TO STACY ETC. ON LMT

I was just advised that Stacy posted the following in a message to Safe.

> In fact, I would like to invite you to be on the Advisory Board of the
> Lisa McPherson Trust. I am sure I speak for everyone at the Trust when
> I tell you that it would be an honor if you would join us in our
> endeavor. You can join as "Safe" if you would be more comfortable that
> way. And if you are in touch with the Pilot, please relay the same
> invitation to him.

Note that I keep up with ARS by checking in periodically, pulling thousands of message headers, and sampling whatever looks like it is of interest. And I have been completely offline since last week. I only just picked up all my email (I'm writing this on Monday, Jan 17, 2000), and found a bunch of messages calling my attention to what was happening on ARS.

I think that this is important enough that I should answer immediately before I even take time to find out more of the details.

When I see somebody shifting over towards a better course, I am not inclined to nitpick. For this reason, I offered no criticism of the charter and various statements being made by LMT because they are moving in the right direction.

However, if I were to get my name associated with LMT, then I do need to nitpick and to make my position very clear in advance. Furthermore, I believe that the dialogue about this has to be out in the open rather than private. There has already been so much skullduggery in Scientology that I see no other ethical course but to play with all my cards open and on the table.

I am going to need some time to analyze things, so I'm putting any decisions about this on hold while I do that.

But a couple of things occur to me right off the cuff and I'll mention those as a starting position.

First and formost, a Reform has to be oriented towards aiding the existing membership rather than towards getting them out of the CofS.

In this respect, even I am in a strange position because of having one foot in the freezone. A lot of my writings are freezone oriented rather than reform oriented.

What CofS should become is the equivallent of a freezone group that happens to practice standard tech and behaves well towards everybody and does not abuse its membership.

Although many critics would like to get people out of CofS, and many freezone groups would like to have members going to them instead, and even I would like to see them reading my self clearing book, all of these other agendas are inappropriate for a foundation whose target is to bring about an internal reform within CofS.

An internal reform means leaving the members in there and having them change the place around. These other agendas (including my own) must be kept away from LMT if it is to have a chance of success.

For example, it is appropriate for LMT to demand that there be no censorship of information about LRH, but it would be wrong for LMT to engage in Hubbard bashing or rubbing members noses in some of the less pleasant truths.

Consider somebody who idolizes Jefferson for writing the Bill of Rights. It would not be proper to keep needling them about Jefferson's slave mistress. It would only be appropriate to prevent them from censoring that from his biography.

Remember that Lisa herself was a Scientologist and would have objected heavily to any form of Hubbard bashing or poking fun at Scientology beliefs.

The proper goal for LMT would be to ensure that it would be safe for her to practice her religion if she were alive today. In other words, we must remove the risks and the exploitation rather than destroying the beliefs or attacking the Scientology tech that she followed.

I would suggest that a sort of bill of rights might be needed. Offhand, I have one point to suggest and I probably will think of others. It is -

TO ALLOW THE FREE USE AND SPREAD OF THE SCIENTOLOGY TECH REGARDLESS OF THE DICTATES OF ANY ORGANIZATION.

Since Scientology is a Religion, this is a direct expression of first ammendment rights.

Note that this says ANY organization, and most especially includes CofS but is not limited to CofS.

I think that most of the membership would agree to this point and even get behind it enthusiastically. The only objections (and there will be many) would be from those who wish to control the tech for purposes of exploitation and money making.

I think that freezone would back this one up because it supports their own faith in the tech and desires to use it outside of the rigid orthodox CofS mindset.

And I think that if the critics pause and think for a moment, they will realize that this also causes all the lawsuits against them to evaporate, so I hope that they will go along with this as well.

It is with points like this, which are positive from all sides, which will bring about an internal reform.

It is also important to get the membership to read the Scientology Reformer's Homepage that I wrote and which can be found at fza.org among other places. This is the one which indicates most strongly to loyalists. Those whom I have been able to talk into looking at it always come around and start supporting reform. When I wrote it, I was thinking deeply upon how I felt when I was on staff in 1968 and it is exactly what would have reached me at that time. Most of my other writings are far too harsh. So take this one as a guideline.

If we could get some media exposure of the reformer's homepage at fza.org in the LA and Clearwater areas, it would be a tremendous help, because most loyalists and even most of the fence sitters do not know to look.

A common story that I hear from people who are on the fence is that they glanced at ARS once a few years ago, saw nothing but bashing, and decided it was useless to look there any further because they still believe in the tech even though they think the organization is very screwed up. The Reformer's homepage will turn these people around, whereas rants about LRH and Crowley will not. Note that any advance tech student who has heard the Philadelphia Doctorate Course knows that Ron called Crowley his friend and nobody every left Scientology on account of that.

Also note that fza.org has no group or organization behind it. In other words, there is no moneymaking or profit that they will gain from attracting attention. This is important because it makes it impossible for the CofS to claim that it is being promoted for purposes of stealing their business. This is not true of many of the other freezone pages which are sponsored by practicioners who might gain business. Fza.org is special in that it was done as a labor of love by people who are not practicing but only wanted to help spread information.

This is only a start. I'll be examining the LMT charter etc. and seeing what else I can come up with.

All the best,

The Pilot (aka Ken Ogger)

The free Self Clearing Book, The Super Scio book, and the "SCIENTOLOGY REFORMER'S HOME PAGE" are all over the net.

See The Self Clearing Homepage for URLs to these sites http://fza.org/pilot/selfclr.htm

Or see The Pilots Home Page at http://fza.org/pilot/index.htm

Some translations are available, see links at fza.org

Also see the new www.fzint.org website.

This post will be included in the next Super Scio Archive. See the Pilot Archives at FZA.ORG.

Note that some of my posts only go to ACT. I don't actually use the pilot@scientology.at email address. That is just window dressing. I prefer to keep techical discussions out in the open. I watch ARS and ACT for messages with Pilot in the subject line.