Much has been written on the Net about Scientology Ethics. Many has been hurt by its implementation. But here I would like to draw your attention to one simple little quiz. Although you may not know much of Scientology or speak or read Scientologeese, you should be able to have a crack at this.
Background: There are three major parts of Scientology; Ethics, Tech and Admin. Ethics is a subject devoted to keep the person on the straight and narrow and true to himself. Tech is the main body of Scientology knowledge and deals with the improvement of a person’s abilities through training and counseling (auditing). Admin is the policies directed at the running of Scientology organizations. The purpose of Ethics is to make it possible for Tech to be effective. Admin is intended to make it possible for an organization to deliver Tech.
The policy called “Ethics Review” includes a summary of the various steps intended to ensure a person is ethical. You may find a few things questionable about this gradient list of ethics pressure, but I see one major flaw. I wonder if you can find it. After some comments by you readers, I will add my take.
Quiz: Find one major thing wrong in the following:
LEVELS OF ETHICS ACTIONS
Ethics actions in degree of severity are as follows:
- Noticing something non-optimum without mentioning it but only inspecting it silently.
- Noticing something non-optimum and commenting on it to the person.
- Requesting information by Ethics personnel.
- Requesting information and inferring there is a disciplinary potential in the situation.
- Talking to somebody about another derogatorily.
- Talking to the person derogatorily.
- Investigating in person by Ethics.
- Reporting on a post condition to Ethics.
- Reporting on a person to Ethics.
- Investigating a person by interrogating others about him.
- Asking others for evidence about a person.
- Publishing an interrogatory about a person that points out omissions or commissions of Ethics offenses.
- Assigning a lowered condition by limited publication.
- Assigning a lowered condition by broad publication.
- Investigating a person thoroughly in his or her own area.
- Interrogation stated to be leading to a Court of Ethics.
- Interrogation in a Court of Ethics.
- Sentencing in a Court of Ethics.
- Suspending a Court of Ethics sentence.
- Carrying out a Court of Ethics discipline.
- Suspension or loss of time.
- A Committee of Evidence ordered.
- A Committee of Evidence publicly ordered.
- Holding a Committee of Evidence.
- Findings by a Committee of Evidence.
- Submitting findings of a Committee of Evidence for approval.
- Waiting for the findings to be passed on or carried into effect.
- Suspending findings for a period for review.
- Modifying findings.
- Carrying findings into effect.
- Publishing findings.
- Demotion.
- Loss of Certificates or awards.
- Denial of auditing or training by a Comm Ev for a considerable period of time.
- Dismissal.
- Expulsion from Scientology.
And to add some flare, here’s the wonderful Karen introducing how Ethics is done by the Church of Scientology:
Geir Isene - uncut 
When I review the Ethics gradients above and the last step “Expulsion from Scientology” I can only think one thought and that is This is THE road to FREEDOM!
And I would also like to add another observation of mine and that is When Ethics and Tech go IN, Common Sense goes OUT.
Ha! That’s a good one!
Alanzo
What about some new articles on your blog? You were a bit lazy…:)
LOL, dragos! Actually there’s one post coming out tonight. And 4 down the pipe line. I’ve been pretty busy with some pretty interesting stuff lately that will blow some minds. 😉
Please, blow our minds too 🙂
Here you go: http://anetteiren.com/scientology-the-only-hope-for-man/
I don’t know what non-optimum means now days. It might mean that you disagree (for instance, disobey) some dude who is in good standing with other dudes and dudesess and thus in agreement and thus others think of that dude to be ‘right’. So then automatically, if you disagree with that right dude, you are wrong –unethical.
It’s funny what’s considered an overt in that Church, considering that it’s there to manipulate people. Ethics simply cannot work.
And because human beings are moral creatures, with guilt and shame built into them, no human being wants to be considered unethical by one’s fellow group members. This is another very powerful socially coercive technique built into Scientology by L Ron Hubbard.
Alanzo
An ethical enough being, from my viewpoint would either not join that group, or ‘change’ it.
…as if you are coaxed to commit overts in the name of the good cause, you are not then justified that you ‘didn’t know’. If you ‘didn’t know’, it wouldn’t be an overt for you to do it.
Thanks Spyros, I have to think about that.
Here’s the flaw I see:
Anyone who understands the ethics gradients of ethics review knows that that when Number 1 is being applied to you, then number 36 is inevitable unless you do what they say.
There is no gradient. It is a constant threat of expulsion from your religion if you do not do what you are told. Number 36 hangs over the head of every Scientologist every day.
It is a control mechanism designed to take away a person’s power of choice if they wish to remain in the Church of Scientology.
Hubbard built a lot of these control mechanisms and socially coercive techniques into Scientology.
Alanzo
Like.
Control, control, obsessive control. Control it is.
The individual has no say.
The group is all.
.
That’s what I spotted as well, studying the code in a new time unit.
The reality comes from the agreement in the group. Either one abides by that reality or one is out.
If agreement determines reality, then in the contest between an individual and the group, the individual would always lose.
.
Ethics is reason. Reason is not “Scientology logic.”
.
This is a good catch. In greek the words logic and reason are translated the same. It was a nice orgy to consider that ethics is logic –very theta 😛
Vin, you got all the above agreed to by me.
In scientology Ethics is used as a punishment, a control mechanism. A method of dumbing down the person so as to mold them to do or behave the way they want. Scientology uses ethics to enforce their ideology to a person or group, this way they create litte robots. Its a way of programing into a person a false paradigm. A paradigm that says ” we tell you what is right or wrong and how to fix it. We decide what is good for the greatest number of dynamics “.
Ethics cannot be forced. It can only be guided with the intention of HELP. Something scientology has sold for the almighty dollar.
IMO 😀
While all the while one has the datum in the back of one’s head that Scientology doesn’t condone punishment. Another one, of many, push-pull control dichotomies in Scientology that keep one stuck to it like glue.
Stinky, slimy, smelling glue, if I might add. 🙂
A very misleading post, IMO. The term “Ethics” is “used to denote ethics as a subject, or the use of ethics, or that section of a Scientology Church which handles ethics matters”. (Tech Dictionary)
In the Ethics Review PL you quoted, “ethics” does not refer to “ethics as a subject’. It refers to “that section of a Scientology Church which handles ethics matters”. It is basically a PL about justice, not ethics.
ETHICS is a personal thing…
JUSTICE is the action of the group against the individual when he has failed to get his own ethics in…(HCOB 15 Nov. 1972 II, Students Who Succeed)
Also, the inflammatory video you posted has nothing to do with written Scn materials – in fact it directly violates them. That video all about how the CoS is now MIS-applying justice policy.
Blame Hubbard for naming that policy Ethics Review. You can always write to Ron. 😉
I think it was clear that he meant the Ethics Section of an org. He wrote in terms of “Ethics actions”.
Marildi 🙂
The list above is, by L. Ron Hubbard, called “LEVELS OF ETHICS ACTIONS”. Not LEVELS OF JUSTICE ACTIONS. The list remains a central part of the subject of Ethics as devised by him.
Then on the matter of the video by Karen. Did you notice I wrote “…how Ethics is done by the Church of Scientology.” (emphasis added for even more clarity). And inflammatory? Well, it is made by the highest trained person living today. You can’t get hold of a more competently trained person in Scientology than Karen. 😉
“Marildi :)”
I always know when your buttons are getting pushed. You get a bit snide. 😛
Yes, it says levels of Ethics actions, and the context clearly shows which definition of Ethics is meant. But I agree that it should have been made clearer.
And I wasn’t at all referring to Karen when I used the word “inflammatory”. That was in reference to YOU, posting the video in the same post as the PL.
I thought it appropriate to show how THE CHURCH applies ethics these days. It is a clue that points to the flaw I see in the list. Now that I spelled that out too clearly, can you find it?
… and LRH Clearly says Ethics Actions. He does so many, many times throughout the subject of Ethics in Scientology. Many, many times.
Yes, ethics ACTIONS. Perhaps you have a missing definition of “action”:
“A civil or criminal judicial proceeding intended to resolve a legal dispute, claim, or accusation.” http://law.yourdictionary.com/action
Which is a central part of the subject of Ethics – one of the three main parts of Scientology. Just like I said in the OP. Now, can we get back to business?
It seems like you missed the point. It is Ethics – the Section of the org – that takes action.
And they use the Ethics gradients – a central part of the big subject called Ethics in the superset called Scientology. And I see a major flaw in it. Now, can we get back to business, which is “There is a flaw in the list above…”
(If you want to rename the list, your beef is with Ron. Go ahead and write to him as Anette suggested)
The word “gradients” isn’t even used in that PL, and I don’t know that LRH used it anywhere else either. That’s the way Scientologists came to express the idea of “LEVELS of Ethics Actions”. And the meaning of that is clear from the context – i.e. that these are the levels of actions that Ethics takes.
Btw, why do you keep trying to shut me up? My comments are directly on the OP as regards “the various steps intended to ensure a person is ethical.” That’s a misguided statement, IMO. Plus, I even answered your question already. So why do you keep repeating “Let’s get back to business”. It just comes across as arrogant and authoritarian.
I can’t understand what you are objecting to, Marildi. You mean that these levels of Ethics Actions were not meant to help the person be ethical?
The point about the OP is to find a flaw in the list. Are you objecting to that, too? Or are you attempting to sidetrack the OP?
“I can’t understand what you are objecting to, Marildi. You mean that these levels of Ethics Actions were not meant to help the person be ethical?”
No, it’s true enough in itself. But it’s insidiously misleading because you imply that this is the meaning of ethics, the subject, by leaving out the fact that these are justice actions taken by Ethics when an individual has failed to get his own ethics in, the latter being the actual use of “ethics” as a subject.
“The point about the OP is to find a flaw in the list.. Are you objecting to that, too? Or are you attempting to sidetrack the OP?”
I already gave my answer and then reminded you of that in my last post. Come on! Or is this another one of your subtle Ad Homs – the type classified as insinuation?
Marildi – aren’t Justice part of the overall subject of Ethics in Scientology? Or rather – is the list of Ethics Actions above an entirely different subject than Scientology Ethics according to you? But this is a different discussion, don’t you think? Why LRH included all of Scientology justice in the ethics tech and the ethics courses and the ethics book, etc. I am sure that would be less inconsistent in many ways, but let’s leave that for another thread, OK?
Yes, justice is part of the overall subject of Ethics in the context of Tech, Admin, and Ethics in Scn. But your statement that “The policy called ‘Ethics Review’ includes a summary of the various steps intended to ensure a person is ethical” blatantly infers that the justice system is the totality of Ethics in Scientology.
I don’t necessarily have anything against criticisms of what LRH wrote. Some of them make sense (and you are one person who has helped me be open to that). I just object to unfair criticism, including when it comes down to using an inappropriate definition for the context, or leaving out relevant data.
So, your argument is that LRH did not intend this list as a toll to ensure Scientologists are to remain ethical? Can you please elaborate and expand on that?
Not sure how you mean “toll”. Or is that a typo?
Yes 🙂
read “tool”.
Yes, you could put it that way – “to ensure…”. But, again, my point was that it is’t the totality of the subject of Ethics. To repeat:
“ETHICS is a personal thing. By definition, the word means ‘the study of the general nature of morals and the specific moral choices to be made by the individual in his relationship with others. (AHD [American Heritage Dictionary]) When one is ethical or ‘has his ethics in’ it is by his own determination and is done by himself. (HCOB 15 Nov 72 II)
“JUSTICE is the action of the group against the individual when he has failed to get his own ethics in… (HCOB 15 Nov. 1972 II)
Marildi: “my point was that it is’t the totality of the subject of Ethics.”
I never said it was.
The problem was what you didn’t say, i.e. “omitted data”, which is an outpoint.
“There are specific ways for a relay of information or a situation to become illogical. These are the things which cause one to have an incorrect idea of a situation.” (Data Series)
You sure are splitting hairs here. Back to the OP, please.
I know little in this area but some things came to mind:
1. an ‘individual’ ( a person) with ‘full ethics and tech in’ is in theory a ‘complete’ ‘organization’.
2. an ‘action’ in the list refers to the appearance of the first ‘thought’ of the person –
that is he sees something not as it is but, instead, has a thought of ‘non-optimum’, a kind of ‘evil’ thought after ‘confusion’ (which is not as-is-ing).
3. ‘actions’ to me here communicate the gradient from thought to more and more physically manifested actions which the individual is basically doing to himself.
I had very little to do with ethics, so these above ‘ideas’ I have are based on my readings and tech knowledge – so can be wrong.
The order may be:
-not being able to see something as it is
-false purpose
-confusion with what is not seen as it is
-the appearance of thought
-action dictated by thought
Marianne, I duplicated and see truth to these last two posts of yours.
My understanding of the three ‘parts’ of scientology (at present).
They are 3 aspects of the Purpose of Life. If, in theory, one was completely ethical, one would automatically ‘apply’ the other two and I find it also true if any of the 3 is fully ‘in’. So, they are used as needed when something is ‘out’ to get the ‘theoretical’
‘complete’. This was a cognition when I finished a demo in which I showed the above to a class 5 OT 5 who came in to look at it instead of the SUP in the mission and he gave me a pass. I mentioned this as in a very clear way I see it now too that what I ‘learnt’ in scientology is not different from Life. I don’t ‘consider’ myself a scientologist. No consideration of ‘myself’. Just ‘Life’. Thank you for reading it.
Another good post, Marianne. 🙂
Thank you for reading it, Marildi. I forgot to mention, that the demo was about a life situation, I don’t remember which course. My cognition had nothing to do with the course – it was actually the result of my previous ‘private’ studying with lots of true word clearing (beyond conceptual level), when I was interested in higher tech and admin references. Nobody stopped me in getting any available in the mission material when I wanted to do that. My ‘principle’, when I was studying was to understand any ‘little’ ‘datum’ so thoroughly that by doing so I will get a full understanding of an area/field of knowledge so that I won’t have to deal with that on the ‘OT’ levels.This alone raised my ability to perceive immensely. Thanks for reading it, it’s getting late, I am off now. Have a beautiful day!
Wow, another fascinating post. I always read your posts, btw.
On your last one, after a comm lag I had a cog that Tech, Admin and Ethics are a triangle. Don’t know if LRH ever said that, but you basically did! Sweet dreams, Marianne. 🙂
Geir
I find ‘myself’ odd here now. This is the first time.
Thank you for ‘hosting’ me. I will be off – for a while (?).
LOL!
Lots of laughter. Good one Anette! 🙂
First I though it was an OSA bot commenting, then I saw your name.
Sorry, marildi. I just couldn’t help myself tonight.
“OSA bot” is a put-down that makes no sense – I wrote that the CoS is MIS-applying ethics.
Actually, I wrote that the CoS is mis-applying justice, but they are also mis-applying ethics.
Marildi; Back to the OP – can you find a flaw in the list?
The one I don’t understand the rationale for is “5. Talking to somebody about another derogatorily.”
“Ethics is a subject devoted to keep the person on the straight and narrow and true to himself”
Those levels of “ethics” are justice actions, wielded by others and not ethics actions that are supposed to be applied at the individual’s discretion. That is the flaw but, in my opinion, was always intended to be that way.
In addition, the “Ethics” book is to be used by all Scientologists, not just staff. I had often heard one public say to another public, “Well did you apply ethics gradients?”
Really? If you look at that list, that’s impossible. A public is not allowed to do the majority of the actions above. I have even heard a staff member tell a public to apply the ethics gradients. What? Outpoint.
Who expels the Church when it fails to respond to all of the “ethics levels”?
And how exactly do you expel someone or the Church from Scientology, if Scientology is defined as an applied religious philosophy?
If you’ve already done 2 and 3:
Noticing something non-optimum and commenting on it to the person.
Requesting information by Ethics personnel.
Then 5 and 6 must be something different:
Talking to somebody about another derogatorily.
Talking to the person derogatorily.
So, what? Now instead of commenting on the actual ethics infraction to the person and to another, now we’re just speaking derogatorily? What does that mean? “Oh, he’s an out-ethics scumbag”?
Yep, but of course, that would be black PR wouldn’t it? Now you’ll need the truth rundown to get down to the bottom of why you nattered, spoke derogatorily and said something bad about someone else to someone else. Its just batty.
Precisely! Batty, batty, batty.
If number 10 is:
Investigating a person by interrogating others about him.
Then everything else that was done before it was without investigation? Also, what about asking the person him or herself first?
Getting awfully close there, Sindy 😉
Number 15:
“Investigating a person thoroughly in his or her own area.”
Should that not come before involving and gathering data from others? How could one assign conditions BEFORE this action, based only on hearsay from others?
I was staff at the New York org in the late 1970’s to mid 1980’s, mostly as Lead HGC Auditor. Before joining staff, I did the HAS co-audit and the HQS course, with co-auditing. My experience and observations of Scientology ethics:
(1) The ethics conditions, whoever may have actually originated them (I have learned that much of what was issued under Hubbard’s name was not created by Hubbard) have great workability- ONLY when done completely self-determinedly, and not through being “assigned” a condition by another, which then becomes degradation. I think the ethics review approach of gradual steps, increasing in severity when earlier steps don’t “take”, is fairly logical, but one would think that a group that has the counseling techniques to resolve the reasons why a person would want to be resistive to contributing well to a group they chose to join would resort to discipline in place of that counseling.
(2) The potential value of Scientology’s ethics approaches is corrupted by such things as labeling sensible behavior as “suppressive acts” when it would correctly address the excesses of management, and the use of sadistic punishment under the facade of “ethics” when a PC, student or staff member exhibits displeasure or disagreement with their handling, treatment or instructions. While Hubbard’s writings on the subject are often useful and even enlightening (other than going to town with paranoia over “suppressives”), in practice, all too often, the organization actually practices abusive behavior, as means to self-serving ends, while falsely imposing “this was made necessary by your out-ethics, and is your opportunity to get your ethics in”
(3) While I was Lead HGC Auditor, a “Class VIII” former Sea Org member joined org staff, in violation of policy on ex-Sea Org members; he was a former “commanding officer” of a higher-up service org. He somehow got himself posted first as executive director of my org (New York), and then as “senior case supervisor”. He and I had an argument one day, and shortly thereafter, I noticed in the org’s comm baskets, a report from him to every org in the chain of command between us and top management, a “knowledge report” calling me a “dangerous auditor” (I was not sent a copy, he did not want me to know what he was doing) despite the fact that I was functioning well, with only an occasional minor cram, and good results and production statistics (well done auditing hours). I immediately confronted him to explain himself, and caught red-handed, the only thing he had to say to me was “you’re not supposed to be looking in the comm system”.
Seeing the writing on the wall, I went to HCO and asked to see my ethics file. When I opened the folder, every single commendation I’d ever received (over 40) had been removed from my folder, giving the appearance that the only noticeable things I’d ever done as a staff member were bad things. I made copies of my own copies of all the commendations and put them in my ethics folder; when I checked a few days later, once again, they had all been removed. Each time I approached the ethics officer, she merely looked at me and, with an odd slight smile on her face, denied knowing anything about it, and expressed no concern whatsoever.
Next, this “senior case supervisor”‘s direct subordinate, the org’s case supervisor, suspended my certifications as an auditor. The single reason given was that she could not read my handwriting- and not overall, but merely on my notation of one PC’s basal metabolism test read- a single written character- on one worksheet page of one session. I wrote a direct report “uplines”, and pretty quickly, Flag fired a mission into my org to do exactly one thing- to restore my certifications, and to tell the case supervisor to knock off this treatment of me. 2 or 3 weeks later, this same story repeated- my certs were suspended for no good reason, I reported it, and a 2nd Flag mission fired into my org for the single purpose of undoing what the case supervisor had done.
A week or two later, immediately after a session I gave- I mean, the qual sec was standing outside the door to get me the moment the session ended- I was given a “court of ethics” by that “senior case supervisor”, the org’s executive director, and the qual sec. Believe it or not, the “evidence” against me was supposed incorrecr auditing actions done by me in the session I just came out of; the qual sec did a quickie “inspection” of my session worksheets, and the false accusations flew (get that? They were waiting to do this “court of ethics” on me, supposedly based on what I was doing in a session while they waited for it to end, and before they could have had any idea what would or had transpired in the session!).
Long story short, I spent a few weeks doing enforced “lower conditions”, before deciding I’d had enough bullshit mistreatment, and left staff. I was doing a great enough job all that time as an auditor that, shortly thereafter, the executive director of Celebrity Center New York contacted me and offered an actual living wage- an hourly rate that was more than most org staff were paid per week- to audit their public PC’s. My answer was that I would take the offer with the stipulation that I would not act on any case supervisor instructions from the senior case supervisor for the East U.S., because they could not be trusted; my conditions were accepted, and I did audit for them for some time afterward, until they had enough contracted auditors on staff not to need to hire “mercenaries”.
Hubbard said that man could not be trusted with the subjects of ethics and justice, and the behavior of the organizations of the Church of Scientology seem to have borne this out; perhaps that could be called a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Nevertheless, as I said, there really can be value in self-deteminedly applying the principles of ethics conditions; one merely needs to be free of the Church of Scientology in order to have the freedom to do so.
I think ethics is inherent to a being and it can be dangerous to tamper with it. And that ethics was to be used in special occasions. And that the purpose of ethics was to deal with people who sort of ‘put ethics’ on others (suppressives), as such people never put ethics on themselves.
Oh yeah, ironically now, SCN ethics staff only put ethics on others 😛
Ethics shouldn’t be a third part, it’s just a post in admin.
Anyway the list says degrees of severity and that’s about punishment. Ethics ain’t about punishment it’s about asked for correction and goodness.
Hello and welcome 🙂
Can you find a flaw in that list?
Yeah, the whole list. Ethics should deal with scenes and the scenes are the condition. Thus scenes can be investigated not people.
Prefer aiki to graham
What missing here is the text that precedes these levels of ethics actions:
“ORDERING STUDENTS & PCs
Tech and Qualifications personnel, particularly the Tech Sec and Qual Sec and D of Estimations, the D of P and D of T. D of Exams and D of Review and D of Certs may order students or pcs to Review or to course or to HGC or anywhere in and around these two Divisions without any Ethics action being implied. It is just normal, done to get students and pcs on the road to higher levels.
Ethics actions may only suspend training or deny auditing.
Therefore, a student ordered to Ethics for discipline who does not then give adequate promise and example of good behaviour and compliance must be thoroughly investigated even to his or her own area and in the meanwhile may not be trained or processed. The student, however, may not be dismissed or expelled unless full Ethics actions and procedures have been undertaken.
All sentences carrying a denial of training or processing must carry a means of the
right to be trained or processed being restored in a specified time or under specified conditions.”
My comment: Reading this very carefully for the first time in many years, it is clear to me that these ethics actions have NOTHING to do with ethics and ONLY to do with DISCIPLINING students, pcs or staff members.
LRH mixes ethics and justice/Discipline in more places than I can count. But the list above lacks something remarkable. I am about to dish out a joint first place for discovering it…. to…. *drumroll*…
WHAT IS IT?????
LOL! Patience grasshopper!
Oh and it also looks like a list of progressive noseyness.
The joint first place goes to Sindy and Dexter:
Sindy: “Also, what about asking the person him or herself first?”
Dexter: “…but one would think that a group that has the counseling techniques to resolve the reasons why a person would want to be resistive to contributing well to a group they chose to join would resort to discipline in place of that counseling.”
Me: If a person is doing some shit – What about sitting down with the person and with great tolerance, compassion and empathy listening to him telling you what’s going on, and help him figure out a solution? I would do that instead of points #1-14 at least. I have very seldom had to resort to anything beyond that in any of the organizations I have run.
Yay! I hope this is the start of a big winning streak for me – LOL.
This was a fun exercise, Geir. Thank you.
I wonder what a “still-in” public or staff would say if one pointed this out. How would they rationalize it?
When I was in, I was in such a trance state, I never noticed.
I know. Let’s see if someone here is able to rationaluze away this flagrant flaw by Hubbard.
Ha, ha, so I come over and find you’re a winner. Congrats.
I didn’t know that when I invited you 🙂 Glad you came.
Sindy and Dex always win everything.
Teacher’s pet, I say!
I think that that’s correct in case you’re responsible. But what if not? What if some shit is going on? A colleague of the failing one spots it but he doesn’t have enough reputation or wisdom to be able to take it up directly with the person. What is he supposed to do? Peach him to his seniors, who may be overworked or unwilling to solve such a stuff? Or bypass them and go directly to someone who can handle that?
No way am I justifying the scientology “ethics” procedure, I’m just trying to see the topic from different perspectives.
Hubbard is full of inconsistencies. There seem to be two Hubbards… one high on drugs coming up with great insights, and the other a con man who had no clue of what he wrote when on drugs.
.
What I would like to know is what makes people blind to such inconsistencies.
.
Me too.
You will find the answer in the early 50’s statement and datum that ANY unevaluated item becomes part of the bank and is aberrative. It does have to only be a memory containing pain and unconsciousness, an engram per LRH def. Once one could find LRH datums to agree with on a gradient – then many items were accepted with NO evaluation by the person as to their truth, voracity or workability.
The simplicity was to step back, read something, think for self and decide if true. If not, then it might be a “maybe” or even found to be “untrue.” If thought stopping didn’t allow an “untrue” answer the person could at least have put it in the “maybe category” and kept studying.
So many have been trained through their regular education to accept data and datums and are not in the habit/pattern of evaluating.
We start blind and continue blindness by either being unwilling or unable to maintain our own viewpoint. We really don’t need any agreement, but most still think they do.
Those willing to evaluate data find themselves on blogs such as this and the hundreds of others on various topics and fields of study. That is how we change opinions and make stuff happen.
As to the OP – LRH wasn’t always clear in writing or speaking as to when he meant the actions of the “ethics section” in department 3 or when he meant “ethics” as in person responsibility. One was a group responsibility and one is a personal action. The original lecture on ethics, with no lower conditions, has ONLY those things covered by personal responsibility.
Why this collapsed into a group agreement think I am not sure. It did occur. He is not hear to query so we may think for ourselves and move along the flow of living life by what we find to be true, workable or even our own personal pet “belief.”
I don’t need LRH to have written this. I knew before I ever heard of him or read anything what was ethical and what was not. All of us have that inborn or innately in my opinion.
S.A. Your last paragraph is actually the entire basis of Scn ethics as I understand it – or at least it was so in the beginning.
marildi – So agreed! I have felt this way since my first book – The Phoenix Lectures. It has always been about the basic being as far as I am concerned. To some it has been about handling aberration. To me, it is about being more of who I am inherently and how to be more of that. To live life is to be ethical. Everything else detracts from “living” life and instead becomes “being” some thing/identity. Time for back to basic simplicity without additives. I do believe you would agree.
Yes, I do agree. 🙂 I think LRH was right when he said “All great truths are simple”. And what you said, “To live life is to be ethical”, is a great simple truth. That reminded me of something I’ve noticed about many of LRH’s concepts, which is that they are just different ways of saying the same basic truth, looked at from different angles.
I too was always interested in “who I am inherently and how to be more of that”. Currently, however, I’m learning a bit about Buddhism from a Buddhist friend. Buddhism does not talk about an individual soul or spirit, whereas the foundation of Scientology, as you know, is the thetan – or a Static. In fact, per the Axioms:
AXIOM 35. THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IS A STATIC.
A Static has no mass, meaning, mobility, no wave-length, no time, no location in space, no space. This has the technical name of “Basic Truth.”
I’m curious what thoughts you have about Buddhism, if you care to say. Actually, after you wrote “To live life is to be ethical”, you said something that sounded like Marianne’s viewpoint: “Everything else detracts from ‘living’ life and instead becomes ‘being’ some thing/identity.” And I get that she is a Buddhist (Zen).
marildi – When I say living life I mean to actually make it happen and you live it. As compared to just experiencing it. Living life is an active participant. For anything else you have assumed some identity fo watch, wait, see what happens, just go along, etc.
I am not a Buddhist that I know. I am just me and always willing to learn and observe. If how I “am” is how a Buddhist is then so be it.
I don’t have a problem when my viewpoint matches something in scientology nor do I have a problem when it doesn’t. I do believe in the concept of knowing how to know correct answers. As we see on this blog that may not always be appreciated or accepted. If knowing how to know correct answers requires some viewpoint from within a fixed system then it is. If not then it isn’t. To me the key is that I am NOT FIXED inside the fixed system nor FIXED outside of it. I can assume either viewpoint according to what is needed to find the correct answer.
Hope that has answered your question and given you more of my viewpoint.
AMEN to that.
S.A., thank you very much. You answered my question beautifully. Love the viewpoint you expressed so well, and I do my best to have the same. 🙂
SA
Like what you write. Always. Just always.
Marianne, how perfect it is that your first Scn book was “Phoenix Lectures”! Certainly my favorite. In my opinion, you could use the principles in that book to divine which of all the voluminous material all cobbled under the umbrella term “Scientology” is actually true to the basic principles, and which isn’t, beginning with “abandon the use of force”.
Dexter, I think it was actually Sapere Aude who said his first book was Phoenix Lectures but I’m pretty sure Marianne would agree that it’s a great book, and me too. As you indicated, it contains the basic principles of Scientology. Just for all us Phoenix Lectures fans, I found the part of the book that has the relevant principle you quoted, “abandon the use of force”:
——————-
“Now the parables which are discovered today in the New Testament are earlier discovered, the same parables, elsewhere in many places. One of them was the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which predates the New Testament considerably. This is ‘love thy neighbor’. This is in effect ‘be civilized’. And it is ‘abandon the use of force’.
“But at the same time, we are talking straight out of the mouth of Moses, so we evidently are at a crossroads of two philosophies, but these two philosophies are both the philosophies of wisdom.”
——————-
In Dianetics the Modern Science of Mental Health, Hubbard gives a case history of a PC who was being restimulated by his wife, and the successful solution applied was to audit the wife. 15 years later, the confidence in the successful application of auditing had waned to the point where the husband would be removed from auditing and labeled “PTS” and the wife “suppressive” as a solution, and the entire situation would be “an ethics matter”. Since then, with increasing frequency, unsuccessful auditing, in which the PC complained of not having his issues handled, especially at Flag, resulted in the PC being blamed, that “the tech isn’t going in because of your own out-ethics”.
Ethics is largely used in the C of S to get around the prohibition of “evaluating for the preclear”- you see, “this is not an auditing session, this is an ethics handling, because there’s only one reason why your auditing is not going smoothly- it is your responsibility, you are out-ethics”. The “ethics handling” then applied consists of contributing “amends” (unpaid volunteer work for the organization) and financial contributions such as donations to IAS and paying for “basics” book collections to be purchased and sent to libraries, “to make up for the damage and prove your worthiness”. Ethics becomes a mechanism to cover up for session failures through blaming the willing customer.
How do I know this? Because I have repaired and audited PC’s who spent hundreds of thousand$ before tapping out and realizing they needed to disengage from the organization.
Within the organization, “ethics” became largely a mechanism for enforcing compliance and cooperation in the form of money and labor, and this use grew in proportion to the organization’s increasing demands for money and labor, and in proportion to the organization’s decreasing reliability and success in delivering the wanted, expected and hoped for results in processing, that reduced the enthusiasm and willingness of public and staff to voluntarily and happily support these demands.
There is a good analogy to this progression: A farmer tries to save money by replacing a small proportion of his mule’s feed with sawdust. As time goes by, and the mule continues to labor, the farmer gradually increases the percentage of sawdust in the mule’s feed, until one day, the mule dies.
Ethics seems to have come in in the absence of positive and expected auditing results.
No one who has experienced wonderful auditing results would resort to ordering such degrading ethics actions instead of auditing actions.
It is just PR line that auditing works 100% of the time when applied correctly. I don’t believe it.
.
Was Hubbard really a great auditor and case supervisor?
.
Didn’t he point out that the more negative folk shall we call them were attracted to admin and thus power lines? So those in charge of overseeing posts generally had no idea about auditing or betterment of anything.
I knew and know an ex ethics ofiicer from london org. Boy does he know about punishment but very little about help or compassion.
The aac in England back in the day basically only had three posts…c/s, auditor, course supervisor. That was basically the backbone, not much else needed.
5. and 6. – Where is the communication with the person first (what about A-R-C and some commen sense)? And what about finding out the facts from the person directly to handle the problem; why (first) “talking to somebody about another derogatorily” – what can lead to defamation?
The Scientology “Justice” is very prone to be misused for suppression and injustice. And if you were ever put through the mill of Scientology’s “ethics” and “(in-)justice” machinery – it is insane (nothing about “ethics is reason”).
I think that the Scn “Ethics & Justice” system – and how it is (mis-)used – is quite dubious.
You got it.
Haven’t read any other posts yet so I’m posting blind. I’ve taken issue with that PL for a long time, here’s why:
It’s not Ethics. It’s just more enforcement of morals, designed to keep an organizational pattern in line.
The second fault is that Ethics is supposed to give the individual a way to correct their own behaviour. This list is not about that, it’s about everyone else who wants to individual to be corrected.
“corrected” here usually devolves into “beat into shape”
splog – True, it is not ethics. The end of the list is followed by this sentence:
“The above is a rough guide to the severity of discipline.”
The beginning of this policy is talking of disruptive students and how to handle. A major omitted in this day and age is what public is this designed for. Now it is in the ethics book as though all should be using it. From that viewpoint it makes no sense and appears arbitrary and capricious. Thus this discussion as to what is wrong with this picture.
Nothing in this issue as it was in Vol 0 is about application to oneself, which is the essence of ethics as compared to justice. Now we see the verbatim application at times of your last line – “‘corrected’ here usually devolves into ‘beat into shape.'”
SA:
Which brings us to what I consider the major flaw in what Ron built:
He removed people’s own personal judgement from the system and replaced it with a bunch of rules. At that exact point, the dwindling sprial began, and what CoS became was inevitable.
Ahh, I see one more huge flaw. The list assumes the other person is necessarily wrong. There is no step where the Church can find out that IT is wrong.
Or maybe that part is done when government apply THEIR ethics gradients TO the church
Good point.
‘the list assumes that the person is necessarily wrong’ Of course wrong! As long as one considers oneself as separate from the totality of Life, Life, as a mirror, will show WHERE the untruth is. More practically, I either take full responsibility for anything which I create and as it manifests in life, or the manifestation will ‘teach’ me to accept it as my creation until I do that.
Personal ethics and Justice are the two sides of the same coin. The list shows from the perspective of WHOLENESS through the first not seeing something as it is and having a thought about it, the ACTIONS of the person reflected back in the ‘mirror’ as JUSTICE. The list shows the ways in which one, by considerations and actions, is separating oneself from WHOLENESS=TRUTH.
My reality of it at this point. See my earlier comments if you like.
Marianne,
I didn’t use “wrong” in some absolute theoretical sense, I meant it in the everyday usage, such as for example:
I write a KR on you, and now the EO and myself are going to deal with you. The EO and I are going to view this as a case of “Of course we are right, we must be right if I wrote the KR at all!” Whereas you have no real defence against that at all, i.e. you are presumed wrong just because there is a KR against you.
Yes, I understand what you write and agree to it. However, there is no compromise with full responsibility (life as a mirror). Once one enters a game, one is responsible for both sides and the players. One can like or dislike what one experiences during the game as long as it lasts. I guess a no-game condition can also be ‘achieved’ if one’s purpose is that. Thanks for reading my comment.
I’m late to the party, the prizes have been awarded and, I guess, the judge’s decision is final. Never mind, I don’t think I would have been in the running because my answer is: the “Levels of Ethics Actions” are unethical.
. . . I know. Let’s see if someone here is able to rationaluze away this flagrant flaw by Hubbard . . .
From a tech perspective, your conclusion is invalid. The “Levels of Ethics Actions”, if followed as written, will produce a key component of the Scientology philosophy in that it delivers a greater level of control. Just as an Auditor must maintain control over the PC if Scientology is to produce the desired results at the first dynamic level, so too must control be maintained over the third dynamic so that it may also better recieve Scientology’s ministrations.
Still, I’m a wog so what would I know about the tech? I do know a lot about L Ron Hubbard and, with that information available, I again suggest that your conclusion is invalid. The “Levels of Ethics Actions” is a duplicitous, step-by-step set of instructions for creating a Stasi-like information gathering system which was L Ron Hubbard’s intent, rather than a “flagrant flaw”.
COURT of ethics comes before Committee of EVIDENCE?
But I never understood that! Logically you should FIRST look for the evidence which THEN can be used in a court.The whole list is weired for me anyway. But maybe I just have “MU’s, are out-ethics, stupid or have evil purposes. :).
Or all of the above 😉
No, seriously – having an external, non-Scientologist viewpoint on these things is very interesting.
The idea of a Court of Ethics vs. a Committee of Evidence is that the former is lighter, the latter rather grave. And they are just names given to the ethics procedures.
I always had a bad feeling about this stuff. I would only justify it, if it was applied to people that put ethics on others 😛
Actually, a Court of Ethics IS a lesser gradient, in a way, but it is for known infractions, in other words it exists to exact whatever handling is necessary to a known ethics offense.
A Committee of Evidence is a “fact finding body”,. An individual can even request a Committee of Evidence for redress of wrong doing too. A Comm Ev is also a necessary, routine action to be done to bust a permanent staff member off post.
All this is, of course, theoretical as most of the time none if it is actually ever applied correctly.
Justice is supposed to be swift. It NEVER is in Scientology.
The more I look at this, the more it seems that LRH’s take on “ethics as purely a personal matter” is either a front/cover-up for his real purpose with ethics as a control mechanism or he was confused on the subject. Because everywhere I look, I see him use “ethics” as the term where he should have used “justice”, “group pressure”, “control mechanism”, “punishment” or “get-your-ass-in-line”. We have “Ethics” as a section on the organizing board, “Ethics Review” as the name of the aforementioned policy, “Court of Ethics”, “getting ethics in”, “Ethics actions”, “Ethics officer”, “Ethics hearing”, “Ethics files”, “Ethics chit”, “Ethics bait”, “Ethics E-meter check”, “Ethics interrogatory”, “Ethics order”, “Ethics program”, “Ethics cases”, etc. At the very least, these usages of the word “ethics” completely undermine his writings (see Marildi’s quotes above).
I see this as a major reason for the Church’s application of pressure and human rights violation. Ethics has become punishment, not “reason”.
This is accentuated by Hubbard here (watch from 15:20 till 17:21):
Geir
What are the scientology definitions of: 1. ethics 2. control 3. mechanism 4. confusion 5. purpose
Will you put them here?
I find the example of creating a ‘bad leg’ excellent. It can be observed in life that anything which ‘shows up’ and one resists means that at a subconscious level the person is creating the opposite. E.g. one is protesting to be an ED, that person has created to be an ED in the first place. One wants to have a child but doesn’t have, it means that there is a chain of postulate-counter postulate-postulate…the counter postulate can come from a ‘third party’ and agreeing to it. Interestingly the ‘third paty’ will also manifest as ‘you can’t have a child’ until one sees who the first ‘third party’ was on the chain. And it’s not a ‘who’, it’s a ‘word’ or a ‘symbol’ which one didn’t understand. Two ‘statics’ seeing ‘each other’ as the same/undivided STATIC cannot have a ‘problem’ other than a not seen as it is particle in between them.
I like looking at a ‘new’ problem from the ‘highest’ awareness-perception level I have
attained for the moment – in this case, the one source/non-dual view. It helps evaluate data at mind level. The learning continues….
I love being ‘made wrong’…so the remaining, coming-going thoughts (never the truth) get cleared and the ego fragments (re-created viewpoints) get shattered.
A wise man once said: Say what you mean and mean what you say because the people that matter don’t mind and the people that mind don’t matter. Cheers! 🙂
+1
There should have been a “Justice Office” in the org where the personnel there dealt with the people who were actually harming others and who needed to be taken out of the group at large just because they were acting too destructively.
Then, if a person felt he/she would like help with personal ethics maybe a chaplain could help or something very benign.
Mixing and confusing the two is a huge problem in Scientology
+100. Absolutely true – “Mixing and confusing the two is a huge problem in Scientology.” This has effectively denied a person from applying ethics to a win and instead of justice we have the substitute of “control” and “thought police.” The only application in dept 3 for years has been to maintain the status quo of the pyramid of power. That has been used for the purpose of; not very effectively it turns out, hiding the lies and deceit. This has also for a long time worked to silence any communication or exposure of the same lies and deceit.
Based on the Ethics book written by Mr. Hubbard – my understanding is – that Ethics is a personal matter, in other words one decides for him or herself if he/she wants to do the “right” things once you know the difference between right and wrong. So regardless of how many steps you have in your Ethics Handling Procedure that will not make a person behave properly if he/she does not want to, that decisions must be made by him/her. Ethics has more to do with the level of maturity a person has reached.
Ethics =DEVT. Out there in the Wog world things go this way:
If one does not do his job, or doing things which are not wanted and needed
he will be admonished, once, twice maybe a third time and then fired if not changing.
This is a simple and functioning operation base.
Ethics is pat a cake and designed only for SCN internal matters and purposes. It will not work out here.
And by the way: 80% of all staff (out here in the Wog world) leave
because they found a better paid job.
NOT OVERTS.
“Terrorist win”
I had to say that. 😀
I haven’t read all the comments (already well over a hundred) so maybe this has been covered, but the biggest outpoint I see is no step on the list that involves two-way comm with the person who may, or may not, be out-ethics. In fact the only comm to them in any step involves speaking to them derogatorily, early on. Assumed guilty, before investigation. How do we reconcile that with “Communication is the universal solvent”?
And in practice today, the Church just skips all the in-between steps anyway and goes straight to #36 for anyone not dancing to the IAS music.
Bingo
Geir
I may be wrong but would like to see it clearly.
Ethics is a personal thing. A student is given the right of full responsibility for himself
from the start (=trust, ability etc.). To me ‘ethics action’ throughout the whole text means ‘ an action of the student’. That is the title of the list, from the viewpoint of
‘personal actions’ – LEVELS OF ETHICS (personal) ACTIONS. If ‘student’ is put before each sentence in the right grammatical way, it can read that the student is responsible for anything/doing it to himself which is happening throughout.
In the first part of the Review it writes: ‘The routine action of Ethics is to ask a reappraisal of behavior”. So the student is asked.
In the part ‘Ordering students…’ the last two sentences show that ‘ethics actions’ (reading references etc.) and procedures are in favor of the student himself.
Is there any flaw in my reading and understanding the TEXT?
Geir
Just to make things clear. My intents when I write a scientology-related post like the above: 1. to use my analytical mind/skills in a clearer and clearer way (in which your posts and the comments help a lot). 2. I wish to help clear scientology related stuff so that the YOU would post more YOU posts such as your works, astrophotography…whatever the YOU feels like creating or grabs your fancy. Because I find the works of the YOU invaluable.
Hi. I think Ethics as far as I know hasn’t been defined properly in the first place. If we look at beauty it is taken back to a basic quality in Hubbards writings and thus called an aesthetic. So any body of knowledge on beauty would be the study of aesthetics.
An Ethic, what is it? It is the quality of goodness. So the field of ethics is the study of goodness. This quality,(goodness) I have myself defined or found what I consider a fair definition for. I would define good as :The Betterment of condition or wellbeing.
Thus anything falling in that category can be considered good and thus ethical.
Now I think it had been said that evryone is basically good. So that shows it is a basic, a fundamental principle of self and so fundamentally we are ethical beings. We all want to improve conditions and well being.
This to me is the starting block for all of any subject called ethics.
Peace.Aiki.
I just reviewed the whole PL and I think that the section on “Levels of Ethics Actions” taken out of context is why there is so much misunderstanding about it. Sapere Aude made the most relevant comment on the thread, where he wrote “The beginning of this policy is talking of disruptive students and how to handle. A major omitted in this day and age is what public is this designed for.” The exact quote at the beginning of the PL is the following:
“A student who is disruptive of discipline and acts contrary to the Ethics Codes may not be ordered to Review by the D of P, D of T or Ethics personnel or other persons in an org…”
It is also clear from the above and from other parts of the PL that the title, “Ethics, Review” refers to those two specific areas of an org (Department of Review and Ethics Section). As examples:
“D of Certs may order students or pcs to Review…”
“a student ordered to Ethics for discipline…”
In the following excerpt, not only does it further indicate which public the PL relates to but it also clearly shows that the student is indeed consulted, contrary to what many posters concluded by just reading the portion posted:
“Therefore, a student ordered to Ethics for discipline who does not then give adequate promise and example of good behavior and compliance must be thoroughly investigated even to his or her own area and in the meanwhile may not be trained or processed.
“The student, however, may not be dismissed or expelled unless full ethics actions and procedures have been undertaken.” (HCO PL 29 Apr 65 III, “Ethics, Review”)
Marildi, does this quote justify the list of ethics action; that they do not including listening to the accused, sitting down compassionately and figuring the shit out with him?
Geir, having been an Ethics Officer myself, I can tell you honestly that listening to the individual was practically all I ever did – or needed to do. I found that the majority of staff and public (I handled both) who got sent to Ethics were able to work out for themselves what was needed to get their own ethics in. I did almost nothing BUT listen to them, except maybe show them some basic reference – and they figured it out for themselves. I remember being amazed at what an easy post it was the vast majority of the time. However, as you know, “Ethics” has been perverted from what it was in earlier years and the references are now grossly misapplied or not applied at all.
The point is, Ethics does not just operate on that one issue, “Ethics, Review” which (as noted above) was written in the context of “disruptive students”. Nevertheless, even that particular issue states the following:
“The routine action of Ethics is to request a reappraisal of behavior and a signed promise of good behavior for a specified time. If the student or pc refuses to so promise, then the next action of Ethics is an investigation of the student’s course or pc’s processing behavior. When then confronted with the data, if the student still refuses to promise, Ethics undertakes a full investigation in the student’s or pc’s own area. If the student or pc still refuses to cooperate, the student goes before a Court of Ethics which may pass sentence.
[…]
“Scientology ethics are so powerful in effect, as determined by observation of it in use, that a little goes a very long ways.
“Try to use the lightest form first.”
That is a really good no-answer.
The answer was basically that this PL referred to certain circumstances and that it isn’t the only issue that is applied by Ethics.
In any case, do you yourself always “sit down [figuratively speaking] and compassionately and figure the shit out with him [a poster]”? I don’t think so. I’ve seen you many times simply issue a warning to posters who are acting “contrary to the Ethics Code” (quoting the issue) of your blog, just like that issue says to do.
Also, one time you requested a “reappraisal of behavior” from Vinaire and the next level of ethics you applied was to demand a “promise” (again, just like it says in the issue) that he would be polite (i.e. “good behavior”) before you let him post again. And I don’t recall anything resembling “compassionate comm” with him beforehand – you simply repeated a number of times what you considered his outpoints to be.
And currently, with Dio, you are steeply up’ing the ethics level to a warning of expulsion. So it seems you yourself are applying the principles in that issue.
Now this is a good one. You see, I am one person running one blog. There is no real danger in not letting people post on My Blog.
But there is a real and systemic danger in having an organization operating on policies where they delineate a gradient of ethics actions bereft of compassion, 2-way communication and listening to a parishioner. I see this as a cause of the many systemic breaches of human rights we witness in the Church of Scientology.
Btw; I am curious if you are defending Dio here. Are you?
You keep missing the point, but okay. As for Dio and the other examples in my last post, the point was only that you yourself are applying levels of ethics actions listed in that PL – although, you may be skipping some levels before expulsion with regard to Dio. (Not that I have a lot of confidence that he is capable of controlling himself anyway. You and I both have tried to use tech on him and it doesn’t go in, and he seems to be refusing to put ethics in on himself.)
One good thing in the PL is that the student or pc at least has avenues of recourse. Here, you are the sole and final authority. And your judgement is sometimes biased, IMHO. With all due respect, sincerely
And so I repeat my question: Does this quote justify the list of ethics action; that they do not including listening to the accused, sitting down compassionately and figuring the shit out with him?
I don’t know at first glance if this may answer or not. But about the wild Argentina Scientology org, as a newborn baby compared to Venezuela or Mexico, they follow thing like this in a very insane way. I have 2 examples:
1. A friend was chating with some scientologist spanish lady on facebook. He didn’t know she was a very touchy one. He said something about people doing crazy things and people he knew reaching poor gains in that Org. The lady request names in a military mood. My friend refused to say anything to her request. The lady asked by his true names. He answers naively. Then reported him to the Argentina Org because of “defamation” and “hersays” with bad intentions. He laughed and couldn’t believe what was happening. She ensured he were blacklisted, declared supresive and then blocked him whitout compassion, empathy or 2 way “common sense” comm. This was very quick.
2. In the org if somebody found something “out of rules”, they report it to the HCO officer. They never bother to talk with somebody about something wrong. Everything was like leaving that to the corresponding responsible, with a “I’m done with my area” attitude. If somebody was in trouble or having his/her case ruining some area, he/she was interrogated until “exhaust my cicle of comm with you”, disconnected from the responsibility area or running cycles, and then dispatched to get processed or handled. All of this in a very robotic and administrative mood. Add to this the pressure of raising statistics, low gains and income, and that was the major panorama.
My answer may be what I saw: the good people I met, empathetic and compassionate, were humans outside any procedure, and in most cases they even didn’t follow the strict and fixed rules. The nice people were handling more like “I’m talking to you, and this never happened, don’t worry be happy”. Some of them were punished by mistakes of others.
I think of “data series” prosecution as some “CIA- high office”, kick-ass attitude, “search and handle” game, which treat with papers and numbers and never with people’s reality.
You come into work one day after smoking some pot over the weekend,
and someone gets on your case about it and sends you to ‘ethics’. There an EO has a little discussion with you about pot smoking being ‘unethical’ because its tops auditing cold, and wouldn’t you please
stop it if you want to make case gain. He shows the staff member the gauntlet to come if he doesn’t, asks him to
make a choice and sends him back out to get on with Scn.
Isn’t that the step 0 you are all looking for, address it with the preclear directly.
EO handling is free. If the preclear comes in the next day high on LSD, then of course no one is going to put him into session, they are going to say stop it or else. No case on post. Maybe the idea that ‘no case on post’ is fundamentally impossible, maybe the EO thinks that rising the preclears necessity level by threatening his bridge etc will cause the preclear to become ethically perfect etc. But then who needs auditing?
That would only work if the preclear thought that having a bridge was somehow important to him, that if he wasn’t given any tech, he wouldn’t have any tech, which is what the Church tries to sell with its every living breath, and that tech is super critical to is eternal future which we assume he still cares about.
Basically ethics is living your life in a way that lessens bank, not increases it, so if the preclear is paying for his auditing by robbing banks and little old ladies during the night, his auditing won’t go anywhere because he is too tied up in his own withholds and regrets and resentments about having to survive and the only options open to him. The only way to repair that is to get him to see another way out to getting his auditing than making himself a wanted criminal.
Thus the purpose of ethics is to handle these glaring outpoints that the preclear CAN handle just enough by an act of will alone, to get him into session to handle the rest.
Personally I never figured Scn out during the time I was with the Church and Flag getting auditing, I never made any case gain, no wins to speak of, and the only thing that went clear was my bank account. Saddest day was leaving Flag, broke, reading the wins board of other’s who had gone before me. I couldn’t believe what a loser I was.
It took me YEARS of dangerous solo, almost lost the body a few times, to figure what the major problem was, and that frankly for all their good intentions and great auditors, the church HAD NO
CLUE what they were doing or what they were up against. Same for the stupid Free Zone. So after org and flag and probably 50,000 or more dollars in 1975, I graduated NCG and set out to find out why myself.
Homer
So, what was the major problem, the clue?
I see there one major wrongness:ETHICS is a person’s own personal concern and should not be enforced. If we speak about the measures which follow the harmful actions of a person toward the group, it is the JUSTICE 🙂