F.Bullbait
Oh, a wise guy,eh?
The following is an excerpt from the memoirs of Dennis Stephens who was in Dianetics and Scientology from the very beginning. This is from a transcript of a recording. You can find the transcript of the full memoirs here: http://www.antology.info/index-8.html. Thanks to Ant Phillips for making this available.
This excerpt is talking about the mid 1960s:
"The next momentous thing that happened roundabout that time was the arrival of the ethics policies. That
hit all the orgs all over the world by storm. Ron had suddenly decided on this subject of ethics. And I was
most put out by it.
I read through it very, very carefully. It put my hackles up. It didn't feel right. It didn't
smell right. And I used to go around and say that... made myself most unpopular. People thought I was
being most disloyal.... that no good will come of this. No good will come of this ethics. And to me it was
...never was anything else but a copout. And it wasn't so... I never spotted the flaw in the ethics until many
years later.
But the flaw of Ron's ethics policies was very simple... it was a very simple flaw. The ethics
policies were based on the premise... based on a known Scientology fact that all those who commit overt
acts against Scientology don't make case gains. And that is a technical datum. It's a truism. It's absolutely,
technically true. There's no doubt about that. There is no shred of doubt about the truth of that. But one
cannot deduce from that proposition that all those who don't make case gains are committing overt acts
against Scientology. And this was the proposition that Ron was putting forward.
This is why it was a copout, you see. The logic of it is false I mean, you can't say just because all crows are birds.... you can't deduce
from the fact that all crows are birds that therefore all birds are crows anymore than you can deduce from
the fact that all those who overt against Scientology don't make case gain. You can't deduce from that at all
those who don't make case gains are overting against Scientology, you see. I mean, it's a deduction that will
put you... will flunk you and put you to the bottom of the class of even the most elementary course in logic.
Yet to Ron, and the whole Scientology world it seemed to... at least those who agreed with the ethics
policies seemed to fall for this little bit of slippy logic. Of course, they wanted to agree with it, you see.
Everyone was looking for a reason why tech was failing. They needed a reason why and here was the
perfect reason why. Ethics. Cases aren't getting better because they're overting against Scientology. So if
we can get off our lines all those who are overting against Scientology we'll all start to get better.... so the
reasoning went... the slippy logic.
It's a lie, you see... because it's simply...it's not a valid logical deduction.
But why weren't the... why weren't the cases getting better? Well, I mentioned that earlier. Ron had broken
his teeth on the subject of goals packages. He was determined to crack it and it cracked him. The cases
weren't getting better on goals auditing... auditing goals and goals packages was not getting the gains that
it should've done.
Preclears were getting worse and the datum there, as I've already given is, that when you
audit goals packages, you either audit it exactly right or you kill the preclear and he wasn't auditing it
exactly right so the preclears were worsening. He wasn't getting the gains and he skidded off sideways and
slid into this peculiar thing called ethics and tore the whole Scientology field apart... with ethics. It was ill‐
conceived, it was a mistake, it was a technical flub but it was necessary.
It was needed... everyone needed it, you see. The whole organization needed it because they couldn't see why they weren't getting the
results. Fascinating. I mean, within three months of the release of the ethics policies in Scientology in the
mid‐1960s, the vast majority of the old‐timers in Scientology had simply quit. Had simply cut lines to the
organi... central organization. Horner was on record as saying that, I think Sci... I think Ron's a decent guy
and Scientology is a marvelous subject but their ethics scare the hell out of me. That's almost a direct quote
of Horner. He quit.
Of course, it was set up as a no‐win situation. If you opposed the ethics, you were
obviously an ethics risk. That meant you were overting against Scientology, you see. It was a no‐win
situation. You couldn't oppose the ethics without becoming an ethics risk. It was in the ethics policies. It
said so, you see. It was a Catch‐22. It was a Catch‐22 situation.
You see, right from the earliest days in Scientology every student has to go through this barrier and, it was always people willing to say in
Scientology and Dianetics and what have you, that the fault lies in the preclear.... that if we can't crack the
preclears case then it's not our fault, it's to do with him. People were always willing to put the responsibility
over onto the preclear and that will not hold.
You cannot do that with a psychotherapy. Once you come
along and say, we've got a subject which cracks the mind... will handle it.... will solve the mind, you can't
adopt this philosophy, well, if we can't crack the mind, it's not our fault. It's always our fault if we can't
crack it, you see. Got to take total responsibility for your failures.
You've got to look at your failures and understand your failures and understand why you're failing and go in and do something different... figure
out how to do it right. You've got no excuse, you see. So the.... there's no such thing as a copout. You can't
have a copout... you need to have a copout. And the ethics was the copout in Scientology. Because they
never got... Ron never got this research are right on the subject of... on the subject of goals. He was killing
people. That was the simple truth of the matter. He was killing himself too.
In his earlier years, he would never have fallen for anything as stupid as ethics. He was too smart a bloke. He was too far up tone. But
he'd driven himself down tone scale so far with his auditing on goals it was killing him too... and he got
himself... that... eventually he got... he got so badly off case wise that he got into ethics.
You could put it that way if you want to, you know. That's... things got so bad, he got into ethics... ethics policies. I didn't, as
I said, I didn't grasp all this at the time but I knew, once I read those ethics policies, I knew that the days
were numbered for me and the organization... that... there couldn't... there was no real future for me in
such an organization... this jangled. Lights were burning or flickering in my mind that there is something
wrong here. There's something terribly wrong here. No good will come of this. I said so to Ron. No good will
come of this. No good will come of it. Let's get off it before we tear the whole bloody place apart."
This excerpt is talking about the mid 1960s:
"The next momentous thing that happened roundabout that time was the arrival of the ethics policies. That
hit all the orgs all over the world by storm. Ron had suddenly decided on this subject of ethics. And I was
most put out by it.
I read through it very, very carefully. It put my hackles up. It didn't feel right. It didn't
smell right. And I used to go around and say that... made myself most unpopular. People thought I was
being most disloyal.... that no good will come of this. No good will come of this ethics. And to me it was
...never was anything else but a copout. And it wasn't so... I never spotted the flaw in the ethics until many
years later.
But the flaw of Ron's ethics policies was very simple... it was a very simple flaw. The ethics
policies were based on the premise... based on a known Scientology fact that all those who commit overt
acts against Scientology don't make case gains. And that is a technical datum. It's a truism. It's absolutely,
technically true. There's no doubt about that. There is no shred of doubt about the truth of that. But one
cannot deduce from that proposition that all those who don't make case gains are committing overt acts
against Scientology. And this was the proposition that Ron was putting forward.
This is why it was a copout, you see. The logic of it is false I mean, you can't say just because all crows are birds.... you can't deduce
from the fact that all crows are birds that therefore all birds are crows anymore than you can deduce from
the fact that all those who overt against Scientology don't make case gain. You can't deduce from that at all
those who don't make case gains are overting against Scientology, you see. I mean, it's a deduction that will
put you... will flunk you and put you to the bottom of the class of even the most elementary course in logic.
Yet to Ron, and the whole Scientology world it seemed to... at least those who agreed with the ethics
policies seemed to fall for this little bit of slippy logic. Of course, they wanted to agree with it, you see.
Everyone was looking for a reason why tech was failing. They needed a reason why and here was the
perfect reason why. Ethics. Cases aren't getting better because they're overting against Scientology. So if
we can get off our lines all those who are overting against Scientology we'll all start to get better.... so the
reasoning went... the slippy logic.
It's a lie, you see... because it's simply...it's not a valid logical deduction.
But why weren't the... why weren't the cases getting better? Well, I mentioned that earlier. Ron had broken
his teeth on the subject of goals packages. He was determined to crack it and it cracked him. The cases
weren't getting better on goals auditing... auditing goals and goals packages was not getting the gains that
it should've done.
Preclears were getting worse and the datum there, as I've already given is, that when you
audit goals packages, you either audit it exactly right or you kill the preclear and he wasn't auditing it
exactly right so the preclears were worsening. He wasn't getting the gains and he skidded off sideways and
slid into this peculiar thing called ethics and tore the whole Scientology field apart... with ethics. It was ill‐
conceived, it was a mistake, it was a technical flub but it was necessary.
It was needed... everyone needed it, you see. The whole organization needed it because they couldn't see why they weren't getting the
results. Fascinating. I mean, within three months of the release of the ethics policies in Scientology in the
mid‐1960s, the vast majority of the old‐timers in Scientology had simply quit. Had simply cut lines to the
organi... central organization. Horner was on record as saying that, I think Sci... I think Ron's a decent guy
and Scientology is a marvelous subject but their ethics scare the hell out of me. That's almost a direct quote
of Horner. He quit.
Of course, it was set up as a no‐win situation. If you opposed the ethics, you were
obviously an ethics risk. That meant you were overting against Scientology, you see. It was a no‐win
situation. You couldn't oppose the ethics without becoming an ethics risk. It was in the ethics policies. It
said so, you see. It was a Catch‐22. It was a Catch‐22 situation.
You see, right from the earliest days in Scientology every student has to go through this barrier and, it was always people willing to say in
Scientology and Dianetics and what have you, that the fault lies in the preclear.... that if we can't crack the
preclears case then it's not our fault, it's to do with him. People were always willing to put the responsibility
over onto the preclear and that will not hold.
You cannot do that with a psychotherapy. Once you come
along and say, we've got a subject which cracks the mind... will handle it.... will solve the mind, you can't
adopt this philosophy, well, if we can't crack the mind, it's not our fault. It's always our fault if we can't
crack it, you see. Got to take total responsibility for your failures.
You've got to look at your failures and understand your failures and understand why you're failing and go in and do something different... figure
out how to do it right. You've got no excuse, you see. So the.... there's no such thing as a copout. You can't
have a copout... you need to have a copout. And the ethics was the copout in Scientology. Because they
never got... Ron never got this research are right on the subject of... on the subject of goals. He was killing
people. That was the simple truth of the matter. He was killing himself too.
In his earlier years, he would never have fallen for anything as stupid as ethics. He was too smart a bloke. He was too far up tone. But
he'd driven himself down tone scale so far with his auditing on goals it was killing him too... and he got
himself... that... eventually he got... he got so badly off case wise that he got into ethics.
You could put it that way if you want to, you know. That's... things got so bad, he got into ethics... ethics policies. I didn't, as
I said, I didn't grasp all this at the time but I knew, once I read those ethics policies, I knew that the days
were numbered for me and the organization... that... there couldn't... there was no real future for me in
such an organization... this jangled. Lights were burning or flickering in my mind that there is something
wrong here. There's something terribly wrong here. No good will come of this. I said so to Ron. No good will
come of this. No good will come of it. Let's get off it before we tear the whole bloody place apart."
