From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 12 - July 1993
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/


The O.J. Roos Story

By Frank Gordon, USA

Originally, this 26-page Otto Roos Debrief was written for Jon
Atack in September 1984, then sent out in October of that year by
Det Europiske Informationscenter. It has now been re-issued
by Antony A. Phillips, and I obtained a copy from Antony - who
has asked me to do a review.

I do not feel particularly well-qualified for this, since my own
training was very early: a Wichita HDA(1) and Phoenix B.Scn(2)
(Ross Lamoureaux)(3)ca.1953. But there may be some value in viewing
this from the 'early' days.

Major Question

This is not an easy task. From the days of Dianetics: The Modern
Science of Mental Health, I considered Dianetics and Scientology
to exemplify the principle: 'There is hope. Ordinary, intelligent
people of goodwill can help one another'.

And here is a report by Otto about activities aboard a ship that John
McMaster called 'a floating insane asylum', apparently run
by Captain Bligh-Queeg.

So, to me, the major question has been: how could something like the
positive philosophy of early Dianetics get so punishing ?

Early Dianetics

The original Dianetics was a kind of therapy that one could use to
help a friend clarify his thinking and correct implanted aberrations.
It was an activity between equals.

But, later, this activity was restricted to highly-trained
professionals
clearing untrained people who, 'if they knew what was wrong with
them, it wouldn't be wrong with them'.

This was a massive shift of approach and, as Masson(4)
documents, is an invitation to enforced
evaluation and abuse, largely because of the disparity in power. He
concludes that the best kind of therapy is a give and take between
equals (which was the pattern of early Dianetics).

OT III Research a Factor

It is well to bear in mind that the events that Otto describes
occurred
during a period of intense research and exploration.

And, from two of Otto's statements, there seems to be a connection
between OT III and this change to a harsh social system. In addition
to Ron's '8 foot stack of mis-run case,' could it be that,
when you are researching whole track, there were some really vicious
orgs back there, and that many of the people who are participating
are still stuck in them?

So, could Ron have figured that, to run an 'expanded CCH'
and get their attention up to Present Time and on what he was
saying, he had to out-do all the Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Ghengis
Khan types that these people still had their attention fixated on?
A milder dramatization of the vicious org?

Or is this phenomenon inevitable? Work on evil, and some gets
restimulated
or dramatized even if only momentarily? Cops and robbers mixing
valences?
Or, while describing someone, actually acting a bit like them?

Organizational Transformation by its Recruits

The beliefs and personalities of recruits to an org shape it over
a period of time. Behavior modification works both ways. I have a
theory that mental health orgs are a 'scientific' reflection
of an originally abusive situation, because (1) 60% of admissions
have a history of abuse; (2) an abused person, after being separated
from the abusive situation, continues to evoke it for some time after.

This evocation of abuse from the mental health staff can shape their
behavior into a formal 'scientific' reflection of the original
abuser. For example, great care in giving electroshock treatments.
Isn't it possible that the attitudes of those entering Scn orgs over
a period of time have a similar effect?

Otto's Explanation

One recurring theme by Otto is his objection to Ron's policy of being
unreasonable, a kind of unremitting SOP-8C(5).
'You will do so-and-so or else you will go without
sleep, work like a dog, eat garbage, be confined in the chain-locker,
walk the plank, or all of the above.'

Otto's implied explanation for this and many of the other
unpleasantnesses
seems to be that Ron's case was grossly mis-run. Yet, when Otto
tried to get it corrected, Ron blew up and expelled him. Here is a
whole package of unanswered questions.

C of S as a Social Org

The C of S as a social organization shares the complexity of such
orgs. A new computer science is System Dynamics, which studies social
groups and businesses with computer simulations.

Jay Forrester of MIT(6) has
pioneered such simulation studies and has written three books(7)
that describe his development and use of these techniques - and some
surprising results. Senge(8)summarizes and reviews this field. He
gives the
results of several simulations used for management trainees, including
one for People Express airline(9) and why it had difficulties.

A comparable study of the why and how of the transformation of early
Dianetics goodwill help groups, into the harsh system described by
Otto could be made. The technological rudiments have been established.
There is even a popular computer game called Simcity from Broderbund,
in which you can try your hand at setting successful urban policies.

An odd thing about these studies is what comes out as the best way
to solve org (or personal) problems. Frequently, short-term
'solutions'
give long-terms disasters. Because of the many interacting feedback
loops, including Mother Nature, effective long-term policies
are quite subtle.

Any study of the C of S - ostensibly a service organization -
is made even more complex because it has had many other goals.
One of these was to take over a country: become a government and
perhaps
even the world government. So any computer simulation of its many
aspects would be both difficult and fascinating.

For example, there is a processing or Clearing loop for the benefit
of the preclear or customer. This is connected to a loop that operates
for the benefit of the org. There are employee recruitment, training
and pay level loops.

With a good computer simulation, one could explore many of these
aspects.
What would happen if employee pay were raised to 50 cents a week?
How effective is 'pig-berthing' as an incentive to productivity?
Does a diet of rice and beans reduce stresses on the environment?
And so on.

From the research of Forrester and others, one would expect many of
the results to be counter-intuitive and unexpected because of
the complexity of the interconnecting feedback loops.

For instance, increased pig-berthing could give increased productivity
if the employees believed that spiritual evolvement required a voyage
through Purgatory(10).Or if it
resulted in a greater esprit de corps, which can also happen
to those who have had difficult times together.

Summary

The O. J. Roos Story is fascinating, although brief and rather
laconic. It raises many interesting questions, only a few of which
I have discussed above.

It is likely that yet-unknown social organization principles underlie
many of the irrationalities Otto observed; and that to uncover these
requires further research and, perhaps, tools comparable to those
of System Dynamics.

So there are still some of Ron's 'wild variables' and unknowns.
As he said, 'All I'm trying to do is get you to look'.




(1)Hubbard Dianetic Auditor

(2)Bachelor of Scientology - in the Fifties,
B.Scn was a training level higher than HCA (U.S.), Hubbard Certified
Auditor and HPA (UK), Hubbard Professional Auditor; and D.Scn, Doctor
of Scientology, topped them all.

(3)Ross ran The
Phoenix Institute of Scientology, a franchise with the authority to
issue certificates. This was prior to the org which Ron later
established
in Phoenix, when he gave the 'Phoenix Lectures'.

(4)Against Therapy: Emotional Tyranny and the Myth of Psychological
Healing
by J. M. Masson, 1981, Atheneum.

(5)As outlined in,
for example, The Creation of Human Ability (1954), by L. Ron Hubbard.

(6)Massachusetts Institute of Technology


(7)Industrial Dynamics, 1961, MIT Press & Wiley; Urban Dynamics, 1969,
MIT; World Dynamics, 1971, Wright-Allen.

(8)In The Fifth Discipline, by Peter M. Senge,1990, Doubleday.

(9)An american airline founded in 1980
after the deregulation of airlines in 1978. It stressed employee
ownership,
low cost, and good service. It had difficulties because of over
expansion.
A computer simulation indicates this could have been corrected
by a 25%  fare increase and sustained high service standards. See
4, pp. 127.135.

(10)Literally: A place or state of purging (purifying,
cleansing) which enables one to make up (pay) for past wrong-doings.
In a legal penalty, so many years of hard labour. Auditing can also
be viewed as a kind of rational purgation (purification).






Tue Jul 11 20:46:24 EDT 2006