Sam Butler » Scientology

What difference does one person make?

Sam — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:09:55 +0000

At the celebration of the 26th anniversary of the International Association of Scientologists in southern England, where the association was founded in October 1984, I witnessed the release of a new short video scheduled for broad publication by the Church of Scientology that shows Scientologists’ social responsibility and how they view the role of the individual. It’s about the length of a television ad, so I recommend you watch it in full…

http://www.scientology.org/videos.html#/videos/category/what-we-do/scientology-commercial-one-day

Screenshots from the video:

Scientology: An Invitation to Freedom

Sam — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:26:54 +0000

As we enter the second half of 2010, Churches of Scientology and their parishioners around the world have just finished three weeks of celebratory gatherings, updating them on news of the Church’s religious and secular activities since the beginning of the year. It’s also a chance to announce new things, which last week included the release of four additional Scientology ‘ads’, intended for TV and internet broadcast as an introduction to the religion for the broad public.

One such new ad is entitled, “An Invitation to Freedom,” and sources its dialogue directly from Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s written work, An Invitation to Freedom—Man Can Save His Soul:

“It has not come with blares of trumpets or the flare and flash of flame. It has come quietly, and you aren’t at all sure you should believe it.”

“You are a spirit. You are your own soul. You are not mortal. You can be free.”

The new ads can be seen on the Church of Scientology’s newly-refreshed international website at www.scientology.org (direct link to the ads), as well as on television channels including MTV, VH1 and Sky News in the UK.

Election: Scientology and Politics

Sam — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:01:40 +0000

Someone asked me recently if there were any “teachings” in the Scientology religion concerning politics, or anything that might indicate a particular political leaning among Scientologists. So, having just returned from the polling station, I thought I’d answer the question here on my blog.

In terms of the Church of Scientology, I have to be clear in reiterating Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard‘s policy on politics, which is entitled “Politics, Freedom From,” and wherein he states:

I hereby declare Scientology to be nonpolitical and nonideological.”

…

Scientology is for a free people and is itself on this date declared free of any political connection or allegiance of any kind whatever.”

L. Ron Hubbard was however no stranger to the subject of politics. Since politics itself as a word is derived from the Greek polī́tēs, meaning “citizen”, and Ron was a philosopher concerned with the improvement of people’s lives, he also had something to say on the subject of politics and government.

In working toward true freedom for others, Ron became involved in human rights causes. In his article Goverment and Revolt, he wrote:

Governments by, for and of special privilege are doomed the moment they set up the first barrier to the many. It becomes a barricade.

Ron’s support for human rights and his acknowledgment of civil rights campaigners in the 1960s, as well as his published disgust at Naziism and totalitarian government regimes, would tend to point toward a left-wing political leaning, but then again his disagreement with the hugely unworkable communist model would tend to indicate otherwise. Additionally, in 1966, he wrote about the composition of a successful organisation—including an entire nation.

In speaking of “why organisations stay small,” Ron lays it out like this:

A LARGE ORGANIZATION IS COMPOSED OF GROUPS. A SMALL ORGANIZATION IS COMPOSED OF INDIVIDUALS.

He goes on to mention how this applies to a planet or nation and how in terms of socialism, “The government seeks to run the individual”. Speaking of the countries where he spent most of his time, Ron stated in no uncertain terms:

To the degree that England and the US tax the individual and seek to govern him they will dwindle in size.

Essentially, the groups that make up the larger organisation of a nation would be businesses that produce and contribute to the economy of that nation, a concept most readily embraced by the centre-right political parties and most staunchly, and perhaps memorably, by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

So where does that leave the Scientologist? There is much philosophical and practical information in Scientology that ought to be applied in the case of choosing a representative one would like to elect. But the only thing that sums up the view taken on government specifically, comes from Ron’s non-religious moral code, The Way To Happiness, which is very much taken to heart by Scientologists. In Precept 10 (see the video), it advises this:

SUPPORT A GOVERNMENT DESIGNED AND RUN FOR ALL THE PEOPLE

…

The way to happiness is hard to travel when shadowed with the oppression of tyranny. A benign government, designed and run for ALL the people, has been known to smooth the way: when such occurs, it deserves support.

For more information about Scientology, visit the official Church of Scientology website at http://www.scientology.org/, buy one of the beginning books, or contact your local church or mission.

(The L. Ron Hubbard quotes in this article are from copyrighted material owned by L. Ron Hubbard Library.)

Scientology and War

Sam — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:21:32 +0000

“A civilisation without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology.”—L. Ron Hubbard, September 1965.

The Second Dynamic

Sam — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:47:13 +0000

As a Scientologist, I’m still quite impressed with the practicality of my own religion. Take relationships for example; there is a wealth of information in Scientology texts on this subject which, as many of us know anyway, is inseparable from the subject of communication. Scientology describes urges toward survival, called Dynamics, including the first four which are (1) self; (2) sex and the family; (3) groups; and (4) mankind. As I’ve just attended a wedding, congratulated a friend on his recent engagement, and been on a holiday of sorts with my girlfriend, I thought I’d share some wisdom on the Second Dynamic…

In 1981 a book was published by Scientologist writer Cass Pool which sought to bring together Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s written and transcribed material on the subject of the Second Dynamic, including sex, marriage, birth, raising children and more. Here’s a snippet from the first part of that book:

On the Second Dynamic we have a great many more adventures of considerable moment.

If you don’t think a Second Dynamic is adventurous, you should process some fellow on his wedding. The bride is supposed to be nervous, but you will find out this man has been in a state of shock all the years since the wedding. It will turn on terror charges and everything else. It doesn’t matter if he just went up before the Justice of Peace and the Justice simply put his stamp on the form and said, “OK kids, you’re married. Ten bucks, please.” It doesn’t matter how informal this thing was, we have still got a shock case.

That adventure into the very solid Second Dynamic is pretty darn aberrative because he is not accustomed to adventures on the Second Dynamic. When he is walking up and down the hospital hall waiting for the word as to whether he’s a father of twins, triplets or an idiot, he is undergoing a lot of stress.

Son comes home and sets his bag down kind of sheepishly just inside the living room door so he can pick it up and run. Dad is sitting there at the supper table and says, “How are you son? Gee, I didn’t know it was Easter vacation already.” And the son says, “It’s not. I was expelled.” It is an adventure. There is action, action, action on the First and Second Dynamics.

We are talking about more than just a bunch of sensation when we are talking about the Second Dynamic. We are talking about the sexual act, the begetting of children, the holding together and raising of a family and the management of the group these things represent.

We are talking about a lot more than what Freud meant when he said that nasty word that shocked the whole of late Victorian Europe, the “Libido Theory.”—L. Ron Hubbard, April 1966

I think that’s a refreshing look at the subject.

(And on a completely random note, HTML purists will notice my use of tags to provide definitions. I’m sorry. Better than having misunderstood words, I promise.)

Dianetics easier than ever

Sam — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:19:58 +0000

Hands up who’s heard of Dianetics… well for those of you who don’t know, it’s the forerunner to Scientology applied religious philosophy. It’s used in Scientology, but Dianetics itself is a whole separate subject about the mind and is not religious. Interesting though it may be, a lot of people these days rely on visual communications media to give them the messages they want to receive. We used to sell a DVD at the Church on how to run the Dianetics therapy procedure, which aims to help a person eradicate the negative effects of past traumatic experiences. That DVD was 40 mins long and by no means complete, given the 500-or-so pages of L. Ron Hubbard’s book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. This week, we released a brand new 4-and-a-half hour double DVD. More?

Well, the first DVD contains an introduction to Dianetics, each chapter building upon the next, providing a simple illustration of the concepts presented in the book, and how to conduct a Dianetics therapy session. The second DVD is composed of 18 self-contained films, each describing an aspect of auditing, the name for Dianetics therapy.

I was lucky enough to watch all these on Sunday and they’re so well made I can hardly believe it myself. They used a real black panther to illustrate what is known in Dianetics as “The Black Panther Mechanisms,” ways in which the mind will deal with problems it encounters. There was even a scene showing infantry fighting, which is shown several times throughout the double DVD set as an example of a traumatic experience. I was impressed with the professionalism with which it was put together, and it certainly hits the nail on the head in terms of bringing about an understanding of Dianetics and what it is, as well as how to use it, which is absolutely the most important thing.

Between you, me and the rest of the world, I’ll let you know that Dianetics is something that has really helped me, and I have applied its principles to help others—it works both ways. So if you fancy a go, have a look. The DVD should be available for purchase online very soon but until then it can be bought at your nearest Church of Scientology.

Scientology presented at Parrs Wood Sixth Form

Sam — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:47:11 +0000

Another Scientologist and I were invited to present Scientology to sixth form students at Parrs Wood school in Didsbury this week. I have to say I am grateful to Parrs Wood for this opportunity to present my religion and to answer the students’ questions. I’d say the day was very successful.

It started out with all the religions’ representatives getting together in the school hall with the 180-or-so sixth formers and introducing themselves. Then we delivered three presentations to different classes. Word in the school was that so many people wanted in on the Scientology ones that they had to refuse some people because the classroom was too small! We had about thirty in the biggest class, which was great.

I used a few videos and we explained some principles, and of course there were interjected questions that threw us off our carefully-planned schedule for the allotted 45-minute sessions, but it’s all part of the game! I took questions on all kinds of things, including our view of other religions, why we have a chapel, what Scientology’s symbols represent, and many more. Every one of our presentations ran over time and the students were very interested. I’d ended them with a video on human rights, explaining that we of course stand for not only religious freedom for ourselves, but freedom for all people to choose and practice their own religions and indeed for everyone’s human rights–the rights we have simply because we are human.

After the presentations and a nice buffet lunch we headed back to the hall for a panel Q+A where the students fired all kinds of questions at us. Scientology got the most specifically-directed questions, though I’d say a majority were offered up for all the religions to answer. I keep saying religions, but I should say ‘religion or belief’, since even the Humanist Society was represented by two of its members. I’m not sure if that’s perhaps pushing the boat out a little far, but it seemed to go okay. I met a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses and a very personable Colorado gentleman who was representing the Mormon Church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints).

We answered questions there about all kinds of tricky topics like abortion and sexuality, and the head of RE ended off by asking, “Which one of you is right?” Obviously you have to be clever about how you answer a question like that, but really I was quite truthful as I explained that in Scientology right and wrong are not black and white and that we embrace and respect all religions and beliefs, so asserting our rightness as the only way forward in religion would not be correct. As I said, all in all I really enjoyed the day and found it to have been successful. A big thank you to all at Parrs Wood for arranging the event and inviting us.

Now we need to get some more schools running initiatives like this…

American teenager pleads guilty to Scientology web attack

Sam — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:16:02 +0000

A 19-year-old American man has admitted knocking the Church of Scientology‘s websites offline in a series of electronic attacks in 2008.

Dmitri Guzner of Verona, New Jersey pleaded guilty to charges of cybercrime against the religious organisation and related websites, which began in January 2008. The “Denial-of-Service” attacks involved using several computers to flood the websites with up to 220 Megabytes of malicious traffic every second, resulting in the websites being unavailable to legitimate visitors.

Guzner, who entered his plea at a New Jersey court on Monday 11th May, is due to be sentenced on 24th August. Some sources have suggested he may face up to 10 years in prison if handed the maximum sentence. Guzner was a member of the underground hacking group “Anonymous”, whose mostly teenage members began attacking the Scientology movement last year. In response to the initial attack, the Church of Scientology released a new information website, the “Scientology Video Channel,” which went online on 13th March to coincide with their annual celebration of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday.

Syndicated from NowPublic.com

Why do people leave?

Sam — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:44:01 +0000

Sometimes people just up sticks and leave, walk out. Often there is some apparent reasoning, but sometimes there isn’t, and even given those reasons, it can seem odd. It’s not just leaving an area either, people quit jobs, resign from courses, avoid particular people, and so on. An explanation for the related phenomena is only as useful as it opens the door to something that can be done about it. L. Ron Hubbard found just such an explanation, so I thought I’d share it with you…

As a Scientologist, I use the technologies developed by L. Ron Hubbard through his research in the 20th century, in order to improve conditions in my own life and to help people around me. A major factor in Scientology is the use of a workable technology of “ethics”. This is detailed in full in the book, An Introduction to Scientology Ethics by L. Ron Hubbard, which you can buy or get from the library. One part of this technology is the explanation for relatively unexplained departures, which are referred to as “blow-offs”.

We have the view of a person who has a good job, who probably won’t get a better one, suddenly deciding to leave and going. We have the view of a wife with a perfectly good husband and family leaving it all. We see a husband with a pretty and attractive wife breaking up the affinity and departing.

Man explained this to himself by saying that things were done to him which he would not tolerate and therefore he had to leave. But if this were the explanation, all man would have to do would be to make working conditions, marital relationships, jobs, training programs and so on all very excellent and the problem would be solved. But on the contrary, a close examination of working conditions and marital relationships demonstrates that improvement of conditions often worsens the amount of blow-off. Probably the finest working conditions in the world were achieved by Mr. Hershey of chocolate bar fame for his plant workers. Yet they revolted and even shot at him. This in its turn led to an industrial philosophy that “the worse workers were treated, the more willing they were to stay,” which in itself is as untrue as “the better they are treated, the faster they blow off.”

Before I share the crux of it all with you, I wanted to define a term used in Scientology, the word overt (also overt act). This is a noun meaning “a harmful act or a transgression against the moral code of a group”. A sane person is ashamed of his or her misdeeds and reluctant to confess them, thus following an overt act we get the effort to withhold the fact of having commited it. This is known simply as a withhold. Here goes:

People leave because of their own overts and withholds. That is the factual fact and the hard-bound rule. A man with a clean heart can’t be hurt. The man or woman who must, must, must become a victim and depart is departing because of his or her own overts and withholds. It doesn’t matter whether the person is departing from a town or a job. The cause is the same.

Almost anyone, no matter his position and no matter what is wrong can remedy a situation if he or she really wants to. When the person no longer wants to remedy it, his own overt acts and withholds against the others involved in the situation have lowered his own ability to be responsible for it. Therefore, departure is the only apparent answer. To justify the departure, the person blowing off dreams up things done to him, in an effort to minimize the overt by degrading those it was done to. The mechanics involved are quite simple.

For more information, consider taking a course from the Scientology Handbook: Integrity and Honesty. Get it at your local Scientology Church or Mission, or as a free online course through the Scientology Volunteer Ministers website. You can also read the chapter from which the above quotations were taken, on the Scientology Handbook website.

Man is Basically Good

Sam — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:09:35 +0000

Have you ever noticed whenever there’s a crime, the criminal usually leaves something behind, like an identifier or some clue or other. It’s how people get caught, the anatomy of criminology is very interesting, but there’s something it reminds me of that criminologists perhaps don’t consider. Want to know what?

As you should probably already know, I’m a Scientologist. That doesn’t mean I tell everyone about how they have to become Scientologists in order to survive, or that I try to “convert” all my friends. Far from it in fact, but I use Scientology in my life every single day, and it really does run through a lot of my activities, particularly because I work at the Church of Scientology, but also because as a practical philosophy, it has solutions to many of the common problems we are faced with on a daily basis. So let’s take this criminal. I witnessed a crime this week but I didn’t catch the perpetrator because I thought he was legitimately in the place where I saw him, which I later found out he wasn’t. He left behind several clues, including his own blood. I joked with the police officer and forensic expert about how he wasn’t even a clever criminal, but then it makes you wonder why people who commit crimes really do leave so many clues. Cryptic as they may be, the police usually find them or they get otherwise caught up or end up destroying themselves, even if that means living in hiding or on the run—it’s destructive of their life for sure.

So I’m reading a book called Introduction to Scientology Ethics by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. It’s a reference book taken directly from Hubbard’s administrative policy letters for Churches of Scientology on the subject of “ethics”. Before I give you the quote about criminals that I want to share, why don’t we have a look at this thing called “ethics”. What does Hubbard mean exactly?

“Throughout the ages, Man has struggled with the subjects of right and wrong and ethics and justice.

“…Ethicsconsists simply of the actions an individual takes on himself. It is a personal thing. When one is ethical or “has his ethics in,” it is by his own determinism and is done by himself.”

So now what does Hubbard say about the criminal?

“When a person finds himself committing too many harmful acts… he becomes his own executioner. This gives us the proof that Man is basically good.

“The criminal who leaves clues behind is doing so in hopes that someone will come along to stop him from continuing to harm others. He is basically good and does not want to harm others. And in the absence of an ability to stop himelf outright, he attempts to put ethics in on himself by getting thrown in prison where he will no longer be able to commit crimes.”

I found something else interesting. The police officer told me that statistics show 2% of people commit 95% of crime. We were discussing the fact that even if crime is prevalent in an area, it still represents a minority of activity, because most people are doing good things. It’s only if you believe the media that you’ll start thinking the world is full of war, crime and madness.

In discussing the antisocial personality, Hubbard gave some interesting statistics which seem to correlate with this. He said that “they only comprise 20 percent of the population” and “only 2 1/2 percent are truly dangerous”. That fits with our policeman’s 2% figure. Very interesting.

So in conclusion then, people are basically good but sometimes it goes wrong. The evil actions people undertake may be very harmful, but they are against the best nature of the individual and sooner or later he won’t need to seek for whom the bell tolls…