Professional Auditor’s Bulletin: The Open Channel (1956)

Besides having a couple of other things to do in the last eight years, I have been in search of an open channel for Dianetics and Scientology which would not run into large obstacles and which would thereby make it possible for organizations and auditors to outflow what we know to a maximum with a minimum of difficulty.

When you have to qualify and explain what you are doing continually, you have only in that an obstacle. Since there was no immediate forebear to Dianetics and Scientology, there was no cut groove in the society. Thus we have had to keep company with subjects in the public mind as rag-tag as anything can get –i.e., psychology, psychiatry. And of all the drooling idiots I would never choose for bedfellows, believe me, the psychologist and psychiatrist would be below my lowest list. Why? Because they’re fakes. They come from a long line of hoodwinks including such nobles as the priests of Ra, Cagliostro and Wundt. Why? Because they would take the pennies off a dead man’s eyes. Why? Because there are limits where a gentleman stops and the old-time hocus-pocus of the mind just then began.

Naturally, then, we ourselves would get a slap from the same dank brush. One of the principal “everybody knows” is “everybody knows psychology and psychiatry are phoney.” Now it is an oddity that if you accuse a man long enough of being a fake or a robber or a bum he tends to believe he might be one.

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Ninety percent of the few auditors who have quit have all suffered from this association with psychologists and psychiatrists to a point where they themselves thought they were phonies –and that therefore the organization and all connected with it must then be phonies.

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The Open Channel for which I have searched has been found. I went over to Dublin, a poor, cross-ridden town, and started up a pilot operation. Were the American College duplicated in London and Washington it would start making history fast. Why? Because it exploits an open channel which runs, like good roads and good weather (of which everyone is in favor), without opposition.

Behold: “Scientology is that branch of psychology which treats of human ability. Old-time Wundtian psychology said that people could not change. Now that we can change people we have to call what we are doing something else than psychology.” They “know” what psychology is (familiar word). They immediately grasp this, get a tiny agreement. Then they are told (gradient scale) that old-time psychology couldn’t change people (which they can verify in psychology texts) and that we can. Follow this with a discussion of IQ and Personality Tests and then brush aside any thought of neurosis or psychosis as part of the picture with “Well, I think we can all agree that any of us have room for improvement,” and you’re off into something the person you are talking to can use. IF YOU CAN SELL ONE PERSON PAINLESSLY ON SCIENTOLOGY YOU CAN SELL GROUPS. IF YOU CAN SELL GROUPS YOU CAN SELL THE WORLD.

I am often amused when somebody shifts one of my mock-ups around –for they very often do it on the basis of removing the motor. Washington recently published the above definition of Scientology with a subtle change: “Scientology is that branch of wisdom which treats of human ability.” They changed the one thing vital in the sentence. The listener is going to classify YOU as a psychologist. He’s read about psychology in the comic strips. He uses the word–constantly. It’s an agreement point. You avoid the word entirely as did Washington and you have (1) missed the agreement point and (2) invited him to retain an association not as-ised which will condemn you. So changing one of these mock-ups around may make them non-workus-deadus.

No, you say to anybody, “I’m a Scientologist.” “Scientology? It is that branch of psychology which treats of human ability. Old-time psychology believed you couldn’t change anyone’s intelligence or personality, so when we could we had to call it something else.” “Well, I think you’ll agree that anyone could stand some improvement.” “It’s fascinating that even morons can be made smart.” “You know, an average intelligence is about 108. Well, with a little work a Scientologist can shift that to 120 or 130, you know, make it possible for the person to tackle jobs he couldn’t have understood before.” “All we’re interested in is increasing business efficiency. Has a lot to do with income. Fellow with an IQ of 108 makes, let’s say, $35 a week. He’d be paid more if he was worth it. We raise his IQ to 120 and his pay goes up to $75.” “You know, we don’t need new business ideas or gimmicks. All we need is some people who can carry on existing business efficiently for a change.” “Take government. I don’t think a lot of people in government are smart enough to understand their business.” “I’d sure like to get my hands on some of these officials. . . .”

That’s all agreement chatter. It’s material which keeps your listener coming. HE knows (and you never infer it) that HE could use this stuff Scientology personally. He’d resent being told he needed psychiatry or psychology, for that would infer he was crazy. But when you talk about IQ and rising pay and how stupid people can get businesses in trouble, you’re right in there on the agreement level. Now if you AVOID psychology entirely, you leave it to the listener to infer it and thereafter you’re a psychologist to him.

I wrote the above, not off the cuff, but straight out of experiences other people and myself have had with it. There’s no counter-effort. All’s well. What you say goes home. So without altering this carefully built mock-up, try it out.

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There is something else you can do. You can arrange with a loan company to lend the person enough to pay for a medical checkup by an MD with which you’ve made an arrangement, for their course and for individual auditing. The loan company pays you in cash. The student-pc pays the loan company by the week from his paycheck. This of course has to be carefully greased and made painless. But as the sum is small and as the people who come to you get salaries, you will find a loan company will be very happy to play ball.

The end product we already know is a working person with a higher IQ and with poise the like of which employers haven’t seen lately. Teaching, getting the confusion out of them, always can be counted upon to up their confidence and poise. And you’ll have Scientologists.

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Now there are additional services you can offer if you can deliver them. You can test for IQ and personality and write a letter to their boss about their improvement at course end. You will wind up with a huge employment roster. You can work with employment offices. (Don’t be an employment office, work WITH all other employment offices. Be an employment wholesaler to employment agencies for a fee, never a retailer, as that’s a profession in itself.)

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Here’s an OPEN CHANNEL in the society. Nobody is really doing it. Not even Carnegie, the closest reach, did this. Nobody balks good roads, good weather or better business efficiency today. And you can let the psychologist and pseudo-psychologist stew in their own rather rancid juices and gibber around their shock machines and mice in their government-financed prisons and go straight to hell, whither they are bound, without our knowing or caring.

Are you going to help reach on this OPEN CHANNEL? You know you are.

Problems and other plans were good. But they aren’t as good as this one. Try it out.¹

Notes