Technical Degrades
Here is an extract from a longer article. It
deals with a misunderstanding about the policy letter called 'Technical
Degrades.'
Some Scientology materials are old and no longer used.
!
That statement probably caused a sharp intake of breath on the part of some
readers.
For example here is Robert Vaughn Young's sworn testimony from 17 June 2002:
---
Page 34
Q. Let me show you Plaintiff's Exhibit 100. Can you
identify this?
A. Yes. This is another policy letter called
Technical
Degrades.
This is
the second policy that always follows the first one. And again, in every
hat
pack, just about, that you can find, this one will follow the first one. And
basically, what these things combined, will hammer to say, is there's only one
way to do Scientology, and that's by following the policies and directives of
L. Ron Hubbard. Everything that he says in the first one that you showed
me,
everything that was ever written or said, continues to be true. You cannot
cancel it. You can't say it's old. You can't say it's not used.
Page 112:
Q. All right. Let me ask you a general question on
Scientology. Can anyone
change the policies written by Mr. Hubbard?
A. No. That's -- and that's one of the first purposes of
that first
document that you introduced, Keeping Scientology Working. It was to -- it
was
completely forbidden to change them. Other than make a -- you know, a typo
or
removing a wrong comma someplace, no, you cannot -- you are forbidden from
changing them, saying that they're old, omitting them, telling people, "You
can't do this anymore because it's old."
---
Vaughn is talking through his hat.
He has misunderstood, or is deliberately
misrepresenting, those policies,
particularly the one called ~Technical
Degrades~.
It refers to materials ~currently~in~use~on~instructions~and~checksheets~ !!!
~Not~ to everything written in the whole history of Scientology !!!
~He~ thinks that everything ever written is still in full force.
He's wrong.
'Operation Clambake,' Andreas Lund's anti-Scientology site, contains the same
gross error:
"...the policy ... cannot ever be cancelled, as it is Hubbardian scripture, and
his words cannot ever be altered in any way per Scientology's policy."
Teresa Summers made a similar statement in court on June 10:
---
Page 186:
'Tech degrade is you are not allowed to invalidate any of Ron's writing, any
policy, by saying it is old, it is outdated, we don't do that anymore.'
---
Her mistake is to ignore the fact that one ~can~ do so if one points to the
material that cancels, revises or supercedes it.
It is the the following precise actions that are listed in the
Technical Degrades
policy letter as being Scientology high crimes:
---
'Adding comments to checksheets or instructions
labeling any material
"background" or "not used now" or "old" or any similar action which will result
in the student not knowing, using, and applying the data in which he is being
trained.
'Failing to strike from any checksheet remaining in use meanwhile any such
comments as "historical", "background", "not used", "old", etc. or VERBALLY
STATING IT TO STUDENTS.'
L. Ron Hubbard. HCOPL 17 June 1970RA, Rev. 27 April 1981.
---
What those critics are doing is to expand the idea so that it includes
~everything~ (cancelled, revised, superceded or not) rather than just the
things that students are trained in on official courses.
It's very important to be precise when dealing with statements such as the ones
above in my opinion. Expanding them to include everything is ridiculous. I
would advise anyone interested to read the whole of that policy letter to get
the context of what is being talked about.
It's a small misunderstanding in some ways, but it could really mess up
someone's ideas about what can and cannot be done.
Freddie
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