Nowhere in all of Scientology is this more true than when discussing "Suppressives".
In Scientology, a Suppressive is someone who works to destroy. According to Hubbard, if you look at a Suppressive, you will always find crimes, serious crimes.
A Suppressive person has a number of very specific characteristics, such as:
- He or she speaks only in very broad generalities.
- Such a person deals mainly in bad news, critical or hostile remarks.
- A Suppressive does not respond to treatment or reform or psychotherapy.
- Surrounding such people are cowed or ill associates.
- The Suppressive habitually selects the wrong target.
- The Suppressive cannot complete things.
- The Suppressive has a bad sense of property.
To Scientologists, Suppressives are the Ultimate Evil.
But here is the very, very weird part.
Let's picture our Scientologist. Our Scientologist has a family, a mother and father, brothers and sisters. He gets along just fine with all of them. In fact, he really loves his family.
Then the Church of Scientology, for some reason, declares his mother and father Suppressive!
What happens?
Does our Scientologist look at the characteristics of a Suppressive and evaluate his mother and father against that? Does he look for the "speaks only in generalities", "commits crimes", "bad news" and so on?
Um... no!
The Scientologist immediately "disconnects" (cuts all communication) from his parents!
They are not Suppressive by any sane evaluation -- but the Church of Scientology says they are. So our Scientologist forgets all the good, disbelieves what his own eyes tell him, and stops speaking with his parents!
This is doublethink of the most severe degree.
Our Scientologist doesn't know what "crimes" his parents have supposedly committed, no one is ever informed -- it's secret. All he might be told is some, yes, generalities.
And, as with most things associated with the Church of Scientology, it gets worse. All his brothers and sisters are commanded by the church to disconnect from Mom and Dad.
Let's say they are sane and they don't. Well, then they are "declared Suppressive" -- for the "crime" of talking with their Mom and Dad!
And now our little Scientologist robotically disconnects from the rest of his family, never evaluating whether this is right or not. Never evaluating whether this is sane or not. He just does it.
Our Scientologist knows all the definitions and characteristics of a Suppressive Person. Our Scientologist can easily see that his family has none of these characteristics, but he cuts all communication!
He will do the same with his best friend, if ordered to by the Church of Scientology.
This is exactly what has happened to thousands and thousands of Scientologists. Virtually every Scientologist has been forced to disconnect from family and friends -- who exhibit no "Suppressive characteristics"!
Yes, this is insane.
Well, it is no wonder Scientologists get confused. While the Church of Scientology is declaring people Suppressive people who do not have the above characteristics, the church itself manifests these attributes:
The Church of Scientology speaks in some very broad generalities. "All psychiatrists are suppressive!" "All reporters are evil." "Everyone who criticises Scientology has serious crimes!" and so on.
The Church of Scientology disseminates nothing but "bad news" about the world outside of Scientology. The world outside of Scientology is criminal, degraded, evil, horrible.
The Church of Scientology cannot and does not reform. David Miscavige, the leader of the church, makes no case gain, is incomplete on OT VII but hasn't been audited for many years, and does not respond to any treatment.
Surrounding Miscavige are very cowed and unhealthy people. Surrounding the churches, Scientologists are struggling, stuck, in trouble, sick. The churches themselves are often many months behind on the rent. Staff in the churches are really struggling.
Scientology is experiencing some serious difficulties but Miscavige's "solutions", drastically altering the tech, demanding Scientologists redo and redo and redo, forcing Scientologists to go deeply into debt, buying expensive buildings, are all wrong targets -- and only make the problems worse.
The Church of Scientology under Miscavige's leadership, has serious problems completing anything. The original, primary L. Ron Hubbard programs to bring every church to the "size of old Saint Hill" were never completed and were abandoned. The Super Power building has been incomplete for ten years. The highly vaunted Library Program utterly failed in its goals. Program after program is incomplete, sloppily done, abandoned.
The Church of Scientology has hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even billions, sucked out of the pockets of loyal Scientologists. The Scientologists now are deeply in debt, even bankrupt, but still the church demands more money from Scientologists. Scientologists shouldn't deny the Church of Scientology its rightful money!
It is no wonder Scientologists can't think about the subject of Suppressives -- those "declared Suppressive" don't manifest the characteristics, but the Church of Scientology, and especially David Miscavige, appear to have most, if not all, of the Suppressive characteristics.
Faced with such a split between what they know and what they are forced to endure, the only recourse for our poor Scientologist is to shut down all reason and just follow orders.
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Posts
Bill, thank you for this latest posting, it has proved most timely, immeasurably so.
ReplyDelete@General Public AYS
ReplyDeleteAnything you can share?
Unfortunately I can't at the moment Bill, but let me mix my metaphors - it was one of the pieces of the jigsaw which finally broke the camels back!
ReplyDeleteFair enough. Later perhaps. (Like your metaphor).
ReplyDeleteThanks for another interesting article.
ReplyDeleteI ahve a question about the logistics of someone being declared suppressive, and how Scientologists learn that.
Say John is a public Scientologist, low level, and just goes in for some courses on Dianetics, etc. How would he know who and who is not suppressive?
Or is that something that's only the concern of someone who's more involved than him?
Thanks!
Re: How do you know?
ReplyDeleteYou never know, for certain. These "Suppressive Person Declares" are sometimes posted on a small bulletin board in back areas of the local churches, for a short while, then they are gone.
If a Scientologist is concerned about a specific person, they can ask and will be told "yea" or "nay", but a complete list is not available -- it would be huge.
But, given that tens of thousands of people have been "declared Suppressive", not to mention thousands of groups, it is very, very likely that every Scientologist is unknowingly connected to quite a few "declared Suppressives".
Counting all the people explicitly declared Suppressive, add all the people associated with groups that have been officially declared Suppressive, it is certain that the number of people "declared Suppressive" far exceeds the number of Scientologists.
Of course, all these declares are based on "Scientology Justice" which means no proof, no specifics, no defense. In other words, quite bogus.
As a Scientologist, one learns not to think about it. Don't ask if you can avoid it.
However, if the church finds out that a Scientologist is, knowingly or unknowingly, connected to someone they have declared Suppressive, the church will make a huge fuss about it. That is the usual way a Scientologist finds out.
Is it later, now?
ReplyDeleteRe: Later
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, we did hear more from General Public AYS, but not on this thread. I don't have time to search for it.