From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 8 - September 1992
Kemp's Column
By Raymond Kemp, USA
Why Something New?
Some years ago (about 1970), I happened to be on Flag when Ron became
somewhat irate over the fact that, as he put it "People keep demanding
of me a new rundown, a new process, just to handle something that I
have already gone over and over again".
As a matter of fact he wrote a somewhat rude note about this in the
Ship's Orders of the Day, and later wrote a bulletin in much more
reasonable tones, for public consumption.
In my book "Handbook of the Gods" the narrator writes, "Truth is a
many faceted Jewel, seek first the whole gem".
As we watch the various magazines that now abound, "IVy, The Free
Spirit, Alf Letter," and "The Heretic". and we read of Dianasis,
Metapsychology, Avatar and the various other classifications of
subjects, all to a greater or lesser extent, claiming something new
(even if only to the extent of handling the 'failed case'), I am again
reminded of both the above events.
In England, many years ago, someone invented the train. If you look at
a train today, it really hasn't changed much over the century or more
since that time. It is still one of the most efficient methods of
transport, regardless of how poorly administered.
More recently, there was the dirigible. (Dirigible, a kind of balloon
that can be steered.) Alas, it died, but is currently being re-
examined because it is still the most efficient method of transporting
goods across the ocean.
Which brings me to the point. Zeppelin, probably the world's greatest
designer of dirigibles, did not fully understand that there was a
better gas that could be used, a non explosive gas. Actually he did
attempt to get some but England, the producer, wouldn't let him have
any, because of the lessening political scene at that time, but that
is material for another article.
Something new
Essentially most people demand something new, because they do not
fully understand all there is to know about what is extant.
I am having enormous difficulty with my invention because the
licensees keep demanding of me some new aspect, some new and as yet
untried version, which may do more, cost less or some other such, when
they have in their hands a fully patented operational item that can
save lives, if only they would get on with their contractual
obligation and manufacture and distribute it -as it is-.
The subject religion, has been around for many an aeon, yet over the
years people keep on inventing new ones, each based on a
missunderstanding, or a non understanding of the earlier one. So great
is the misunderstanding that the God of the earlier religions becomes
the Devil of the new one
People who fail in a marriage then try to go out and get a new one,
over the top of the existing failure, carrying a misunderstood
forward.
Shopkeepers will tell you that about 20% of their customers always
want what the store doesn't have in stock.
Psychologists, Psychiatrists, MDs, and Chiropractors alike are
constantly struggling to obtain some new drug, some new technique,
some new method to handle what is in front of them.
Dianetics, when it first came out was criticized, not because it
didn't work, but because it had a "weird language", and this criticism
came mainly from existing psychologists, who apparently have never
read their own texts, or listened to their own language and technical
jargon.
Metapsychology, while undoubtedly doing an excellent job where
applied, had apparently as one of it's original motivations, the
eradication of all Scientology jargon. However what they have done is
simply to replace it with a new set of words, which have to be defined
within their own sphere of influence.
We could take this further, and say that Ron's fight with psychiatry,
was also due to a non understood on that subject. My personal opinion
is that he often confused the subject with the practitioners, a
misunderstood of some magnitude.
Seek first the whole
The point I am making is that as the book says, truth has many facets,
but unless you seek to understand the whole jewel of truth as a first
step, you will become blinded by the small facets that you are staring
at, and thus miss the beauty of the whole, and, more importantly, will
inevitably end up with the erroneous belief that your one facet is the
whole.
I was interested in a recent program on "Near Death Experiences" known
to many of us by the rather mundane title of exteriorisation, for
which you do not have to be near to death. During the programme many
people had recounted their experience, always in the same general
terms of seeing their body, then seeing and/or going into the light,
etc., etc. Most of the people in an effort to identify that which they
experienced referred to the light as God or more often as Jesus. When
the obligatory (on American TV) expert critic came on, he ridiculed
the whole thing because "obviously this was a hallucination since it
only applied to Christians ... Buddhists wouldn't see Jesus!".
To quote a monseigneur of the Catholic Church "scientology, properly
applied, works one hundred percent of the time, and has no real
quarrel with the (Catholic) Church".
If, because of whatever, you do not like the word scientology in that
quote, take it out and replace it with a word of your own choosing.
Likewise if you do not like the reference to the catholic church, and
what you have left is the truth of the matter, which one could state
as "true therapy, properly applied works 100% of the time" - if it did
not work, it was not applied properly. The obverse would be "if it
never worked it wasn't true therapy".
And on a final note, if you try to add to truth, you only take away
from it.