Suppressive Person
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Suppressive Person, often abbreviated SP, is a term used in Scientology to describe the "antisocial personalities" who, according to Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard, make up about two and one-half percent of the human population (this would currently amount to about 160 million people[1]). Church of Scientology literature describes this group as including notorious historic figures such as Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan as well as others who "are less obviously seen."[2]
The term is often applied to those whom the Church of Scientology perceives as its enemies, i.e. those whose "disastrous" and "suppressive" acts are said to impede the progress of individual Scientologists or the Scientology movement.[3][4] The church has an administrative mechanism by which individuals are formally judged and "declared" to be suppressive. Scientologists in good standing are expected to "disconnect" from these "suppressives" (i.e., sever all relations with them), unless and until such time that the SP has completed a course of amends to restore them to the good graces of the church. The possibility of recovering from "suppressive" status is connected to what the Church of Scientology says was stressed by Hubbard, that "regardless of apparent traits, all men are basically good – even the most seemingly unrepentant."[2]
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[edit] Origins and definitions
As with most Scientology terminology, "suppressive person" was coined by L. Ron Hubbard. Ruth A. Tucker, in her book Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement, wrote that the concept appeared to have first been introduced into Scientology in 1965, possibly as a response to increasing challenges to Hubbard's authority from discontented members.[5] Many of Hubbard's early writings on suppressive persons focus on their alleged responsibility for poor management within the Church of Scientology.[6]
The Church's official glossary defines a suppressive person as being:
- a person who possesses a distinct set of characteristics and mental attitudes that cause him to suppress other people in his vicinity. This is the person whose behavior is calculated to be disastrous. Also called antisocial personality.[7]
The Church regards these "antisocial personalities" as being those "who possess characteristics and mental attitudes that cause them to violently oppose any betterment activity or group,"[2] This concern with "groups" continues in the official Scientology Handbook, which states the corollary: "The antisocial personality supports only destructive groups."[8]
According to Hubbard, suppressive persons have a number of distinct characteristics:
- 1. He or she speaks only in very broad generalities.
- 2. Such a person deals mainly in bad news, critical or hostile remarks, invalidation, and general suppression.
- 3. The antisocial personality alters, to worsen, communication when he or she relays a message or news. Good news is stopped and only bad news, often embellished, is passed along.
- 4. A characteristic, and one of the sad things about an antisocial personality, is that it does not respond to treatment or reform or psychotherapy.
- 5. Surrounding such a personality we find cowed or ill associates or friends who, when not driven actually insane, are yet behaving in a crippled manner in life, failing, not succeeding.
- 6. The antisocial personality habitually selects the wrong target.
- 7. The antisocial personality cannot finish a cycle of action.
- 8. Many antisocial persons will freely confess to the most alarming crimes when forced to do so, but will have no faintest sense of responsibility for them.
- 9. The antisocial personality supports only destructive groups and rages against and attacks any constructive or betterment group.
- 10. This type of personality approves only of destructive actions and fights against constructive or helpful actions or activities.
- 11. Helping others is an activity which drives the antisocial personality nearly berserk. Activities, however, which destroy in the name of help are closely supported.
- 12. The antisocial personality has a bad sense of property and conceives that the idea that anyone owns anything is a pretense, made up to fool people. Nothing is ever really owned.[9]
According to Scientology doctrine, individuals who possess a majority of these twelve anti-social characteristics can be expected to believe it is for their own self-preservation that they are "keeping others down" or "keeping people ignorant" and even though they may not exhibit outward signs of insanity, the results of their actions are nevertheless found to be harmful to those around them.
[edit] Suppressive Person policies and practices
According to the Hubbard textbook titled "Introduction to Scientology Ethics" ("the Ethics book"), when an individual is found to be under the influence of a Suppressive Person, it is believed that this will affect their general well-being. An individual with an SP in their vicinity is likely to be under stress or frequently upset, and this would potentially jeopardize the stability of any treatment or education. Therefore, a parishioner who is found to have such suppressive connections is not permitted to participate in certain Scientology classes and counselling until the situation has been adequately resolved.
The Ethics book provides a guideline for use in sorting out such a condition. A first step is always to educate the person about the phenomenon of the Suppressive Person and the effects this is believed to have on the individuals close to the SP. Once the education step is completed, the person can further follow the guidelines to sort out the situation so that the parishioner is no longer negatively affected.
If after reasonable attempts have been made to "handle" the situation to no avail, the parishioner may take the option of "disconnecting" from the SP. Scientology Security checks are also common for SP and PTS (Potential Trouble Source) situations.
In the Scientology Ethics book, "disconnection" is defined as a self-determined decision made by an individual that he is not going to be connected to another. It is a severing of a "communication line".
The concept of the Suppressive Person in Scientology has been the source of some controversy, due in some part to aversion to the idea of "disconnecting" from close family members and friends.
Another source of controversy related to the Suppressive Person doctrine is the formal administrative judgment that labels an individual a "Suppressive Person". This is known as an "SP Declare," and is issued as a church "Ethics Order." Presently, an SP Declare needs to be approved by the "International Justice Chief" (IJC), who resides in the Church of Scientology International headquarters in Los Angeles, California.
Non-Scientologists can be and have been labelled as suppressive persons. A suppressive person is one who has been responsible for "suppressive acts", defined by Hubbard as being "the overt or covert actions or omissions knowingly and willfully undertaken to suppress, reduce, prevent or destroy case gains, and/or the influence of Scn on activities, and/or the continued Scn success and actions on the part of organizations actions and Scientologists."[10]
Similarly, entire groups could be declared suppressive; suppressive groups, in Hubbard's view, were "those which seek to destroy Scn or which specialize in injuring or killing persons or damaging their cases or which advocate suppression of mankind."[11]. Under this broader definition, suppressiveness included more than just publicly opposing Scientology; it also included any group supporting activities to which Hubbard was strongly opposed, especially psychiatry.
The Church of Scientology appears to maintain a central list of ex-members and splinter groups formally declared to be suppressive. In an executive directive of 1992, the Church's "International Justice Chief" lists over 400 groups and over 2,300 individual people considered to be suppressive. [12] These comprise individual ex-Scientologists and breakaway groups regarded as hostile or heretical, such as Erhard Seminars Training (EST).
[edit] Commentary by Hubbard on SP's and careerism
In the third lecture of the Flag Executive Briefing Course "The Org Officer/Product Officer System Part 1", given aboard the Sea Org vessel Apollo on 18 January 1971, Hubbard explained this about certain SP's (in the lecture itself referred to as "insane person"):
- Like there are a bunch of guys monkeying around with this peace/war button, you know? And should we have a war or should we have peace? Well, they’ve moved in on the button again, and then they go off of it. Well of course, a war would just finish any human communication and cultural lines on which anything can travel. So therefore, we don’t really have all the time there is. We can’t really sit around on our hands and do nothing. Furthermore, the planet could be expected to resist any such movement, because the most resistance you get toward being cured by anyone is an insane person. An insane person will resist being cured harder than anybody ever heard of, because he knows everybody is Martians and they’re all out to get him. And he knows there’s no help, and so on. Of course, that’s what makes him insane.
- A certain number of these on the planet, in high positions, bring about the conditions known as war, and so on. Now recently we traced, by the way, how a person moves from the lower stratas of the society up to an executive position or a political position of magnitude. You can see the pattern of it can be seen in your own org. A person cannot hold the job of central files clerk, and he argues and argues, and finally moves himself over to some other portion of the org. There's very few people in that portion of the org, so he gets an I/C, in charge of something, then there isn't anybody else around, and he seems to be active, and he becomes a departmental head. He becomes a departmental head by accident, and he actually is pushing himself up.
- Now he has, he doesn't have the motivation of helping others, he just has the motivation of protecting himself. And the higher he rises on the pyramid, the more he thinks he will be protected. That's part of his insanity. You get up to the top of the pyramid you spend ninety percent of your time ducking bullets.
- But the facts of the case are that there is sort of a system by which a person who can't hold any post winds up with a very high post.
[edit] Abuse of the "Suppressive Person" label
In a lecture he made on 19 July 1966, L. Ron Hubbard expressed concern about the possible abuse of the SP label in respect of those who are otherwise good citizens and contribute to civil society:
- You should upgrade your idea of what an SP is. Man, meet one sometime! A real one! A real monster.... Well, in all the time we've been around here we only had one SP that I know of. One real SP that was on staff.... And I don't know of another single SP that we've ever had on staff. Isn't that interesting. You see all these SP orders and so on... Don't throw it around carelessly, because this is an--a very exaggerated condition, SP.[13]
Some former Scientologists have alleged that there has indeed been such abuse. For example, Bent Corydon describes seeing Scientology franchise holder Gary Smith declared Suppressive on the spot during the October 1982 Mission Holders' Conference, simply for not obeying a shouted order to change his seat.[14] There are also instances where SP declares have impacted families and businesses disruptively.[15]
[edit] References
- ^ Leonard, David. "World Population to reach 6.5 Billion on Saturday". February 24, 2006. MSNBC
- ^ a b c Scientology Ethics and Judicial Matters: The Antisocial Personality. Website accessed 2006-06-04.
- ^ CSI. Glossary of Scientology & Dianetics Terms. What is Scientology?. Retrieved on June 11, 2006.
- ^ CSI. The Antisocial Personality. What is Scientology?. Retrieved on June 11, 2006.
- ^ Ruth A. Tucker, Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement, p. 313. (Zondervan, 2004)
- ^ See e.g. Hubbard, HCO Policy Letter of 7 August 1965, Suppressive Persons, Main Characteristics Of
- ^ Scientology Glossary. Church of Scientology International. Retrieved on July 8, 2006.
- ^ CSI. The Antisocial Personality. How Can Scientology Help Me With...?. Retrieved on June 11, 2006.
- ^ Hubbard, HCO Policy Letter of 27 September 1966 Issue II, The Antisocial Personality - The Anti-Scientologist, p. 2-3.
- ^ Hubbard, in Modern Management Technology Defined, p. 509
- ^ Hubbard, ibid.
- ^ Flag Executive Directive 2830RB of 25 July 1992, "Suppressive Persons and Suppressive Groups list", exhibited in Church of Scientology International vs Fishman and Geertz, No. CV 91-6426 HLH (Tx), April 4, 1994
- ^ Hubbard, "About Rhodesia," lecture, 19 July 1966, Saint Hill Special Briefing Course tape transcripts, Lecture Set 421-434, pp. 223-224
- ^ Corydon, Bent; L. Ron Hubbard, Jr. (1987). L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?. Secaucus, New Jersey: Lyle Stuart. ISBN 0-8184-0444-2. , pp. 204-205. An online edition of the book is at [1].
- ^ Robert Farley. "The unperson", St. Petersburg Times, 2006-06-24, pp. 1A, 14A. Retrieved on June 25, 2006.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Suppressive Person Defense League
- ConventionalScientology.org: Two Types of People
- Caroline Letkeman Suppressive Person Declare
- Information about Ethics Orders, Declares and Suppressive Persons
- Robert Farley. "SP profiles", St. Petersburg Times, 2006-06-25. Retrieved on June 26, 2006.
- Robert Farley. "Church spokesman says Times report is unfair", St. Petersburg Times, 2006-06-25. Retrieved on June 26, 2006.
