Become The Best

A new promo piece presents some interesting questions.

Scientology is now trying to sell their ads as events that people need to see.

This new 3 minute ad for training is a mixture of cartoon characters and real life actors with a twangy soundtrack. As with most of the centrally produced scientology video offerings, it has high production values. It’s corny, but well produced corny.

What is most interesting about it is the approach they are taking to try to persuade people to train as auditors. It is not to actually AUDIT people up the Bridge. It is to use the training to become a better assistant, corporate president or foreman and thus infiltrate society. They seem to have missed the point that this plan was from 1960 when there was no “admin tech” and Hubbard was talking about an “HCA/HPA” who would get trained at “slight cost” and then be given a certificate as a “Family Counselor” or “Company Counselor” or “Child Counselor” or “Organization Counselor”. Since that time the entire OEC came into existence. The PTS/SP Tech. Ethics Tech. Life Improvement Courses. And of course, the ultimate “modern breakthrough” of the “Special Zone Plan” — the Volunteer Minister Program with a glossy, fat book that gives all the “tech” on how to infiltrate society.

Scientology uses whatever means they can to get people sucked in. Even if they have to twist Hubbard “tech” into pretzels to do so. Apparently, scientologists these days don’t know a lot — at least the people who put out these promotional pieces.

But regardless of the fact that training as an auditor to audit people is apparently not popular these days, so they are having to come up with another pitch, this video brings to the fore the Hubbard concept of infiltrating and taking over society.

 

Here are some of the most relevant passages from Hubbard’s 1960 “Special Zone Plan” (the full text of it is included at the end of the post).

We are masters of IQ and ability. We have know-how. Any of us could select out a zone of life in which we are interested and then, entering it, bring order and victory to it.

See this: a housewife, already successfully employing Scientology in her own home, trained to professional level, takes over a woman’s club as Secretary or some key position. She straightens up the club affairs by applying comm practice and making peace and then, incidental to the club’s main function, pushes Scientology into a zone of special interest in the club—children, straightening up marriages, whatever comes to hand and even taking fees for it—meanwhile of course going on being a successful and contributing wife.

Or this: a Scientologist, a lesser executive or even a clerk in a company, trains as a professional auditor, and seeing where the company is heading, begins to pick up its loose ends by strengthening its comm lines or its personnel abilities. Without “selling” anybody Scientology, just studies out the bogs and remedies them. If only as “an able person” he would rapidly expand a zone of control, to say nothing of his personal standing in the company. 

And see this: a race is staggering along making difficulties for itself. Locate its leaders. Get a paid post as a secretary or officer of the staff of the leaders of that race. And by any means, audit them into ability and handle their affairs to bring co-operation not trouble. Every race that is in turmoil in a nation has quasi-social groups around its leaders.

And this: a nation or a state runs on the ability of its department heads, its governors, or any other leaders. It is easy to get posts in such areas unless one has delusions of grandeur or fear of it. Don’t bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial staff or the bodyguard, use any talent one has to get a place close in, go to work on the environment and make it function better. Occasionally one might lose, but in the large majority, doing a good job and making the environment function will result in promotion, better contacts, a widening zone.

The cue in all this is don’t seek the co-operation of groups. Don’t ask for permission. Just enter them and start functioning to make the group win through effectiveness and sanity.

The special zone plan is made possible by a slight shift of approach. Take the case of a police officer who got interested on a PE course and read some books. He tried to “sell” his chief on Scientology as a subject and was given a heavy loss. One, our PE level trainee was insufficiently schooled to be effective. Two, as a pro his approach could have been any one of several. He could have eased himself nearer a command source area in the department, or he could have taken over a pistol marksman on the force and made him a champion as we did with the Olympics team once. The slight shift is that we would have made this police officer get pro training before telling him “sell Scientology” to the force and then would have advised him to sell it by action, not words. Handling the familial problems of the commissioner as his driver or making the rookies gasp at how fast he could train them would be selling by action only. And no other kind of selling would be needed. He’d be running an evening coaching class for his fellows or superiors on Scientology in a few months and making some of them follow the same route. How long before he had altered the whole character, ability and effectiveness of the police force and through that how long before he would have civilized the whole approach to law enforcement in that area? For, once we have created an opening, we always avalanche to fantastically swift gains.

That’s the Special Zone Plan.

Just a small aside, this is one of the MANY places where Hubbard claimed he now had clearing “well in hand” (at least until the next great breakthrough in a few months):

I feel we now have clearing well in hand in Central Orgs and will soon have it broadly so for Scientologists in “the field’’ but I do not feel we need wait on that but take it and further training in stride. 

 

If you are so inclined, you can watch the video

 

The Special Zone Plan in full:

 

 

 

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO BULLETIN OF 23 JUNE AD10

Important MA

Franchise Holders

 

SPECIAL ZONE PLAN

The Scientologist’s Role in Life

 

Ten years ago, on about this date, I was up against third dynamic confusion of such magnitude that within a few months, I was to decide to forget organization problems and concentrate on research.

Because of this decision for years we were poorer in numbers but richer by far in knowledge.

It evidently was not enough to be able to help the basic problems of an individual. There were eight dynamics. It was necessary to take in at least some of all eight dynamics before we could be effective.

And toward the end of June in 1950, I first sensed that truth. And the maxim— bring order to your own house before you attempt order next door.

In June, 1950, the Foundations were already beginning to shatter under the enthusiastic door pounding of the public. I had built the proverbial better mousetrap and all the world was beating a path to our door—and was breaking the door down!

Yes, we could do wonders with people. Greater wonders than had been done in recent millennia. But we were ignorant beyond the first two dynamics. The moment we sought to handle the third we were done.

That was ten years ago. Within months of that date all that was left of the first organizations was rubble and newspapers blowing by in the wind.

I worked hard, and studied and researched, never friendless, often helped and worked ahead for ten years.

The First Dynamic, self, fluctuated in results and has stabilized with unsurpassed processing technology. In proof, our people are individually in better shape than any other group.

On the Second Dynamic, family and sex, we have gotten into a winning position. We know the answers to marriage, children and sex. The material isn’t all published broadly enough yet even for Scientologists to know it but it’s there and we’re living better lives.

The Third Dynamic, groups, is the spectacular breakthrough of today. It’s happened so gradiently we’ve hardly realized we have won. But observe: we have a magnificent organization. In America, England, South Africa and Australia we have just about the most wonderful organizations Man has seen for their size, cost and defensibility. Here we have achieved spectacular stability. Largely self-determined, yet co-operating smoothly these third dynamic examples compare with June, 1950, Foundations like the Royal Ballet compares with the aftermath of Hiroshima.

Just as we can represent in ourselves the grip we have on the first dynamic, so do we represent in our organizations that we have the third dynamic well in hand.

The technology of our third dynamic in organizations and the field is an exact one, as skilled as an auditor’s know-how. And having applied it to organizations we are now applying it to the field, which is the main subject of this bulletin. You in “the field”, you are about to win, too, with a complete new level of policy and action if you want it: you are about to be included “in”.

The Fourth Dynamic, Mankind, is now an understood zone of operation and is declared herewith to be operational for a Scientologist. The prize of understanding Man as a racial and political species has fallen to our hand. Don’t smile. I know it’s an incredible announcement. But it’s factual.

On the Fifth Dynamic, that of living things, I have been making headway since last year and know quite a bit now about them. Many of the secrets have dropped into our hands.

On the Sixth Dynamic, the physical universe, we have for some time stood well above what they know in physics.

On the Seventh Dynamic, the spirit, we covered this ground very thoroughly in 1953-54-55 and it’s still all true but too advanced for general consumption. The best record of this was in the 1953 Philadelphia Lecture Series of 64 hours.

On the Eighth Dynamic, the Supreme Being, we have at least found the key question and in a little while we should have it answered on a demonstrable basis. Far from presumptuous it is about time somebody neither atheist nor zealot asked some questions, and arrived at some answers that have no self-interested curves in them.

So you can see where we are going and have at least a passing acquaintance with developments. Here we are with the largest fund of information of life and its patterns that has been assembled in a factual package on Earth.

Now the question is, what are we going to do with it?

Until we had the third and fourth dynamics demonstrably in hand technically we could not answer the question. We’ve each had his own idea of what we should be doing with it and each of these ideas is right to the degree that it’s right for each of us. I have never discussed this point strongly because I did not want to shake anyone into an uncertainty. So let’s say that all these ideas are right and then add a Third Dynamic Idea with which we can all agree.

Improvement is the common denominator of all our ideas. And of course each one has a zone of interest where he or she feels improvement is most needed or where he or she would be most comfortable in doing the work of improvement.

And that’s the gist of this Third Dynamic Idea. It’s a rather deceptive idea at first glance since we are each of us doing something of that.

But let us be far more definite. And let us expose a fallacy that has long been riding with us, as an unknown passenger.

People think of professional practitioners as doctors who, aloof from all other concerns, practice on the sick. This is a very novel idea. Dreamed up, probably, by the first lazy witch doctor and used forever thereafter by most specialists in human livingness. And here I want to as-is and banish that idea from amongst us all.

If we are doctors (by which might be meant “repairers”) then we are doctors on the third and fourth dynamics and handle the first and second dynamics only to achieve better function on the third and fourth.

And true enough, most Scientologists agree, I think, with this concept. But it itself is as new and novel as the idea of being a professional practitioner to individual health once was.

I believe our third dynamic organization, taking in all Scientologists, should go this way:

The Central Organization and Centre Scientologists should service the remaining Scientologists, doing administration, instructing and auditing. Instruction to a professional level of all Scientologists should be entered upon as a must. Central Organization and Centre Auditing should be special and referred cases and the Scientologists themselves when they want it as part of service.

Being trained and cleared need not hold up the next zone of action, though it is taken for granted that these will occur for each.

The “field auditor” should be included wholly “in” to the general activity as a large zone divided into smaller specialized zones. The “field auditor” should of course run a group some evenings (he will find he has to) and audit not only members of his family but contacts in his zone on weekends or evenings. But, as you will see, he or she is largely wasting time by trying to be an individual doctor type practitioner where he or she is only partly successful at it. Some of course will have to work full time in centers as we get into action but centers are mentioned above as a special activity along with Central Organizations.

The largest majority of Scientologists should, I feel, consider themselves as “doctors” on the third and fourth dynamics. And if we work well at this, we will have answered all our various needs and brought it off on the third and fourth as well.

Now I wouldn’t be talking to you like this if I didn’t feel I had this studied to a conclusion.

Consider our position: we have arrived at a very special plateau of knowledge as has been reviewed above. Data on our know-how is being codified for use in these zones of action.

Consider the position of the world. The story is often repeated on the whole track. As Mest is made to help too much, a plateau of civilization is reached in which the individual is downgraded to a number. The end of this—the lights eventually go out through lack of personal initiative and ability.

We are in a fantastic position, at the right time and place, to halt this cycle of decay and start a new one on Earth. And I believe we should overtly do so.

How?

We are masters of IQ and ability. We have know-how. Any of us could select out a zone of life in which we are interested and then, entering it, bring order and victory to it.

Of course, there’s a heavy challenge in doing this. Some of the victories would be hardly won. But we would win across the world if we kept our vision bright.

The third and fourth dynamics subdivide. Any third breaks down into many activities and professions, a neighborhood, a business concern, a military group, a city government, etc, etc, etc. The fourth dynamic breaks down just now mainly to races and nations.

Now just suppose a Scientologist were to consider himself a professional only for the purposes of treating and repairing or even starting again these third and fourth zones?

See this: a housewife, already successfully employing Scientology in her own home, trained to professional level, takes over a woman’s club as Secretary or some key position. She straightens up the club affairs by applying comm practice and making peace and then, incidental to the club’s main function, pushes Scientology into a zone of special interest in the club—children, straightening up marriages, whatever comes to hand and even taking fees for it—meanwhile of course going on being a successful and contributing wife.

Or this: a Scientologist, a lesser executive or even a clerk in a company, trains as a professional auditor, and seeing where the company is heading, begins to pick up its loose ends by strengthening its comm lines or its personnel abilities. Without “selling” anybody Scientology, just studies out the bogs and remedies them. If only as “an able person” he would rapidly expand a zone of control, to say nothing of his personal standing in the company. This has been and is being done steadily across the world. Now that we have presessioning, it’s easy to straighten up other people. Our unreleased technology on handling third dynamic business situations is staggeringly large. You’d be surprised how easy it is to audit seniors. They and their families have so many troubles. Or how easy it is to spot the emergency-maker and audit him.

And see this: a race is staggering along making difficulties for itself. Locate its leaders. Get a paid post as a secretary or officer of the staff of the leaders of that race. And by any means, audit them into ability and handle their affairs to bring co-operation not trouble. Every race that is in turmoil in a nation has quasi-social groups around its leaders.

And this: a nation or a state runs on the ability of its department heads, its governors, or any other leaders. It is easy to get posts in such areas unless one has delusions of grandeur or fear of it. Don’t bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial staff or the bodyguard, use any talent one has to get a place close in, go to work on the environment and make it function better. Occasionally one might lose, but in the large majority, doing a good job and making the environment function will result in promotion, better contacts, a widening zone.

The cue in all this is don’t seek the co-operation of groups. Don’t ask for permission. Just enter them and start functioning to make the group win through effectiveness and sanity.

If we were revolutionaries this HCO Bulletin would be a very dangerous document. We are not revolutionaries any more than we are doctors of sickness in individual patients. But we are not revolutionaries, we are humanitarians. We are not political. And we can be the most important force for good that the world has ever known. Who objects to a company functioning better to produce a better civilization? Who objects to a race becoming sane and a stable asset to its communities? Who objects to a neighborhood smoothing out?

Only the very criminal would object and they are relatively ineffectual when you can know and spot them. And there are no criminals except the mentally disabled.

So this is a challenge on the third and fourth. Almost all Scientologists are in a position to begin to help on such a program.

And I am studying now first the popularity with you of this plan and, if great, how best to help us all achieve it. The first thing required is an understandable designation for Scientologists undertaking their portion of this Special Zone Plan. I should think the word “Counselor” is acceptable with an appropriate additional designation such as “Family Counselor” or “Company Counselor” or “Child Counselor” or “Organization Counselor”. What we would do is issue an HPA or HCA as a certificate as always and would issue a special zone certificate to any person operating in that zone after he or she had completed an additional correspondence type briefing course covering that general zone. In other words anyone would have to have a professional certificate before he or she could be designated as a special zone counselor. The costs of obtaining such a certificate would be kept slight, no more than bare administration. The advantages of having such a designation are plain. A clerk with a certificate on the wall from the Academy of Scientology designating that he or she has been graduated as a “Company Counselor” would startle even a complacent executive into conversation about what was wrong with the place and as he was talking to a pro auditor any skepticism would quickly fade. A pro would know! As it all starts with being a good auditor and as the additional technology is exact in any of these fields, the program is feasible.

We are at this stage of this program: I have found that Scientologists operate with high success on the third and fourth but that it rarely occurs to them to try it and when they do they think I want them to audit full time and they are apologetic about their attempt. I have the technology pretty well to hand and can write zone manuals. I feel we now have clearing well in hand in Central Orgs and will soon have it broadly so for Scientologists in “the field’’ but I do not feel we need wait on that but take it and further training in stride. I feel that we are ripe for an overt attack on the third and fourth down spiral. I feel our auditors should take advantage of their increased personal ability and should be regarded accordingly by society and its zones. I see clearly that we have to win on the third and fourth if we are to attain our goals of a better world.

The special zone plan is made possible by a slight shift of approach. Take the case of a police officer who got interested on a PE course and read some books. He tried to “sell” his chief on Scientology as a subject and was given a heavy loss. One, our PE level trainee was insufficiently schooled to be effective. Two, as a pro his approach could have been any one of several. He could have eased himself nearer a command source area in the department, or he could have taken over a pistol marksman on the force and made him a champion as we did with the Olympics team once. The slight shift is that we would have made this police officer get pro training before telling him “sell Scientology” to the force and then would have advised him to sell it by action, not words. Handling the familial problems of the commissioner as his driver or making the rookies gasp at how fast he could train them would be selling by action only. And no other kind of selling would be needed. He’d be running an evening coaching class for his fellows or superiors on Scientology in a few months and making some of them follow the same route. How long before he had altered the whole character, ability and effectiveness of the police force and through that how long before he would have civilized the whole approach to law enforcement in that area? For, once we have created an opening, we always avalanche to fantastically swift gains.

That’s the Special Zone Plan. Several hundred thousand are ready for the first steps. Those that aren’t trained as pro HPAs and HCAs could start in soon. There are special ways to get training at an Academy now. And even while awaiting this training and working toward clearing such Scientologists could begin to determine their zone goals and work on them.

Our impact on the society is already weighty. With Special Zone Plans we could move that impact up thousands of times greater and have in our present lifetimes our goals at least in part accomplished and a decent world to come back to again.

What do you think of it? Write to me in care of Central Organization HCO in your area to give me your views on the Special Zone Plan.

When you write please advise me as follows: whether you like or do not like the idea. If you like it tell me the zone you are in or would like to be in (what area do you want to help?). But whatever you say please write as your letter will be considered as a vote. We have arrived at a crossroads where our action now could well affect the future history of this planet.

L. RON HUBBARD