Ronald Hubbard
The Scientologist - A Manual on the Dissemination of Material, 1955
The actual substance of communication about what Scientology is, from the general public to the general public, should be that Scientology says that good health and immortality are attainable. That it is something compounded out of all man knows of the subject of man, and that people are living units operating bodies, rather than bodies, and that this living unit is the human soul. Given this much communication line, the general public can embroider enormously, and unless a person in the general public can express his opinions, and unless the subject gives him a chance to express his own opinions, and so let HIM be interestING, he will not talk about the subject.
Thus the data in the general public should give individuals a chance to be interesting, by knowing no more and no less than the above. We are not interested in sensationalism, personalities, or the complexity of Scientological methodology being discussed by the general public. As a subdivision of this, we do not want Scientology to be reported in the press, anywhere else than on the religious page of newspapers. It is destructive of word of mouth to permit the public presses to express their biassed and badly reported sensationalism.
Therefore we should be very alert to sue for slander at the slightest chance so as to discourage the public presses from mentioning Scientology. What the newspapers say is not word of mouth. As an example of this, how many minutes today have you spent in discussing current events? NEWSPAPER REPORTERS WRITING ARTICLES ON SCIENTOLOGY DO NOT EXPRESS SCIENTOLOGY. Scientologists should never let themselves be interviewed by the press. That’s experience talking!
As a subdivision of general public to general public we have the problem of the professions which might consider Scientology to be antipathetic to them, amongst these would be psychologists and medical doctors as well as psychiatrists. These persons are entirely in error when they express the opinion that Scientologists are against them. Scientology does not consider them sufficiently important to be against. Flour-pills or any incantation or system will produce in 22 percent of the public, benefit. Therefore, any practice or art can always achieve 22 percent recovery in their patients. It is when we better then 22 percent that we are being efficient. We have no more quarrel with a psychologist than we would have with an Australian witch-doctor.
We have no quarrel with a psychiatrist any more than we should quarrel with a barbarian because he had never heard of nuclear physics. And as for the medical doctor, we know very well that modern medical practice, having lately outgrown phlebotomy, has come of age to a point where it can regulate structure in a most remarkable and admirable way. In Scientology we believe a medical doctor definitely has his role in a society just as an engineer has his role in civil government. We believe that a medical doctor should perform emergency operations such as those made necessary by accidents; that he should perform orthopaedics; that he should deliver babies; that he should have charge of the administration of drugs; that his use of antibiotics is beneficial; and that where he immediately and curatively addresses structure he is of use in a community. The only place we would limit a medical doctor is in the field of treatment of psychosomatic medicine, where he has admittedly and continuously failed, and the only thing we would ask a medical doctor to change about his practice is to stop taking money for things he knows he cannot cure, i.e., spiritual, mental, psychosomatic, and social ills.
With regard to psychologists, medical doctors, and psychiatrists, then, what would one say in talking with them? But again we have section 10 of the Code of the Scientologist. You wouldn’t expect this psychologist, or psychiatrist, or medical doctor to get into an argument with you on how to get rats to find their way through mazes, how you would set a tibia, or what voltage you would put on an electric shock machine. Therefore, and equally, do not permit yourself to be put in the situation where you are discussing privately or in public, the methodologies of your wisdom. The attitude of a Scientologist toward people in these professions should be: “I have my techniques. It took me a long time to learn them just as it took you a long time to learn yours, and I am not going to try to make a minister out of you, and you are not going to try to make a medical doctor (psychiatrist, psychologist) out of me. I am an expert instructor only where it is intimately involved with the human spirit. I can produce my effects. You can produce yours. In view of the fact that you do not pretend to operate in the field of the human spirit, and I do not pretend to operate in the field of structure, I do not see how there can be any discussion. But things that I can’t handle in structure when called upon I will be very happy to refer to you, and I shall expect that when matters of the spirit come into question you will have enough understanding of life, where we are all specialists, to refer them to me.” A quiet explanation of this character will do a great deal to place you as a professional man in their realm of understanding of professional men.
Should anyone challenge you for having suddenly secured a relief in a hospital or an institution from some dire malady which balked the efforts of the professional men in charge of it, and should you ever be “called upon the carpet” for having “interfered” with the progress of a case, you should be extremely dismayed, and act it, to find yourself in the presence of barbarians who do not believe in the power of prayer, in the will of God, or the promises of Jesus Christ. And you should point out that, whereas the body was in their keeping, they did not at any time care to take purview of the human soul. And if anything has occurred because of the soul, in your province, then reacted upon the body, you believe that they are unwilling to admit the will of God in their treatment of human beings, and if this is the case you now, while you are being addressed by such people, discover yourself to be in a strange place where men pretending to be Christians doubt God, the Son of God, and the power of prayer. Your entire address to such people, in such a situation, publicly or privately, should be entirely overt, accusative, and not at any time apologetic. And you should immediately make it your business to place this matter before the proper authorities, that people are in charge of an institution here, are not Christians, and do not believe in God, and you should inform your accusers that you are going to do so.
Should you ever be arrested for practicing Scientology, treating people, make very sure, long before the time comes, that you have never used drugs or surgery, and that you have never prescribed a diet, or vitamins, and when that time might come, make very sure that you immediately and instantly, within two or three hours after your receipt of the warrant, have served upon the signer of that warrant, a personal civil suit for $100,000.00 damages for having caused the arrest of a Man of God going about his business in his proper profession, and for having brought about embarrassing publicity and molestation. Place the suit and WIRE THE HASI IMMEDIATELY. Make the whole interest during the entire time of such an unfortunate occurrence the fact that the signer of such a warrant, who would ordinarily be a medical doctor in charge of the medical department of some city, had dared fly in the teeth of religion. And use what is necessary of the earlier passage above to drive the point home. DO NOT simply fall back out of communication if you are attacked, but attack, much more forcefully, and artfully and arduously. And if you are foolish enough to have an attorney who tells you not to sue, immediately dismiss him and get an attorney who will sue. Or, if no attorney will sue, simply have an HASI suit form filled out and present it yourself to the county clerk in the court of the area in which your case has come up.
IN ALL SUCH CASES OF ARREST FOR THE PRACTICE OF SCIENTOLOGY, THE HASI WILL SEND A REPRESENTATIVE AT ONCE, BUT DO NOT WAIT FOR HIS ARRIVAL TO PLACE THIS SUIT. THE SUIT MUST ALREADY HAVE BEEN FILED WHEN THE HASI ATTORNEY ARRIVES.
In other words, do not, at any moment leave this act unpunished for, if you do you are harming all other Scientologists in the area. When you are attacked it is your responsibility then to secure from further attack not only yourself but all those who work with you. Cause blue flame to dance on the court house roof until everybody has apologized profusely for having dared to become so adventurous as to arrest a Scientologist who, as a minister of the church, was going about his regular duties. As far as the advices of attorneys go that you should not sue, that you should not attack; be aware of the fact that I, myself, in Wichita, Kansas, had the rather interesting experience of discovering that my attorney employed by me and paid by me, had been for some three months in the employ of the people who were attacking me, and that this attorney had collected some insignificant sum of money after I hired him, by going over to the enemy and acting upon their advices. This actually occurred, so beware of attorneys who tell you not to sue. And I call to your attention the situation of any besieged fortress. If that fortress does not make sallies, does not send forth patrols to attack and harass, and does not utilize itself to make the besieging of it a highly dangerous occupation, that fortress may, and most often does, fall.
The DEFENSE of anything is UNTENABLE. The only way to defend anything is to ATTACK, and if you ever forget that, then you will lose every battle you are ever engaged it, whether it is in terms of personal conversation, public debate, or a court of law. NEVER BE INTERESTED IN CHARGES. DO, yourself, much MORE CHARGING, and you will WIN. And the public, seeing that you won, will then have a communication line to the effect that Scientologists WIN. Don’t ever let them have any other thought than that Scientology takes all of its objectives.
Another point directly in the interest of keeping the general public to the general public communication line in good order: it is vitally important that a Scientologist put into action and overtly keep in action Article 4 of the Code: “I pledge myself to punish to the fullest extent of my power anyone misusing or degrading Scientology to harmful ends.” The only way you can guarantee that Scientology will not be degraded or misused is to make sure that only those who are trained in it practice it. If you find somebody practicing Scientology who is not qualified, you should give them an opportunity to be formally trained, at their expense, so that they will not abuse and degrade the subject. And you would not take as any substitute for formal training any amount of study.
You would therefore delegate to members of the HASI who are not otherwise certified only those processes mentioned below, and would discourage them from using any other processes. More particularly, of you discovered that some group calling itself “precept processing” had set up and established a series of meetings in your area, that you would do all you could to make things interesting for them. In view of the fact that the HASI holds the copyrights for all such material, and that a scientific organization of material can be copyrighted and is therefore owned, the least that could be done to such an area is the placement of a suit against them for using materials of Scientology without authority. Only a member of the HASI or a member of one of the churches affiliated with the HASI has the authority to use this information. The purpose of the suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win.
The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.
— L. Ron Hubbard, 1955.
Ronald Hubbard
