Debbie Cook’s email, which was sent to 12 000 Scientologists:
Dear Friend,
I am emailing you as a friend and fellow Scientologist. As we enter a new year, it is hoped that 2012 can be a year of great dissemination and a year of real progress up The Bridge for all Scientologists.
Although I am not in the Sea Org right now, I served in the Sea Org at Flag for 29 years. 17 of those years were as Captain FSO. I am a trained auditor and C/S as well as an OEC, FEBC and DSEC.
I am completely dedicated to the technology of Dianetics and Scientology and the works of LRH. I have seen some of the most stunning and miraculous results in the application of LRH technology and I absolutely know it is worth fighting to keep it pure and unadulterated.
My husband and I are in good standing and we are not connected with anyone who is not in good standing. We have steadfastly refused to speak to any media, even though many have contacted us.
But I do have some very serious concerns about out-KSW that I see permeating the Scientology religion.
I have the utmost respect for the thousands of dedicated Scientologists and Sea Org members. Together, we have come through everything this world could throw at us and have some real impingement on the world around us. I am proud of our accomplishments and I know you are too.
However there is no question that this new age of continuous fundraising is not our finest moment.
LRH says in HCO PL 9 Jan 51, An Essay on Management,
“drop no curtains between the organization and the public about anything.” -LRH
Based on this policy I am communicating to you about some situations that we need to do something about within our religion, within our group.
Actions that are either not covered in policy or directly violate LRH policy and tech include the extreme over-regging and fund-raising activities that have become so much a part of nearly every Sea Org org and Class V org as well as every “OT Committee”. This fundraising is not covered anywhere in LRH policy.
Hardworking Sea Org members and the dedicated staff of orgs around the world aren’t choosing to do these actions. Nor are the OTs. I am sure they would be more than happy if they could just get on with direct dissemination of Scientology as they have done for so many years.
But the truth is that this is being driven from the very highest echelons within the Scientology structure and clearly there is a lot of pressure to make targets that are being set.
The IAS:
The IAS was created unbeknownst to LRH in 1984 by Marc Yager and David Miscavige. This was supposed to be based on LRH policies on the subject of membership and the HASI, however the IAS is nothing like the membership system described by LRH which only has two memberships and is covered in HCO PL 22 March 1965 “Current Promotion and Org Program Summary, Membership Rundown” and states:
“There are two memberships…”- LRH
LRH lists there the INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP and gives its cost at 10 pounds sterling or $30 US. He also lists a LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP which is priced at $75 US. There are no other memberships or statuses approved or known to LRH.
Furthermore, membership monies are supposed to go directly to the org where the membership is signed up, and the money used for dissemination by that org, in that area. This is covered in HCOPL 1 Sept 1965R Membership Policies.
“It all goes into the HCO Book Account in the area where the membership is brought and is not part of the organization’s weekly gross income. Membership monies go to dissemination”.- LRH
Currently membership monies are held as Int reserves and have grown to well in excess of a billion dollars. Only a tiny fraction has ever been spent, in violation of the policy above. Only the interest earned from the holdings have been used very sparingly to fund projects through grants. In fact many of the activities you see at IAS events are not actually funded by the IAS, but rather by the Scientologists involved.
Think about it, how many ads disseminating Scientology, Dianetics or any Scn affiliated programs have you seen on TV? Heard on the radio? Seen in newspapers? I haven’t seen one in the 4 years I have lived in San Antonio, Texas, the 7th largest city in the US. How many have you seen?
Donating anything more than a lifetime membership to the IAS is not based on LRH policy. The article “What Your Donations Buy” (The Auditor, The Monthly Journal of Scientology No. 51, 1970) is clearly talking about how the church uses your donations for Dianetics and Scientology services. Next time you are asked to donate outside of services, realize that you are engaged in fundraising and ask to see something in writing from L. Ron Hubbard that this is something he expects from you as a Scientologist.
New Org Buildings:
LRH also never directed the purchase of opulent buildings or the posh renovations or furnishings for every org.
In fact, if you read HCO PL 12 March 75 Issue II, “The Ideal Org”, which is what this program has been called, and nowhere in it will you find 20 million dollar buildings or even any reference to the poshness of org premises at all as part of LRH’s description of an “Ideal Org”. Instead, an Ideal Org was one that delivered and moved people up The Bridge – something that is not part of this “Ideal Org” program.
LRH says in the PL that an Ideal Org:
“would be clean and attractive enough not to repel its public” – LRH.
This is all it says about the state of the building.
As a result of this off-policy alteration of the Ideal Org PL, we have the majority of top OTs, now deemed “OT Ambassadors”, heavily engaged in fund-raising activities that include “bingo”, “pirate dinners”, “knitting classes”, “hay rides”, and many other activities strictly revolving around
raising funds for the required multi-millions of dollars to fund their “Ideal Org”. As part of this, people around every org are now asked to donate to their local “Ideal Org” instead of their own services or their ownBridge.
LRH says in HCO PL Org Ethics and Tech:
“GET RID OF DISTRACTIONS FROM SCIENTOLOGY in your org. Baby-sitting or raffle tickets and such nonsense.”-LRH
Yet these distractions are rampant as they are being used as fund-raisers to get money for the huge quotas being issued to fund the “Ideal Org”.
“If the org slumps… don’t engage in ‘fund-raising’ or ‘selling postcards’ or borrowing money. Just make more income with Scientology.
It’s a sign of very poor management to seek extraordinary solutions for finance outside Scientology. It has always failed.”
“For orgs as for pcs, ‘Solve It With Scientology’.
“Every time I myself have sought to solve financial or personnel in other ways than Scientology I have lost out. So I can tell you from experience that org solvency lies in more Scientology, not patented combs or fund-raising barbeques.”
HCO PL 24 February 1964, Issue II, Org Programming, (OEC Vol. 7, p. 930)
The point is that Scientologists and OT’s need to be training, auditing and disseminating to raw public- not regging each other or holding internal fundraisers.
Out Tech:
Over the last few years we have seen literally hundreds and hundreds of people who were validated as clear using the CCRD as developed by LRH now being told they are not Clear. This included hundreds of OTs who were then put onto NED as a “handling”. LRH clearly forbid any Dianetics to be run on OTs in HCOB “Dianetics Forbidden on OTs”. This is out tech. This entire technical “handling” was directed personally by COB RTC and was done on thousands of OTs. But it was based not on an LRH HCO Bulletin, but rather based on a single C/S instruction where LRH C/Sed one pre-OT who had not achieved the state of clear but was mid OT III and not making it. LRH directed a solo handling that the pre-OT was to do to get himself to achieve the state of Clear. This LRH C/S taken out of context was then used to implement a technical handling that was in direct violation of an LRH HCOB.
This and other “technical handlings” done on Solo NOTs auditors created great expense and hardship on Solo NOTs auditors around the world as they were made to do these handlings to continue on the level.
Then there are the “fast grades at Flag” that no other org has. How can it be that Flag has been delivering grades differently to the rest of the world for the last 3 years? Whatever the problem is, the fact is that having “fast Grades” at Flag creates a hidden data line and is a HIGH CRIME and the subject of an entire policy letter called HCOPL “TECH DEGRADES” which LRH has placed at the start of every Scientology course.
More recently the fad seems to be that nearly everyone needs to “re-do their Purif and do a long objectives program”, including many OTs mid Solo NOTs.
There is nothing wrong with doing objectives, but it is a clear violation of HCOB ‘MIXING RUNDOWNS AND REPAIRS” to have a person mid a rundown or OT level be taken off it and placed on an objectives program.
Solo NOTs auditors are also being made to get their objectives from a Class IX auditor at great expense as they are not being allowed to co-audit.
Flag has made many millions of dollars on the above listed out tech handlings because OTs mid Solo NOTs are forced to get these out-tech actions to be able to get back onto and stay on the level and complete it. Not to mention the spiritual effects of the out tech that this has on each OT.
I myself was subject to these out tech “handlings”, including extensive FPRD mid Solo NOTs. It took its toll in many ways, including physical situations I am still dealing with today. So I have some reality of the hardship caused.
LRH Command Structure: LRH left us with a complex and balanced command structure, with our orgs led by the Office of ED International. This office was considered so important that LRH created a special management group called the Watch Dog Committee whose only purpose was to see that this office and the other needed layers of management existed. LRH ED 339R speaks of this extensively as the protection for our Church. But these people are missing. And not just some. As of just a few years ago there were no members of the office of ED Int on post, not to mention top execs throughout the International Management structure.
You may have also wondered… where is Heber, the President of the Church? What about Ray Mitthoff, Senior C/S International, the one that LRH personally turned over the upper OT Levels to? How about Norman Starkey, LRH’s Trustee? What happened to Guillaume – Executive Director International? And Marc Yeager, the WDC Chairman? What happened to the other International Management executives that you have seen at events over the years?
The truth is that I spent weeks working in the empty International Management building at Int. Empty because everyone had been removed from post. When I first went up lines I was briefed extensively by David Miscavige about how bad all of them were and how they had done many things
that were all very discreditable. This seemed to “explain” the fact that the entirety of the Watchdog Committee no longer existed. The entirety of the Executive Strata, which consisted of ED International and 11 other top International executives that were the top executives in their particular fields, no longer existed. That the Commodore’s Messenger Org International no longer existed. All of these key command structures of Scientology International, put there by LRH, had been removed.
There were hundreds and hundreds of unanswered letters and requests for help from org staff, written based on LRH ED 339R where LRH says that staff can write to these top executives in the Exec Strata for help. But this is not possible if all these execs have been removed and no one is there to help them or to get evaluations and programming done to expand Scientology.
Well, after that I got to spend some quality time with Heber, Ray Mithoff, Norman Starkey, Guillaume, as well as the entirety of International Management at the time, who were all off post and doing very long and harsh ethics programs. These have gone on for years and to the only result of that they are still off post. There is no denying that these top executives have all gradually disappeared from the scene. You don’t see them at the big events anymore or on the ship at Maiden Voyage.
David Miscavige has now become the “leader” of the Scientology religion. Yet what LRH left behind was a huge structure to properly manage all aspects of the Scientology religion. He put a complete and brilliant organizational structure there, not one individual. There never was supposed to be a “leader” other than LRH himself as the goal maker for our group.
There is a situation here and even if you have not been to the International Management Base you should be able to see that over regging and frequent tech changes are not OK and you have a responsibility to do something to Keep Scientology Working. You should be able to find and read the references on membership in OEC Volume 6. Find and read the HCO PL entitled “The Ideal Org” (Data Series 40). Find and read the references on org buildings, including HCO PL 24 Aug 65 II, Cleanliness of Quarters and Staff, Improve our Image. Also, HCO PL 17 June 69, The Org Image.
If you don’t want to make waves or put yourself in danger of being taken off the level or denied eligibility, then there are some simple things you can do. First and foremost, withdraw your support from off policy actions. Stop donating to anything other than your own services and actual Bridge progress. Simply demand to see an LRH reference that says you are required to make other such donations. No one will be able to produce any references because there aren’t any.
Stop supporting any of the activities that are being done to forward off-policy fund-raising in your area.
LRH says what he expects of a Scientologist – that is what he expects you to do. In fact he put it in HCOB 10 June 1960 Issue I, Keeping Scientology Working Series 33, WHAT WE EXPECT OF A SCIENTOLOGIST. Read it and follow it.
The other thing you can do is to send this email to as many others as you can, even if you do it anonymously.
Please keep this email among us, the Scientologists. The media have no place in this. You may wonder why I have not written a KR and gone about my business. The answer is, I have. But there is no longer anyone to send that KR to.
But you can and should write reports and bring off-policy to the attention of local org executives and local Sea org members.
We are a strong and powerful group and we can affect a change. We have weathered many storms. I am sorry that I am the one telling you, but a new storm is upon us. Its waves are already in the media and the world around us.
The truth is that as a Scientologist you are more able, more perceptive and have a higher integrity. Scientology is supposed to allow you to “think for yourself” and never compromise your own integrity. And most certainly LRH held every Scientologist responsible to KEEP SCIENTOLOGY WORKING.
I am not trying to do anything other than affect a change in serious off policy actions occurring. My husband and I have most of our family and many many good friends who are Scientologists. I have not been real interested in sticking my neck out like this.
However, I also know that I dedicated my entire adult life to supporting LRH and the application of LRH technology and if I ever had to look LRH in the eye I wouldn’t be able to say I did everything I could to Keep Scientology Working if I didn’t do something about it now.
We all have a stake in this. It is simply not possible to read the LRH references and not see the alterations and violations that are currently occurring.
You have a very simple obligation to LRH. Don’t participate in anything off policy, and let others know they should not either. If every person who reads this email does nothing more than step back from off-policy actions we would have changed direction. If we took all that energy and directed it into auditing, training and raw public dissemination, we would be winning.
And that is what I wish for you and all of us as we ring in this new year.
ARC,
Debbie Cook
The Office of Special Affair’s response to Debbie’s e-mail, and a critique of their response:
To: Kathy True, Office of Special Affairs Flag 27 January, 2012
From: Ulf Olofsson
Re: Debbie Cook Dead Agent (DA) references
Hello Kathy,
Thank you for providing the references I asked for in regards to the email Debbie sent out.
I have had some time to digest these and what you wrote raised many more questions.
Right off the bat I want to emphasize that my answers are not intended to snap terminals with you, nor minimize anything you lay out. Being an ex-SO from Int I quite often get communications asking about facts and figures as a means (for them) to verify if the information the inquiring person received is indeed accurate, especially after Debbie’s email. This is in addition to general Scientology inquiries from my wife and friends who know I am a Scientologist. The DA reference pack you provided me does shed some light on some aspects, but unfortunately raises more questions for me, AND not just because I don’t understand or have an MU, but because I apply key pieces of tech in my life such as “look, don’t listen” and simple evaluation of information.
Hence I am presenting some questions which arose while going through your DA references and which put me in a position where I feel I am not able to fully handle the originations of those inquiring, nor my own reality of the actual state of things.
I have highlighted in italics what you wrote and I have highlighted in bold any questions I still have which I felt were not adequately answered with the data you provided me with. If your busy schedule permits, it would be very much helpful if you could provide answers or further data on this.
Thanks in advance, Ulf
The result of these efforts is unprecedented expansion in the actual delivery of Scientology religious services—an increase of 40 times over previous levels—and the religion now measured in terms of more than 10,000 Churches, Missions and affiliated groups, with millions of members in 167 countries.
This is the first and most commonly used statement in DA material, both from your press spokesmen as well as OSA affiliated terminals. It is, in my view also the least credible and hardest one for me to honestly defend. Let me elaborate:
40X Expansion. Expansion is measured by comparing one unit or units at some earlier time period with the same unit or units at a later time period. Without stating the units you are measuring and the time period, it becomes very vague to argue what that expansion actually is.
Are you comparing total org delivery in 2012 to that of Phoenix, AZ 1952? I’m not trying to be sarcastic here. NOTS auditing hours went up in the mid-90’s after the 20 NOTS auditors fired back to each AO but has dropped ever since – a verifiable fact. Maybe Solo NOTS solo hours are up, and maybe Div 6 services such as the Basics course completions and the new TR’s & Objectives courses are up over previous times, but then this should be specified. I know for a fact that the training of classed auditors (one of the major VFP’s of an org) is not 40X, nor is the WDAH’s for general Bridge delivery.
■What exactly is the 40X – what training and/or services and what time periods are you comparing?
10,000 Churches, missions and affiliated groups is a datum very hard to explain. No new orgs, and if I missed one or two, it still doesn’t explain the numbers, have been announced in almost a decade. Athens was one of the last, and maybe a Celebrity Center. The total number of orgs never exceeded somewhere around 160 from the time I was at Int, and from your events no new orgs have been announced since that time.
When I worked at Gold I routinely did A/V products tailor-made for the active missions and groups and I would get updated lists of ALL the missions in the world. The total never exceeded 600, and I got my lists directly from SMI Int, and the lists contained ALL registered missions with contact information. The numbers were roughly about 60 in Russia, less than 40 in Hungary, less than 100 in the rest of Eu, less than 10 in all of Asia, less than 40 in Africa, less than 10 in ANZO, less than 70 in all of South America and less than 200 in North America. In total the numbers were 500 – 600.
Yes, my information is not current, but these figures are not from the Ice Age either (2006.)
I know from my time at the Flag RPF that $50,000 mission starter packages were sold a lot, but a package sold doesn’t equate to a mission delivering services and it would seem to me that a Scientology org, mission or affiliated group should in some way be delivering Scientology training and auditing, even if just on an introductory level.
If you combine the existing orgs and missions from my 2006 verified statistics the number doesn’t exceed 750, and I used all of your websites to look for additional centers and groups and I couldn’t even locate 400 contacts in all of your websites combined.
Even the number of 750 is probably too high. For example, here in Hong Kong there is a Dianetics Group run by a local OT VIII. The place is open 3 evenings a week. There are never more than 1-2 people there when it is open. I’ve been there 3 times and each time it was empty. There is no sign on the street so you can’t possibly run into it, but it is located in a regular, cheap apartment on the 4th floor of a building. This is in addition to a serious amounts of outpoints observed when I went there which I initially reported in proper form to SMI Taiwan, but got no answer after 3 emails, and then to SMI Int and still got no answer, but this is a separate subject to this communication.
I’m sure this is counted, but it is hardly delivering at all, and I’m sure this is the case in many places around the world. I have a close friend in Malmö in Sweden. She went to the local org in November last year. She said the place was almost empty other than some staff. I also have friends in Stockholm and Gothenburg who are on lines and they also tell me those orgs are almost empty.
So, with the 750 number being in question, I can only suppose that the remaining 9,250 must fall into the category of “affiliated groups”. But what is an “affiliated group”? Do you count a school teaching TWTH, or a school using study tech, or a WISE member using LRH tech in his business? Though these are using LRH tech, they are not delivering Scientology and should not be included in counting a group delivering Scientology.
Less than a year ago, the Scientology PR statement was 8,000 Orgs, missions and groups, and in less than a year that total has increased by 2,000.
I know Mr. Miscavige himself stated these figures at International events and with all due respect I don’t want to doubt the figures, but in applying logic based on the actual statistics which I was privy to I can’t get the math to add up.
LRH states in PR policy which you, Kathy, are very familiar with, to NEVER use lies in PR. I know how these figures were put together when I was involved with events. Marc Yager used to be the appointed “Stat Man”, i.e. he was responsible for summarizing various statistics to be announced at the events. All the information was collected by the IMPR office staff. I read through all of this information many times throughout the years. NEVER did the actual figures even approach 10,000.
■What exactly is the “10,000 orgs, missions and affiliated groups” comprised of? Is there a list available, or a basic breakdown? Anyone who tries to look it up on the internet can’t even get a number 1/20th of that, so this is one of the hardest pieces of information to defend.
Another hard to defend datum is the “millions of members”. In all the years at Int, the total international event attendance statistic never exceeded 50,000. Most of the time it was around 30,000 – 35,000.
To be a member, one has to officially apply to be a member, such as becoming an IAS member, going on staff, or such a thing. When I was on the Flag RPF there were several IASA staff members on the RPF who had recently been in IASA. As I was a tech terminal within the RPF I dealt with them both as a C/S and auditor and supervisor. From this I learned that the total IAS membership number was in the hundreds of thousands – this was from 1984 to 2010. There are less than 10,000 staff around the world.
Again, I don’t want to just negate and I know this datum was announced by Mr. Miscavige, but with all the information I have and with all the information that can be verified on-line I can only come up with at most 25,000 active members in the US and maybe twice that amount in the rest of the world, and maybe a couple of hundred thousand others who are currently inactive but have a valid IAS membership.
■What comprises “millions of members”? Anyone who ever bought a book?
…LRH covered this phenomena in HCO PL 7 August 1965, Issue I, SUPPRESSIVE PERSONS, MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF:
“Soft sell” is another recommendation of the SP. And “build it quietly” and “get only decent people” are all part of this. When somebody is demanding less reach, that person is an SP.
Therefore, we have another characteristic:
2. SPs RECOMMEND INEFFECTIVE DISSEMINATION AND FIND FAULT WITH ANY BEING DONE.
LRH
HCO PL 7 August 1965, Issue I, SUPPRESSIVE PERSONS, MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF
You included this reference in regards to Debbie’s email, but I couldn’t relate it to the content of her email. There is nothing in Debbie’s email that suggests soft-sell, or hard-sell for that matter in regards to the subject of SERVICES, which is what this policy is talking about. Debbie objected to the crush regging for the IAS, which regardless of validity has nothing to do with disseminating services of Scientology.
■How is Debbie’s email or the content therein advocating soft-sell of Scientology?
3. International Association of Scientologists
Misinformation and wrong information has been spread on what the IAS is supposed to be.
The IAS did not replace the HASI. They are entirely different entities existing at different times with different purposes.
On March 12, 1966, L. Ron Hubbard announced in HCO Executive Letter that the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International, Inc. had been replaced by the Church of Scientology of California as the senior corporate entity in Scientology. This announcement included that effective 5 April 1966, all of Saint Hill, including the International Executive Division of Scientology, would be under the corporate control of the Church of Scientology of California. This ended the role of the HASI as the senior corporate entity in Scientology.
The International Association of Scientologists is a membership organization founded by individual Scientologists in October of 1984. It is not a management organization, but a membership organization, the purpose of which is to unite, advance, support and protect Scientology and Scientologists in all parts of the world so as to achieve the aims of Scientology as originated by LRH.
As with the HASI, the IAS has annual and lifetime memberships. Beyond that, there are levels of honor statuses to acknowledge the contributions of Scientologists.
This is a bit confusing. First you state that the IAS did not replace the HASI and that it is completely different, and, you state that it was not implemented by LRH, but founded by individual Scientologists.
Then you state, ”As with the HASI, the IAS has annual and lifetime memberships.” So first you lay out how they are different, and then you lay out how they are similar. Not only is this confusing and doesn’t really answer anything, but it also doesn’t explain why the IAS should exist at all as Debbie laid out as there is no LRH to back it up, neither of which is included in the material from you.
To DA this to someone questioning it one would have to understand how a membership organization could be created, not based on LRH, and which collects huge sums of money, compared to the relatively affordable HASI annual fees (even with inflation considered.) One can argue that the IAS funds dissemination campaigns and org buildings, but when reviewing the accounting of Ideal Org buildings, they were mainly sponsored by individual fundraisers from their local area. Also, I haven’t seen a single Scientology ad on TV since I left the SO in 2010. Apparently there was one playing on American Idol recently, but to quote from International events, “…we will flood the airways with advertising campaigns” seems to imply a large presence of Scientology media across radio, TV and the internet and I have searched and looked for it and other than what is playing on your internal websites, I have seen no sign of it.
These contrary facts, in my personal experience, have raised some doubt and questioning with those who read Debbie’s email and then asked me about it. Again, lots of fancy words are being proclaimed that sounds good and all, but in the physical universe the evidence is not there. How can one not question the massive IAS donations when it isn’t exchanged with tangible services or means to disseminate with verifiable, non-PR evidence?
Yes, I know this is what you say they do, but can any specifics be provided? Obviously an accounting would be out-security, but if new places were opening up and delivering, if ads were playing all over the place, if print ads were placed in papers all over the world, if people were sponsored to open up and run new groups instead of being charged $50,000 for a starter package, then I believe the arguments about the validity of the IAS and the questioning about the money aspect would be insignificant.
■Regardless of the validity of the IAS, how is the money donated to the IAS used exactly, without generalities?
SCIENTOLOGY FIVE:
“Scientology applied at a high echelon to social, political and scientific problems. This requires the earlier levels and a high state of training on theoretical and wide- application levels and the personal state of OT.” LRH
HCO PL of 2 August 1963, Issue I, URGENT, PUBLIC PROJECT ONE:
In fact, the existence of the IAS makes possible these specific Fourth Dynamic activities envisioned by LRH:
When considering all the policies written about the subject of what the parishioner’s money is used for, this excerpt and earlier mentions of the 4th dynamic campaigns not only fail to explain why HCO PL “WHAT YOUR FEES BUY” states that money paid for services is what provides these things, but seem non sequitur in context.
Here a policy about the importance of relative marketing for various categories of public is being used to justify the donations for the IAS, when there are numerous finance policy which states exactly how these campaigns are supposed to be funded, etc.
The hardest argument for me personally has been to explain the extreme fundraising activities which have gone on in escalating order for the last 15 years, despite very clear and non-interpretable, step-by-step direction from LRH of how to manage and deal with finances within the Church. The only “DA” I have seen so far is out-of-context excerpts which don’t “handle” the full LRH policies which Debbie quotes from.
■How can this be justified despite cleat-cut LRH policies which state otherwise?
4. Ideal Orgs are Fulfilling LRH’s Intention for Churches of Scientology
The Ideal Org program is about delivering quality of service.
One can’t argue this, but one can argue how very posh and expensive, new buildings equal to quality of service. They are not synonymous. I wasn’t there, but I dare argue that LRH ran top quality service at Saint Hill and on the Apollo and none of these required posh buildings.
■How does quality of service equate to expensive, new buildings?
The sole purpose of our Ideal Org strategy is to be able to deliver ALL the services LRH intended to make available to mankind and to do it in an environment conducive to people rapidly stepping onto and moving on the Bridge. And to expand all orgs to a level they can deliver that quantity and quality of service at once.
In lectures and policies, LRH described his vision of an Ideal Org. It is this vision that is now being put into reality, as the following excerpts show:
These are awfully good people in Central Organizations. These are terrific people. At a sacrifice of considerable income and a lot of other sacrifices, these fellows and girls stay on the job and get the job done. One could not render a high enough tribute to them, because it has not been easy and they have done it extremely well. And they’re still there and they’ve still got the show on the road.
And now we’re thinking in terms of new buildings and designing new buildings all over the world. In other words, we’ve kept it there for a long time; now we’re going to keep it there with exclamation points. We’ve even got the designs for these buildings.
Actually, it requires two types of building in one of these Central Organizations. It requires a city building, one that is downtown and rises straight up from the ground to some height. And it requires one out in the country which sprawls all over the place.
– LRH
Lecture 3 Sep 1962 YOUR SCIENTOLOGY ORGS & WHAT THEY DO FOR YOU
Here again we have a problem of magnitude in regards to explaining the current actions of building expensive buildings as this one excerpt from 1962 ignores almost everything LRH later states in actual HCO PL’s covering the subject of building acquisition and the steps to take to expand, not to mention all the traffic from LRH to the Building Investment Committee, which you may not be personally familiar with, but I am.
Outside of the factors of the buildings of Ideal Orgs, this also doesn’t explain how the Ideal Org Program has come to replace LRH 339R and the making of Saint Hill Size orgs. The latter was THE strategy for orgs and management from 1982, whereby the Ideal Org program was mentioned in a lecture from 1962. I’m not saying the 1962 lecture is invalid, but it doesn’t appear to me to take precedence over an LRH ED from 20 years later which lays out the steps for expansion in full and exact detail.
I know Debbie didn’t mention the now almost infamous and cliché-used quote (among those who are questioning the Ideal Org strategy) about blowing up the headquarters.
“We own a tremendous amount of property. We own a tremendous amount of material, and so forth. And it keeps growing. But that’s not important. When buildings get important to us, for God’s sake, some of you born revolutionists, will you please blow up central headquarters? If someone had put some HE under the Vatican long ago, Catholicism might still be going. Don’t get interested in real estate. Don’t get interested in the masses of buildings, because that’s not important.
“What is important is how much service you can give the world and how much you can get done and how much better you can make things. These are important things. These are all that are important. A bank account never measured the worth of a man. His ability to help measured his worth and that’s all. A bank account can assist one to help but where it ceases to do that it becomes useless.”
One could argue that this was 1960 – before the Ideal Org lecture, but:
■How is a lecture from 1962 the overriding principle to concentrate on posh buildings despite a multitude of other actual policies on finances and buildings which stresses delivery of service and puts the quality of the building itself as one of the last priorities? (Not including cleanliness.) No matter how one views this in light of all the policies and advices, it just doesn’t add up, and it doesn’t DA what Debbie wrote and quoted from LRH, unless one just takes the excerpt you gave and ignores everything else, but this wouldn’t be a proper evaluation of all the data, would it?
■How and why has LRH 339R and Saint Hill Size orgs been replaced by an Ideal Org strategy, only outlined in a 1962 taped lecture?
EXPANSION. It is upon expansion that victory depends. But how much expansion is EXPANSION? Well, to give you a hint, you all know how big and busy Saint Hill was in the mid-60′s. Well, I ran it up from six staff to that in very short order indeed. It was the last org I ran directly as its ED.
–LRH
LRH ED 339R Int, 13 March 1982
I find it interesting that you would include an excerpt from LRH ED 339R which talks about expansion mainly in terms of delivery and numbers of staff – not the building. I don’t see how this explains anything in Debbie’s email, nor does it DA what she stated. If anything is appears non sequitur and draws your attention to, “What happened to 339R?”
LRH personally built Saint Hill and Flag. Those are big, posh, impressive orgs!
This is one line I can’t use unfortunately in any sort of DA action because most Scientologists know that these buildings were NOT big, posh, impressive orgs when LRH set them up and ran them. They have been made so after LRH dropped his body.
In 1976 Flag was a rundown hotel and the total action ordered by LRH at that time was to thoroughly clean it. No renovations were done and it certainly wasn’t posh. Quality of delivery was the only thing stressed.
As far as Saint Hill goes, there was nothing posh or even big about it (building-wise) when LRH ran it. It was clean and set up to function and they coped with spaces as the place expanded. A large part of the BC delivery was done in the basement of the Manor and in the Solarium and the main Castle was not even available to them like it is to AOSH UK today.
So, using Flag and Saint Hill to show what LRH did, just acts to contradict the whole thing; as a matter of fact, while LRH was around, not a single organization had a posh and “perfect” building, but what was emphasized was cleanliness, putting in proper org form and delivering standard auditing and training.
5. Donations For New Buildings
And as for obtaining donations directly for the purchase of new buildings,in HCO Policy Letter of 2 December 1968, GUNG-HO GROUPS, LRH writes specifically about it in this fashion:
CONTRIBUTIONS
The most heavily worked-over income point of most civic-minded groups is the obtaining of contributions.
These can be quite sizable.
They do not however, come easily unless the group has a nonprofit status and the patron can thereby deduct it from his income tax.
A group, however, that registers as a charity and is a member of existing nonprofit organizations can obtain contributions.
Governments have been known to contribute large sums to groups.
Contributions should be worked at but should be regarded as an irregular source of income and not counted on for the general running expenses of a group. Rather, they are like an affluence, and major projects are the best use for contributions and the best reason to get them — such as a new building for the group or a new hall, things like that.
As anyone who has done OEC Vol 0 knows, Orgs are about selling and delivering services to the public and get in public to sell and deliver to. No doubt this PL about Gung-Ho groups has its own application, but Gung-Ho groups don’t even sell and deliver services.
Debbie quoted LRH policies which state the opposite about fundraising as it applies to orgs.
■How does a policy about Gung-Ho group explain numerous HCO PL’s about Scientology organizations NOT getting involved in fundraising, but in delivering services and getting paid for it?
That ends this section.
I can see that there is much potential that by now I must be viewed as extremely disaffected and full of enemy lines.
It is my hope however, that what I have written and questioned above can be at least partially answered.
I consider myself a Scientologist because I use and apply Scientology to improve conditions of my dynamics to the best of my ability.
As you well know, I don’t have a very clean ethics record in my SO career. I am not and I never was a moralist, but in the here and now I try to do what I see as right and constructive and I judge others mainly by those same attributes. I want to add that my period on ethics lines and the RPF exposed me to all the Basics, the large majority of the tech vols coupled with having M9’ed the majority of Management volumes just prior to coming to Flag. With this under my belt, I believe I have a good reason to express my thoughts and points of view regardless of my actions in the past.
I have a tendency to want to tell my family and friends about Scientology and I actually find it easy to get people interested in the religious applied philosophy of Scientology. A good example is my own wife who has studied some basic material, including Science of Survival, the Tone Scale and is suing it successfully at her work place and she agrees and sees the workability of it. She agrees to basic concepts like the Code of Honor, Personal Integrity and TWTH.
However, when it comes to the Church of Scientology, here’s where the difficulty begins. Due to the vast exposure in media, even here in Hong Kong, it is very hard to explain the actions of the Church. To someone like my wife it does little good to state, “Well, honey, Mr. Miscavige said so at an event!” and hope that it will just explain everything.
Especially for the Chinese (which my wife is) family and friends are of utmost importance and I happened to show her the Code of Honor and the Code of Behavior tape transcript early on.
LRH states:
“7. NEVER PERMIT YOUR AFFINITY TO BE ALLOYED.
In other words, never permit a feeling of affection you have to be tampered with by somebody else. You can tamper with it if you want but don’t let someone else come along and tell you that ‘the reason why you should not like Jones is because…’ and tell you a lot of things about Jones.”
This made sense to her, but when I am told to disconnect from someone (as has been demanded of me on Facebook) who has been a personal friend for maybe 20 years because he or she now has different views of the Church, i.e. “disaffected” in your terms but not gone to the media or press or tried to sue you, it becomes an impossibility to try to explain the rationale, and factually it does violates some of the very basic principles of human decency.
It is stated as early as 1951 that Dianetics and Scientology is about raising an individual on the Tone Scale and increasing his self-determinism. There is even a slogan for the VM campaign which states, “Think for yourself!” Now, if one is routinely coaxed to think along a certain pattern and be told what is and what isn’t, it goes against the very core of the basics of Scientology and THAT I am not even willing to defend myself as I would be violating my own personal integrity.
LRH states:
“Those things I tell you are true are not true because I tell you they are true. And if anything I tell you, or have ever told you, is discovered to differ from the individual observation (be it a good observation), then it isn’t true! It doesn’t matter whether I said it was true or not. Do you understand?”
–L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology and Effective Knowledge, 15 July 1957 lecture
“Personal Integrity:
“What is true for you is what you have observed yourself, and when you lose that you have lost everything…
“Nothing in Dianetics and Scientology is true for you unless you have observed it.
“And it is true according to your observation.
“That is all.”
–L. Ron Hubbard, book Scientology, A New Slant On Life
I’m including these quotes here to simply try to state where I’m coming from in writing this communication.
As a noteworthy of mention towards the end, I wanted to relay another personal experience. During the process of routing out Mike Sutter was stressing to me not to contact specifically Marty [Rathbun] and Mike [Rinder]. At the time I didn’t think much about it.
Then later in phone conversations with Spencer, he again brought up Marty and Mike at several occasions and how I should not listen to what they had to say. I guess, just like a child who does exactly what he is told not to do, I had to find out what all the fuss was about.
I looked up Marty and Mike on the net, and also located your own websites with the Church’s attempt to DA them. I was recently directed by a Swedish Scientologist who had seen my Facebook posting on Debbie’s site to watch a video about Marty. I did so.
Now, it is peculiar how one reacts when one is on the outside, versus being on the inside, but what struck me personally in watching this video was how it stressed how Marty was the violent person AND he ADMITS to it, followed by a graphic representation of what I gather is his O/W’s or confession or something.
Not only did it strike a disharmonious cord inside me to see the Church publicly publish something which per policy was intended for HCO and Qual personnel only, but I was also struck by the fact that in the end I had the image that Marty was indeed guilty of violent acts, but he admits to it – fully – and publicly. This was made into a big deal through the narrative of the video, but for me it actually increased the respect for Marty.
I knew Marty at Int, and I knew Mike even better. I know what they did do and how they acted. But I also know that a lot of faults were committed all the way up and down the org board which cannot be justified through any policy, out-of-context interpretation. I have however NEVER seen the Church admit to a single piece of wrong-doing.
This fact alone is the hardest to DA in speaking with my non-Scientology friends and family. How come there is so much bad exposure in the media about this Church but they deny 100% of it. Marty doesn’t deny what he did and that automatically makes him more credible, especially as I share some of the experiences and facts which Marty is stating.
I’m only bringing this up as, so far, Scientologists attempting to “get my ethics in” or providing me with “DA” material, only amounts to, in the end, a blind faith in what the current Church and Mr. David Miscavige are doing and that goes against the verbal tech checklist, the quotes above and about 100 hundred other references about evaluation of data, and self-determined thought.
That is why I publicly agreed with Debbie on her Facebook profile.
So, of course you can chose to answer this, or simply file it away as “disaffected entheta.” I for one would be very happy if you would engage in dialog, as this current situation is distressing as I believe in Scientology and I’m not interested in a war, but I will not waiver away from what I know is true, and I won’t accept explanations which are taken out of context and which are clearly stated otherwise in policy.
I believe in Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard and as I know you do too, maybe with this one thing in common we can somehow figure out how to increase our ARC and KRC. I will consider any full policy by LRH or statistic or other information as requested above.
One final thing – this communication is from ME and not written or dictated by anyone else.
Thanks for listening, Ulf
Scientology 101 