Mockingbird's Nest: Scientology Conditions - Their Purpose and Practice (4) Review of Ethics Conditions

Scientology Conditions - Their Purpose and Practice

Young Ronald Hubbard

In Scientology Hubbard had many policies and procedures for people to follow.

Among them are Scientology ethics conditions. They are formulas to describe the conditions a person or organization or just about anything can be in and further step by step instructions on what to do when you are in one of these conditions.

Many people believe they are true and accurate. But if you allow a skeptical person to question them it becomes apparent they are not really accurate or workable.

It requires quite a bit of faith and setting aside critical and independent thinking to take them as legitimate and never find flaws and weaknesses in them, quite plainly they don't really describe reality and the steps they have aren't really adequate to improve absolutely every situation in real life.

In particular a number of conditions require a person to do something.

We can look at the condition formulas and see they are intended to control the behavior of people as individuals, in groups, and in organizations.

I am going to quote the book Understanding Scientology, by Margery Wakefield. She provides an excellent concise and accurate description of the Scientology ethics conditions and their formulas. Her quotes are verbatim from The Scientology Handbook, The Introduction to Scientology Ethics Course and several policy letters in the Scientology reference materials. Virtually ALL, Scientologists study and apply the ethics conditions in Scientology, routinely.

Here's a quote by Margery Wakefield:

"Ethics" is defined in Scientology as rationality toward the highest level of survival along the dynamics. But in Scientology, ethics has to do primarily with the group -- the group being Scientology. Anything that promotes Scientology or benefits Scientology is therefore defined as "ethical," whereas anything which is contra-survival for Scientology becomes, by definition, "unethical."

Similarly, there is a phrase frequently heard in Scientology, "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics," meaning that which is good for the group (Scientology) and for mankind is more important and takes precedence over that which is good for the individual. A dangerous philosophy.

The chart of "ethics conditions" in Scientology is as follows, in descending sequence:

Power
Power Change
Affluence
Normal Operation
Emergency
Danger
Nonexistence
Liability
Doubt
Enemy
Treason
Confusion

The theory in Scientology is that a person will always be in one of these conditions with regard to any area of life. So a person could be in a condition of Affluence at his job, a condition of Emergency in his marriage, a condition of Nonexistence in his finances, a condition of Normal Operation with his health, etc.

And for each of the conditions, Hubbard devised a formula which, if applied, is supposed to cause the person to progress to the next higher condition. That some of these formulas may not make much sense does not matter. Because Ron (Hubbard) has said this is what they are, they must be right. Right?

The formula for the condition of Confusion is, simply: FIND OUT WHERE YOU ARE.

Once that has been done, the person will move "up" to Treason, for which the formula is: FIND OUT THAT YOU ARE.

In Enemy, the formula is: FIND OUT WHO YOU REALLY ARE.

The formula for Doubt is a bit more complex.

When one cannot make up one's mind as to an individual, a group, organization or project a condition of Doubt exists. The formula is:

Inform oneself honestly of the actual intentions and activities of that individual, group, project or organization brushing aside all bias and rumor.
Examine the statistics of the individual, group, project or organization.
Decide on the basis of "the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics" whether or not it should be attacked, harmed or suppressed or helped.
Evaluate oneself or one's own group, project or organization as to intentions and objectives.
Evaluate one's own or one's group, project or organization's statistics.
Join or remain in or befriend the one which progresses toward the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics and announce the fact publicly to both sides.
Do everything possible to improve the actions and statistics of the person, group, project or organization one has remained in or joined.
Suffer on up through the conditions in the new group if one has changed sides, or the conditions of the group one has remained in if wavering from it has lowered one's status.

Now "upgraded" by the Ethics Officer to a condition of Liability, the formula is:

Decide who are one's friends

Deliver an effective blow to the enemies of the group one has been pretending to be part of despite personal danger.
Make up the damage one has done by personal contribution far beyond the ordinary demands of a group member.
Apply for re-entry to the group by asking the permission of each member of it to rejoin and rejoining only by majority permission, and if refused, repeating steps 2-4 until one is allowed to be a group member again.

When a person first begins a job in Scientology, he starts off in a condition of Non-existence, for which the formula is:

Find a comm (communication) line.
Make yourself known.
Discover what is needed and wanted.
Do, produce and/or present it.

In other words, find out what needs to be done and do it.

Having done that, one is now in a condition of Danger. This

condition applies when an activity is in trouble. The formula is:

Bypass (ignore the junior in charge of the activity and handle it personally).
Handle the situation and any danger in it.
Assign the area where it had to be handled a danger condition.
Handle the personnel by ethics investigation.
Reorganize the activity so that the situation will not repeat.
Recommend any firm policy that will hereafter detect and/or prevent the condition from recurring.

When the person has gotten his activity out of danger, he or she is then in a condition of Emergency, for which the formula is:

Promote and produce.
Change your operating basis.
Economize.
Then prepare to deliver.
Stiffen discipline or stiffen ethics.

If the person has successfully applied the Emergency formula, the condition of Normal Operation now applies and its formula is:

Don't change anything.
Ethics are mild.
If a statistic betters, look it over carefully and find out what bettered it and then do that without abandoning what you were doing before.
Every time a statistic worsens slightly, quickly find out why and remedy it.

If things are going well and the formula for Normal Operation has been applied for a period of time, then the person could be said to be in a condition of Affluence, for which the formula is:

Economize. Be sure you don't buy anything with a future commitment to it.
Pay every bill.
Invest the remainder in service facilities, make it more possible to deliver.
Discover what caused the condition of affluence and strengthen it.

If things are going really well, the person may make a Power Change into another area of endeavor. If not, the person is in a condition of Power for which the only rule is: Don't Disconnect. Take ownership and responsibility for your connections.

These are the Ethics Conditions in Scientology and they are taken very seriously. Each week, each person working for the organization (i.e, "on staff") will turn in his or her "stats" to the Ethics Officer. The person will be assigned a condition by the Ethics Officer, and will be required to apply the appropriate formula for that condition to their job. In addition, the Ethics Officer can assign a person a condition in any area of his personal life, and the person must apply the appropriate formula and submit a written application to the Ethics Officer for "upgrading" to the next higher condition. For the Scientologist, the ethics conditions and their formulas is a way of life.

End quote by Margery Wakefield from Understanding Scientology

Now that is a pretty good description of the conditions and their formulas. When one is in Scientology some knowledge about statistics and the corresponding conditions they are assigned to is also required.

I have broken up the original very long blog post on this topic to make it more manageable as a series of short posts. This is the fourth in the series of short posts to address this.

I am going to include links to several articles at Mockingbird's Nest blog on Scientology that have either been quoted in this post, or that expand on the topics introduced here.