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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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Sometimes horses really do sleep in beds
by Phil Spickler
25 Jun 00

       The original Auditor's Code and its additions and subtractions over
the years might well be considered something called a "stable datum."  Now in
spite of some of the "never"s and "always"s in that code, it nevertheless as
a stable datum is not an absolute.  And any real good stable datum is really
only as good as it is pragmatic, which is to say useful, helpful in
accomplishing or aiding a given purpose or activity, such as in this case
auditing.

       And I think all will agree that when you have a profession, such as
that of auditor, it's a good idea that the activities of such people have one
or more stable data that the professionals in such a field mainly live by --
a uniform code of ethical practice, for example.  Otherwise, we will fall
into the mis- and mal-practice of occupations like psychology, psychiatry,
psychoanalysis, and even to some degree medicine, wherein each practitioner
operates without the necessary checks and balances and ethical codes
necessary to insure a high standard of regard for patients, clients,
therapees, analysands, etc. etc., leading to extraordinary abuses and misuses
of their customers' lives, finances, and hoped-for improvements in health,
physical and mental and otherwise.

       It is true that a stable datum can become so stable that it is no
longer a useful and pragmatic aid to accomplishment
and can lead to simply games and who's the rightest and who's the wrongest,
and this sort of thing can be found ad continuum, ad nauseum in most
surviving religious groups, and is especially apparent in the fast track of
the Church of Scientology, which managed in a very short period of time to go
from a very avant-garde liberal group to a repressive and suppressive
institution which can make the dubious claim of rivaling some of the worst
periods of the Catholic church in the intention to own the bodies, minds and
souls of its adherents through brutal forms of threat, fear and suppression.

        And so we get the serious stable datum as illustrated in the
so-called Policy Letter "Keeping Scientology Working," which now does more to
keep Scientology from working than yours truly ever imagined possible; and
that it apparently should come from the Founder of Scientology and Dianetics,
or something or someone using his name, is a real incredible in my estimation.

        To come back to the point of that stable datum called the Auditor's
Code: if you were training thousands of auditors to work both in
organizations and in lonely outposts, I should still like to maintain the
idea that it is a healthy thing to imbue them all with a stable datum of
ethical conduct that is held in common throughout the profession.

        Some folks have written in to the IVy list and bragged about how an
auditor in session might rudely and abruptly challenge their data when they
were being preclears and correct it, or in another case deliberately give the
person a misunderstood word and an evaluation.   And those that wrote in
these things seemed to be saying, "See, these auditors evaluated and
invalidated and disregarded the Auditor's Code, but they got away with it;
therefore it's OK to do that."

        But I'm here to say that whether the auditor is Joe Doakes or L. Ron
Hubbard hisself, such conduct in session is quite unnecessary, and the same
things could have been accomplished well within the Auditor's Code, and as a
result the people that wrote in wouldn't have these indelible memories,
because the sessions that they were being given would have been seamlessly
beautiful, and they wouldn't have been jarred temporarily out of session by
the misconduct of their auditors.

         One of Ron Hubbard's observable problems over the years was
confusing the hat of Auditor with the hat of Founder when auditing, thus
leading to some severe examples of bad auditing form and practice.  And of
course there was no one within the Sea Organization, or among the staff and
students before that, who had the guts to call him on these misadventures,
since folks very close to Ron, if they wished to survive the day without
being thrown off the flying bridge of the _Royal Scotsman_ or being condemned
to a  life in northern Scotland could only look upon these technical
travesties with a grin and say, "Ain't the Old Man amazing" or such
sycophantic platitudes.

       Now here we are in a new century.  This is the post-schism reform
period of Scientology, in which a fairly large and healthy number of people
departed the Mother Church or were booted out (excommunicated, if you will),
and have gotten scattered somewhat around good old Mother Earth.  Unlike what
happened to the Catholic Church, we never had our Martin Luther who posted
his Articles of protest which gave birth to what is now called Protestantism
in all its variations.  Instead, we have many Martin Luthers and many
protestants, some of which have groups, some of which stand alone,
protesting.  And so the protestant movement doesn't have quite the power and
strength, and it's easier for the Mother Church, if she wishes to attack, to
attack lone individuals rather than a united front.

       However, some of these individuals are like the consumer advocate in
the United States known as Ralph Nader, who some decades ago took on the
then-largest corporation in the world, General Motors, and beat them.  So in
spite of some of Ron's information to the contrary, it IS possible for a lone
OT, or just a lone human being with an idea, to kick the pants off a giant
somewhat insane group.  This continues to be one of the fears of the current
Church of Scientology -- I just haven't gotten that angry yet.

      Lone practitioners in the field, and I've had a couple of pretty good
shots at assuming that identity, can have a lot of fun and do a lot of good
work.  But they're subject at times to the lack of terminals of comparable
magnitude, and become slack in assuming the necessary hats to keep the checks
and balances in on what they're doing: to qual themselves as auditors when
it's needed, to properly case supervise themselves, to act as Ethics Officer,
Chaplain, D of P, etc. etc., when it's really needed; and because of their
earlier "moral" training as professionals they can get down on themselves
pretty badly.  They can quit or give up what they're doing; they can also end
up squirreling pretty badly and eventually have to go back to managing a
large cumputer network for some worldwide high tech giant.  Nothing wrong
with that if you can do it, and in some ways it's a lot easier than keeping
your thetans in good order.

        OK -- so the long and the short of what I'm talking about is, if you
aren't going to use the Auditor's Code as evolved in Dianetics and
Scientology, it would be a pretty good idea to formulate one of your own that
is based on the notion of the highest possible survival for the people you're
working with and yourself.  Or if you're in the business of training lots of
auditors or processors, be kind to them and give them some kind of a code or
stable datum that gives them some chance of doing a clean, honest job,
without making it an absolute.

       Over the decades, I saw an awful lot of auditors around the world get
trained, and many of them never went on to practice as professional auditors.
 The question over the decades has been, "Why not?"  One of the biggest and
best answers to that question has been that many of them never, ever, in the
first place wanted to be professional auditors.  Many of them got trained on
the determinism of others, and because they were so happy with their auditing
results that they just couldn't say "No."  In my opinion, in any real
occupation that is a profession, the people that take up the profession
should really want to, on their own determinism, and it should be made fairly
difficult for them to achieve professional status, lest we make nothing of
the value of said profession by forcing the unwilling and the inept into its
ranks.  It's a great thing to say, "Everyone's an auditor, and anyone can do
it," but if you're talking about real professionals in any field and all that
that means, then that idea that everyone and anyone can do it simply ain't
true.

        I shall look forward in the future to hearing from some of my
terminals of comparable and incomparable magnitude on the matters spoken of
in this monologue.  I salute those who have dared --
       All the best,
         Phil