From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 18 - August 1994 See Home Page at http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/ The next fifty years, or, is scientology popular? By Ray Harman, Australia What made Scientology popular in the first place? As far as I know, it was a friendly, no-harassment shop run by professionals, who delivered a Free Course in Personal Efficiency and a free IQ test. The fact that it was free aroused curiosity! Up to about 1960, any promising research was issued in HCOB form. The staff would read it in the morning and start auditing it in the afternoon. Those were the exciting times! Then the Sea Org was formed. The secrecy began. The free and friendly atmosphere began to disappear. Professional staff, that is, staff who had left other professional callings to join staff, began to leave staff. Effective PE courses using Teaching by Agreement disappeared. An act of desperation called Body Routing off the street began. Any popularity dropped dead and was replaced by the 'them and us' cult mentality. Thee and me may mourn the 'good old days' but we are sure glad to be out of what it has become today. Popular scientology So can there ever be a popular scientology in the next 50 years? If so, how? Ulrich in IVy 16 suggests the press will make it fashionable. I seem to remember that about 2000 years ago a charismatic man had an enthusiastic following - and as time went by his teaching was altered until eventually there was the Inquisition when people were tortured horribly, for their own good, you know, to save their immortal souls ... was this popularity? I doubt it, but there were millions of followers - too scared, perhaps, not to toe the line! I do not like to think that the C of S will gain popularity due to its altered teachings! Cultural lag LRH said it takes 50 years for a new idea to be accepted. We are 44 years down the track from the Ninth of May 1950 ... Traumatic Incident Reduction is beginning to be accepted by the medical profession, but it isn't yet a standard tool in psychiatric hospitals. Will it become so? Maybe we will see psychiatrists using lower Grade auditing by about AD 2100! The vehicle which will clear the planet Will a reformed C of S clear the planet? This seems unlikely - or as we say in Australia, pigs may fly! Well, how about the enlightenment of medicine and psychiatry? This is probably a very long term option, but not an impossibility. They did take 50 years to accept Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood. LRH was critical of doctors and hated psychiatrists (Psychlos catrists?) Read 'Battlefield Earth' by LRH. They have almost given up shock treatment now - that's progress! Let's not blindly buy LRH's opinion but instead look at their stats and make up our own minds. The government department of clearing? Maybe in a century or two, perhaps? As normal teaching practice in universities, they like to follow the original research line. It's a pity that only the workable routes are written up. Next century or so, a university professor will dream up something like R2-12 or 3D Criss Cross, and mess someone up - several people more likely ... perhaps it could even be you or me a couple of lifetimes down the track! So I think it would be a good idea if the research line was written up as well as the workable processes. Independents Meanwhile, there's us Independents. I guess we'd better continue to be here, and communicate. Er, yes ... find out what is needed and wanted, and deliver same? That has a familiar ring to it somehow!