Scientology's theories and beliefs may be hard to take; the processes and techniques may unwittingly reveal something single-minded and pervasive about the direction of Scientology's drive; but it is in his reaction to derision, criticism, and attack from biased and unbiased outsiders that L. Ron Hubbard gives Scientology genuine dimension, an underlying quality which invisibly cloaks the whole phenomenal movement. It is Scientology's ethics which scare the hell out of me.
Hubbard has been getting it from all sides ever since the day he came out with Dianetics. He's not only used to it by now, but time has convinced him that you must use criticism and attacks to make yourself stronger. You face up to the adversity of ridicule and outside threats by pointing straight at them and challenging them to a sort of "anyplace, anytime" showdown. Hubbard instinctively knew he had to make something of each and every attack, exposing it to the cold light of Scientological reason, and use it to convince his brother Scientologists that someone somewhere was *afraid* of Scientology. There could be only one reason someone might be afraid of Scientology: They were afraid of the truth. In the late fifties, he wrote a pamphlet called "Why Some Fight Scientology," which was distributed to Scientology churches and organizations around the world. "Unfortunately," he wrote, "the person who does not want you to study Scientology is your enemy as well as ours. When he harangues against us to you as a 'cult,'
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a 'hoax,' as a very bad thing done by very bad people, he or she is only saying, 'Please, please, please don't try to find me out.' Thousands of such protesting people carefully investigated by us have been found to have unsavory pasts and sordid motives they did not dare (they felt) permit to come to light...." Hubbard *never* identifies the protesters, massing them as a great unknown you know are there because he says they're there. It is an implied enemy, there because cold logic will tell you, even if you're the hardest-nosed scientologist of all, that there *must* be somebody out there against you!
Hubbard's polemic continues. "'You had better leave Scientology alone!' is an instinctive defense, prompted in all cases investigated by a guilty conscience. Once they hear a few truths from Scientology such people become afraid. They know we know. And if we know this much and if you are further informed, they feel you will find them out....Beware the person or group who rights Scientology, for that person fights Truth - not the truth of natural laws but the truth about himself."
At the same time that Hubbard was warning his minions against outside threats, he realized that Scientology was only as strong as its internal structure. His household security system, developed over the years, he calls "Ethics," and defines it as "reason and the contemplation of *optimum* survival." One of the first things Ethics tackled was to develop ways through which those individuals with unsure, vacillating, or even dangerous attitudes about Scientology could be un-earthed, brought to the surface, and, if possible, straightened out, remedied, and helped. So Hubbard instituted security checks. When he first introduced them, they became an integral part of processing. An HCO Policy Letter of May 22, 1961, introduced "The Only Valid Security Check." It consisted of 150 questions, some of which were:
Have you given your right name?Have you ever stolen anything; forged a signature, check or
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document; blackmailed anybody; been blackmailed; cheated; smuggled anything; entered a country illegally, been in prison; tried to act normal;* indulged in drunkenness; done any reckless driving; hit and run with a car; burgled any place, embezzled money?Have you ever assaulted anyone, practiced cannibalism, been in jail?
Have you ever raped anyone or been raped, been involved in an abortion, committed adultery, bigamy, practiced homosexuality, had intercourse with a member of your family, been sexually unfaithful, practiced sex with animals, practiced sodomy slept with a member of a race of another color, committed culpable homicide, committed a justifiable crime, bombed anyone, murdered anyone, hidden a body, attempted suicide, caused a suicide, kidnapped anyone, aided an informer, betrayed anyone for money, threatened anyone with a firearm?
Are my questions embarrassing?
Do you have any bastards?
How could you help mankind?
What is Communism?
Do you know of any secret plans against Scientology?
Do you plan to steal a Scientology organization?
Are you upset about this security check?
What unkind thoughts have you had while doing this check?
What is important to understand at this point is not that Hubbard was convinced such a security check was beneficial, but that he firmly believed there were operating forces within Scientology which represented a specific danger. Thus, because his First Dynamic was to SURVIVE! it was only natural he take measures to insure that survival. The disgusting extremes to which he was willing to go were made clear in May of 1960, when he wrote a letter to Mrs. Penelope Elizabeth Williams, wife of Scientology's director for Australia and New
* I don't know if this question is designed to make sure that nobody escapes, or simply asks us to admit that at times, knowing we were not quite ourselves, we nevertheless, knowingly, tried to pass ourselves off "normal." Talk about a Catch-22!
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Zealand. In the letter, Hubbard revealed some damning discoveries about his associate and apparently faithful colleague, Jack Horner. "Horner," he wrote, "blew up in our faces and has had his certs. cancelled. We have criminal background on him. Rape of a girl pc in Dallas and countless others. This will do something to (_____). Now, I firmly believe you will be able to find a criminal background this life on (_____), as no such occurrence anywhere in the world has failed to find one. I'd grab him when he comes in and security check it into view." *Everybody*, Hubbard was positive, has something to hide.
After 1962, the security checks were no longer part of general processing and were only used for security purposes. A sense of necessary caution was already being felt, and a few people began dropping out of Scientology, concerned with the realization that somebody on the inside was actually watching them. At the same time, whisperings began about the only genuine palace revolt ever to shake Scientology. The extended adventure could not have been more timely. Hubbard responded to it with all the zeal of a latter-day Torquemada. It gave Scientology a very big plus as it struggled to expand as a spiritual movement deserving legitimate attention and fear because the revolt was nothing less than heresy. And every "religion" needs it.
It all began and developed with a man named Harry Thompson. Thompson had been one of England's most successful auditors, earning something approximating $20,000 a year, according to Gary Watkins. He was quick to absorb what Scientology believed and how these beliefs might be achieved, and easily ingratiated himself with Scientology through his genuine sincerity and expertise. Then, according to Gary, who now teaches Thompson's system in New York, Thompson "made a very simple discovery which aligned all the information in Scientology, as to why it was correct when it was correct, and why it worked when it did, and why it didn't when
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it didn't." Thompson went into retreat at his home outside London and spent three years developing and testing his discovery. He named it "Amprinistics," a combination of the words "amplify" and "principle." "What he discovered," Gary explains, "was Natural law: Natural Law as a principle completely manifest in all universal activity from human behavior to the physical universe to social development." As Gary recounts the events which led to Harry Thompson's discovery, he makes sure he makes himself completely understood. It is almost a technique, a small residue from his dynamic days as a Scientology auditor. He stops to search for a word, and then resumes slowly, and as he sees he is on the right track, almost picks up speed and makes his point. His interests are now in Amprinistics, but he insists on a clearly defined attitude of decency when discussing Hubbard's response to Thompson's discovery and dissemination of Amprinistics. "I have a certain respect for Ron Hubbard." he explains. "I think he did some marvelous works, He's done a great job organizing a lot of information, of arriving at common denominators available in the knowledge of man. He made some tremendous advances just in the *idea* of what kind of individual progress a person could make." Gary is an extremely determined, fair-minded proponent of Amprinistics. About thirty years old, of short but muscular stature, he gives an impression of agility and physical poise. He has blond hair and blue eyes, and as he speaks, he cannot help but exude confidence, a confidence which almost throws him off stride, because he seeks *reason* and *understanding* rather than mere dynamic persuasion; he wants his listener to appreciate that there is a balanced view to be given L. Ron Hubbard and Harry Thompson and Amprinistics and the whole Ethics business.
Amprinistics was based on several basic premises: "The first," Gary says, "was that it is possible to discover the true nature of man and existence, that the answers are quantitative and available; that if you have true knowledge in regard to
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one aspect of existence or a man, it is interchangeable in that it will also be true for another man and another man and another man." Thus in Amprinistics, "the highest form of being, the highest activity, is purely knowing. The second highest - and this is in accordance with Scientology thinking - is action. Simply doing. Ideally, it would mean totally unhindered motion: Shooting through space without hindrances, action in its purest form of expression. And the third point on this scale, knowing, action, would be communicating about it." What Harry Thompson concluded was that there was a method by which to measure all phenomena: Identify it, handle it, and, through techniques, improve it. He sat down and wrote a letter about his discovery, and sent it to Scientologists everywhere. It was, according to several ex-Scientologists, "a beautiful letter."
Jack Horner was one of those who received it. This was late in 1964, and, as he explains it, he was "getting very uptight about the so-called Ethics." Horner had mended his several rifts with Hubbard and apparently had never even heard of the 1960 letter accusing him of rape in Dallas. "They," he says, referring to Scientology, "suddenly weren't answering certain letters. Not just mine, but certain people's. And I found that there was a policy that anyone who simply disagreed, their letters were called 'deadfile.' They weren't read, they just went into the wastebasket. About that time, Harry wrote me from England. He'd known me for about ten years. He said, 'Fly over to see me, I think I've got something I think is very good. And if it isn't, I'll pay your air fare.' I was so bugged by Scientology Ethics, the suppressive persons policy, I flew over to take a look." He saw that Thompson had organized his thinking into two basic areas of concepts: Primaries and Secondaries. Primaries, as Gary explained it, were "factual concepts that stand for real things that can be demonstrated." Secondaries, "have as their basis negations of primaries, or attempts to negate primaries." Thompson told Horner he had
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developed techniques which could be measured, and which demonstrated why they succeeded when they did, and why they were not applicable when not applicable.
Beyond the theories, there was a more fundamental difference between Amprinistics and Scientology, at least so far as Gary Watkins sees it. "Amprinistics," he says firmly, "believes everyone already knows and is in action. And because we do believe that, what we teach are improvement techniques. There are no mysteries, no religious aura." He interrupts himself, as if something just came to mind, and then says, all at once, "Hubbard's got a marvelous game, because the planet is clear now! So he says he's going to do it in ten years, you know, as if he's responsible for it. That's *not* his job. That's something every person lives with, himself, for himself: the degree to which he will admit and accept awareness." Getting back to Amprinistics, Gary says, in measured tones, "If you want to be crass, you could call us a service. Well, that's what we call ourselves, an educational service. We're straight out in the open: a profit-making business. And we're not going to hide behind titles, like religion, and so on. We pay taxes and all of that nonsense. We're in business to make money and we have a product. We have a product not only in terms of techniques and methods, we also have a product in terms of apparatus which assist in education. It's *all* strictly business."
It was early 1965 and Ron Hubbard knew there was something dangerous brewing within his organization. He had already introduced stringent methods to deal with anyone who represented any kind of a threat. He began to define various crimes which might be committed against Scientology, and labeled the types of persons who would be guilty. It was all absolutely classic, producing the most time-honored dissident known to man, the heretic. Only Scientology called him a "suppressive." This was any person who actively sought to suppress or damage Scientology or a Scientologist by *suppressive* acts, which Hubbard incisively defined as "actions or omissions
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undertaken knowingly to suppress, reduce or impede Scientology or Scientologists." Because Hubbard would certainly not settle for any half measures, the classic concept of guilt by association had to be introduced. This was the moment when a fellow Scientologist found himself branded a P.T.S. "Potential Trouble Source," clearly and cleverly defined as "any person, while active in Scientology or a preclear, [who] remains connected to a suppressive person or group."
Once Jack Horner had examined Harry Thompson's system, he liked what he saw, "and I wrote out a long letter saying that I thought that what Harry had was workable." And he sent it to Hubbard, which he now thinks might have been a mistake. Might seems an understatement. "His response," Horner told me, "was to declare me what is known as 'An Enemy.'" An HCO Bulletin went out naming Horner as having been relegated to the condition of "Enemy," to be considered "fair game," defined by Hubbard as somebody who "may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued, or lied to, or destroyed." Anyone associated with a "suppressed person" was immediately branded a Potential Trouble Source. I told Horner that being named "fair game," or relegated to a situation of "Enemy," sounded ominous. Had Scientology actually ever done anything to him? He hesitated, and then said, "I know that out in California, Chuck Berner's place -" Berner is a former Scientologist with his own movement "- they were shooting it up with guns. And about a week and a half ago I had somebody trying to kick in my back door with a .45."
"That's pretty wild," I said to him. "Assuming it might even be some infuriated, misguided Scientologist, don't the police take rather a dim view of somebody going around popping off a .45?"
Horner's only answer was a small chuckle, and I wasn't sure whether he really believed some Scientologist was after him,
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or maybe enjoyed the possibility that he, or Chuck Berner in California, represented such a clear threat to Hubbard that it could happen.
The only salvation for a Potential Trouble Source was to "disconnect" - remember the "renunciations" during the Middle Ages? - from whatever suppressive source he had been allied to. The "disconnection" could be from an organization, a family, or a single person, and had to be in the form of a letter, sent via the Ethics Officers, to the person from whom the disconnection was being made. Details of this procedure were outlined in HCO Policy Letters issued in March of 1965, and were followed up by HCO Policy Letters warning against Assist processing which ignored the need for Ethics control. In an HCO Policy Letter of August 9, 1965, Hubbard wrote: "Review Officer and Examiner please note, that if the person being Reviewed for whatever reason, has reads and/or answers on the part of the Review Form having to do with Ethics, HE OR SHE MUST BE SENT TO ETHICS, WHETHER THE QUESTION CLEARS OR NOT, AND WHETHER THE REVIEW ENDS IN A FLOATING NEEDLE OR NOT. Also, any Release of any stage who shows up in Review for an Assist is suspect of roller-coastering, so be alert. Roller-coasters are sent to Ethics." If a Scientologist has been away from Scientology for any length of time, for whatever reasons, he has to go through Review upon his return. "Roller-coastering" was Hubbard's definition of a person who gets better and then worse. "This occurs," he wrote, "only when he is connected to a suppressive person or group, and he must, in order to make his gains from Scientology permanent, either handle the source of suppression or disconnect from it."
Anyone sent to the Ethics Officer would have to answer some twenty questions directly connected to that question in his Assist or Review processing which produced the "read" found suspicious by either the Review Officer or the Examiner. When writer Alan J. Levy, deeply into Scientology processing as part
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of his research for an article he wrote for *Life* magazine, got a strong "read" involving his wife's name, he found himself answering a printed checklist of "potentially suppressive acts," which, Levy wrote, "my wife might have committed: Was she opening or with-holding my mail? Garbling phone messages? Listening in on phone calls? Denigrating my ambitions?"
The general tone of Hubbard's mood in 1965 was set more broadly by his HCO Policy Letter of August 15, 1965. It was entitled "THINGS THAT SHOULDN'T BE," and said, quite simply: "If you see something going on in the org that you don't like, and yet do not wish to turn in an Ethics chit, or indeed don't know who to report, WRITE A DESPATCH TO THE INSPECTION OFFICER....The Inspection Officer will then investigate it and make a report to the right executives or turn in an Ethics chit on the offending persons himself." Thompson's letter was being passed around from hand to hand, and some people were beginning to ask questions.
In New York, an ardent young Scientologist named Jerry Tannenbaum also received a copy of the letter. Jerry, who now works with Monica Saxon, a former actress-dancer, teaching something called "Dramanatomy," the drama of the body, is of small stature, with fine features. The skin of his face is tanned a very light walnut and looks almost stretched over his bones. His long hair and loose-growing Vandyke beard make him look a little like a miniature Buffalo Bill Cody. He is slim-waisted and moves with light deliberation, suggesting someone who had once been tense, used to be physically on the alert, used to look quickly one way and then the other to see who or what was coming. Now, through the system Monica has developed over the years and which they teach together, he has disciplined himself to relax, and breathe, and live. "The letter was so beautifully constructed," he says, recalling Thompson's communication. "Things at that time had been getting a little tight in the organization, and I read it, and
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it just sounded so good; it merely stated that if what he had found was true, then you owe it to yourself to look at it, and if it isn't, it isn't. And Scientology had its Ethics thing, which said that if something were considered suppressive and you associated with it you would become 'suppressive,' but if you wrote a letter stating that you knew you now realized you were wrong, they'd take you back in. So I figured, well, I'll go look anyway and if it's wrong I can always write a letter saying I did absolute wrong. So I went and tried to present it to some Scientologists. It was incredible, the wall that started to build up between me and them. And it was so airtight, there was just no....'Hey man,'" Jerry cocks his head to one side, appealing to long-gone friends in Scientology, "'this thing *just* says if it's true look at it, if it isn't, like, discard it. We're all supposedly looking for the truth.'
"Well, I had the letter, and I had shown it to some people in Scientology, and the Ethics Officer came down and said, 'What's this, about this letter you have?' I didn't know what to say. I said, 'I'd like you to read it.' It was really so beautifully constructed. She, [the Ethics Officer] *flipped*. Words like: 'If this is true, Scientology will be forced to yield!' Well, she gave me the ultimatum after reading the letter that either I give this up, disconnect from that organization, or become suppressive. And I said, 'Well, I have to look at it.' And I did. Knowing that I could get back in by writing a letter."
Jerry liked what he found in Amprinistics and for a while he taught it. He had met Monica by this time and she allowed him to use her apartment for his sessions. Scientology, not content with declaring him a "suppressive," harassed him as well. "It was known that I was teaching the course in New York," he says. "The phone was ringing day and night. Nobody'd answer. I have the feeling that they put Monica's name and number on a Men's Room wall because she got a lot of terrible calls from men."
At various periods during Scientology's history, L. Ron
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Hubbard has issued amnesties. One of them, printed in an HCO Bulletin on his birthday, March 13, 1963, was typical. "On my birthday," Hubbard declared regally, "and on achieving my own fourth goal in clearing, and in celebration of the first Eight first goal Clears by 3M, I hereby extend and direct all the organizations, officials and staff of Scientology Organizations to grant all Dianeticists and Scientologists penalized before this date a complete amnesty....Any and all offences of any kind before this date, discovered or undiscovered, are fully and completely forgiven. Directed at Saint Hill, on March the thirteen, 1964, in the 13th year of Dianetics and Scientology." It was not the first amnesty and has not been the last. Jerry Tannenbaum's reaction to them is bemused. "There have been amnesties before," he says, "and every time I'd gone in they'd tell me I had to do the same things I'd have to do if there wasn't an amnesty: I have to write a letter saying I'm completely wrong for what I did. Amprinistics is suppressive to Scientology. It's no good. It's dangerous."
When finally organized into some form, the Ethics appeared as a separate book, which, in a foreword, explained the purpose of Ethics as being "that additional tool necessary to make it possible to apply the technology of Scientology." The first part of the book introduced what Hubbard called the Anti-Social Personality, the Anti-Scientologist, among whose attributes is an inability to "respond to treatment or reform or psychotherapy." Hubbard polarized his discussion of this individual by next defining the Social Personality, and demonstrating how this type of person was basically well disposed towards Scientology. He then defined ten conditions, "operating states," ranging from a very top of Power to a very bottom of Enemy. Finally, he introduced the Ethics Codes, with its four classes of "crimes and offenses in Scientology... ERRORS, MISDEMEANORS, CRIMES AND HIGH CRIMES." Errors are classed as "minor unintentional omissions or mistakes," and are dealt with through self-correction "reprimand
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or warning." Misdemeanors, a bit more serious, could be either technical, general, or ethical, and, wrote Hubbard, "are subject to direct punishment by order." Someone on staff could find themselves demoted with their pay docked for a given period of time.
Crimes meant those acts "normally considered criminal," such as *non-compliance and neglect*. This was specifically defined as obeying orders or policies which were not legal and clearly not those promulgated by the International Board, and indulging in "alter-is," altering "the way something actually is" willfully.
Any incident of a staff scientologist accepting fees on his own was considered a *financial crime*, while a *technical crime* was committed when someone is or is turning-into a Potential Trouble Source and is not reported or acted upon. *General crimes* were getting a fellow staff member into trouble by lying. So were "heckling" and "mayhem."
Punishment for these crimes is meted out by courts of ethics or committees of evidence. Not directly. Guilty parties may find themselves with suspended certificates, classifications or awards, demotions, or may even be thrown out of Scientology. And if the crime calls for it, the criminal can also be arrested.
At the very top, the most serious, are the *high crimes* (*suppressive acts*), which includes "Attacks on Scientology and Scientologists, Disavowal, Splintering, Divergence, Technical High Crimes" such as "tolerating or not insisting upon star-rated checkouts [*Star-rated checkouts*: Technical or administrative material of highest importance checked on the person studying it by another to make *sure* the person knows and can apply it exactly] on all processes and their immediate technology and on relevant policy letters..." and the "CRIMINAL ISSUE OF MATERIALS."
Hubbard does say that "the right to petition must not be denied," but directs that "Collective petition is a crime under Ethics as it is an effort to hide the actual petitioner and as
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there may be no punishment for a petition, collective petition has therefore no excuse of safety and is to be interpreted as an effort to overwhelm and may not be regarded as a petition." *Introduction To Scientology Ethics* ends with a brief chapter called "Rewards and Penalties," a discussion of social histories as assessed by Hubbard on the basis of their survival when the citizenry was properly rewarded, and collapse when such reward was denied. Discussing what he believes to be the real cause of the Depression, Hubbard appears to be arguing for a rewards system which will convince Scientologists that his Ethics system serves only to penalize what he calls a "down statistic" that genuine success in Scientology will always be rewarded.
Hubbard has allowed himself the trouble of defending the harmless of his measures, particularly the designation of someone having committed a High Crime as "Enemy," by writing, "Now get this as a technical fact, not a hopeful idea: Every time we have investigated the background of a critic of Scientology, we have found crimes for which that person or group could be imprisoned under existing law. We do not find critics of Scientology who do not have criminal pasts. Over and over we prove this. Politician A stands up on his hind legs in a Parliament and brays for a condemnation of Scientology. When we look him over, we find crimes, embezzled funds, moral lapses, a thirst for young boys, sordid stuff. Wife B howls at her husband for attending a Scientology group. We look her up, and find that she had a baby he didn't know about."
As regards organizations such as the people in Amprinistics, Hubbard wrote: "They are declared enemies of mankind, the planet, and all life. They are fair game. No amnesty may ever cover them. The Criminals Prosecution Bureau is to find any and all crimes in their pasts, and have them brought to court and imprisoned."
I asked Church of Scientology Minister Bob Thomas what
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he thought of Amprinistics, and he, with characteristic sobriety and calm, said, "Scientology took a dim view of them because they had altered the technology and made it into a personalized and non-Scientological application for which they were expelled from Scientology. If you have a *cancer*," he said with simple directness, "you cut it out."
"We insist," he went on to explain, his manner so incredibly *mild* and forgiving, "on a standardized application of technology. Anyone who alters it, of course, is not practicing Scientology as we have standardized it. Organization and standardization of the technology is required to have a mass movement for freedom. There's no contradiction." As for the people like Gary Watkins and Jack Horner who have been expelled, Thomas says, "it isn't like excommunication. It's a modified excommunication because they can come back in."
Jack Horner doesn't take such a benign stand. "There are several thousand people right here in this country who basically go along with the techniques and the processes and the applications of Scientology and its philosophy. But they will not or cannot, for whatever reasons, go along with the Ethics." What I cannot reconcile in my mind is the almost burning desire on the part of these thousands - I know they exist - to even try to come to any kind of terms with a man and a system which invented and developed and practiced this cruel gestapo-like security system.
With its policies of "suppressives" and Potential Trouble Sources, Scientology was not only busy cutting out people inside the organization, but was reaching out to try and choke off any outsiders who appeared in any way dangerous. Ray Buckingham, an English-born voice teacher and artist's representative in New York, first learned about Scientology when one of his students, a girl named Mary Vonnie, went to Scientology for help. According to Buckingham's testimony at the Scientology tax hearings in Washington, D.C., Miss Vonnie had some serious personal problems when she first came to
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study with him. Scientology appeared to help her and she involved herself seriously and after six months of training in Washington, D.C., became a full-fledged auditor. She discussed Scientology with Buckingham, who expressed more than casual interest. He bought several of the books and eventually took some processing from her, in exchange for voice lessons. All this stopped when he discovered that some of the information he had told her was being passed on to the Founding Church in New York. Buckingham felt this to be clearly unethical, and said so. He had, in the meantime, urged several of his other pupils to try Scientology. Shortly after he was no longer being audited, he began to hear some rather strange reports about himself, including one from a talented young musical comedy singer and dancer, Julie Migines, who told him one day, as he related at the hearings, "'I was audited today and I just learned that you killed me in the last fifteen lives.'"
At the same time that all this began to happen, Buckingham's fiancee was becoming deeply involved with Scientology and was being slowly estranged from him by, as he described him, one of Scientology's "doctors of divinity." His fiancee was made to disconnect from him and told him he would die shortly because he was a Potential Trouble Source. When Buckingham finally went to the offices of The Founding Church of Scientology and spoke with one of the Ethics Officers, he was told that his problems stemmed from his association with a man named Carl Eugster, a colleague, and a collaborator with Buckingham in a business venture, who was a "suppressive." Only disconnection from Eugster could allow Buckingham to clear up his personal affairs. When he demanded to know why Eugster had been declared "suppressive," he was told that it was all because Eugster, in turn, had been associated with someone who was a "suppressive."
In 1966, Ray Buckingham went on a local New York radio program and discussed what had happened to him. Scientology immediately issued an official declaration of suppression. In
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an HCO Ethics Order dated November 22, 1966, he was accused of public disavowal of Scientology, threatening to attack Scientology in Civil Court, causing disconnections and concern to former pupils, refusing to disconnect from Carl Eugster, and "DECLARED also in the same radio program - that a 'True Philosophy' would not charge for its service - thus denying any 'True Philosophy' the right to survive in the physical universe." Buckingham was not to be communicated with by any Scientologists, was never to be trained or processed, and was declared "fair game." "PERSONS CONNECTED with him are hereby Declared POTENTIAL TROUBLE SOURCES and are not to be trained or processed until they HANDLE OR DISCONNECT: or themselves be Declared SUPPRESSIVE if they refuse or do not accomplish it within a period of three weeks from this date." The order was signed on behalf of L. Ron Hubbard by the New York Ethics Officer.
At much the same time, Carl Eugster, Buckingham's supposed "suppressive" connection, found his wife and son declared Suppressives because of their refusal to disconnect from him.
As a result of the Suppressive Order against him, several of Buckingham's clients disconnected from him, each writing a letter which was approved, and in some cases initialed, by the Ethics Officer before being sent. "It may interest you to know," Mary Vonnie wrote in her letter, "that the effects you have caused have not and could not ever injure Scientology and the achievement of its purposes, but if one or two people, not quite objective enough to see what's in front of them, should become blinded by the bank you restimulate on them, then one or two people have been delayed on the road to Total Freedom. This is the greatest effect you can cause. Heavy restimulation of a few people who also feel that they must be punished." The letter closed with a decisive "That's it!" and her signature. Another, not quite as direct, began on a note of sadly accepted sorrow: "I had hoped that during
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[the] three week period after you, made yourself a suppressive towards Scientology, that I would be influential enough to get you to take steps to change that condition." Reconciling to a failure to achieve this, the letter writer went on to express admiration for Buckingham's teaching abilities, adding "It seems to me that this is the only area in which you do not commit overts and that's why this area is so prosperous for you." The letter closes with a last energetic plea. "Gosh, Ray, I don't have to tell you a thing. If you could only hold off your Bank while thinking about this Ethics bit, you would see that Ethics is right." The letter was signed, "Sincerely."
The shortest disconnect letter I have seen came right to the point and was unavoidably poignant. "Dear Ann," it read, "I hereby disconnect from you. Love, Barbara."
It is hard to absorb exactly what Scientology Ethics has in mind when it orders that "suppressives," or those designated as "Enemy," should be punished, or that they can liberate themselves from their condition by punishing the agent of their suppression. Jerry Tannenbaum called up the Church of Scientology one day not too long ago to talk to an old friend. "I called up," he says, "to get a receipt for some land I bought from him. I gave my professional name, otherwise I wouldn't have gotten through. And I said, 'Hi, Milt. This is Jerry. I'd like to get - ' And he just cut me off and said: 'The terminal you want is Ethics.' I said, 'Milt, I just want to - ' 'The terminal you want is Ethics!' Then Ethics - it was crazy - this girl, a young girl, and *she* was taking care of Scientology Ethics. She said, 'Are you still in Amprinistics?' I said, 'Listen, I was out of Amprinistics about two and a half years ago. There isn't even an organization here, except what Gary started, and this was before he started it. I don't communicate with the guy or anything.' And she said, 'Well, it still exists and until it no longer exists on this planet, until you do something about it....' I said, 'Huh?' And she said something about I should
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help 'kill it.' I thought, Whew! that's a *beautiful* way to talk over the phone."
Because of increased public attention and more and more criticism regarding the Ethics policies, Scientology has found it necessary to make what it feels are important public accommodations. In the Public Notices of *The New York Times* in November of 1968 the following announcement appeared: "The Church of Scientology wishes to make known that the policy known as disconnection is now ended. One individual no longer needs to separate from another. A policy dated November 13, 1968 states 'since we can now handle all types of cases, disconnection as a condition is cancelled.'" Early in January, English Scientologists delivered six boxes of unused security checks to the Department of Health and Social Services as a dramatic gesture to show that the checks were no longer in use. A representative of Scientology, David Gaiman, was quoted as saying: "We have made a very honest and expensive attempt to find out what we were doing that was unacceptable by the community, and we have brought out a code of reform." Later that month, the following was circulated in Scientology's various magazines and newsletters:
AS THE RESULT OF ANSWERS TO A QUESTIONNAIRE CIRCULATED WIDELY IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD, THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY HAS EVOLVED THE FOLLOWING CODE OF REFORM TO BRING ITS POLICIES MORE IN LINE WITH THE NEEDS OF THE PUBLIC:
1. Cancellation of disconnection as a relief to those suffering from familial suppression.
2. Cancellation of security checks as a form of confession.
3. Prohibition of any confessional materials being written down.
4. Cancellation of declaring people Fair Game.
As much out of curiosity as anything else, Jerry Tannenbaum heard about these latest changes and immediately went down to The Founding Church of Scientology. He spoke to the
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Ethics Officer, wanting to know how one now went about getting reinstated. The Ethics Officer gave him a copy of the HCO Policy Letter of 6 October, 1967. It was a printed definition of the "Condition of Liability." the "Condition of Treason, The Condition of Doubt, and the Condition of Enemy." Under Liability, one of the requirements was to "deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger." Under Treason, one of the conditions was to "Perform a self-damaging act that furthers the purposes or objectives of the group one has betrayed [Scientology]." Under the Condition of Enemy, the formulas had been crossed out and a single one inserted: "Find out *who* you really are."
As Jerry said, "I told the guy, 'hasn't there been an Amnesty?' and the guy said, 'Here's what you have to do.'" Jerry smiled, still mildly surprised by his own personal sense of amusement at the brief confrontation, and added, "It hasn't changed at all."