be strong! Believe in yourself! So that you can then go Stockholm Syndrome and say, well, he’s not such a bad guy after all …
5. Never need praise, approval or sympathy.
— But admiration is the most valued particle. And the no sympathy part fits Hubbard’s overall philosophy that sympathy is low on the Tone Scale.
— Control mechanism: You get plenty of stimulus-response praise and approval when you are in. The graduations, the success stories, the persons with glowing faces clapping for you upon your latest success, the ranks, the titles, the commendations, etc. And the lack of sympathy? You screw up and all that praise turns into chits and KRs and ethics and sec checks. And you will not be granted any sympathy (or empathy). And so what? You have agreed that you do not need sympathy — and therefore you sure as hell are not going to grant it to anyone else. This is a great mechanism for group control — and virtually a school requisite for budding sociopaths.
6. Never compromise with your own reality.
— And yet the 3rd dynamic of the Church imposes its reality via regges and fund raisers all the time, as well as in training, and to some extent auditing.
— Control mechanism: It pulls you in because it sounds great. But indoctrination teaches you quickly that you cannot disagree with anything Hubbard says. And if reality is agreement, disagreement is sticking to your own reality. Yet if you try to do that, you go to word clearing, cramming, ethics, etc.
7. Never permit your affinity to be alloyed.
— Except for disconnection and fair game, etc?
— Control mechanism: It is your affinity for the Church and for Ron and his teaching that must never be alloyed. That’s why they are sending out a team to public OTs who have become disenchanted. They think that the only problem is an ARC-Xen field, when the problem is a sociopathic leader, a corrupt organization, and a flawed philosophical foundation.
8. Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it.
— Unless you have to. Like a sec check or an ethics cycle. Or a course. Or an explanation of your finances. Or writing up your success story. Or writing up O/Ws. Etc.
— Control mechanism: The code entry makes you feel empowered and self-determined. But the reality is otherwise. To square this sort of control mechanism away in your head, you pound the square peg into the round hold however you have to. You decide that hey, you really want to do the A-E or absolutely are thrilled to get things cleared up via a sec check.
9. Your self-determinism and your honor are more important than your immediate life.
— Right.
— Control mechanism: This lays the groundwork for your absolute commitment to Scientology for this life, and maybe the next billion years. After all, this is but one life of many.
10. Your integrity to yourself is more important than your body.
— One of those that sounds great. Lofty. Samurai-like. Win or die in the attempt. Noble.
— Control mechanism: You are fine with smoking like a chimney, living on poor diets, abusing your body with chronic lack of sleep and lack of medical and dental care and so on.
11. Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today and you make your tomorrow.
— Uplifting quote or lame platitude? I always liked this one because i believe it is true. Except: there are things to regret.
— Control mechanism: This is another training piece for the aspiring sociopath. For most of us humans, we think of this as an uplifting thing — stay in the present, don’t get bogged down in the upsets of the past. But for someone so inclined, it is license to do whatever the Church asks them to do, and have no regret. Do you think the ethics officers ordering disconnection regret following policy 100%? Does Miscavige toss and turn at night in the throes of regret?
12. Never fear to hurt another in a just cause.
— Well discussed already in Marty’s entry and various comments.
— Control mechanism: You have a free conscience to plot shooting say a Paulette Cooper, or forging records to claim a mayor is a bigamist, or running someone’s credit cards without their OK. You can now do the Church’s bidding without qualms or considering that you may be committing overts.
13. Don’t desire to be liked or admired.
— Yet admiration is the most desired particle, and you are encouraged to “flow” it to upstats.
— Control mechanism: Don’t worry about what your friends, family, parents, or the public think. We will like and admire you until you are in and hooked, so don’t worry about anyone else.
14. Be your own adviser, keep your own counsel and select your own decisions.
— Good advice for life. But not acceptable advice for life in Scientology.
— Control mechanism: This cuts you off from any need for talking to others, listening to other points of view, taking heed of what your parents and friends are telling you, listening to the wisdom and experience of others, and so on. Your one source and stable datum becomes Scientology — and keeping your own counsel comes to mean following Scientology and ignoring all those troublesome nay-sayers and their pesky concerns about things like lack of truth and lack of proof.
15. Be true to your own goals.
— Really? How many people have entirely ditched their own goals for school, college, business, inventions, etc. to do Scientology? Even for marriage, relationships, having children or not?
— Control mechanism: Once you have absorbed (or been absorbed by) the meme of Scientology, your goals are the same as Scientology’s. If you have secondary goals — like to start a business — that is a means to an end, the end still being Scientology.
Tell Quentin Hubbard the Tech and his father were so great.
Thank you Marty.
Yes dear Valkov… they go hand in hand… but when both kind is confronted and their meaning is erased that there is no evil or good… JUST IS…. 🙂 as in NOW..
“But what keeps it sensible is the common sense filter – not the material itself.”
Gerhard, I don’t know of any body of ideals that common sense wouldn’t apply to. Do you? The Bible says “Do not murder.” But what about the cop shooting a mass murderer on a rampage, in order to save the lives of perhaps many innocent people? Common sense enters in even on such a universally agreed-upon moral precept as this one.
Another LRH principle comes to mind too: “There is no substitute for understanding.”
what ever you read into it is yours… evil is in the eyes of the beholder same as in beauty… simple as that.. If you would not have evil inside you would not recognise evil and you would not be on this Planet.. We are here… therefore we all know both side of every reality.
I was shocked, confused, bewildered
As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all,
Nor the lights or its decor.
But it was the folks in Heaven
Who made me sputter and gasp–
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,
The alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade
Who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor
Who never said anything nice.
Bob, who I always thought
Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine,
Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?
I would love to hear Your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?
God must’ve made a mistake.
‘And why is everyone so quiet,
So somber – give me a clue.’
‘Hush, child,’ He said,
‘they’re all in shock.
No one thought they’d be seeing you.’
JUDGE NOT!!
Every saint has a PAST…
Every sinner has a FUTURE
PS: here is one of my earlier posts.
COGNITION: In this Universe, is there a better or worse being than I?I don’t believe there is. Best to you Elizabeth
Good for you on seeing it as the final straw.
Much of what people consider problematic is related to culture.
Here I am, I feel I have had a very lofty adventure. Met some people that were not wrapped too tight along the way, true.
But the characterizations people fall into, such as “ruined lives”, evil evil Hubbard, brainwashing, and whatever else people use to describe the horrors of their explorations, these can only be categorized as such by people who are in a comfort zone with a lot of time on their hands.
Not everyone can afford to volunteer for the Church for several years to dabble in their hobby. Exploring the supernatural would be considered a hobby / interest to lot of people. Something that would be “nice” to do.
Not everyone can afford to dress up and pretend to be little soldiers. Not everyone can pay someone to listen. Not everyone cares if they are three feet behind their body or out of their body. Most people communicate well enough to get by and solve problems based on resources and intelligence. They don’t go shopping for these skills. They consider they already have them.
A lot of people can experience plenty of change even though they have not done their grades. A lot of people actually get through the day without the need to make others wrong or condemn them for their ideas.
A lot of people are living in situations that would make anyone here want to run back into the Sea Org, should THEY find themselves in similar living conditions. Many people do not have the luxury to consider a code of honor, the entire country of North Korea for starters.
A lot of people deem allegiance to themselves first, because if they do not they will not survive. It takes everything they have to stay alive or stay fed.
A lot of people don’t even deem themselves important enough to be heard by their friends, let alone walk in a self help center and pay someone to listen to them.
Only in middle classed America where people are cozy and comfy, can they explore the supernatural and deem they have been harmed through conversation and philosophy. After making 250K donations.
A woman in California, not too long ago, killed her fortune teller.
This is what middle classed white Americans do with their time when they get bored or distressed or have time on their hands.
I am almost done, with everything on the bridge. I will have no need for Scientology at all soon. I only made it a big priority when I went on staff. To be honest, I thought they would throw me out in three weeks.
It was a learning adventure. I did see the Sea Org thought police and the crazy assed shit some of them were doing. I was never afraid of them. I thought they were tripping. Spent most of my time talking with public in sunny Florida and just having a great time. Didn’t do any services. My Freeloader Debt was a joke. Probably the smallest debt ever issued. The cost of product zero and a few hours of sec checks.
When I said I was leaving, nobody tried to stop me. I was out on the streets two hours later. People did later, work to get me to come back. After they thought I had “cooled off”.
A lot of people would not stand around as a volunteer and let someone bend their back or stuff them in a trash can.
MOST people would NEVER go to work anyplace for 25.00 a week. Not even on a 40 hour week.
Who do you see in the Church? Those are the people that do this. Who do you see in the Church represented as a culture? It’s a big planet. As tough as Jenny Linson thinks she is, she is just the little tart you see on Anderson Cooper. Complaining about her husband selling her BMW on a Scientology web site. Plowing through her petty cash of 100 Grand. She came from Hollywood royalty. Moved from her Mommy’s house into the Church. Has never lived on her own. She has never audited anyone that I know of. What has she done? Terrorized people.
David Miscavige moved from his Mommy’s home into the Church too, as well as most of the Int Execs.
They don’t leave the building even when they are tortured. Most of them wouldn’t know how to lease an apartment.
Do you think this represents most people on the planet? Or even most college students?
How much damage have these over grown babies done to others? The “leader” is shorter than I am.
Only in that culture you see inside of the Church. Any other “Church” or religion you see people from all across the planet showing up. Not in Scientology.
Dianetics was launched with a crowd of middle aged white people who were very well educated.
Then it fell into the hands of hippies looking for some trip.
Ended up being controlled by a group of overgrown babies that never read a book outside of the Church and now, must be transported or walk with escorts. Must ask permission to leave the building.
Because this is something this culture of well fed people with time can do to amuse themselves.
Yet, they walk out of the Church and view everyone else with arrogant disgust that isn’t as lofty as they are. Behind them two new emeters for 10K in the book store.
10K could feed an entire village on some countries for ten years.
It’s all relative. Scientology evolved into a “secret society” with the confidential OT levels. And the people now involved are isolated in Ivory Towers in their mind. Victims of ideas. Instead of bullets hunger poverty homelessness and foster parents .
The people the Church wants in now, the wealthy and squeaky clean (David has morphed into Walt Disney) to fill it’s “Ideal Orgs”, now do not even have ruined lives. They have very successful lives. And this is why the Orgs are empty.
“Ideal Orgs”. Do you know creepy that sounds to some people as a goal?
Everyone else in the marketplace screams about their PRODUCTS, not the premises! Even resorts boast SERVICE.
David sells the place as a Church on paper with U.S. gov, but refers to them as “Orgs” to his members. He now wants “Ideal Orgs.” Pretty buildings. This will handle everything. He thinks what is going to help mankind is pretty buildings. Honestly, part of him is thinking like a Beverly Hills socialite!
I have no further use for the Orgs or the culture there.
Just because people caught up in the Scientology decide they need it, they decide the world must need it to. Most people think they need food and shelter, not exploring the Supernatural. Most people are afraid of ghosts and magic. They want to live, eat, love, work, dance and create.
They could care less what happens after they die. They are in the NOW and facing the challenges of just getting along with that. People who need it are people that decide they need it. Nobody else. There are more McDonald’s hamburger stores now than the Church. KFC has out created David Miscavige. Not because they have a pretty building, because they make damned good fried chicken. There are more people flipping burgers on this planet than auditing. David was out created because most people feel what they NEED is to EAT.
And, Just because people lose interest or a personal want and need for it, themselves, does not mean someone else will not be interested in it or need it in some way. Nobody else is supposed to have a look at a book you did not find interesting? Seriously?
If there were people before who found it interesting or beneficial, there will be more to come. I helped a musician with a 40 year drug history off of heroin by getting him through a doubt formula. It worked at that time in that place for that problem. He did not need anything else in Scientology. He has been clean for 20 years. That man has children. He has been able to take care of those children.
The majority of Earth’s population prefers to think for them self. Does think for them self.
The majority of Scientology’s population does NOT make it up the bridge or join the Sea Org.
Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people have been in Orgs since 1950. How many OT8’s are there? Six or seven thousand?
How many doctors, lawyers, teachers and other professionals have been made in the last half a decade? Universities are cranking out their product. While David Miscavige cancels the certs of auditors!
Look at it as hobby, or a comedy, and it may not seem all so serious or scary.
XXOO
How many people do you suppose sit about their living room, thinking, “Now! Now! Now! I want to be three feet in back of my head NOW”
It’s just not an issue for a lot of people.
Why are you afraid ?
“Do not murder” is sometimes translated as “Do not kill.”
Seems to me you are happy to make veiled accusations, but not honourable enough to do it boldly and openly. Your “takes one to know one” attitude is both ridiculous and scary… what would you accuse someone identifying a child abuser or murderer of I wonder? That they harbor the same perverse desires deep inside for their ability to spot one? You’ll let the guilty go in favour of attacking the accuser (Both LRonny and Makemerich did/do that – all for their personal gain mind you, not for profoundness). Humanity had better watch its step if this mumbo jumbo, blah, blah logic becomes anywhere near a majority. Jeeze woman, wake up!
LRH cared about people? You do realize he was the one who came up with “never be afraid be to hurt another for a just cause”. And we all know what he meant by “just cause”. Anything LRH, in his brilliance, deemed just.
Marty,
Yeah, evaluation of this one and the other Scientology codes is in order here.
The main thing that I found wrong with this code , is that it is misplaced, and really not applicable to a counseling activity.
It is a code for the Teutonic Knights or the Samurai, in both groups the only way anyone would ever live would have been as a corpse.
#12 is another switcheroo, from “Life is a Game”, to Aleister Crowley’s “Life is War”.
There are too many switcheroos in Scientology to make it understandable, if people feel confused about Scientology, that is a good sign, and it means there is hope.
You know, I don’t think LRH really cared about others. I think he considered himself so superior to everyone else that he felt he must “take care of us” because we don’t know any better…I think he was an elitist from the word go…..and as far as his writings….he ripped it all off from the actual brilliant ones way before his time and put his name all over it along with his own “think” into the mix. History will not be kind to Mr. Hubbard.
When I was at my wits end trying to reach my kid who had disconnected from us I Considered sending her the Code of Honor. As I was pondering the possible results and walking in her shoes I realized that in her state of mind , which is uncompromising application of Source in all righteousness, it would come back to bite me again.
And the Code of Honor lost its impact of goodness , just too many ways to feed a twarted view of a situation.
You are right , Gerhard , the common sense filter blinds one of the bigger picture . If we look at all the times we compromised , justified , tried to dress up the truth ,any code if honor has been lost , not just this one but the one we formed on our own through education , growing up , experience.
thank you for pointing this out Marty ,it is what I experienced , and I know for a fact that the biggest hurdle with my kid is her concern for what the group will think of her if she speaks to us.
She was adopted… bad joke , no ..affectionate inside joke…
there was no veiled accusation.. simply stated: takes one to know one.. that can be any clearer can it? if you want to play stupid that too is OK by me… but in my reality is noting wrong knowing we have it all, we only can know good when we know evil, we only can recognise beauty if we know ugly..
All written works can be viewed to “be evil” and “be toxic” depending on the intent when reading them. Adherents to Christianity AND Islam (as well as other groups) have proven this over and over and over again ad nauseam. Words themselves are not evil. Groups of words called phrases and sentences are not evil. Intent – whether of the writer, OR the reader, can be.
Alanzo wrote: “There are some important differences there between Scientology and other human groups which you seem to miss consistently.”
Yes, some have already been reformed. Some are in need of reform.
Marildi, you really tempt me to start talking about the bible and as a former senior altar boy I could say many things about it.
The point though I tried to make is, that some throw dust into their own eyes by attributing the cause of abuse and slave making not to source, but other people who “misapplied”.
There is plenty good in Scientology and it has helped me to change my life for the better as it has done good for others, but there is also the truth about the cause of the abuses and the slave making, and there is no dancing around it. If one wants the truth one has to look objectively and past once own preconceived notions. Or as LRH once said, the road the truth is a road you have to go all the way.
Jean-Francois,
The chains are not difficult to break if you read :how to study a science, in New slant and apply it.
If you have not read and applied that data, in the true spirit of the data, you have actually flunked scientology. That data contains the keys to open to the door to the way out of the trap. When
Margaret wrote:
Yes, some have already been reformed. Some are in need of reform.
Hello, Margaret!
About those Scientology groups that have been reformed….
I think you are talking about the various independent Scn groups outside the Church. Is that correct?
Here’s my question for you:
It is my understand that the basis of the reform undertaken by many independent Scn groups was that David Miscavige was misinterpreting and squirreling L Ron Hubbard, and the reform undertaken was to get rid of DM’s squirreling and have pure LRH Scientology..
But Marty and now Mike have been showing that many of DM’s abusive actions such as the Squirrel Busters’ “noisy investigations”, intelligence operations to destroy peoples’ lives, and black bag operations, were undertaken by applying L Ron Hubbard’s policies in these areas directly.
So it seems to me that there might be a problem with the basis upon which this reform has been undertaken in Independent Scientology. Marty has shown that the source of the abuse in all of Scientology as a subject comes fundamentally from L Ron Hubbard’s writings and lectures themselves..
An independent Scientologist who follows the tech and policy of L Ron Hubbard will be following these policies that Marty and Mike have been posting, too right? They are “Source”, too, is that correct?
If these policies are Source, how should the reform of Independent Scientology groups proceed now in light of the LRH policies that Marty and Mike have posted?
Alanzo
IS. simply means that what IS happening NOW in the moment of experience where no past or future is existing.
“What few have assayed to do is explain the behavior of those who adopted and carried out these aims. Those people who really believed the future of humanity was won or lost on whether those directives were thoroughly complied to.”
This goes straight to the heart of things for me. My driving impetus in watching and criticizing the cult is and always has been a deep-seated outrage. Outrage at the exploitation and perversion of what is really a noble and healthy aspect of a human being — the hunger for purpose and meaning, and the desire to serve the greater good.
This is a kind of spiritual assault, IMO. We are all diminished when those among us who are so driven to devote their lives to good works are instead chewed up and spit out by a money-machine cult. It is really easy to stand on the outside and insist “that would never happen to me”, and judge those it did happen to as gullible, or stupid, or weak, or corrupt, or whatever I wish to believe I am not. But my experience has taught me this is far from true. In reality, any of us can be taken in by a convincing promise of something we need to believe in. And every one of us needs to believe in SOMETHING — that is a part of human nature.
It seems to me that we live in a culture of exploitation, and we are all being manipulated in some way every day. Even if only by adverts on the TV, or something equally superficial. I think that the deeper and more potent one’s vision and appetites, the more catastrophically one can be exploited by someone who finds the right lever. If one longs to make a big difference in the world, or to transform oneself in some meaningful way, and that longing is co-opted by some malignant group, that group can then drive one to great and awful lengths at their direction.
Jim Jones lured people into his cult with the promise of a utopia of social justice, racial equality, self-reliance, and peace. These are worthy things to fight for, IMO. He led people via these noble goals to ultimately force poison on babies, the elderly, their own family and friends, and themselves. I was a child when that tragedy occurred and was all over the news, and it left a strong impression on me. I realized that human behavior is complicated, we are ALL vulnerable, and we must effort to help and protect each other from the predations of evil. The good in us needs and deserves protection from the worst of us.
Marty, I appreciate your effort to transform the dross in this code of “honor” into fodder for learning and growth, and clarification for those whose higher nature was co-opted by the COS. I think it’s very helpful. Thanks.
Jean F..G hehehe you are not broken.. nothing wrong with you.. you just consider that something is wrong.. Nothing more changed in your universe but you have gained different realities which you believe in now.. Like you need to be fixed, if you believe that auditing could help you change your reality: the condition you are in.. than go for it.. do it.. it was your own decision that you need fixing. We are all perfect as we are till we go into agreement with others who see our reality as bad, not right since they compare your believes to theirs, and of course it is you who are in the wrong: that is what they tell you because after all cant make self wrong can they?
Now if we all would be able to grant every body and you included that your beliefs are perfect but so is mine.. just think … we would be living in a perfect universe..
If your still want those dream to become a reality.. only one person van stop you and that is you.
I just love that the “Code of Honor” is being analyzed, debated and disagreed with! You could not dare do that inside the “church.” The only thing you could do would be word clear word clear word clear, demo demo demo, false data strip false data strip false data strip, until you were in agreement with hit, or at least stopped voicing your disagreement, or deemed PTS or SP.
There is the idea in Scientology that if you disagree with something or can’t apply something, “you must have mu’s” or some other outness. That the tech or policy itself is flawed cannot be questioned, it is always something wrong with you.
It’s funny how “Just disagree!” is a motto when regged. “Just disagree with the physical universe!” But Agree Agree Agree is the mantra when it comes to “church” directives.
It would be interesting to have a similar discussion about Personal Integrity.
The push of the “church” is “Disagree with the physical universe. Agree with US.” The first part can be fine. Run for the hills when anyone tries to make you think their way. (Does the “church” still use “Think for yourself” in its promo?)
Chocolate Velvet wrote:
This goes straight to the heart of things for me. My driving impetus in watching and criticizing the cult is and always has been a deep-seated outrage. Outrage at the exploitation and perversion of what is really a noble and healthy aspect of a human being — the hunger for purpose and meaning, and the desire to serve the greater good.
Exactly, CV!!
This is exactly the heart of the matter for me, too.
Thank you so much for posting this!!
And good to see you here at Marty’s blog!
Alanzo
TO- THAT was your biggest bestest reality-based truth-rant. EVER.
Sidney.. as we say it in Hungarian ” te lejeb vagy mint a bekanak a feneke.
I think this code is useless and for me personally served to induce a sense of guilt and “failure.” The world just doesn’t work this way. What does it mean “Never compromise with your own reality.”? lol what if your reality is that of some lunatic? Just common sense would suggest that practically ANY rational human being would compromise with one’s reality to achieve some form of cooperation with other people. Also, the majority of organizations on this planet operate on top-down management structure where you are likely to get orders/decisions passed down to you that you may not agree with… yet, you have to learn to deal with it in order to keep your position and try to make the best of the situation… etc. The same analysis could be applied for all other points in the list when it is evaluated in terms of realities of the world that we live in.
“The point though I tried to make is, that some throw dust into their own eyes by attributing the cause of abuse and slave making not to source, but other people who ‘misapplied.'”
Yes, I got that, Gerhard. And the point I was trying to make is, to paraphrase another LRH principle – you can’t put a datum where a thetan ought to be.
Alanzo: “I think you are talking about the various independent Scn groups outside the Church. Is that correct?
No, I was talking about Scientology (not reformed) vs. non-Scientology groups (reformed).
Regarding independent Scn, I’m in full agreement with laying to rest and/or modifying various LRH policies as necessary, to achieve a reform. Heck, I’m in favor of starting “policy” from scratch. There are some good ideas in policy, so I wouldn’t toss those. But an organization’s policies need to adapt and change, as the world changes. It’s common sense.
PS Sidney why not write up your great adventures, I am sure you can squeeze out one more line out of that pea size.. whatever…insult? yes… it was my intention to do. 🙂
Oracle do not need me to come to her defence.. I am just doing this for fun..
Bravo, Alanzo! I could not have stated it better. A while back I recognized that something like a “sec check” was in fact a brainwashing tool to install a self-monitoring system in one’s mind to monitor oneself for “bad” actions (i.e. overts/transgressions) as considered by the one who devised the list. An “overt” is itself a consideration and often depends on agreed upon norms. What is an overt in one group may be an admirable act in another… and so on. This potentially explains why we feel like “different” people depending on who we are with. I think in Dianetics it was explained with “valence shift” due to restimulation or something… but what you just said really indicates more – it’s about entering different “spheres” of agreed upon considerations.
I know it’s off the subject, but related to this “Code of Honor” is that I recognized that a “sec check” procedure was an automatic break in Auditor’s Code (and so is not real auditing) since it carries in itself an evaluation of something as being “wrong” (i.e. an overt) and then “audits you” against that consideration. It’s literary “mind control processing,” and I think Scientology was virtually over when sec checking was introduced in late 1959 with a policy on BLOW-OFFS. A highly totalitarian org structure followed suit right after that culminating in the creation of the Sea Organization. Mind control processing mixed in and disguised within spiritual processing had to go in before an authoritarian structure could be erected.
This subject needs to be explored in greater detail!
Great analysis. Not only it is violated at every turn in the standard practice of Scientology, as I commented elsewhere in this post, I find this code to be very impractical and great at inducing guilt and a sense of failure since it is virtually impossible to follow.
8. Do not give or receive communication unless you yourself desire it.
Try that with IRS or a traffic cop! lol
On a side note, imagine if the code was upheld by some tyrant with unlimited powers over his domain? On number 8, no one would be permitted to bring up issues of importance if you didn’t want to hear it out. On 6, the ruler would just impose one’s “reality” without any effort at reconciliation or some form of compromise. We all know what that usually leads to… etc. On 14, how is one supposed to know everything especially in a complex modern world especially when one is in a position to make decisions on a wide array of subjects and in different areas? Expert consultants are some of the highest paid positions.
5. Never need praise, approval or sympathy.
How is this one supposed to work in a 2D or at a work place? The need for approval by those that are in a position to make decisions about you and give you a “pass” on something that you may want is a natural phenomena. In politics you even have a term “approval ratings.” It’s better to recognize this “need” for what it is and manage it as opposed to try to protest against it.
Good job, Marty. You are truly hitting the right notes with this one.
Of course Hubbard stated that the Code was “voluntary”. And then later on he made it dangerous to follow it. Thanks Marty.
I got your reality. Don’t compromise with that. 🙂
Unless your reality changes.
Oh. Thanks for some “instructions,” but I think I will stick to my “self-determinism” on this one… cheers
E, I think Sidney meant it as a compliment.
Well done for selecting your own decisions. 🙂
Cheers back atcha!
History may not be kind to Mr. Hubbard, but people like me that care about other people can still be. 🙂 I respect anyone and love anyone that has helped me to better my life in some real way, even if those around me didn’t get anything out of it. 🙂
Marildi, now I see why Marty did not respond well to you in one of the previous posts. Your “acknowledgments” come across as you trying to position yourself above someone else. “Oh. It’s so great you learned to walk on your twos” – may be a great acknowledgment for a 1 year old baby; it would sound offensive to an adult. In the same wise your “Well done for selecting your own decisions. :)” is an offensive “encouragement” to someone who has been selecting one’s own decisions for a number of decades now. You should keep this in mind when you make your “acknowledgments” in the future…
Than I do hope Sidney accept my apology, plus me eating crow… I hope I have spelled it right: Plus Sidney can tell me off and tell me go fly a kile if I have that much
I hope than Sydney can accept my apology and it is I who don’t have much in that pea size whatever not seeing that compliment! How wrong one can be by simply assuming! woof!
You can lay it on me Sidney, I deserve it! 🙂
Get yourself a big arse mirror… and take a really close look at yourself.
I was simply correcting a typo I did not pick up before hitting the ‘post comment’ button. I have no idea what you’re doing here.
Good points, LTC Forever.
As to approval, it also strikes me that we are a social species. Whatever else one believes about the spiritual nature of humanity, on the species side we are imbued to the core with social interdependency. Violation of that reality is part of what makes forced disconnection so destructively toxic — for the Church for being so blind, as well as to the direct and indirect victims of the policy.
Sorry it came across that way. What I wrote wasn’t meant to be an acknowledgement – I was trying to make a point in a sort of ironic way. Thought you would get that. But this is the problem sometimes with long-distance, written communication – it doesn’t always come across as intended! I did appreciate your good-natured “cheers” and that I did try to acknowledge.
Honest mistake. Happens to the best of us. 😉
🙂 looking good..really looking good 🙂 🙂 🙂 ! Do have a grand day!
I don’t see mistake when people write since my English is not very good… so I apologise for misunderstanding that correction. I had no idea that you were doing that.. and while we are on this planet we are all in the same boat.. we are all equal, you like it or not… but that is the fact.. By the way my body have very skinny ars. always have had one like that since the body is slim. 🙂 I hope you are having much fun as I am 🙂
Marty, I will take up the first point and I will agree with your addition. When I first read your article, I said yes, he is right. But then, on second thought I said “hey, isn’t that implied anyway? So, isn’t it needless to add to that principle?”
And in my opinion it is.
2. Never withdraw allegiance once granted (unless or as long as the recipient of it demonstrably remains true to those purposes and principles to which allegiance was granted in the first place.)
And then if that does not work for some I have another thought to lay here:
How did I withdraw my allegiance at a certain point of time?
How did others too?
Did it mean we were not Scientologists or didn’t follow and apply the Code of Honour (as the CO CLO EU, hahaha, was telling me once: Oh, you are not a Scientologist, oh, oh, oh” in his harsh Austrian accent. And I was thinking “ho, ho, ho I am a Scientologist”
Which one of the two was applying the Code of Honour then?
When I saw that Int Mgmt was not in a position to apply HCOBs or even persecuted me for insisting on the application of the translations HCOBs (yeah, I had this one strong stable datum, HCOBs, and it happened to be the translations ones, that was my stable datum, my compass through that chaos of alterations of the tech and the falsehoods and smoke screens of RTC guarantees the future of Scientology) I immediately knew that they were no longer loyal or even capable to apply Standard Tech. From that point on the Code of Honour was effective for me.
Because the Code of Honour is NOT just separate principles to be taken into consideration and action one by one aside from the rest. IT’S A WHOLE THING and one considering and knowing each principle and the whole thing as a WHOLE as interacting principles can act accordingly.
“Because the Code of Honour is NOT just separate principles to be taken into consideration and action one by one aside from the rest. IT’S A WHOLE THING and one considering and knowing each principle and the whole thing as a WHOLE as interacting principles can act accordingly”
That’s how I see it too, Theo. Basically, it breaks down all the various aspects of a life situation, all the angles to view it from, so as to be able to grapple with it successfully. It’s “holistic.”
Marildi, that’s right. The Code of Honour is holistic.
Scientology IS holistic, actually and you utter the key word here, I think.
I have seen it here in Greece for example how far down the Greek Scientologists were in comparison to those who were native speakers for example when I was in Los Angeles. Big difference. The Greek Scientologists had bits and pieces of the tech and thought and acted according to them. And they acted not that good. Lot’s of “ethics”, lots of HE&R etc. etc. in their handlings and actions.
Hmmm… I thought. Then the Sea Org… oh the Sea Org IS my group. That’s what I thought. And for some time it WAS. And then I find out the Sea Org cannot even protect the writings of LRH because of corrupt or whatever Mgmt and robotics and treasonous behaviour of the whole team en masse.
And then I was on my own. It was better to be on my own than be part of that travesty group calling themselves the custodians of Standard Tech.
Then, more and more people started coming out between 2000 and 2010 and so the Freezone and the Indies were formed (actually to be exact the Freezone existed before the Indies as you may know) and then I said that’s my group.
And it was and some of those guys thought scattered around the world still are in a sense my group but then I saw that though many do many things to promote the tech and many audit and do things, no one can really unite those guys in a loose organisation and some of those guys have gone to many extremes and… and… and…
So I thought what is going on? where is that damn group of mine? (lol). Like the God Damn Particle of Higgins. My group was inexistent and for some time IS.
And today I had this cognition because of the word “holistic” and what Marty wrote about the two chapters of the Code of Honour.
The Code of Honour is Holistic, Scientology is Holistic.
The only thing I can further write is to post an extract from the PDCs and say that like my old time friends the Greek Scientologists, I am afraid many of us “interpret” Source without that Holistic viewpoint, because of that one thing that LRH with cussedness and out of orneriness as he mentions called the Qs.
To Marildi (enjoy):
The ‘Q’: Highest Level of Knowledge
A Lecture given by L. Ron Hubbard
on the 2. December 1952
This is December 2nd, first hour night class and we have tonight this first lecture on the axioms.
We have the axioms more or less accumulated in ADVANCED PROCEDURE AND AXIOMS, and in the HANDBOOK FOR PRECLEARS. ADVANCE PROCEDURES AND AXIOMS is the later issue. There’s a whole rundown of axioms. There’s about two hundred and ten axioms.
These axioms are divided into the Logics and in axioms, now Logics and axioms. All right, why do we have this division? It’s because the Logics apply and seem to apply at the time to a behavior level of thought which was persistent and consistent and didn’t necessarily apply to Homo sap… sapie… sapiens. Excuse me, Homo sap uh… it didn’t necessarily apply
to him. But the axioms themselves as listed in ADVANCE PROCEDURES AND AXIOMS and HANDBOOK FOR PRECLEARS apply to Homo sapiens. That’s why they’re in that group. For Homo sapiens every thought is preceded by a counter-effort. Now that’s one level of thinking. That’s to some degree stimulus response thinking.
That’s not true of a thetan. And so the Logics as listed in ADVANCE PROCEDURE AND AXIOMS apply generally to thought, thought and its behavior in any activity. And the axioms, I say, apply peculiarly to Homo sapiens. So let’s pay then attention on these Logics and axioms, particularly to the Logics and then let me tell you that there is a thing above the Logics. And that’s what I’m going to talk to you first about.
There is a series, a whole series, numbering about five, something like that, above the level of logic and above the level of axiom. Now just for pure cussedness, I’ve been calling these things the Qs. Just… just for orneriness… uh… just the letter Q, a mathematical symbol which maybe stands for quotient and maybe it stands for quatrain and maybe it stands for quarantine.
We’re not interested in that. We’ll just call them the Qs, just a mathematical designation to differentiate them from other things.
Actually, Q can be defined this way: it is the level from which we are now viewing, which is a common denominator to all experience which we can now view. This is the level from which we’re viewing all experience, and which does, by the way, act as a common denominator to all this experience, and the Q is the highest level from which we’re operating.
This data then, these Qs, would stand behind everything else that we do.”
End of Quote.
Now allow me to go back to that lecture to read the rest. But in closing I would like to mention one thing about Marty. Marty was a big player. Marty still is a big player. Like any big player some times we all need some acknowledgment and assistance. Marty is too valuable to be left on his own. That’s what I always meant by that Org Board of mine, having some light organisation. Marty has helped me out with his inquisitive spirit in many different ways and I hope one day I can return that to him. Indeed this blog deals with some high thoughts but for Christ’s sake let’s find out the right ones. I don’t think LRH (the scriptures of Scientology) can be viewed otherwise but holistically and on top of that what really matters is the Q of the person dealing with such high thoughts and notions. I think we all need to work on our Qs. It’s a sheer joy to be a student again. Not a blinded faithful fanatic but a student of life and the valuable lessons. I am going back to my reading now.
Thanks dear.. but I don’t like to put something like that into someone’s space when it is uncalled.
Lawrence:
You: History may not be kind to Mr. Hubbard, but people like me that care about other people can still be. 🙂 I respect anyone and love anyone that has helped me to better my life in some real way, even if those around me didn’t get anything out of it. 🙂
I agree with the way you put that. I look to see the big picture. The good and bad. I glean the good and chuck the rest up to experience. The good has saved my life many times over.
Scn is a excalibur sword plus.
It is a freedom and power for the wise and a trap for fools and the feeble minded.
Dio
Glad we can share the truth! 🙂
Elizabeth,
The idea that we are all equal is not true.
In fact nothing can be further from the truth.
We are only equally treated under the law,
and that applies to only when we know the real or true laws.
If you do not know the law, you are not equal to someone who does know the law.
And from another point of view, we are possibly equal in potential.
But not in reality by any stretch of the imagination.
Just take an honest look and evaluation of everyone.
Dio
Dio.. thank you.. my reality is that a Infinite no matter what view that Infinite hold, what games it plays remains a Infinite. My posts my view are from that reality.
View points are different yes not two alike but never the Infinite! Infinite who creates and experiences is not the view point.
You view the human realities and I am fine with that but those realities do not make my view point wrong, just different.
Theo, thank you so much for that excellent reference. I see it’s from the PDC lectures, and you’ve inspired me to get back into to them since I’ve only covered portions here and there. It was back in those years of the early 50’s that LRH made his greatest contributions in basic principles of life.
I’m in agreement with you about Marty, too. Even though I don’t always agree with him, he has my great respect for the integrity that comes through in his posts and comm cycles as well.
Speaking of “light organization,” there’s a quote where LRH stresses that very point, and I’ll post it for you if I can find it, although you may already be familiar with it. It goes back to the early 50’s also. At some point after those years LRH lost his way, but the truths he did find are no less truths. So carry on with your reading and enjoy!
Thank you Marildi, I am happy we can both re-read the PDCs. Are you on FB? Find me, Theo Sismanides so we chat from time to time. Yes, Marty is a good guy… He is just a bit bigger than average so he needs to take his space. As we can create space (lol) we can grant him that and I bet everything is gonna turn out right. Code of Honour (point…. I don’t remember which) Never desert a comrade in need. Adios for now.
I don’t do FB but I’m sure we’ll chat again on the blogs! Adios for now, amigo. 🙂
I have an arse-mirror too, and mine is looking pretty good for a man my age… 🙂
Eliz and Val, you two literally made me laugh out loud!
Watch out, Al, I think Valkov just topped your humor today. 🙂
LOL LOL.. LOL.. yes, 🙂 they are fantastic, it is a magic mirror, always reflects the picture back how the imagine should be IF…. hehehehe hehehe .
You bet… you are right.. 🙂
Marildi a man who has a sense of humor could not take himself seriously!
I can’t take much credit marildi. I was inspired by EO’s picture of a “big arse mirror”, even if that was not quite how she meant it.
That is what makes it so funny! I’m sure EO was using the non-American word for ass, and the definition of “big ass” is this:
“big ass: a slang term for referring to something large ” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=big%20ass
ROFL!
So EO just meant “get yourself a large mirror.”
Hilarious how you two played on that! 😀
Thank you. You expressed my thoughts on the entire subject near exact.
There is nothing wrong with having the “the hunger for purpose and meaning, and the desire to serve the greater good” and feeling “driven to devote their lives to good works”.
There IS something wrong with exploitation of good people who’s sole aim is to be of benefit to others to the point that their fellows maneuver them into position to be victim’s of fraud, robbery, deprivation, assault, and even causing their demise through lies and evil intent.
Even previously somewhat sane governments can be seen, imho, to be exhibiting cultish behavior and committing crimes on their citizens. Unfortunately these criminal acts are becoming so commonplace that people are giving in and allowing themselves to believe the party line that it’s normal.
Only those people give in who cant think for self… than they complain ‘ want sympathy ” look poor me, what those mean evil people have done to me!’ they love the role of the victim.
Instead chalk that experience as a learning experience sorting it out what was a good discard the rest and move on.
No one is chained to ideas. ”ideas” are not solid one can change those, we all have changed our mines, belief thousands of times.
The valance of a victim is a good one, gets lot of attention, makes one look important.. stand out , gets applauded by many… what a poor game..
Thanks marildi! This is largely how the universe is co-created methinks! 🙂
Methinks so too. It’s in this sense that we are all intricately connected. And oh the web we sometimes weave. 🙂
I enjoyed reading this. We’ve really changed.
Thank you Cat Daddy and Chee Chalker. It is very important that one not stop looking and know the truth about LRH – all of it!
We can of course, use that tech right back at Scientology. The only hurt it causes is the pain of realizing one has been duped! But – that shock will eventually lift and can be healed…but NOT with Scientology.
I won’t ever participate in another organized religion ever again. The basic on the chain is Scientology – but the Organization just proved to me that Organized Religion will never work.
What does a Scientologist value more – The Creed or the Code of Honor?
I recently had a conversation with an OT in the SEA ORG. I read them the CREED and emphasized “speak freely, practice any religion etc”
She had not read that for a very long time. She thanked me. She says she likes the “code”. I asked her what was senior? What do you do if the group was out ethics and did not know it – maybe if an SP got in and worked from the top – then what do you use?
Silence….and a slight little crack was heard in the distance!
She had to go but would get back to me..
Nothing yet!
Idle Morgue,
Everyone should read the Oahspe book. There is so much useful data in it that applies to understanding what is going on in this world.
It says that the age of “organized religion” has ended. It is only a matter of time before the last defenders of it run out of steam.
What you think is going on on this planet, is not what is going on.
Dio
😉
I just found this, which is along the lines of codes of ethics and codes of honor:
Seven blunders from which arise the violence that plagues the world:
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce without morality.
Science without humanity.
Worship without sacrifice.
Politics without principles.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Dio