Scientologist, staff and Sea Org members, and former SO members all know for a fact that disconnection is avidly and strongly practiced in the Church of Scientology - in spite of the statements otherwise by official Church spokespeople to press and media. It´s quite amazing actually that Church management is even denying the existence of the practice, but that simply points to the fact that their arrogance and their concept that they can operate "above the law" is paramount to their concept of honesty and respect for people.
I have a new concept to offer, one which I won´t even bother presenting to the current Church management because they´ll never accept it anyhow as to do so would mean that they would have to admit that they´ve been lying to the world about this particular abusive practice. My idea is RE-connect. Instead of dumping people as so much trash, labelling them as "disaffected", "PTS", "SP", and "bad hats" - how about we use Scientology to HANDLE them and make a better world. Personally, the ONLY SPs I ever encountered in my life, that had any ability to affect my life were in the Sea Org, and the only reason I couldn´t deal with them is because it went against Church protocol to disconnect from suppressive executives above me - in other words my right to associate with them was utterly denied.
In any case, I would recommend re-connecting. Talk to people. Tell them what the problem is. Try to resolve it on the basis of dignity, respect, understanding and mutual interest in a better life. I´m not suggesting that one has to live with or be close to someone who insists on being suppressive towards one - I am suggesting that instead of putting labels on people and denigrating them, a practice which has truly become suppressive in itself and tantamount to labelling people as "Jews" and "lower status humans" - we should skip all the labels and covert or overt disconnection and talk to one another. People have been solving their issues between one another for about 76 trillion years now, on last count, and we don´t need a labelling system in vogue that allows a group, or others to intervene on our lives and tell us who we can or cannot be in touch with. That right is actually, believe it or not, an inalienable right. L. Ron Hubbard himself says it in the Creed of Scientology. I quote: "THAT ALL MEN HAVE INALIENABLE RIGHTS TO THEIR OWN LIVES."
Inalienable is defined as... "incapable of alienated, surrendered or transferred..."
I suggest, as an alternate approach, that we reconnect. That the 30,000 or more former Sea Org members, people who for the most part dedicated themselves to a cause and probably, all-told, countless years of their lives (if one adds up the total years contributed) to seeing that Scientology was proliferated. I would recommend that every SP declare, PTS declare, this and that declare, simply be cancelled and that the matter of choice be restored to the hands of people, individual Scientologists, to make up their mind as to whether or not they want to talk to or associate with someone within Scientology, or outside the bounds of that group.
In our society, there is no entity that has the power to do to people what the Church of Scientology is doing. Putting false labels, arbitrary labels on people that consequently relegates them to a status that denigrates them, dishonors them and reduces them in the eyes of other Scientologists, who will not be able to talk to them or co-exist with them, not at their choice, but because the "Church" has decided so. The greatest good for the greatest number, one of the senior mantras of the Church of Scientology, and one which is used to justify all manner of abuses in the name of the "greater good" is in fact a right that should be exercised by the INDIVIDUAL, and not the group. No parent should be told that they can no longer associate with their child because that child has left the folds of the Church, and yet this is done to this very day. No child should be told that they cannot any longer associate with their parents who may no longer agree with the Church in some way. The bonds between a family are INALIENABLE, and yet, Church management has taken liciense to sever those bonds in the interest of keeping members "protected".´
True power comes not from disconnecting, but from connecting more, through greater understanding and possibly even greater love. One can understand and love an enemy and in so doing never has to say a word against them or about them because they understand that person and that is the greatest power of all.
We need more connection, more communication, more freedom of speech inside Scientology, not constraints, not marginalization, not interference, and certainly not disconnection.
If Scientology is going to become a pervasive philosophy and if it´s teachings are going to become significantly used in this world and if people are going to adopt the principles in their lives, it has to omit any infestation of abuse, prejudice or the mentality that someone, anyone, has the power to tell people who they can associate with or not. That is police-state mentality. It belongs with communism, facism, nazism... and every other "ism" that has failed.
Current Church management will never listen to this advice, and will inevitably tag this article as disaffected and anti-management, but then again this would be the same management that has popularized the abusive system of labeling people and cutting them off from their friends and familys.
It takes a lot more confront and a lot more use of the technology and principles that we all learned in Scientology to stay IN communication, to confront and deal with people, and to HELP them, in whatever way we can, to survive better, than it is to disconnect. Disconnection is the cowards road out. It is the way of the man or woman who cannot look another human being in the eye and deal with them on the SAME level and come to terms. Disconnection is an abusive labeling system. "These are Jews", "he is a Christian", "she is a heretic", "they are witches".... it´s the same words, a different tune. It´s been overused and abused throughout the history of humanity and currently the Church of Scientology management is carrying that banner to the limits once more.
Try it sometime. Open up, let the world through the false walls that have been erected around us in the past. We are Scientologists, we are not hermits. We confront life, we deal with it. We handle it with blood, sweat and tears and we take pride in it. We do not hide behind a false veil of "disconnection" - pretending that others do not exist while we get on with life. Life is life. And whether we like it or not, those "bad people" are part of our lives and we better learn how to start dealing with them with every bit of knowledge we´ve learned in Scientology. That is TRUE love, and true OTism... which I think is the only "ism" worth supporting.
Don´t like someone, someone giving you trouble, then put their ethics in, give them a Dianetics session and run out the incident their dramatizing, or maybe just talk to them and be a friend to them. Because that´s what LRH and Scientology are really about.
He said to keep Scientology FREE, and that means, INALIENABLE RIGHTS.
Written by Outside the Box
|
Comments
In American football, the clock usually stops at the end of each "play" when the whistle is blown. Disconnection is not always a bad thing.
But when the umpires regulating a game are criminally insane (or they are being supervised by others who are criminally insane) then the nature of the game changes.
Imagine David Miscavage getting "Ethics in" on a Natzi Death Camp by enforcing "Disconnection" if you want to know " What could possibly go wrong?"
And when the person who won't speak to you - who has disconnected because he feels you are bad, disaffected, an SP or supporter of SPs -- just refuse to cut the line.
In other words, even IF he won't talk - don't cut the line. In your own heart keep the line open. Refuse to become polarized.
Continue to reach out occasionally to the person even IF you get the phone slammed down, again and again.
You don't know -- on the 50th attempt (spread out over time), might just be the day he needs a true friend.
Just don't fall for the disconnection. Keep your own heart free --
Thanks Outside the Box -- you articulated what's been roaming around in my head :-)
WH
"...the arduous lesson along this line is that no-communication lists, revocation/suspension of certificates, court action of any kind whatsoever within the realm of Scientology and so forth, is not only not only difficult to do but does not work. That's just the end of it. It just doesn't work.It's for the sea gulls. That might work in Gestetner Limited or Westinghouse, but it does not work in Scientology. Got that?"
"It's because they are people of good intention. And by saying that these people are not fit to associate with us anymore, we have told a lie of magnitude. This is not true. It's never true. You got it?"
"Our inability to understand the actions of other Scientologists has a very fascinating barrier. The limitation on our understanding is simply this: we say they have bad intentions, and that is a lie. Got it?"
"So the whole situation is liable to enturbulate around that postulated bad intention. That's what enturbulates the situation. That makes a lie. "The situation then becomes unsolvable. Because we've entered a changing factor called a lie into it."
"The most valuable asset we have, actually, is our ability to understand, to do the right thing, to be kind, to be decent."
"Well, I hate to unsettle a very stable datum, if it does unsettle it. But the only way anything ever does resolve is by letting your own kind heart reach through. That's the only way it ever does solve. "And it never solves by being tough."
"What do we really have of value in the organizations of Scientology? The only thing we have of value, actually, is Scientology, an understanding of life, increasing ability to communicate, a good concept and grip on reality and the ability to like guys. That's all you got."
"And there's only one more thing that we could know that would make us all feel very, very relaxed about the whole thing. There isn't a person anywhere in Scientology who has bad intentions for Scientologists or their fellow man. And that point all by itself is very well worth thinking about the next time some trouble arises in your vicinity, because that is the truth. And if you handle a situation with that in mind, you will solve the situation."
RSS feed for comments to this post