From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 3 - November 1991
Two European Conferences
By Antony A Phillips, Denmark
In October two free-scientology (or post scientology) congresses were
held, in neighbouring countries and on consecutive weekends.
The first one was probably the first time that 'gurus' of different
persuasions (none of whom like to be referred to as gurus) have met at
a conference since the rather stormy conference held in Switzerland in
1986. There was a higher level of ARC and granting of Beingness here,
which was very nice to see. However time was short for a really full
interchange of views, and twice it became painfully obvious that one
'guru' had not fully understood another, on one occasions offering
(publicly) help that the other obviously (to me) did not need, and the
other a rather poorly founded criticism of a demo (demos of real
sessions are always a little touchy). It is a very good sign that some
'gurus' (lets be more mundane and just call them opinion leaders) are
now willing to go to others congresses, and are received with
friendliness. The last Swiss Conference left a rather bitter taste in
the mouth.
Holland
The conference (or congress - use which ever term you like best) in
Holland was the third in the series of yearly so-called 'Source'
conferences, which Ray and Pam Kemp, and Per Schi>ttz started in
Copenhagen two years ago, and which continued last year in Berlin with
Michael Zippel organising. This time the organiser was Elly Poortenar,
of the Excalibur Foundation, Holland ('Excalibur' seems to be the 'in
word' at the moment, call something an Excalibur, and you can expect
lots of enthusiasm and lots of opposition). Elly competently delegated
a lot of the work to a very able master of ceromonies. The planning
and timing of the congress was excellent. The place was a delightful
course centre in the country some kilometres from Drachten.
(Delightful, but even the Danes present noticed that the country was
flatter than usual)
The first speaker was Ray Kemp, who does not like to be called a
'guru' as he feels that he is simply trying to get people to realize
that there is a wealth of material in the LRH philosophy that only
needs to be understood without the Church of $ spin, to bring a richer
and fuller life and expansion towards the original goals of the
subject. Speaking after dinner on Friday 4th Oct, on How to BE a
Succes, he based his talk on the well known BE, DO, HAVE triangle, but
emphasised that it was important first to decide what you want to
have, then get in action doing, and finally be. He also emphasised the
need for understanding the correct actions, and ones best guide to
what was correct was obtained in Rons Data Series and Target Series.
'Sarge' (official first name: Frank) Gerbode followed, describing how
his basic goal had been to help people be happy, that he had sought to
do this through medicine and psychiatry but not been satisfied, and
again sought through other means, including scientology, with success
that had its limitations. His conclusion was that it was necessary to
stop thinking of ourselves as scientologists and followers of Hubbard
if we wanted to help broadly. He advised us to throw away all
scientology jargon, which helped scientologists communicate with each
other but now has made it extremely difficult for us to communicate
with the world at large over a longer period. This was what had been
done in Metapsychology, and he amplified on this theme. (An
interesting question: what makes scientology scientology? The jargon,
the techniques, or the philosophy? Or perhaps, what is important? The
jargon, the techniques, the goal, or the philosophy?)
On Saturday Gerald French talked on Successes with Metapsychology, and
Per Schi>ttz on Lifes Philosophy. After lunch, Ray Kemp, who in the
last two conferences had emphasised basics, and the need to really and
honestly achieve the state of clear (see the earlier Source Conference
Reports), opened up the whole world beyond clear in a two part lecture
on understanding the state of O.T. Pointing out that there was a
tendency to "go for O.T." as either a solution to 'case', or an effort
to solve perceived unwanted conditions in the relationship between the
being and the physical universe, Ray went on to show that there needs
to be a datum of comparable magnitude to O.T. before one can fully
understand it. The datum Ray used was the field of Quantum Physics,
the study of sub atomic particles and masses so small as to be
approximating Zero Mass, Zero Wavelength, where the physical rules as
generally known, observably start to break down, and the phenomena can
only be explained by introducing such items as "Alternate Universes",
"Time is a consideration". and "Particles are only located in space by
the prior creation of that space". The talks were well worth hearing
and recordings of them were made. During the break a couple of
attendees, who had an existing background of Quantum Mechanics, got
into an animated discussion, talking entirely mathematical formula and
filling the blackboard with equations.
On Sunday, Pam gave an auditing demonstration on a Dutch lady, who had
previously had something like 40 hours of auditing, and had a
continueing problem handling children. This was done without an E-
meter (Pam was trained by LRH in the early days), and despite the
language barrier it went deep. To give such a session in the presence
of some forty people, and to observe the "in sessionness", while
running a forty year long engram, splitting a major valence, and
handling a service facsimile, all within about ninety minutes shows
the skill of the auditor. Pam is a class IX auditor, trained by Ron in
the early 50's, as well as later Flag training. She and Ray were the
target of the original G.O. program "Control and takeover of US
incorporated Missions" in 1974, long before the general exodus, and
Pam has been succesfully counselling clients ever since.
A lot more than described above happened at the conference, and there
was much interchange of comm between individuals during informal
breaks and meal times. But it should not go unreported that Antony
Phillips gave a short talk on the importance of having magazines like
"International Viewpoints" circulating communication at periods when
there were no conferences and for people who could not afford (time,
or money) conferences. So tell your friends "Ivy" exists.
Belgium
Belgium was the scene of the fourth European IRM Conference. IRM
stands for Institute for Research in Metapsychology, and there have
been Metapsychologists working in Europe for a number of years, most
or all of them being former 'church' scientologists. There is now a
tradition with Metapsychology conferences, that they are accompanied
by a symposium, and for practicing auditors (or facilitators as some
of the 'no scientology jargon' people will have it), this is as
important as the Conference itself.
The Symposium
In Metapsychology a symposium is a meeting of facilitators. It is a
two-way comm affair where all can give, and (hopefully) all receive.
It was from a series of three Symposiums in USA and one in Europe that
Metapsychologies Curriculum (scn read bridge, others read way, or
path) was formulated. Facilitators with many years auditing and C/Sing
experience (many of them dating from the 50's, some from the very
early 50s, and with widely differing auditing and c/sing backgrounds)
came together, and over many days exchanged experiences on which
processes worked best, where, what was illogical over the latest
'bridge' we enherited, etc. After many hours of such exchange the
Metapsychology Curriculum was formed. Not the result of one gurus
dictation, but a consensus from a number of experienced people.
There were about 10 people participating in the Symposium at Brussels
on the 10th and 11th October. My notes are very brief. Many, many
subjects were covered, brought up by all participants, and solutions
and other angles were suggested by the individuals in the group. It is
impossible for me to give a good summary of the Symposium - auditors,
facilitators and even other practitioners with a little background in
those subjects jargons, really should come and attend the next one.
Friday Evening
On Friday evening there was a meeting at the Brussels Metapsychology
centre where the centres member's (scn jargon: public) were able to
come and hear Sarge Gerbode and Rafaella Landais. As the both spoke
French, which I do not, I can not report the meeting. I can add that
the leaders of the Belgium Centre, Madeleine and Jean Vandergoten
organised all these Belgium events.
The Conference
This was held in the centre of Brussels at the Hotel La Legende and
there were delegates from Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, England and
Switzerland. The lectures were in English, with a sentence for
sentence translation to French.
'Sarge' Gerbode spoke first. He mentioned that there was looming up in
the Common Market regulative legislation on psychology and bordering
subjects which threatened to require long training (my comment: an
overrun?). He suggested we could avoid possible difficulty by
emphasing that our subject is a form of education, which it was not
possible to regulate - there are similarities within the martial arts
and forms of meditation. The purpose is to improve the quality of
life. There are two stages to learning, the receptive and the
integrative, where one integrates what one has received with all other
ideas. Sarge then gave a fairly detailed description of the
Metapsychology Curriculum (read: bridge, way, path, ladder, labyrinth,
maze as you feel inclined), explaining why things were put in the
order they were in (Sarge was present at all the Symposia that
contributed to the Curriculum, so is well familiar with the different
views and reasons put forward). After lunch Sarge continued talking on
the curriculum and unstacking.
After a break Gerald French talked about the IRM, mentioning that the
materials had been very carefully checked against the possibility of
infringement of copyright laws. He talked of PTSD (Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder - yes, I know its more strange jargon, but it is
jargon used by the broad establishment that is having to handle people
with engrams keyed in, and does not know how, and is longing for our
help if we can give it in a way they can accept and duplicate). IRM
has been able to help handle people with engrams keyed in permanantly
from experiences in Vietnam, and Gerald described some of their
successes, including getting one organization to change its payment
schedule to one which acknowledged that EP's (End Phenomena, End
Points) do not come precisely 50 minutes after start of session, and
you should not stop until an EP.
The next talk was by Beatrice French, from Brazil, and was -totaly-
outside the tradition of scientology as I know it. However this is no
surprise at an IRM conference, as IRM and its members are in good
communication with many 'other practices' whose object is to help
people be happy. Beatrice talked charmingly on spiritualism, Malkuti
and Serphira, covered all sorts of orders of spirits round about, and
(so far as I can remember, I was so entranced I stopped taking notes)
ended by recommending we kept on good terms with our guardian angel
(which I, dyed in the wool robot scientologist, interpreted as that I
should make good postulates for myself).
After lunch on Sunday Rafaella Landais, from Italy, spoke about study,
her motivation for developing study tech, stressing the point of
automatic attention without volantary control. Jacques Regard talked
of the value of the tools we have - communication, tone scale, study,
handling time. And to end 'Sarge' Gerbode and Hildegard Jahn talked on
the Body Programme.
Unstacking
There was considerable interest in Unstacking, a process designed for
handling GPMs, which does not require listing, and which when goofed
up does not make a dogs breakfast of the pc (viewer). Sarge had
earlier said that it should be run as an audited, not solo, technique.
On the five days after the Congress weekend there was a course in
Unstacking.
The Extras
The above has really just skimmed the surface of the speakers at the
two conferences. An awfull lot went on informally over coffee and
meals. Bits I picked up included the following. There is a very
definate EP to NOTs, which is in church confidential material, but
which few have persisted to (Bill Casey). After a 'new baked' auditor
had stated that some cases could not run objectives: -all- pcs can be
run on objectives, and there was data on it back in the 50s (Paul
Meyer). This latter reminded me than in about 1958, when I instructed
the Academy, every auditor had to run and have run on him/her 10 hours
'non-stop' of Opening Procedure by Duplication. Truly the riches we
have in post scientology and neo Metapsychology are great, and the
place to learn about more of them (apart from the pages of this
magazine) are at conferences. We will try and let you know in good
time when the next ones will be, so you can get your guardian angel to
work getting you there.
In my opinion both these conferences were well in the tradition of
furthering the better things which Ron has left us. Both Ray and Pam
and the Metapsychology 'clique' use other words than Rons to their
non-scientology clients, but their techniques are in the Scn tradition
(in my opinion). However it should be noted that Metapshychology has -
many- differences from church scientology as it was known and
practiced in the 70's and 80's, and in fact issue a leaflet detailing
these differences, and run a sort of 'conversion' course (called the
Update Course) to 'convert' ex-scientologists to Metapsychologists.
And there are other 'post scientology' traditions with their own
nomenclature. Communication between them is important, if all are
going to do the maximum in helping people. And this does create a
language problem.
But lets not be disheartened. Europe, with its many languages once was
ridden with group ARC breaks and wars (both religious and political).
But what is the scene now? We have not had a world war in Europe for
over 45 years. And no real minor wars except at the moment in
Jugoslavia. In fact European countries are cooperating and talking to
each other as never before. There can be good communication between
the different 'factions' of post scientology. And you can be part of
this, by reading this mag, going to congresses, and finding pen, phone
and personal pals amongst those you meet.