In Part One, we started looking at how LRH used the Credo of a Group Member to keep Scientologists looking inward, never outward. Let’s continue, shall we?
“6. Enturbulence of the affairs of the group by sudden shifts of plans unjustified by circumstances, breakdown of recognized channels or cessation of useful operations in a group must be refused and blocked by the member of a group. He should take care not to enturbulate a manager and thus lower ARC.”
This is an important one. The first sentence basically charges group members with keeping others in line and moving in the same direction – no flying off on tangents. The second sentence, couched in Scientologese, says not to give bad news or negative feedback to the group leader, for fear of reducing Affinity, Reality or Communications (in other words, good feelings. Read more in The BS of ARC). I have learned this one through experience, by the way – being frank with management about problems and obstacles may be welcome in most companies, but it is severely frowned upon in Scientology organizations.
And this plays an important part in the next point:
“7. Failure in planning or failure to recognize goals must be corrected by the group member, for the group, by calling the matter to conference or acting upon his own initiative.”
Okay, got that? If the group isn’t going in the right direction, it’s the responsibility of the group member to do something about it. BUT – what about point #6 which says that a group member “should take care not to enturbulate a manager and thus lower ARC?” So acting upon one’s own initiative and telling the boss where he or she is going wrong violates the Credo, but not doing so also violates the Credo. This is an example of the contradiction that is frequently found in Scientology policy – and I happen to think that Hubbard did it intentionally.
But wait, it’s about to get more convoluted:
“8. A group member must coordinate his initiative with the goals and rationale of the entire group and with other individual members, well publishing his activities and intentions so that all conflicts may be brought forth in advance.”
So wait, if you see something wrong, you’re supposed to take your own initiative… but you must first coordinate it with the group. In fact, you must publish it for the whole group to see.
See what LRH did there?
He started with all this rah-rah shit about how you are a key part of making the group succeed, and if you see the group going wrong, you are obligated to say something. But you have to make sure everyone knows about your disagreement, which gives them the opportunity to decide that you are violating the first point in the Credo by not approximating “the ideal, ethic and rationale of the overall group” or by “enturbulating” the group leadearship. And so the hunter becomes the hunted! When you do see something wrong and point it out, you run the risk of being labeled as “against us” rather than “with us.”
SP declare, anyone?
“9. A group member must insist upon his right to have initiative.”
Except that initiative, as the earlier points make clear, can get you in trouble. On the surface, this sounds like a cry for individual freedom. In practice, it means that if you’re going to put your head up, you must raise it high enough so that when the axe swings, it gets chopped off.
“10. A group member must study and understand and work with the goals, rationale and executions of the group.”
In other words, you must know the reasons why the group does what it does. Fair enough.
“11. A group member must work toward becoming as expert as possible in his specialized technology and skill in the group and must assist other individuals of the group to an understanding of that technology and skill and its place in the organizational necessities of the group.”
This one seems pretty innocuous, but it takes on its own meaning when applied to Scientology. Because, of course, being an expert in the “specialized technology” and “assisting others” means immersing yourself in the religion… and in Scientology, the only way to do that is to spend money or volunteer your time and labor. (And at the time Hubbard wrote this, it was all about money, not labor – the Sea Org was a few years off.) So we can translate: “If you want to be a true member of this group, open your wallet.”
“12. A group member should have a working knowledge of all technologies and skills in the group in order to understand them and their place in the organizational necessities of the group.”
This goes hand-in-hand with #11. The fact is, it’s complete bullshit. Can I be a member of my old car group without an intimate knowledge of my car’s inner workings? Of course I can. Can I be a part of my first-of-the-month poker group without being an expert poker player? Of course I can, and in my case, my fellow group members are all the richer for it.
So why did LRH include this obviously-false point? I would think the answer is just as obvious: As with #11, in order to be part of the Scientology group, you have to spend money on Scientology.
We’ll finish off the last six points of the Credo in our next installment.
ML,
Caliwog
Caliwog's Blog 
It is quite clear that Lisa Marie Presley has left The Church of Scientology, what is not clear is if she has left Scientology. I remember seeing her come into the Hollywood Guarantee Building right about the time she married Michael Jackson, and I recall her being “herded” like a bad ethics particle up the 4th Elevator to OSA for “handling”.
What startles me is not so much her leaving, but her reasons. I have read the lyrics to her songs and what I am hearing is that she is leaving due to how she and others have been treated. Really?
I hope the reason is based more on solid grounds of understanding that Scientology is a complete lie. I hope she actually starts to surround herself with some people that are going to slam her down into a chair and not try to sell her up on more philosophy and just start hitting her with some god-damn straight facts.
If she has any balls at all, she will allow herself for a while – perhaps a year or two to have absolutely no “stable datum” and spend that time researching by having people around her that will provide her will real information.
If we find out she emerges with a “true sense” of her spiritual self, then we know she has failed, and hoped from one frying pan to another.
I will concede she courageous if she factually starts having people around her that are not religious and commence showing her FACTS about matters – things she thinks she may know a lot about, but in reality does not.
We shall see, I do not hold my hopes very high, too many times – even in my own family – I have seen departure from the Church of Scientology, sometimes full departure from Scientology, but rarely a departure from the absolute state of delusion that allowed the to believe this stuff in the first place.
Lisa Marie Presley is not a tool for the Anti-Scn movement, but she does deserve proper help – and I doubt she will seek it out or know where to get it from, and thus ultimately fail in her attempt to be mentally, free from restraint.
“12. A group member should have a working knowledge of all technologies and skills in the group in order to understand them and their place in the organizational necessities of the group.”
That’s complete nonsense, and negates the most obvious benefit of working as a group, which is gaining benefit from other people’s areas of expertise. If you tried to apply this rule to a group you would surely find the group could not address wide issues or could not grow very large since everyone has to obtain a “working knowledge of all technologies and skills in the group.”
If a group decided it needed a web-site to promote its activities, and sought out a new member to join and take that responsibility, then according to Hubbard every other member of the group would also need to gain a working knowledge of website design, HTML, PHP, Perl, MySQL, XML, XAMPP etc etc etc.
It’s such a patently absurd group rule, it completely misses the point on how groups operate. And we are supposed to believe this guy was a genius?
You could argue over what Hubbard means by “working knowledge”, but I don’t care if it even meant “be aware of” because I don’t think the guy who makes the sandwiches needs to have even heard of XAMPP.
There is however one scenario, one particular type of group where it could possibly have some value (although it would still be limiting) is for a group of cult members, where it’s important for everyone to have had the same training and processing, in order to reinforce group-think.
Marty has shit for brains and Hubbard was a babbling loon. When I first started listening to Hubbard and reading some of his lectures, I thought he must use some type of hypnosis, especially to get people to listen to tapes of this.