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HCOPL: Handling the Suppressive Person The Basis of Insanity

SPDL Note: In HCOB 28 Nov 1970 Psychosis and HCOPL 5 Apr 1965 Handling the Suppressive Person The Basis of Insanity, Hubbard provides his “technical” criteria for determining if someone is a Suppressive Person.  To avoid being identified as an SP, a person must a) submit to Scientology’s “psychotherapy,” called “auditing, ” and b) say that he or she benefited from it, called “making case gain.”

If either a) or b) is answered in the negative, Scientology treats the person as an SP. It’s as simple as that — if the person won’t submit to the auditing, or won’t say he benefited from it, that person is an antisocial personality, an insane criminal, and fair game.

There is quite clearly a very high motivation for Scientologists to have “huge wins” in their auditing and to write “glowing success stories” about all the “fabulous gains” they’ve gotten.

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO POLICY LETTER OF 5 APRIL 19651; 2; 3

Issue I

Gen. Non-Remimeo
HCO Sec Hat
Tech Sec Hat
D of P Hat
D of T Hat

HCO JUSTICE DATA RE ACADEMY AND HGC

HANDLING THE SUPPRESSIVE PERSON

THE BASIS OF INSANITY

The suppressive person (whom we’ve called a Merchant of Fear or Chaos Merchant and which we can now technically call the suppressive person) can’t stand the idea of Scientology. If people became better, the suppressive person would have lost. The suppressive person answers this by attacking covertly or overtly Scientology. This thing is, he thinks, his mortal enemy since it undoes his (or her) “good work” in putting people down where they should be.

There are three “operations” such a case seeks to engage upon regarding Scientology: (a) to disperse it, (b) to try to crush it and (c) to pretend it didn’t exist.

Dispersal would consist of several things such as attributing its source to others and altering its processes or structure.

If you feel a bit dispersed reading this policy letter, then realize it is about a being whose whole “protective coloration” is to disperse others and so remain invisible. Such people generalize all entheta and create ARC breaks madly.

The second (b) is done by covert or overt means. Covertly, a suppressive person leaves the org door locked, loses the E-Meters, runs up fantastic bills, and energetically and unseen seeks to pull out the plug and get Scientology poured down the drain. We, poor fools, consider all this just “human error” or “stupidity.” We rarely realize that such actions, far from being accidents, are carefully thought out. The proof that this is so is simple. If we run down the source of these errors, we wind up with only one or two people in the whole group. Now isn’t it odd that the majority of errors that kept the group enturbulated were attributable to a minority of persons present? Even a very “reasonable” person could not make anything else out of that except that it was very odd and indicated that the minority mentioned were interested in smashing the group and that the behavior was not common to the whole group-meaning it isn’t “normal” behavior.

These people aren’t communists or fascists or any other ists.  They are just very sick people. They easily become parts of suppressive groups such as communists or fascists because these groups, like criminals, are suppressive.

The suppressive person is hard to spot because of the dispersal factor mentioned above. One looks at them and has his attention dispersed by their “everybody is bad.”

The suppressive person who is visibly seeking to knock out people or Scientology is easy to see. He or she is making such a fuss about it. The attacks are quite vicious and full of lies. But even here when the suppressive person exists on the “other side” of a potential trouble source, visibility is not good. One sees a case going up and down. On the other side of that case, out of the auditor’s view, is the suppressive person.

The whole trick they use is to generalize entheta. “Everybody is bad.” “The Russians are all bad.” “Everybody hates you.” “The People versus John Doe” on warrants. “The masses.” “The secret police will get you.”

Suppressive groups use the ARC break mechanisms of generalizing entheta so it seems “everywhere.”

The suppressive person is a specialist in making others ARC break with generalized entheta that is mostly lies.

He or she is also a no-gain case.

So avid are such for the smashing of others by covert or overt means that their case is bogged and won’t move under routine processing.

The technical fact is that they have a huge problem, long gone and no longer known even to themselves, which they use hidden or forthright vicious acts continually to “handle.” They do not act to solve the environment they are in. They are solving one environment, yesterday’s, in which they are stuck.

The only reason the insane were hard to understand is that they are handling situations which no longer exist. The situation probably existed at one time. They think they have to hold their own, with overts against a nonexistent enemy to solve a nonexistent problem.

Because their overts are continuous they have withholds.

Since such a person has withholds, he or she can’t communicate freely to as-is the block on the track that keeps them in some yesterday. Hence, a “no-gain case. ”

That alone is the way to locate a suppressive person. By viewing the case. Never judge such a person by their conduct. That is too difficult. Judge by no case gains. Don’t even use tests.

One asks these questions:

1. Will the person permit auditing at all? or

2. Does their history of routine auditing reveal any gains?

If (1) is present one is safe to treat the person as suppressive. It is not always correct, but it is always safe. Some errors will be made, but it is better to make them than to take a chance on it. When people refuse auditing, they are (a) a potential trouble source (connected to a suppressive person); (b) a person with a big discreditable withhold; (c) a suppressive person or (d) have had the bad luck to be “audited” too often by a suppressive person or (e) have been audited by an untrained auditor or one “trained” by a suppressive person.

The last category (e) (untrained auditor) is rather slight but (d) (audited by a suppressive person) can have been pretty serious, resulting in continual ARC breaks during which auditing was pressed on without regard to the ARC break.

Thus, there are several possibilities when somebody refuses auditing. One has to sort them out in an HGC4 and handle the right one. But HCO by policy simply treats the person with the same admin policy procedure as that used on a suppressive person and lets HGC sort it out. Get that difference-it’s “with the same admin policy procedure as” not “the same as.” For treating a person “the same as” a suppressive person when he or she is not only adds to the confusion. One treats a real suppressive person pretty rough. One has to handle the bank.

As to (2) here is the real test and the only valid test: Does their history of routine auditing reveal any gains? If the answer is NO then there is your suppressive person, loud and very unclear!

That is the test.

There are several ways of detecting. When fair auditors or good ones have had to vary routine procedure or do unusual things on this case in an effort to make it gain, when there are lots of notes from Ds of P in the folder saying do this-do that-you know that this case was trouble. This means it was one of three things: (l) a potential trouble source, (2) a person with a big withhold or (3) a suppressive person.

If, despite all that trouble and care the case did not gain-or if the case simply didn’t gain despite auditing, no matter how many years or intensives then you’ve caught your suppressive person.

That’s the boy. Or the girl.

This case performs continual calculating, covert, hostile acts damaging to others. This case puts the enturbulence and upset into the environment, breaks the chairs, messes up the rugs and spoils the traffic flow with “goofs” done intentionally.

One should lock criminals out of the environment if one wants security. But one first has to locate the criminal. Don’t lock everybody out because you can’t find the criminal.

The cyclic case (gains and collapses routinely) is connected to a suppressive person. We have policy on that.

The case that continually pleads “hold my hand, I am so ARC broken” is just somebody with a big withhold, not an ARC break.

The suppressive person just gets no case gain5 on routine student auditing.

This person is actively suppressing Scientology. If such will sit still and pretend to be audited, the suppression is by hidden hostile acts which include:

1. Chopping up auditors;

2. Pretending withholds which are actually criticisms;

3. Giving out “data” about their past lives and/or whole track that really hold such subjects up to scorn and makes people who do remember, wince;

4. Chopping up orgs;

5. Alter-ising technology to mess it up;

6. Spreading rumors about prominent persons in Scientology;

7. Attributing Scientology to other sources;

8. Criticizing auditors as a group;

9. Rolling up dev-t—off-policy, off-origin, off-line;

10. Giving fragmentary or generalized reports about entheta that cave people in—and isn’t actual;

11. Refusing to repair ARC breaks;

12. Engaging in discreditable sexual acts (also true of potential trouble sources);

13. Reporting a session good when the pc went bad;

14. Reporting a session bad when the pc went up in tone;

15. Snapping terminals with lecturers and executives to make critical remarks or spread ARC break-type “news” to them;

16. Failing to relay comm or report;

17. Making an org go to pieces (note, one uses “making” not “letting”);

18. Committing small criminal acts around the org;

19. Making “mistakes” which get their seniors in trouble;

20. Refusing to abide by policy;

21. Noncompliance with instructions;

22. Alter-is of instructions or orders so that the program fouls up;

23. Hiding data that is vital to prevent upsets;

24. Altering orders to make a senior look bad;

25. Organizing revolts or mass protest meetings;

26. Snarling about justice.

And so on. One does not use the catalog, however; one only uses this one fact—no case gain by routine auditing over a longish period.

This is the fellow that makes life miserable for the rest of us. This is the one who overworks executives. This is the auditor killer. This is the course enturbulator or pc killer.

There’s the cancer. Burn it out.

__________

In short, you begin to see that it’s this one who is the only one who makes harsh discipline seem necessary. The rest of the staff suffers when one or two of these is present.

One hears a whine about “process didn’t work” or sees an alter-is of tech. Go look. You’ll find it now and then leads to a suppressive person inside or outside the org.

Now that one knows who it is, one can handle it.

But more than that, I can now crack this case!

The technology is useful on all cases, of course. But only this cracks the “no-gain case.”

The person is in a mad, howling situation of some yesteryear and is “handling it” by committing overt acts today. I say condition of yesteryear but the case thinks it’s today.

Yes, you’re right. They are nuts. The spinbins are full of either them or their victims. There’s no other real psycho in a spinbin!

What? That means we’ve cracked insanity itself? That’s right. And it’s given us the key to the suppressive person and his or her effect on the environment. This is the multitude of “types” of insanity of the nineteenth century psychiatrist. All in one. Schizophrenia, paranoia, fancy names galore. Only one other type exists—the person the suppressive person got “at.” This is the “manic-depressive” a type who is up one day and down the next. This is the potential trouble source gone mad. But these are in a minority in the spinbin, usually put there by suppressive persons and not crazy at all! The real mad ones are the suppressive persons. They are the only psychos.

Oversimplification? No indeed. I can prove it! We could empty the spinbins now. If we want to. But we have better uses for technology than saving a lot of suppressive persons who themselves act only to scuttle the rest of us.

You see, when they get down to no-case-gain where a routine process won’t bite, they can no longer as-is their daily life so it all starts to stack up into a horror. They “solve” this horror by continuous covert acts against their surroundings and associates. After a while the covert ones don’t seem to hold off the fancied “horror” and they commit some senseless violence in broad daylight—or collapse—and so they get identified as insane and are lugged off to the spinbin.

Anybody can “get mad” and bust a few chairs when a suppressive person goes too far. But there’s traceable sense to it. Getting mad doesn’t make a madman. It’s damaging actions that have no sensible detectable reason that’s the trait of madness. Any thetan can get angry. Only a madman damages without reason.

All actions have their lower-scale, discreditable mockery. The difference is, does one get over his anger? The no-case-gain of course can’t. He or she stays misemotional and adds each new burst to the fire. It never gets less. It grows. And a long way from all suppressive persons are violent. They are more likely to look resentful.

A suppressive person can get to one solid dispassionate state of damaging things. Here is the accident prone, the home wrecker, the group wrecker.

Now here one must realize something. The suppressive person finds outlet for his or her unexpressed rage by carefully needling those they are connected with into howling anger.

You see the people around them get dragged into this long-gone incident by mistaken identity. And it is a maddening situation to be continually misidentified, accused, worked on, double-crossed. For one is not the being the suppressive person supposes. The suppressive person’s world is pretty hard to live around. And even ordinarily cheerful people often blow up under the strain.

So be careful who you call the suppressive person. The person connected with a suppressive person is liable to be the only visible rage in sight!

You have some experience of this-the mousey little woman, who rarely changes expression and is so righteous, connected to somebody who now and then goes into a frenzy.

How to tell them apart? Easy! Just ask this question—Which gets a case gain easily?

Well, it’s even simpler than that! Put the two on an E-Meter. Don’t do anything but read the dial and needle. The suppressive one has the high, stuck TA.

The other has a lower TA. Simple?

Not all suppressive persons have high TA. The TA can be anywhere, especially very low (1.0). But the needle is weird. It is stuck tight or it R/Ses without reason (the pc wearing no rings to cause an R/S).

Suppressive persons also can have the “dead” thetan Clear read!

You see people around a suppressive person Q-and-A and disperse. They seek to “get even” with the suppressive person and often exhibit the same symptoms temporarily.

Sometimes two suppressive persons are found together. So one can’t always say which is the suppressive person in a pair. The usual combination is the suppressive person and the potential trouble source.

However, you don’t need to guess about it or observe their conduct.

It’s really no-ease-gain by routine processing that is the only valid test.

For this poor soul can no longer as-is easily. Too many overts. Too many withholds. Stuck in an incident that they call “present time.” Handling a problem that does not exist. Supposing those around are the personnel in their own delirium.

They look all right. They sound reasonable. They are often clever. But they are solid poison. They can’t as-is anything. Day by day their pile grows. Day by day their new overts and withholds pin them down tighter. They aren’t here. But they sure can wreck the place.

There is the true psycho.

And he or she is dying before your very eyes. Kind of horrible.

The resolution of the case is a clever application of Problems Processes, never O/W. What was the condition? How did you handle it? is the key type of process.

I don’t know what the percentage of these are in a society. I know only that they made up about 10 percent of any group so far observed. The data is obscured by the fact that they ARC break others and make them misemotional—thus, one of them seems to be, by contagion, half-a-dozen such.

Therefore, simple inspection of conduct does not reveal the suppressive person. Only a case folder puts the seal on it. No case gain by routine processes.

However, this test too may soon become untrustworthy for now we can crack them by a special approach. However, we will also generally use the same approach on routine cases as it makes cases go upward fast, and we may catch the suppressive person accidentally and cure him or her before we are aware of it.

And that would be wonderful.

But still we’ll have such on our lines in justice matters from now on. So it’s good to know all about them, how they are identified, how to handle.

HCO must handle such cases as per the HCO Justice Codes on suppressive acts when they blow Scientology or seek to  suppress Scientologists or orgs. One should study up on these.

The Academy should be careful of this and report them to HCO promptly (as they would potential trouble sources or withholds that won’t be delivered).

The Academy must not fool about with suppressive persons. It’s a sure way to deteriorate a course and cave in students.

POLICY

When an Academy finds it has a potential trouble source, a “withholdy case that ARC breaks easily” or a suppressive person enrolled on a course or a blow, the Academy must call for HCO Department of Inspections and Reports, Justice Section. This can be any HCO personnel available, even the HCO Sec.

The HCO representative must wear some readily identified HCO symbol and must take a report sheet with a carbon copy on a clipboard.

HCO must have present other staff adequate to handle possible physical violence.

The student, if still present, must be taken to a place where an interview will not stop or enturbulate a class, by Tech Division personnel. This can be any Tech Division office, empty auditing room or empty classroom. The point is to localize the commotion and not stir up the whole Tech Division.

If Tech Division personnel are not available, HCO can recruit “other staff’ anywhere by simply saying “HCO requires you” and taking them into the interview place.

HCO has a report sheet for such matters, original and one copy for justice file.

The HCO representative calls for the student’s folder and looks it over quickly for TA action. If there is none (less than 10 divisions/session), that’s it. It is marked on the report sheet “No TA action in auditing” or “Little TA.” HCO is not interested in what processes were run. Or why there is no TA. If the course requires no meters, the folder is inspected for alter-is (which denotes a rough pc) or no case changes.

If there are no TA notations in the folder, HCO should put the person on a meter making sure the person is not wearing a ring. One asks no questions, merely reads the TA position and notes the needle and marks these in the report sheet. The tone arm will be very high (5 or above) or very low (2 or less) or dead thetan (2 or 3), and the needle would be an occasional R/S or stuck or sticky if the person is a suppressive person. This is noted in the report sheet.

If the folder or the student in question says he has had no case gain, this is again confirming of a suppressive person.

If two of these three points (folder, meter, statement) indicate a suppressive person, HCO is looking for two possible students when so called in—the one who caused the upset and that student’s coach or student auditor. There very likely may be a suppressive person on the course that is not this student. Therefore, one looks for that one too, the second one.

If a bit of questioning seems to reveal that the student’s auditor was responsible, test that student too and enter it on a second HCO report form. And order the other one to auditing at the student’s own expense.

In short, be alert. There’s been an upset. There may be other persons about who caused it. Don’t just concentrate on the student. There is a condition on the course that causes upsets. That is really all one knows when one walks in on it. Find out why and what.

If the HCO tests indicate some doubt about either student being a suppressive person, HCO asks about a possible withhold and enters any result on the sheet and sends the student and sheet separately to the Tech Division, Dept of Estimations.

The procedure is the same for a suppressive person but is “a withholdy pc who ARC breaks easily” or simply “a withholdy pc” if no ARC breaks are noted. “Auditing recommended.”

But there is a third category for which HCO is very alert in this interview. And that is the POTENTIAL TROUBLE SOURCE. For this person may only be audited further if he or she disconnects or handles the suppressive person or group to which he or she is connected and can’t be sent to the HGC or back to the course either until the status is cleared up.

If this seems the case, there is no point in continuing the person in the Tech Division and HCO takes over fully, applying the policy related to potential trouble sources.

This type of case will probably not be dangerous but quite cooperative and probably dazed by having to do something about his situation. He or she has been hammered with invalidation by a suppressive person and may be rather wobbly, but if the justice steps are taken exactly on policy, there should be no trouble. HCO can take a potential trouble source (but never a suppressive person) out of the Tech Division premises and back to HCO to complete such briefing. Remember, it is all one to us if the potential trouble source handles it or not. Until it’s handled or disconnected we don’t want it around as it’s just more trouble, and the person will cave in if audited under those conditions (connected to a suppressive person or group).

A suppressive person found in an Academy is ordered to HGC processing always. And always at his or her own expense.

If the suppressive person won’t buy auditing or cooperate, HCO follows steps A to E in policy on suppressive persons in the Justice Codes; HCO may be assisted in this by Tech personnel.

The point is, the situation must be handled fully there and then. The student buys his auditing or gets A t o E. There is no “We’ll put you on probation in the course and if__________” because I’ve not found it to work. Auditing or suppressive person A to E. Or both.

THE BLOWN STUDENT

The student, however, may have blown off the premises or be gone entirely.

On a minor, momentary blow, where all it took was the student’s auditor and a few words to get the student back, the matter is not a real blow.

But where the student leaves the premises in a blow or doesn’t turn up for class, the Tech Division must send an Instructor and the student’s auditor over to HCO Department of Inspections and Reports. An HCO representative should go with them at once to pick up the student.

The student is brought back with as little public commotion as possible, and the procedure of HCO checkout, etc., is followed as above.

THE GONE STUDENT

Where the student can’t be gotten back (or in all such cases), the real cause may be a suppressive person in the course itself, not the blown student or the upset student.

If the suppressive person is on the course (and is not the blown student), HCO will want to know this. In all such cases the one who caused the commotion may not be the culprit.

The HCO representative calls for the blown student’s case folder and looks for TA. If there is none or for some reason the student wasn’t audited or if no meters were used on that course, HCO seeks to find out what the case’s responses were to processing.

If the case seemed to change or improve yet the student is gone, HCO looks over the blown student’s ex-auditor for suppressive characteristics such as satisfaction the pc blew, critical statements about tech or Instructors, case rough or difficult, lies about the circumstances, etc., and if such signs are present, HCO orders the blown student’s ex-auditor to the HGC at the student’s own expense.

If this interview with the blown student’s auditor seems to indicate a suppressive person beyond any doubt, HCO orders the student to the HGC at the student’s own expense.

The blown student’s course auditor will not be found usually to be a potential trouble source as these are seldom bad or rough aUditors, so questions about this possibility don’t really apply.

But if this student (the blown student’s auditor) is suppressive, it’s HGC or A to E. If the student gives on A to E, he or she may be returned to course or sent to the HGC as HCO deems best.

In all such cases where a suppressive person is found, watch out for legal repercussions by having reliable witnesses present during such negotiations or upsets and take liberal notes for possible Comm Ev. This is why there also must be an HCO representative handling it.

If there is no agreement to be audited and the student who is found to be a suppressive person will not respond to A to E (because student has blown and can’t be found or because the student flatly refuses), the student is considered terminated.

A waiver or quit claim is given or sent the student stating

Date __________

Place __________

I,__________, having refused to abide by the Codes of (name and place of org) do hereby waive any further rights I may have as a Scientologist, and in return for my course fee of __________, I do hereby quit any claim I may have on (name of org) or any Scientologist personnel or any person or group or organization of Scientology.

Signed __________

2 Witnesses__________

__________

Only when this is signed the student may have his course fee  returned, but no other fees as he accepted that service.

The ex-student should realize this puts him outside our Justice Codes. He may not have recourse of any kind beyond refund. And after signing can only return to Scientology as per HCO PL 23 Dec. 65RB, SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS.

The HGC audits such a suppressive person sent to it on special processes specially issued by HCOB for suppressive persons. It will be found that adherence to these policies will make things in Academies very calm.

Note: Nothing in this policy letter waives or sets aside any policy concerning the auditing of known institutional cases in an HGC. Persons with histories of institutionalized insanity may not be audited in HGC.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

P.S. If you’ve wondered if you are a suppressive person while reading this—you aren’t! A suppressive person never does wonder, not for a moment! They KNOW they’re sane!

Notes

  1. Document studied on the How to Confront and Shatter Suppression PTS/SP Course. (2001 ed.) ↩
  2. Document studied on DSA Investigations Officer Full Hat. ↩
  3. Document studied on the Hubbard False Purpose Rundown Auditor Course. ↩
  4.  HGC: Hubbard Guidance Center .  This is the section of Scientology’s organization that delivers Hubbard’s expensive “psychotherapy” called “auditing.”  The person receiving the auditing is called the “preclear.”  The Scientology or Dianetics “auditor” audits the preclear’s “case.”   The preclear’s auditing program is designed and directed by the “C/S, ” or “Case supervisor.” ↩
  5. “case gain: an improvement or resurgence experienced from auditing; any case betterment according to the preclear.”   —  L. Ron Hubbard Introduction to Scientology Ethics

    “SPs don’t get case gains. Sometimes they pretend them. They are held back by their continuing overts (crimes). If we were found by them to be decent, their past conduct would swell up and engulf them.” — L. Ron Hubbard HCOPL 7 Aug 1965 Suppressive Persons, Main Characteristics Of ↩

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Article: The True Story of Scientology

1

THE TRUE STORY of Scientology is simple, concise and direct. It is quickly told:

1. A philosopher developed a philosophy about life and death.

2. People find it interesting.

3. People find it works.

4. People pass it along to others.

5. It grows.

When we examine this extremely accurate and very brief account, we see that there must be in our civilization some very disturbing elements for anything else to be believed about Scientology.

These disturbing elements are the Merchants of Chaos2. They deal in confusion and upset. Their daily bread is made by creating chaos. If chaos were to lessen, so would their incomes.

The politician, the reporter, the medico, the drug manufacturer, the militarist and arms manufacturer, the police and the undertaker, to name the leaders of the list, fatten only upon “the dangerous environment.3 Even individuals and family members can be Merchants of Chaos.4

It is to their interest to make the environment seem as threatening as possible, for only then can they profit. Their incomes, force and power rise in direct ratio to the amount of threat they can inject into the surroundings of the people. With that threat, they can extort revenue, appropriations, heightened circulations and recompense without question. These are the Merchants of Chaos. If they did not generate it and buy and sell it, they would, they suppose, be poor.

For instance, we speak loosely of “good press.” Is there any such thing today? Look over a newspaper. Is there anything good on the front page? Rather, there is murder and sudden death, disagreement and catastrophe. And even that, bad as it is, is sensationalized to make it seem worse.

This is the cold-blooded manufacture of “a dangerous environment.” People do not need this news and if they did, they need the facts, not the upset. But if you hit a person hard enough, he can be made to give up money. That’s the basic formula of extortion. That’s the way papers are sold. The impact makes them stick.

A paper has to have chaos and confusion. A “news story” has to have “conflict,” they say. So there is no good press. There is only bad press about everything. To yearn for “good press” is foolhardy in a society where the Merchants of Chaos reign.

Look what has to be done to the true story of Scientology in order to “make it a news story” by modern press standards. Conflict must be injected where there is none. Therefore the press has to dream up upset and conflict.

Let us take the first line. How does one make conflict out of it? “1. A philosopher develops a philosophy about life and death.”

The Chaos Merchant has to inject one of several possible conflicts here: He is not a philosopher, they have to assert. They are never quite bold enough to say it is not a philosophy. But they can and do go on endlessly, as their purpose compels them, in an effort to invalidate the identity of the person developing it.

In actual fact, the developer of the philosophy was very well grounded in academic subjects and the humanities, probably better grounded in formal philosophy alone than teachers of philosophy in universities. The one-man effort is incredible in terms of study and research hours and is a record never approached in living memory but this would not be considered newsworthy. To write the simple fact that a philosopher had developed a philosophy is not newspaper-type news and it would not disturb the environment. Hence the elaborate news fictions about (1) above.

Then take the second part of the true story. “People find it interesting.” It would be very odd if they didn’t, as everyone asks these questions of himself and looks for the answers to his own beingness, and the basic truth of the answers is observable in the conclusions of Scientology.

However, to make this “news,” it has to be made disturbing. People are painted as “kidnapped” or “hypnotized” and “dragged as unwilling victims” up to read the books or listen.

The Chaos Merchant leaves (3) very thoroughly alone. It is dangerous ground for him. “People find it works.” No hint of workability would ever be attached to Scientology by the press, although there is no doubt in the press mind that it does work.

That’s why it’s dangerous. It calms the environment. So, any time spent trying to convince press Scientology works is time spent upsetting a reporter.

On “4. People pass it along to others,” press feels betrayed. Nobody should believe anything they don’t read in the papers. How dare word of mouth exist? So to try to stop people from listening, the Chaos Merchant has to use words like “cult.” That’s a “closed group,” whereas Scientology is the most open group on Earth to anyone. And they have to attack organizations and their people to try to keep people out of Scientology:

Now as for “5. It grows,” we have the true objection.

As truth goes forward, lies die. The slaughter of lies is an act that takes bread from the mouth of a Chaos Merchant. Unless he can lie with wild abandon about how bad it all is, he thinks he will starve.

The world simply must not be a better place according to the Chaos Merchant. If people were less disturbed, less beaten down by their environments, there would be no new appropriations for police and armies and big rockets and there’d be not even pennies for a screaming sensational press.

So long as politicians move upward on scandal, police get more pay for more crime, medicos get fatter on more sickness, there will be Merchants of Chaos. They’re paid for it.

And their threat is the simple story of Scientology. For that is the true story. And behind its progress there is a calmer environment in which a man can live and feel better. If you don’t believe it, just stop reading newspapers for two weeks and see if you feel better. Suppose you had all such disturbances handled?

The pity of it is, of course, that even the Merchant of Chaos needs us, not to get fatter but just to live himself as a being.

So the true story of Scientology is a simple story.

And too true to be turned aside.5

Hubbard, L. R. (1965). The True Story of Scientology Scientology. A New Slant on Life (2007 ed., pp. 257-265). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.

Notes

  1. Notice the man’s forked tongue that doubles as the roots of the “Tree of Life” and the deadly brambles that threaten it. ↩
  2. Definition: Merchants of Chaos ↩
  3. Scientology lures people in with their “solutions for the dangerous environment” under the heading of “Scientology Zero.” ↩
  4. Merchants of Chaos are more commonly known as Suppressive Persons or SPs. Definition: Suppressive Person. ↩
  5. This essay was published as HCO Information Letter 10 December 1963 Scientology Zero The Dangerous Environment The True Story of Scientology.  The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology, (Vol VII, 1991 ed., pp. 356-358). ↩

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HCO Info Letter: Scientology Zero The Dangerous Environment The True Story of Scientology

THE TRUE STORY of Scientology is simple, concise and direct. It is quickly told:

1. A Doctor of Philosophy developed a philosophy about life and death.1

2. People find it interesting.

3. People find it works.

4. People pass it along to others.

5. It grows.

When we examine this extremely accurate and very brief account, we see that there must be amongst us some very disturbing elements for anything else to be believed about Scientology.2

These disturbing elements are the Merchants of Chaos3. They deal in confusion and upset. Their daily bread is made by creating chaos. If chaos were to lessen, so would their incomes.

The politician, the reporter, the medico, the drug manufacturer, the militarist and arms manufacturer, the police and the undertaker, to name the leaders of the list, fatten only upon “the dangerous environment.4 Even individuals and family members can be Merchants of Chaos.5

It is to their interest to make the environment seem as threatening as possible, for only then can they profit. Their incomes, force and power rise in direct ratio to the amount of threat they can inject into the surroundings of the people. With that threat, they can extort revenue, appropriations, heightened circulations and recompense without question. These are the Merchants of Chaos. If they did not generate it and buy and sell it, they would, they suppose, be poor.

For instance, we speak loosely of “good press.” Is there any such thing today? Look over a newspaper. Is there anything good on the front page? Rather, there is murder and sudden death, disagreement and catastrophe. And even that, bad as it is, is sensationalized to make it seem worse.

This is the cold-blooded manufacture of “a dangerous environment.” People do not need this news and if they did, they need the facts, not the upset. But if you hit a person hard enough, he can be made to give up money. That’s the basic formula of extortion. That’s the way papers are sold. The impact makes them stick.

A paper has to have chaos and confusion. A “news story” has to have “conflict,” they say. So there is no good press. There is only bad press about everything. To yearn for “good press” is foolhardy in a society where the Merchants of Chaos reign.

Look what has to be done to the true story of Scientology in order to “make it a news story” by modern press standards. Conflict must be injected where there is none. Therefore the press has to dream up upset and conflict.

Let us take the first line. How does one make conflict out of it? “1. A Doctor of Philosophy developed a philosophy about life and death.”[Cf. New Slant on Life (2007): How does one make conflict out of it? “1. A philosopher develops a philosophy about life and death.”]

The Chaos Merchant has to inject one of several possible conflicts here: He is not a Doctor of Philosophy, they have to assert.6 They are never quite bold enough to say it is not a philosophy. But they can and do go on endlessly, as their purpose compels them, in an effort to invalidate the identity of the person developing it.

In actual fact, the developer of the philosophy was very well grounded in academic subjects and the humanities, probably better grounded in formal philosophy alone than teachers of philosophy in universities.

The one-man effort is incredible in terms of study and research hours and is a record never approached in living memory but this would not be considered newsworthy. To write the simple fact that a Doctor of Philosophy had developed a philosophy is not newspaper-type news and it would not disturb the environment. 7 Hence the elaborate news fictions about 1 above.

Then take the second part of the true story. “People find it interesting.” It would be very odd if they didn’t, as everyone asks these questions of himself and looks for the answers to his own beingness, and the basic truth of the answers is observable in the conclusions of Scientology.

However, to make this “news,” it has to be made disturbing. People are painted as kidnapped or hypnotized and dragged as unwilling victims up to read the books or listen.8

The Chaos Merchant leaves 3 very thoroughly alone. It is dangerous ground for him. “People find it works.” No hint of workability would ever be attached to Scientology by the press, although there is no doubt in the press mind that it does work. That’s why it’s dangerous. It calms the environment. So, any time spent trying to convince press Scientology works is time spent upsetting a reporter.

On “4. People pass it along to others,” press feels betrayed. Nobody should believe anything they don’t read in the papers. How dare word of mouth exist? So to try to stop people from listening, the Chaos Merchant has to use words like “cult.” That’s a “closed group,” whereas Scientology is the most open group on Earth to anyone. And they have to attack organizations and their people to try to keep people out of Scientology:

Now as for “5. It grows,” we have the true objection.

As truth goes forward, lies die. The slaughter of lies is an act that takes bread from the mouth of a Chaos Merchant. Unless he can lie with wild abandon about how bad it all is, he thinks he will starve.

The world simply must not be a better place according to the Chaos Merchant. If people were less disturbed, less beaten down by their environments, there would be no new appropriations for police and armies and big rockets and there’d be not even pennies for a screaming sensational press.

So long as politicians move upward on scandal, police get more pay for more crime, medicos get fatter on more sickness, there will be Merchants of Chaos. They’re paid for it.

And their threat is the simple story of Scientology. For that is the true story. And behind its progress there is a calmer environment in which a man can live and feel better. If you don’t believe it, just stop reading newspapers for two weeks and see if you feel better. Suppose you had all such disturbances handled?

The pity of it is, of course, that even the Merchant of Chaos needs us, not to get fatter but just to live himself as a being.

So the true story of Scientology is a simple story.

And too true to be turned aside.

Hubbard, L. R. (1963, 10 December). Scientology Zero The Dangerous Environment The True Story of Scientology. (HCO Information Letter).The Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology (1991 ed., Vol. VII, pp. 356-358). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.

Notes

  1. Cf. New Slant on Life, (2007 ed., p. 259): “A philosopher developed a philosophy about life and death.” ↩
  2. Cf. New Slant on Life (2007): “When we examine this extremely accurate and very brief account, we see that there must be in our civilization some very disturbing elements for anything else to be believed about Scientology.” ↩
  3. Definition: Merchants of Chaos ↩
  4. Scientology lures people in with their “solutions for the dangerous environment” under the heading of “Scientology Zero.” ↩
  5. Merchants of Chaos are more commonly known as Suppressive Persons or SPs. Definition: Suppressive Person. ↩
  6. Cf. New Slant on Life (2007): He is not a philosopher, they have to assert. ↩
  7. Cf. New Slant on Life (2007): To write the simple fact that a philosopher had developed a philosophy is not newspaper-type news and it would not disturb the environment. ↩
  8. Cf. New Slant on Life (2007): People are painted as “kidnapped” or “hypnotized” and “dragged as unwilling victims” up to read the books or listen. (Quotation marks removed.) ↩

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PAB: On Human Behavior

PAB 13

PROFESSIONAL AUDITOR’S BULLETIN

Via Hubbard Communications Office
163 Holland Park Avenue, London W11

_____________________________________________________________________

ca. mid-November 19531

ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR

It greatly facilitates the work of the auditor to know the most aberrated and most aberrative types of personality.

Kraepelin in Germany a long time ago made a long and varied psychotic classification. This has been refined and made, if anything, even more unwieldy in modern times. It is valueless since it does not lead to the immediate remedy of the situation. Further, we are not very interested in types. There is really no such thing as a special type of psychosis or neurosis, beyond those types which are quite aberrative around the preclear.

If we could isolate a particular set of traits as being the most aberrative traits, we could more quickly process the preclear by using Acceptance Level Processing or Viewpoint Processing on such people.

Probably the truly aberrative personalities in our society do not number more than five or ten percent. They have very special traits. Where you find in the preclear’s bank a person with one or more of these characteristics, you will have the person who most thoroughly tried the preclear’s sanity.

What we will call the aberrative personality2 does the following things:

1. Everything bad that happened to the preclear was (a) ridiculous, (b) unimportant, (c) deserved.

2. Everything the preclear and others did to the aberrative person was (a) very important, (b) very bad, (c) irremediable.

3. Those things which the preclear could do (a) were without real value, (b) were done better by the aberrative personality or by others.

4. Sexual restraint or perversion.

5. Inhibition of eating.

Such people would be better understood if I called them the “merchants of fear.” The most degraded control operation of which the GE is capable is utilized by these people for their sole method of getting on in the world. They have lost all ability themselves to create, they cannot work themselves, they must either amass money which is never to be spent or must prevent others from amassing money. They produce nothing, they must steal one way or another, and then devaluate whatever they obtain.

They speak very sternly of honesty or ethics and put on a formidable front of complete legality. They are impartial, which is to say they are incapable of decision but ride continually a maybe. They close terminals easily with courts, for courts are, sad to say, more or less of this disposition themselves. They feel called upon at no pretext to become adjudicative on subjects where their opinion has not been invited.

Probably a society could be cleared and allowed to bloom if these people were simply rounded up and removed from contagion with the remaining populace, for they are not numerous. Yet they are in sufficient number that it is doubtful if your preclears who are more seriously badly off have not had at least one in their past. It is particularly true of the occluded case that he has been victimized by one of these “merchants of fear.”

Although there are many characteristics which are undesirable in such aberrative people, it is remarkable that only those listed above are aberrative. These wind sinuously as a threatening thread through all of their conversations. Such people are a mixture of paradoxes to the observer who does not understand the basic ingredients of human character.

Such people are themselves a continuous maybe, and therefore will be found very easily in the bank, for they appear most often. Where you find one, two or three people appearing almost continuously in the preclear’s bank, or his lamenting conversation, you will find that these people answer the above-numbered characteristics.

The method of processing these people is to have the preclear mock them up in large masses with the certainty that they are there, and then, with them unmocked, with the certainty they are not there. Then, mocked up again, with the certainty that they will be in the future, and, unmocked, with the certainty they will not be in the future. One also runs the above concepts in masses and in brackets.

A case cannot be said to be well so long as these aberrative personalities continue to reappear in his thoughts and processing. Therefore the auditor will find it extremely profitable to use all available means to process these people out of the preclear’s bank. When the auditor has succeeded in doing this, he will find that the preclear now believes himself to be very much better than before and, indeed, he will be.

It should be remembered that such people have invited many overt acts. The “merchants of fear” specialize in being offended themselves and, even  though the overt acts against them are slight, these have become magnified in the preclear’s bank until such people, on the overt act phenomenon alone, occupy a major role in the preclear’s thinking.

It will often be discovered by the auditor that the preclear has “swapped terminals” with these aberrative persons. The weight of aberration is such that the preclear has been swung into the valence of such people, for they have obviously won.

The truth of the matter is such people never win. If one traces out these people, as I have done occasionally after processing a preclear, he will discover that the aberrative personality is very close to the brink of a crack-up, has a very low survival level, and quite commonly goes insane.

It should be understood that anyone going down tone scale in moments of anger is apt to use the above-numbered steps one way or another. But this is a momentary thing; the above steps belong, of course, on the tone scale and are significant of a level on the tone scale. Thus, one going down tone scale into anger or into apathy, is inclined to use these operations momentarily. This is quite different from the aberrative personality. The aberrative personality is at work with this operation twenty-four hours a day. Ceaselessly, relentlessly, calculatingly, with full knowingness, the aberrative personality continues this onslaught against those around him.

The entire computation of this aberrative personality is that he is worthless, he himself knows himself to be completely worthless. One might feel a little pity if the harm were not so great, for there is nothing more terrible than this knowledge. The aberrative personality feels he cannot succeed unless he drives others away from him with fear, preferably with terror. He assumes aspects of ugliness in matters of clothing; he is quite prone to ugliness. Very often this personality does not bathe, his breath is very often foul, his feet become odorous, the endocrine system has failed one way or another, the person has considerable bowel trouble. Other people than the aberrative personality occasionally manifest these difficulties; unfortunately, it all stems from the same idea—to drive other people away.

The communication lag of the aberrative personality is his easiest clue. These people are slow to respond, they are very thoughtful about what they say. They “think twice before speaking once,” if they speak at all. When they do speak it is very often not on the subject. Their favorite phrase is “You do not understand.” They preface their statements with, “Well, I don’t know but….” There is no decision in such people; they do not know whether to go up the street or down the street. Put into a certain routine and forced into that routine they will carry on, but they do not themselves  produce anything, they are entirely parasitic. This parasiticism is gained either by the inheritance or other accumulation of money or by a direct and forthright nullification of those around them into the status of slaves. For this person knows above all other things that he cannot produce an honest day’s work.

Now in case you err and try to apply this classification too widely, there is one definite characteristic you must not overlook. This characteristic makes the difference between the aberrative personality and run-of-the-mill human beings. The secrecy computation is the clue. The best index to a secrecy computation is a refusal to be audited. Because of this factor of the secrecy computation, and for no other factor, it chances to follow that the aberrative personality can be known by his refusal to have any auditing of any kind, or, if he has any auditing, accepts it very covertly and will not permit it to have any effect upon him. He will not have a second session. He has all manner of excuses for this such as “altitude,” but in any way, shape or form he escapes auditing. If your preclear’s unwilling to be audited, he himself may fall into this classification.

Because justice in this society prides itself upon impartiality, these impartial people—the aberrative personalities—are quite often listened to by those around them.  The pose of being impartial is an effort to escape decision. People who get things done or who are worth anything to the society make decisions. The impartial people make no decisions if they can possibly avoid them, and at the very best put off decisions as long as possible, as in the case of a court of law. These people, being well downscale, are very close to MEST and have a very solid agreement with MEST.

Very often you will find aberrative personalities addicted to religion, but the addiction will not be accompanied by any belief in the human spirit. Just how this paradox is accomplished a professed avowal of Christianity and a complete unwillingness to accept any effort to heal or help the human spirit as opposed to the body—is just another one of this bundle of paradoxes which mark the aberrative personality. For, you see, the person is such a complete maybe that anything about him is indecisive, and people trying to make up their minds about this person, of course, fall into the state of maybe, because that is the clue to the personality. Impartial personality— the maybe personality—and the “merchant of fear” are more or less of the same order and are alike aberrative.

Men in the field of the arts are very often victimized by these aberrative personalities. The “merchant of fear” closes terminals rapidly with any area which contains a great deal of admiration. Since the person is actually incapable of decision, this is a mechanical closure. The presence of admiration around anyone else begins to dissolve some of the completely stultified bank of the “merchant of fear” and this finds him very close to the source. Orchestra leaders, painters, writers are always having the terrible misfortune of closing terminals with such personalities. There is hardly a man of art or letters who does not bear on him the scar of having associated with a “merchant of fear,” for these are vampire personalities. They are themselves so starved of admiration and of sensation that they drink out of others around them any possible drop of admiration in any form. Where a woman becomes a “merchant of fear,” sexual starvation is continually attempting satiation and all the while the “merchant of fear”  will protest and, to all visible signs, follow a life of complete celibacy.

While it is not my purpose here to revile, I wish to impress upon the auditor that the “merchant of fear” is extremely dangerous, both to creative impulses and to sanity. One could say airily, “Why don’t we just audit these people upscale, since they are so few,” but these people will never present themselves for auditing and will discourage anyone else from having any auditing. A solution to the “merchant of fear” probably does not lie in the field of auditing.

The society at large is so accustomed to association with MEST and the “merchant of fear” so closely approximates some of the characteristics of MEST—the maybe, for instance—that the public quite commonly misassigns strength to such aberrative personalities and thinks of them as strong people or as wise people. They are neither strong nor wise, and before an even indifferently forceful attack quickly capitulate. They live their whole lives in terror of attack.

One often finds these characteristics in company with paresis or hears the aberrative personality has actually contracted a dreadful disease to add to his repulsiveness.

The auditor should not err in thinking that these people always present a repulsive appearance; repulsive conduct precedes a repulsive appearance. At first they operate only mentally in trying to make everyone afraid. Then this begins to show up more and more in their own MEST and finally will demonstrate itself in their personal appearance. Thus one can mark the state of decay of these aberrative personalities.

Now and then some violent man in one country or another has undertaken programs to rid a society of these points of contagion. Kings in olden times handled the problem by decapitating people who continually brought them bad news—this was a very wise measure. In more recent times it has been said that Gomez, late dictator of Venezuela, discovered that the contagion point of leprosy in the country was the beggar. He found that the beggars of Venezuela were using leprosy in order to beg. People would pay in order to have the ugly thing taken away from them (the basic philosophy of the beggar is to be paid to go away). Gomez had the beggars told that they were going to be taken to a very fruitful part of Venezuela and given a colony of their own; he had them collected on a river bank and loaded aboard two large river boats. The river boats proceeded into midstream, their crews left them in skiffs and the boats blew up with a resounding explosion. This was the end of leprosy in Venezuela. I am not telling you this to advocate the immediate slaughter of the “merchants of fear”; I am merely giving you an historical note. The extreme impatience  of people trying to get something done in a society will eventually center upon those who will not work and, in the case of kings or tyrants, such people have very often been done away with. Thus the precedent is very old of a society cleansing itself by removing from its ranks the non-workers.

Revolutions very often have this as an objective. The French Revolution recognized in the existing aristocracy a state of will-not-work, and saw in these people the character of the “merchant of fear,” and for several years there in France, shortly after America became free, the tumbrils formed an assembly line to the guillotine. People in societies are extremely punitive about those who will not work and about those who  epend on fear for their sustenance. But society going downscale can become more and more apathetic toward the “merchant of fear” until the “merchant of fear” predominates as a class.

Just as the king or the society revolted against the “merchant of fear,” so has your preclear tried to get the “merchant of fear” to work and to contribute something besides bad news. This effort, of course, was bent toward an organism which was already rotten at the core. Whether the “merchant of fear” used money or beauty to excuse his own lack of labor, only added to the maybe. The law forbade the preclear to use the measure of the tyrant or the Gomez, for the law is utterly infatuated with such people and defends them at every turn just as such people use almost  exclusively the law. As your preclear was balked in his natural impulse to clear the way he was brought into staring recognition of the fact that the necessary act—murder—was halted by the existence of police and courts. This brought the preclear to the point where he conceived himself to be put upon by the society and the law. Many of your preclears, as a result of this, are startled to find, when it is run on them, that they believe themselves under arrest, even though any arrest they have been subjected to was as minor as a traffic pick-up. I am not advocating, again, violence; I am merely trying to explain to you the state of mind of the preclear and the most aberrative person he has confronted. He wanted to, and didn’t, kill these people. If your preclear is of the kind who produces or creates or who works and makes his way in the world in general, you can find the aberrative personality in his bank immediately by asking him—with an E-Meter, of course, because he probably won’t tell you direct—if he wanted to kill anyone. The E-Meter will say that he did, and on discovery of this identity the auditor will find the aberrative personality. This even follows through with women, although women go more quickly into apathy when confronted with an aberrative personality than do men.

You should understand that the aberrative personality has not become an aberrative personality by being confronted by another aberrative personality. You are not getting here the pattern of stimulus-response, you are getting the decay of a human spirit to complete inactivity so that the entire modus operandi becomes that of the body itself, and a body, in the case of the aberrative personality, which itself is too deteriorated or exhausted to work. Not all bodies becoming so exhausted and unable to work turn into aberrative personalities, but the aberrative personality is born entirely out of the decline of the ability of the individual to produce. When the individual really recognizes his utter worthlessness to the society, he becomes an aberrative personality. Many people who cannot work physically turn to other lines of progress. They are getting on one way or another. The aberrative personality is so badly off that he can lead only a parasitic existence. You will understand, then, that people going down tone scale do not immediately and automatically become aberrative personalities, in our definition as here used. People become aberrative personalities out of a malevolence which insists on a high level of survival without the production of anything.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

Notes

  1. Document studied on the How to Confront and Shatter Suppression PTS/SP Course. (2001 ed.) ↩
  2. The aberrative personality is also called a “Suppressive Person,” a “Merchant of Fear” or a “Merchant of Chaos.” ↩