From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 8 - September 1992


Comments on "Inside Scientology"
By Frank Gordon, USA

(Frank Gordon is a retired Biochemist with an M.A. from Harvard, an
early HDA from Wichita and a Bachelor of Scn from Phoenix. One of his
interests is the application of the Scientific Method to the
humanities.)

"Inside Scientology", By Robert Kaufman, is published by Olympia
Press, 1972

The value of critical reports

I recently had the privilege of again reading Robert Kaufman's "Inside
Scientology", and realized that no one has as yet used any of these
critiques as a source of valuable data about the requirements for
effective help. Why did Bob Kaufman get into so much trouble and could
it have been avoided? And if so, how?

This approach is different from one which simply tries to sweep such a
critique 'under the rug',and is more like how one would look at a
laboratory or research report.

Whose case gets run

Here is one such approach, centered around the question of who is
going to be allowed to 'get some charge off'.

"Boy, am I hung over -"

"Hey, that's nothing, just listen to what I heard about the boss!"

This type of contest occurs frequently in everyday life. Putting this
into auditing framework, it becomes:

AUDITOR: "Well now, whose case shall we run, yours or mine?"

And in the present instance, the author of this book replies:

KAUFMAN: "I think I'll run my case for a change, and blow all this
unhandled charge by writing a book."

You've probaly never heard it put so bluntly, but there is an old
Dianetic truism that the auditor tends to run his own case out of the
preclear. And in other therapies, it is recognized that the therapist
considers himself especially successful when the client duplicates -
him-.

Auditing as positive

In this book, auditing itself is generally seen to be positive.

Bent Corydon in "LRH Messiah or Madman?" himself takes this view and
quotes from Brian Ambry's critique "The Bridge to Total Freedom":

"If you've ever sat down with anyone and let him tell you his problems
- get it off his chest - to a point where he felt better and, perhaps
even realized something about the situation which resulted in improved
ability or willingess to deal with it, then you've been an 'auditor'."

Even Kaufman at first liked auditing, especially the active side, and
wanted to get into it, but at the same time stay away from the orgs.

These positive approaches align with Hubbard's -original- view:

" . if dianetics were legislated into a licensed profession, then..
Such laws would put all men of good will who lend a sympathetic ear to
a friend's troubles inside the barbed wire."

The organization's case

Holding "all men of good who will lend a sympathetic ear to a friend's
troubles" in mind, let's look at an experience reported by Jon Atack
in "A Piece of Blue Sky," on p. 39:

"I was suffering from a severe bout of influenza and went to Saint
Hill for a counseling 'assist'. Instead, I was interrogated about my
... connections with people who was had resigned ... The following
afternoon I was summoned back ... I expected to receive counseling. To
my surprise, I was subjected to an Ethics interview ... with a raging
temperature ... besieged by a series of justifications of the excesses
of ... management."

Whose case was being run? Certainly not Jon's. His immediate problem
was ignored and overwhelmed by the anxieties and defensiveness of a
highly restimulated -organizational case-. Like a fretful anxious
mother's concern that Johnnie's actions are only important inasmuch as
they might affect -her- reputation.

It would have been quite appropriate if Jon had said; "Gee, it sounds
like I'm quite a problem to you. Tell me about it."

In earlier times, the problem of auditor (and by extension,
organizational restimulation) was confronted more directly:

"The auditor should be cognizant (cognizant, knowledgeable of
something through personal experience) of the fact that addressing
entheta (upset, confusion, etc.) in a preclear is restimulative to the
auditor. A certain amount of the auditor's free theta is going to
become enturbulated ... the enturbulation is not wholly temporary, but
a certain amount ... must be processed out. Auditors who are not
themselves being processed are unsuccessful. A group of auditors
processing preclears but not being processed themselves ... will
become a veritable snake-pit of entheta ... " "Science of Survival"
II,266

Such scenes as above, common in these critical reports, stem from
methods of handling restimulation other than by what John McMaster
calls "that fabulous function", i.e. true auditing.

Accumulated restimulation drives one to somehow handle it. "Do
something, do anything, but do something!" expresses the feeling.

And so a flat roteness, justifications, threats of punishment,
violence, and blaming others can be used in attempts to reduce this
restimulation and blow it off in dramatizations.

Kaufman, when audited by Felicia, an attractive young woman, didn't
recognize much in the way of gains. Felicia used a rote approach
without first getting his area of interest. Her attention was
apparently on her technique.

He was later audited by a Maurice M, who "veered from the central
process so often it seemed he was improvising". During one session,
Maurice had a temper tantrum, and was even more clearly running his
own case.

Auditing as rote mechanics

As a result of these and similar experiences, Kaufman came to the
conclusion that " ... it didn't seem to matter. Auditing, I was
beginning to think, existed as an entity in itself, apart from the
person behind the meter ... "

This is a far cry from telling a friend your troubles. It conjures up
an image of starting to tell a friend about some difficulty and having
him come up with a question like; "Tell me something you could say to
a cat."

Such set patterns of questions, not connected to Kaufman's immediate
concerns (-his- case), could explain much of his lack of a perception
of gain.

Levin puts this situation very succinctly in the December '90 "Free
Spirit", p. 11 in "An Alternative Approach to Auditing".

Briefly, it's about the by-passed charge arising when one mechanically
applies a routine which fails to intimately and exactly target the
individual's "intense desire to remedy some issue in his life which
has been in place for a very long time".

Kaufman reports his experiences with this general "off-target"
approach as follows:

"A very general type of question is repeated several times ... he
tries to answer the question to the best of his ability. He fells
pressured, coerced, trapped in a minor way; but his next reaction is a
greater desire to answer the repeated question, because he gets a
small prize every time he opens his mouth, in the form of an
acknowledgement."

Shades of the Great American Educational System, where one must give
some kind of a "right answer" in order to receive smiling
acknowledgements, or A+s. This may give a warm sense of 'release' as
one bounds blithely up through the school grades; but this 'good
student's' mindless agreement, can also result in the loss of a sense-
of-self.

Emotional Q&A

Kaufman points out one curious phenomena: The auditor, just by smiling
and appearing pleased, could give him a blowdown on the e-meter, and a
sense of relief and relaxation. Conversely, a "toughie-mug" auditor
could make him tense, and give him rough indications on the meter:

"Danny slid into his chair and revved up the meter like an air-ace in
his cockpit. He was unsmiling, with a squint which unnerved me ... I
didn't know what was causing the reads (on the e-meter) ... and this
little bastard had to louse it all up - -he- was what was dirtying the
needle."

Kaufman was then shunted to Review and Ethics by Danny. "Review
consisted entirely of assessing my ARC-breack (upset) with Danny ...
Then there was another long wait to see the Ethics Officer. Ethics was
a warm, reassuring man who chatted with me when I sat down at his
desk."

At this, he relaxed and did well. Much like "good cop - bad cop". But
this again wasn't running -his- case.

A similar event is reported by Atack. "He (a review auditor) asked
whether I had "over-run" (gone past) the end of the process. The
needle obviously floated, as the auditor told me I had indeed "over-
run" OT2. I was never able to pinpoint any tangible benefit from doing
OT2, but for the rest of that day I was as pleased as Punch."

This is a kind of Q&A by a preclear, responding to an auditor's
suspicion with anxiety, and to warmth with relaxation and a floating
needle. A way of avoiding this kind of Q&A is reported by Corydon, in
connection with a preclear's attempted suicide:

"this whole scene was a Potential threat to Guardian W.W. (Note: -
their- case!) ... A scapegoat was needed, and my wife and I were the
chosen ones ... A mimeographed 'Ethics Order' was issued ... 'crimes'
and 'high crimes' ... For the next few weeks I defied the entire
process and gambled on the fact that they needed us. The 'Ethics
Order' was eventually cancelled because of our 'up statistics'."

Kaufman's need to be heard

Kaufman's book has a special value because of his detailed personal
experiences. Apparently he had to write it to clarify what had
happened to him (a kind of self-clearing). It would seem that no one
in the organization was sufficiently destimulated to listen to him and
honestly attend to -his- case.

AUDITOR is the Latin future passive imperative of - audio = I hear,
and literally means THOU SHALT BE HEARD.

One of Kaufman's dithyrambs (dithyramb: a short piece in an inspired
wild irregular strain.) testifies very clearly to his by-passed charge
on thoughts forbidden by the bureaucracy, and to his not being
permitted TO BE HEARD:

"It wasn't until the train pulled out of Edinburgh Station that I
allowed myself to think certain forbidden thoughts, to feel a certain
resentment and a certain nausea. I was sick of their Lines, their
Ethics, their Stats, and wanted to heave it all up in one big ball."
p.209

"Something to blame"

He finally perceives a pattern, p.256:

" ... scapegoats are one of vital connecting threads running
throughout Ron's message to his followers: The noxious materials, the
expulsion of which is supposed to cure sick souls. the reactive mind,
the charge, the implants, the GPM's the R6 bank, the engrams, the body
thetans, the friendly and unfriendly valences, the corrupt beings of
the universe, and archetypal SP's all have but one identity and one
meaning: something to blame."

Ah, "something to blame". Since that definitely reads on my meter I'll
just get on the cans and see what happens. Well, Well. Tone arm action
all over the place. It seems that I share this tendency.

"Inside Scientology", like the other critiques, can give something of
great value, especially when viewed simply as a report of "What
happened?"

In scientific invesigations, a "failure", as in the famous Michelson-
Morley experiment, can tell one as much or more than a "success".