From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 20 - January 1995
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Another Look at Basics - #1
The Only One and Logic 8
By Frank Gordon, USA
LOGIC 8. A datum can be evaluated only by a datum of comparable
magnitude.
Logic 9. A datum is as valuable as it has been evaluated.
If one is dealing with an 'only one', by these logics it can
not be evaluated. It's unique, unduplicatable, and heart-rendingly
dogmatic.
There is only one church leading to salvation, and of course I'm in
it.
There is only one tree, and it's the maple tree I fell out of in
Ripley,
Maine.
Any engram is an only one, and once it can be compared to other
traumas,
the attention should free up.
Event
In the Dane Spots letter(1),
Dane states that the church-field conflict is due to a 3rd party
unknown
to both sides who then accuse one another. In addition, he blames
an attitude he calls 'the aesthetic of unreasonableness' (which
I have not yet understood).
Using Logic 8, however, many event comparisons can be made. The
Protestant
Reformation vs. the Catholic Church led to many similar doctrinal
and power splits, resulting in many varieties of Protestantism.
Organizational type
The CofS can be compared to a spiritually helpful church, or a
corporation (with its many hard-sell and short-term profit attitudes).
Or it can be viewed as constantly valence-shifting between the
two.
The Independent field can be compared to 'rebellious adolescents'
asserting their new-found possibilities of independent thought and
action, or to sensible, rational adults who refuse to be
'hornswoggled'(2).
Gradient scales
Hubbard developed many gradient scales. In addition to applying Logic
8, he brought an ordered framework to related items, as in the
Tone Scale and many other scales(3).
He also applied
this logical method to problems, as in 'Invent a problem of comparable
magnitude'.
In the transition from inventor or entrepreneur to big business, there
is a frequent breakdown. They seem to require different abilites.
There was such a battle in Wichita ca. 1951 between a businessman
who wanted to stabilze and promote Dianetics, and Hubbard who wanted
to keep exploring.
As another example, Jobs and Wozniak started Apple Computer, but
called
in professional management which finally fired Jobs.
Tool for understanding
It is easy to fall into an only one of some kind, and a use of logic
8 can expand one's view.
For example the use of Logic 8 could lead to clues
as to 'what really happened to the philosophy and practice
of scientology', once we can admit that we really do not know.
But why bother? There is only one villain, the other
guy, and blaming him is so comforting and effortless.
(1)We have called it the Dane Tops letter -
his signature, which is the only source of his name, is difficult
to decipher. The letter is available from Box 78, DK-2800 Lyngby,
and probably your IVy distributor. Issued under this pseudonym
in 1983, it helped start the break out from the CofS.Ed.
(2)Slang for conned, manipulated, and overwhelmed.
(3)Scientology 0-8 - The Book
of Basics has many of these, pp. 99-134. These include Reality,
Responsibility, and Havingness Scales and many others.