Disconnection “Cancelled”

The above policy letter is one of many which set the tone for the current Scientology culture, and the abuses which go along with it.

Some Scientologists who look at this policy letter use the excuse that “Oh, but policy was cancelled years ago, and is no longer applicable.” There are some things that are not being looked at in this regard:

1.What is the frame of mind of a man who will come up with such a policy in the first place? He must have one hell of a ruthless streak in him in order to make such practices a policy to be followed in the first place.

2. Such a policy is indicative of a more serious underlying problem: a cultural mind-set of extremism and fanaticism.

3.The Fair Game policy was never actually cancelled. What hubbard said was:

HCO Policy Letter of 21 October 1968

Cancellation of Fair Game

“The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations.

This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of an SP.”

This indicates that:

a) he only said this as a PR move so as not to get into trouble with the authorities, not out of any personal sense of what is right and what is wrong, and

b) the policy on how to handle an SP had not changed.

And here is another policy which proves tht he never actually changed his operating basis with regard to those he viewed as “suppressive”:

“A truly Suppressive Person or group has no rights of any kind and actions taken against them are not punishable.”

– L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 1 March 1965, HCO (Division 1) “Ethics, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists”

Why Hubbard Issued this Policy

The 1968 policy was issued (but on very narrow distribution channels) in response to growing concern about Scientology and evidence heard in government investigations in New Zealand and Australia.

Hubbard was getting a lot of PR flack over disconnection, so he wrote a policy which would help PR a lot without changing anything significant. I’m sure it was meant to be misunderstood by outsiders…

He set up a smokescreen called “Reform Policy,” thereby “cancelling” not only Fair Game, but also Disconnection and Sec Checks.

The policy cancelling those things was only issued to the New Zealand government commission that was considering the banning of Scientology. It was also mentioned in a few other places, such a PR book written for Scientology, and in an article written by Hubbard for the ‘Mayfair’, where there was a show made of displaying Hubbard’s 1968 faux “Reform Code” for “wogs” and “raw meat.”

Here is what Hubbard said in his “Reform Policy” about Disconnection:

HCO Policy Letter of 15 November 1968 … Cancellation of Disconnection

“Since we can now handle all types of cases disconnection as a condition is cancelled.”

And just so you really understand how all of this was just done for PR purposes, here is what he said about cancelling Sec Checks, which, of course, we all know he never did:

HCOPL 26 AUG 1968 “SECURITY CHECKS ABOLISHED”

The practice of security checking from security check lists like the “Joburg” has been abolished.

There are several reasons for this:

1.We have no interest in the secrets and crimes of people and no use for them.

2.Security checking is often done without regard to the point where the person feels better and so became overrun.

3.Security checking is often done in disregard of the state of a person’s case.

4.Low level cases do not react on actual crimes and so the “security” furnished is often a false security.

5.There is public criticism of security checking as a practice.

6.The existence of lists of crimes in folders often makes it necessary to destroy the folders which may contain other technical data which is constructive and valuable.

7.If a person is a criminal or has overt acts which affect his case, and speaks of them to an auditor of his own volition, the auditor is bound by the Auditor’s Code not to publish, use or reveal them.

The policy above was a public relations handling– Sec Checks were never abolished. The name was changed to ‘Integrity Processing’, and around 1976, after the public relations flap was judged to have blown over, the term ‘Sec Check’ was re-adopted. There’s an LRH issue on this, where Hubbard criticizes the original name change, as though it wasn’t his idea in the first place.

When Hubbard’s 1968 “Reform Policy” sham cancellation of Disconnection, Fair Game and Sec Checks created some amount of confusion, anyone seriously involved with Scientology in the 1970s knows that disconnection was never discontinued. “Handle or disconnect” was always standard practice, no matter how it was disguised or named.

The “Reform Code of 1968″ that abolished Sec Checks, Disconnection, and Fair Game was entirely a PUBLIC RELATIONS manoeuvre.

You can still find the “Reform Code” referenced in the green management dictionary.

Furthermore, the policy did NOT cancel disconnection, rather it said that ‘disconnection as a condition’ was cancelled. Now, one might well ask, what is “disconnection as a condition”?

If you dig through some ancient ethics folders, you would find that they would often explicitly state that the subject of the ethics order was to disconnect from one or more other parties who would be named in the ethics order, and that reinstatement to good standing would not happen until that had been done. THAT was “disconnection as a condition.”

So we stopped naming names of people to be disconnected from in ethics orders. Instead, Type A PTS would be told that they had to handle or disconnect, and if handling was impossible, well, too bad! And people still had to disconnect from SPs… the Nov ’68 policy had no real impact other than PR.

Superficially, it appeared that L Ron Hubbard Scientology had cancelled disconnection. Meanwhile, the truth is that these policies all mandated it:

Tape: 6505C18 “Organization and Ethics”

Tape: 6506C08 “Handling the PTS”

HCO PL 7 March 1965RB I, SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS

HCO PL 5 Apr. 65 – HANDLING THE SUPPRESSIVE PERSON, THE BASIS OF INSANITY

HCOPL 19 July 1965 (Issue II) – SEPARATION ORDER

HCO PL 7 Aug. 65 – SUPPRESSIVE PERSONS, MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF

HCO PL 23 Dec. 65RA Rev. 10.9.83 SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS

Tape: 6608C02 “Suppressives and GAEs”

Tape: 6608C25 “The Antisocial Personality”

HCOB 27 Sept. 66 THE ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY THE ANTI-SCIENTOLOGIST

HCOB 24 Apr. 72 I C/S Series 79 PTS INTERVIEWS

HCO PL 3 May 72R Exec Series 12 Rev. 18.12.77 ETHICS AND EXECUTIVES

HCOB 10 Aug. 73 PTS HANDLING

HCO PL 15 Sept 73 HANDLING DISCONNECTIONS

HCOB 29 Dec. 78 THE SUPPRESSED PERSON RUNDOWN

HCOB 31 Dec. 78 II OUTLINE OF PTS HANDLING

HCOB 31 Dec. 78 III EDUCATING THE PTS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD HANDLING: PTS C/S-1

HCOPL 16 May 80 (Issue II) – ETHICS, PTS TYPE A, POLICY ON HANDLING ANTAGONISTIC SOURCES

HCOPL 16 May 80 (Issue II) – ETHICS, SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS

HCO PL 20 Oct. 81R PTS TYPE A HANDLING Rev. 10.9.83

HCOB 8 Mar. 83 HANDLING PTS SITUATIONS

All of these policies remain in force to this day, so what choice do members really have other than to disconnect?

Here are some quotations from some policies that illustrate that disconnection was still very much in practise prior to 1983:

HCOPL dated 23 December 1965, ‘Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists.’ Note that this policy letter was never cancelled. On page two of that HCOPL there is a list of suppressive acts over forty lines long – most of the page:

“Suppressive acts are defined as actions or omissions undertaken to knowingly suppress, reduce, or impede Scientology or Scientologists…

“[Such suppressive acts include] public disavowal of Scientology… public statements against Scientology.

“[Suppressive acts also include] continued membership in a divergent group; continued adherence to a Suppressive Person or group pronounced a Suppressive Person or group by HCO; failure to handle or disavow or disconnect from a person demonstrably guilty of suppressive acts; being at the hire of anti-Scientology groups or persons…”

and this one:

HCOB PTS HANDLINGS, 10 August 1873

“There are two stable data which anyone has to have, understand and KNOW ARE TRUE in order to obtain results in handling the person connected to suppressives.

“These data are:

“1. That all illness in greater or lesser degree and all foul-ups stem directly and only from a PTS condition.

“2. That getting rid of the condition requires three basic actions: A. Discover. B. Handle or disconnect.

“Persons called upon to handle PTS people can do so very easily, far more easily than they believe.”

–L. Ron Hubbard

Some have said that HCOB 10 September 1983, PTSness AND DISCONNECTION, which “reinstated disconnection,” was written by someone other than LRH. Ok, even if this is true, it still does not discount the fact that hubbard was the source of the disconnection concept in the first place, and mandated its use in certain circumstances, as per the MANY other policies listed above.

Here is the 1983 HCOB:

HCOB 10 September 1983, PTSness AND DISCONNECTION

LOST TECH

“Earlier, disconnection as a condition was cancelled. It had been abused by a few individuals who’d failed to handle situations which could have been handled and who lazily or criminally disconnected, thereby creating situations even worse than the original because it was a wrong action.

Secondly, there were those who could survive only by living on our lines–they wanted to continue to be connected to Scientologists (see the HCOBs on the characteristics of an SP). Thus, they screamed to high heaven if anyone dared to apply the tech of “handle or disconnect.”

This put Scientologists at a disadvantage.

We cannot afford to deny Scientologists that basic freedom that is granted to everyone else: the right to choose whom one wishes to communicate with or not communicate with. It’s bad enough that there are governments trying, through the use of force, to prevent people from disconnecting from them (witness those who want to leave Russia but can’t!).

The bare fact is that disconnection is a vital tool in handling PTSness and can be very effective when used correctly.

Therefore the tech of disconnection is hereby restored to use, in the hands of those persons thoroughly and standardly trained in PTS/SP tech. “

As was mentioned before, even if this policy were never written, there existed many other policy letters mandating disconnection, as were listed above.

And keep in mind that disconnection even means disconnection from family. Yes, he said you want to try and handle family first, but he still makes it clear that if one cannot handle their contrary viewpoint, then one should disconnect from them. Was he perhaps dramatizing the fact of his own family disconnecting from him?