Breaking away

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time, but better late than never. I want to give a sincere “very well done” to the brave folks at the Dror Center in Israel. These Mission Holders, Dani and Tami Lemberger, realized they could no longer support CofS. This was documented in a Village Voice article and on Marty Rathbun’s blog.

After making their break, Dror continues to flourish and prosper, and they’ve expanded beyond the limits of a CofS Mission, now able to deliver OT auditing as well as Academy training. This is terrific! My only concern is I see they’re requiring pre-OTs to do Level 0 before going on to the Solo course. Seems like an arbitrary and a checksheet additive. Not sure what they’re basing this decision on.

What thrills me most about Dror is that, on top of servicing existing Scientologists, they’re promoting to raw public. That makes my heart sing. As I’ve said in earlier posts, we’ve still got a planet to clear and that can only happen if we reach out to raw public.

I would love to see more Mission Holders wake up and do the same thing. They’re in the perfect position to help further the Code of a Scientologist, particularly:

“18. To increase the numbers and strength of Scientology over the world.”

and

“20. To make this world a saner, better place.”

Missions are very much outwardly focused, reaching out to raw public, helping them cognite on the benefits and value of Scientology. They are set up to both audit and train for balanced delivery. (I’m a big believer in how auditing is only half the Bridge.)

This is exactly what is needed and wanted in the Field. If you have any comm lines to Mission staff, or better still Mission Holders, do all you can to help them confront what’s currently going on in the Church. Let’s hope they choose the red pill and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

War-gaming the future

My husband and I have had several conversations about Scientology’s future free of CofS. How will things play out? We’ve war-gamed various scenarios, and one that sends chills down my spine revolves around the ability to audit PCs without interference from the government.

Right now we have CofS’s deep pockets keeping that wolf at bay. Auditing is covered as pastoral counseling, but CofS calls those in the Field apostates, defrocked ministers, etc. Do we still have that protection? Consider this…

Let’s say a Field auditor decides to take on a PC that’s actively taking psych drugs. Or in the middle of a raging PTS Type A sit. Or something else that causes the auditing to go sideways (out Auditor’s Code issues, squirrel tech, etc.). Everything goes seriously and rapidly downhill and this imagined Field auditor has a Lisa McPherson-type case on his hands, with the same disastrous result. The victim’s family knows the PC had been getting auditing and they hire a lawyer. When they naturally try to go after CofS and its deep pockets, CofS says, “We had nothing to do with it. What that apostate did couldn’t have been Scientology pastoral counseling because he’s been kicked out of the Church.” They may even make up some proof our poor auditor was known to foul up and that’s why he was kicked out, his certs revoked.

Meanwhile the media is having a field day with this tragedy, splashing it across the front pages of papers. The news quickly reaches another group that would love nothing more than to shut Scientology down — the psychiatry/psychology field. From their viewpoint, we’ve been horning in on their territory for decades, stealing patients (read: money) from them all this time. They haven’t been able to bring down Scientology as a whole, but here’s their chance to make some inroads.

So their lawyers draft state-level legislation that basically calls any auditing outside of the official Church “practicing medicine without a license.” The tragic death of the PC serves to rile up the citizenry and they go along with the legislation. After all, even the Church says what that auditor did was bad, and not real Scientology.

Okay, you’re thinking, “well, that happened in another state; it won’t affect me.” But then psychs in your state see how successful that was and they do the same thing there, and it spreads all over the US, and beyond. CofS may even assist in this campaign as the Field has become a giant thorn in their side as well.

You may think this scenario is impossible, but with no Qual in the Field ensuring Standard Tech, there could easily be horrible results from bad auditing. And while the Field may be reveling in all the bad press CofS has been getting, it can also serve to tar all Scientology in the minds of wogs who don’t know any better. We start getting cases of PCs going Type 3, or worse, dying in the Field and all Hell is liable to break loose.

It’s in all our best interests to come up with some way to have at least a Qual function in the field. I offered the beginnings of an idea in my post “Assuring Standard Tech” , but it’s something we all need to confront and consider.

Where’s the Div 6 activity?

One of my long-standing pet peeves in Scientology has been the imbalance between promoting to existing public versus raw public. FSMs, even way back when I was on staff, preferred to work with cognited Scientologists over running the Dissemination Drill on raw public. Sure, I understand it’s a whole lot easier to confront someone who already knows Scientology is the way out. Approaching a raw public could leave you dealing with all kinds of headaches (entheta, Third Party, etc.).

CofS has taken cannibalism of public to a whole new level. The stories of outrageous regging are all over the place. But I fear there’s a similar problem in the Field.

While there may be some in the Field who are actively promoting Scientology to raw public, I haven’t seen any major activity in this area. I’ve heard some say that it’s planned, but mostly the focus I’ve seen and heard is on fellow people in the Field, servicing those who are already out, and trying to get more to “wake up” and leave CofS. That’s all good, but we still have a planet to clear, folks.

With CofS crumbling before our eyes, the Field should be positioning itself to take on the job of clearing the planet. Of course, this goes back to that dreaded “Organization” concept because, ideally, there’d be marketing and promotion to reach all those wogs. To do it properly and on the necessary scale, we’d need the money to finance things like TV commercials and web ads (not email marketing, please — I hate spam!). These could point to a central internet presence that provides people with a destination to learn more, as well as a way for them to locate a “provider” in their area. You know, they type in their location and it would show who in that area offers what. It would just be field practices in the beginning (please, auditing and training), but eventually, we’d need some type of Org structure. (Okay, pick your jaw back up. No, you don’t need to cower in the corner. As I mentioned in my “Who’s afraid of Admin?” post, it’s not Organizations or Admin that’s the boogeyman.)

My point is we need to think big, not just worry about our own cases. I totally understand “racing Dynamic One” — I’m not getting any younger myself and I have a whole lot of Bridge to still do. But I also recognize this is a big planet with a whole lot of people. The more people we clear, the better life would be here on Earth. If appealing to your Third and Fourth Dynamics isn’t working, think about your Second. Don’t you want your kids and grandkids to have a safer, saner world to live in?