HCOPL: Handling the Suppressive Person The Basis of Insanity

SPDL Note: In HCOB 28 Nov 1970 Psychosis and HCOPL 5 Apr 1965 Handling the Suppressive Person The Basis of Insanity, Hubbard provides his “technical” criteria for determining if someone is a Suppressive Person.  To avoid being identified as an SP, a person must a) submit to Scientology’s “psychotherapy,” called “auditing, ” and b) say that he or she benefited from it, called “making case gain.”

If either a) or b) is answered in the negative, Scientology treats the person as an SP. It’s as simple as that — if the person won’t submit to the auditing, or won’t say he benefited from it, that person is an antisocial personality, an insane criminal, and fair game.

There is quite clearly a very high motivation for Scientologists to have “huge wins” in their auditing and to write “glowing success stories” about all the “fabulous gains” they’ve gotten.

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO POLICY LETTER OF 5 APRIL 1965¹; ²; ³

Issue I

Gen. Non-Remimeo
HCO Sec Hat
Tech Sec Hat
D of P Hat
D of T Hat

HCO JUSTICE DATA RE ACADEMY AND HGC

HANDLING THE SUPPRESSIVE PERSON

THE BASIS OF INSANITY

The suppressive person (whom we’ve called a Merchant of Fear or Chaos Merchant and which we can now technically call the suppressive person) can’t stand the idea of Scientology. If people became better, the suppressive person would have lost. The suppressive person answers this by attacking covertly or overtly Scientology. This thing is, he thinks, his mortal enemy since it undoes his (or her) “good work” in putting people down where they should be.

There are three “operations” such a case seeks to engage upon regarding Scientology: (a) to disperse it, (b) to try to crush it and (c) to pretend it didn’t exist.

Dispersal would consist of several things such as attributing its source to others and altering its processes or structure.

If you feel a bit dispersed reading this policy letter, then realize it is about a being whose whole “protective coloration” is to disperse others and so remain invisible. Such people generalize all entheta and create ARC breaks madly.

The second (b) is done by covert or overt means. Covertly, a suppressive person leaves the org door locked, loses the E-Meters, runs up fantastic bills, and energetically and unseen seeks to pull out the plug and get Scientology poured down the drain. We, poor fools, consider all this just “human error” or “stupidity.” We rarely realize that such actions, far from being accidents, are carefully thought out. The proof that this is so is simple. If we run down the source of these errors, we wind up with only one or two people in the whole group. Now isn’t it odd that the majority of errors that kept the group enturbulated were attributable to a minority of persons present? Even a very “reasonable” person could not make anything else out of that except that it was very odd and indicated that the minority mentioned were interested in smashing the group and that the behavior was not common to the whole group-meaning it isn’t “normal” behavior.

These people aren’t communists or fascists or any other ists.  They are just very sick people. They easily become parts of suppressive groups such as communists or fascists because these groups, like criminals, are suppressive.

The suppressive person is hard to spot because of the dispersal factor mentioned above. One looks at them and has his attention dispersed by their “everybody is bad.”

The suppressive person who is visibly seeking to knock out people or Scientology is easy to see. He or she is making such a fuss about it. The attacks are quite vicious and full of lies. But even here when the suppressive person exists on the “other side” of a potential trouble source, visibility is not good. One sees a case going up and down. On the other side of that case, out of the auditor’s view, is the suppressive person.

The whole trick they use is to generalize entheta. “Everybody is bad.” “The Russians are all bad.” “Everybody hates you.” “The People versus John Doe” on warrants. “The masses.” “The secret police will get you.”

Suppressive groups use the ARC break mechanisms of generalizing entheta so it seems “everywhere.”

The suppressive person is a specialist in making others ARC break with generalized entheta that is mostly lies.

He or she is also a no-gain case.

So avid are such for the smashing of others by covert or overt means that their case is bogged and won’t move under routine processing.

The technical fact is that they have a huge problem, long gone and no longer known even to themselves, which they use hidden or forthright vicious acts continually to “handle.” They do not act to solve the environment they are in. They are solving one environment, yesterday’s, in which they are stuck.

The only reason the insane were hard to understand is that they are handling situations which no longer exist. The situation probably existed at one time. They think they have to hold their own, with overts against a nonexistent enemy to solve a nonexistent problem.

Because their overts are continuous they have withholds.

Since such a person has withholds, he or she can’t communicate freely to as-is the block on the track that keeps them in some yesterday. Hence, a “no-gain case. ”

That alone is the way to locate a suppressive person. By viewing the case. Never judge such a person by their conduct. That is too difficult. Judge by no case gains. Don’t even use tests.

One asks these questions:

1. Will the person permit auditing at all? or

2. Does their history of routine auditing reveal any gains?

If (1) is present one is safe to treat the person as suppressive. It is not always correct, but it is always safe. Some errors will be made, but it is better to make them than to take a chance on it. When people refuse auditing, they are (a) a potential trouble source (connected to a suppressive person); (b) a person with a big discreditable withhold; (c) a suppressive person or (d) have had the bad luck to be “audited” too often by a suppressive person or (e) have been audited by an untrained auditor or one “trained” by a suppressive person.

The last category (e) (untrained auditor) is rather slight but (d) (audited by a suppressive person) can have been pretty serious, resulting in continual ARC breaks during which auditing was pressed on without regard to the ARC break.

Thus, there are several possibilities when somebody refuses auditing. One has to sort them out in an HGC⁴ and handle the right one. But HCO by policy simply treats the person with the same admin policy procedure as that used on a suppressive person and lets HGC sort it out. Get that difference-it’s “with the same admin policy procedure as” not “the same as.” For treating a person “the same as” a suppressive person when he or she is not only adds to the confusion. One treats a real suppressive person pretty rough. One has to handle the bank.

As to (2) here is the real test and the only valid test: Does their history of routine auditing reveal any gains? If the answer is NO then there is your suppressive person, loud and very unclear!

That is the test.

There are several ways of detecting. When fair auditors or good ones have had to vary routine procedure or do unusual things on this case in an effort to make it gain, when there are lots of notes from Ds of P in the folder saying do this-do that-you know that this case was trouble. This means it was one of three things: (l) a potential trouble source, (2) a person with a big withhold or (3) a suppressive person.

If, despite all that trouble and care the case did not gain-or if the case simply didn’t gain despite auditing, no matter how many years or intensives then you’ve caught your suppressive person.

That’s the boy. Or the girl.

This case performs continual calculating, covert, hostile acts damaging to others. This case puts the enturbulence and upset into the environment, breaks the chairs, messes up the rugs and spoils the traffic flow with “goofs” done intentionally.

One should lock criminals out of the environment if one wants security. But one first has to locate the criminal. Don’t lock everybody out because you can’t find the criminal.

The cyclic case (gains and collapses routinely) is connected to a suppressive person. We have policy on that.

The case that continually pleads “hold my hand, I am so ARC broken” is just somebody with a big withhold, not an ARC break.

The suppressive person just gets no case gain⁵ on routine student auditing.

This person is actively suppressing Scientology. If such will sit still and pretend to be audited, the suppression is by hidden hostile acts which include:

1. Chopping up auditors;

2. Pretending withholds which are actually criticisms;

3. Giving out “data” about their past lives and/or whole track that really hold such subjects up to scorn and makes people who do remember, wince;

4. Chopping up orgs;

5. Alter-ising technology to mess it up;

6. Spreading rumors about prominent persons in Scientology;

7. Attributing Scientology to other sources;

8. Criticizing auditors as a group;

9. Rolling up dev-t—off-policy, off-origin, off-line;

10. Giving fragmentary or generalized reports about entheta that cave people in—and isn’t actual;

11. Refusing to repair ARC breaks;

12. Engaging in discreditable sexual acts (also true of potential trouble sources);

13. Reporting a session good when the pc went bad;

14. Reporting a session bad when the pc went up in tone;

15. Snapping terminals with lecturers and executives to make critical remarks or spread ARC break-type “news” to them;

16. Failing to relay comm or report;

17. Making an org go to pieces (note, one uses “making” not “letting”);

18. Committing small criminal acts around the org;

19. Making “mistakes” which get their seniors in trouble;

20. Refusing to abide by policy;

21. Noncompliance with instructions;

22. Alter-is of instructions or orders so that the program fouls up;

23. Hiding data that is vital to prevent upsets;

24. Altering orders to make a senior look bad;

25. Organizing revolts or mass protest meetings;

26. Snarling about justice.

And so on. One does not use the catalog, however; one only uses this one fact—no case gain by routine auditing over a longish period.

This is the fellow that makes life miserable for the rest of us. This is the one who overworks executives. This is the auditor killer. This is the course enturbulator or pc killer.

There’s the cancer. Burn it out.

__________

In short, you begin to see that it’s this one who is the only one who makes harsh discipline seem necessary. The rest of the staff suffers when one or two of these is present.

One hears a whine about “process didn’t work” or sees an alter-is of tech. Go look. You’ll find it now and then leads to a suppressive person inside or outside the org.

Now that one knows who it is, one can handle it.

But more than that, I can now crack this case!

The technology is useful on all cases, of course. But only this cracks the “no-gain case.”

The person is in a mad, howling situation of some yesteryear and is “handling it” by committing overt acts today. I say condition of yesteryear but the case thinks it’s today.

Yes, you’re right. They are nuts. The spinbins are full of either them or their victims. There’s no other real psycho in a spinbin!

What? That means we’ve cracked insanity itself? That’s right. And it’s given us the key to the suppressive person and his or her effect on the environment. This is the multitude of “types” of insanity of the nineteenth century psychiatrist. All in one. Schizophrenia, paranoia, fancy names galore. Only one other type exists—the person the suppressive person got “at.” This is the “manic-depressive” a type who is up one day and down the next. This is the potential trouble source gone mad. But these are in a minority in the spinbin, usually put there by suppressive persons and not crazy at all! The real mad ones are the suppressive persons. They are the only psychos.

Oversimplification? No indeed. I can prove it! We could empty the spinbins now. If we want to. But we have better uses for technology than saving a lot of suppressive persons who themselves act only to scuttle the rest of us.

You see, when they get down to no-case-gain where a routine process won’t bite, they can no longer as-is their daily life so it all starts to stack up into a horror. They “solve” this horror by continuous covert acts against their surroundings and associates. After a while the covert ones don’t seem to hold off the fancied “horror” and they commit some senseless violence in broad daylight—or collapse—and so they get identified as insane and are lugged off to the spinbin.

Anybody can “get mad” and bust a few chairs when a suppressive person goes too far. But there’s traceable sense to it. Getting mad doesn’t make a madman. It’s damaging actions that have no sensible detectable reason that’s the trait of madness. Any thetan can get angry. Only a madman damages without reason.

All actions have their lower-scale, discreditable mockery. The difference is, does one get over his anger? The no-case-gain of course can’t. He or she stays misemotional and adds each new burst to the fire. It never gets less. It grows. And a long way from all suppressive persons are violent. They are more likely to look resentful.

A suppressive person can get to one solid dispassionate state of damaging things. Here is the accident prone, the home wrecker, the group wrecker.

Now here one must realize something. The suppressive person finds outlet for his or her unexpressed rage by carefully needling those they are connected with into howling anger.

You see the people around them get dragged into this long-gone incident by mistaken identity. And it is a maddening situation to be continually misidentified, accused, worked on, double-crossed. For one is not the being the suppressive person supposes. The suppressive person’s world is pretty hard to live around. And even ordinarily cheerful people often blow up under the strain.

So be careful who you call the suppressive person. The person connected with a suppressive person is liable to be the only visible rage in sight!

You have some experience of this-the mousey little woman, who rarely changes expression and is so righteous, connected to somebody who now and then goes into a frenzy.

How to tell them apart? Easy! Just ask this question—Which gets a case gain easily?

Well, it’s even simpler than that! Put the two on an E-Meter. Don’t do anything but read the dial and needle. The suppressive one has the high, stuck TA.

The other has a lower TA. Simple?

Not all suppressive persons have high TA. The TA can be anywhere, especially very low (1.0). But the needle is weird. It is stuck tight or it R/Ses without reason (the pc wearing no rings to cause an R/S).

Suppressive persons also can have the “dead” thetan Clear read!

You see people around a suppressive person Q-and-A and disperse. They seek to “get even” with the suppressive person and often exhibit the same symptoms temporarily.

Sometimes two suppressive persons are found together. So one can’t always say which is the suppressive person in a pair. The usual combination is the suppressive person and the potential trouble source.

However, you don’t need to guess about it or observe their conduct.

It’s really no-ease-gain by routine processing that is the only valid test.

For this poor soul can no longer as-is easily. Too many overts. Too many withholds. Stuck in an incident that they call “present time.” Handling a problem that does not exist. Supposing those around are the personnel in their own delirium.

They look all right. They sound reasonable. They are often clever. But they are solid poison. They can’t as-is anything. Day by day their pile grows. Day by day their new overts and withholds pin them down tighter. They aren’t here. But they sure can wreck the place.

There is the true psycho.

And he or she is dying before your very eyes. Kind of horrible.

The resolution of the case is a clever application of Problems Processes, never O/W. What was the condition? How did you handle it? is the key type of process.

I don’t know what the percentage of these are in a society. I know only that they made up about 10 percent of any group so far observed. The data is obscured by the fact that they ARC break others and make them misemotional—thus, one of them seems to be, by contagion, half-a-dozen such.

Therefore, simple inspection of conduct does not reveal the suppressive person. Only a case folder puts the seal on it. No case gain by routine processes.

However, this test too may soon become untrustworthy for now we can crack them by a special approach. However, we will also generally use the same approach on routine cases as it makes cases go upward fast, and we may catch the suppressive person accidentally and cure him or her before we are aware of it.

And that would be wonderful.

But still we’ll have such on our lines in justice matters from now on. So it’s good to know all about them, how they are identified, how to handle.

HCO must handle such cases as per the HCO Justice Codes on suppressive acts when they blow Scientology or seek to  suppress Scientologists or orgs. One should study up on these.

The Academy should be careful of this and report them to HCO promptly (as they would potential trouble sources or withholds that won’t be delivered).

The Academy must not fool about with suppressive persons. It’s a sure way to deteriorate a course and cave in students.

POLICY

When an Academy finds it has a potential trouble source, a “withholdy case that ARC breaks easily” or a suppressive person enrolled on a course or a blow, the Academy must call for HCO Department of Inspections and Reports, Justice Section. This can be any HCO personnel available, even the HCO Sec.

The HCO representative must wear some readily identified HCO symbol and must take a report sheet with a carbon copy on a clipboard.

HCO must have present other staff adequate to handle possible physical violence.

The student, if still present, must be taken to a place where an interview will not stop or enturbulate a class, by Tech Division personnel. This can be any Tech Division office, empty auditing room or empty classroom. The point is to localize the commotion and not stir up the whole Tech Division.

If Tech Division personnel are not available, HCO can recruit “other staff’ anywhere by simply saying “HCO requires you” and taking them into the interview place.

HCO has a report sheet for such matters, original and one copy for justice file.

The HCO representative calls for the student’s folder and looks it over quickly for TA action. If there is none (less than 10 divisions/session), that’s it. It is marked on the report sheet “No TA action in auditing” or “Little TA.” HCO is not interested in what processes were run. Or why there is no TA. If the course requires no meters, the folder is inspected for alter-is (which denotes a rough pc) or no case changes.

If there are no TA notations in the folder, HCO should put the person on a meter making sure the person is not wearing a ring. One asks no questions, merely reads the TA position and notes the needle and marks these in the report sheet. The tone arm will be very high (5 or above) or very low (2 or less) or dead thetan (2 or 3), and the needle would be an occasional R/S or stuck or sticky if the person is a suppressive person. This is noted in the report sheet.

If the folder or the student in question says he has had no case gain, this is again confirming of a suppressive person.

If two of these three points (folder, meter, statement) indicate a suppressive person, HCO is looking for two possible students when so called in—the one who caused the upset and that student’s coach or student auditor. There very likely may be a suppressive person on the course that is not this student. Therefore, one looks for that one too, the second one.

If a bit of questioning seems to reveal that the student’s auditor was responsible, test that student too and enter it on a second HCO report form. And order the other one to auditing at the student’s own expense.

In short, be alert. There’s been an upset. There may be other persons about who caused it. Don’t just concentrate on the student. There is a condition on the course that causes upsets. That is really all one knows when one walks in on it. Find out why and what.

If the HCO tests indicate some doubt about either student being a suppressive person, HCO asks about a possible withhold and enters any result on the sheet and sends the student and sheet separately to the Tech Division, Dept of Estimations.

The procedure is the same for a suppressive person but is “a withholdy pc who ARC breaks easily” or simply “a withholdy pc” if no ARC breaks are noted. “Auditing recommended.”

But there is a third category for which HCO is very alert in this interview. And that is the POTENTIAL TROUBLE SOURCE. For this person may only be audited further if he or she disconnects or handles the suppressive person or group to which he or she is connected and can’t be sent to the HGC or back to the course either until the status is cleared up.

If this seems the case, there is no point in continuing the person in the Tech Division and HCO takes over fully, applying the policy related to potential trouble sources.

This type of case will probably not be dangerous but quite cooperative and probably dazed by having to do something about his situation. He or she has been hammered with invalidation by a suppressive person and may be rather wobbly, but if the justice steps are taken exactly on policy, there should be no trouble. HCO can take a potential trouble source (but never a suppressive person) out of the Tech Division premises and back to HCO to complete such briefing. Remember, it is all one to us if the potential trouble source handles it or not. Until it’s handled or disconnected we don’t want it around as it’s just more trouble, and the person will cave in if audited under those conditions (connected to a suppressive person or group).

A suppressive person found in an Academy is ordered to HGC processing always. And always at his or her own expense.

If the suppressive person won’t buy auditing or cooperate, HCO follows steps A to E in policy on suppressive persons in the Justice Codes; HCO may be assisted in this by Tech personnel.

The point is, the situation must be handled fully there and then. The student buys his auditing or gets A t o E. There is no “We’ll put you on probation in the course and if__________” because I’ve not found it to work. Auditing or suppressive person A to E. Or both.

THE BLOWN STUDENT

The student, however, may have blown off the premises or be gone entirely.

On a minor, momentary blow, where all it took was the student’s auditor and a few words to get the student back, the matter is not a real blow.

But where the student leaves the premises in a blow or doesn’t turn up for class, the Tech Division must send an Instructor and the student’s auditor over to HCO Department of Inspections and Reports. An HCO representative should go with them at once to pick up the student.

The student is brought back with as little public commotion as possible, and the procedure of HCO checkout, etc., is followed as above.

THE GONE STUDENT

Where the student can’t be gotten back (or in all such cases), the real cause may be a suppressive person in the course itself, not the blown student or the upset student.

If the suppressive person is on the course (and is not the blown student), HCO will want to know this. In all such cases the one who caused the commotion may not be the culprit.

The HCO representative calls for the blown student’s case folder and looks for TA. If there is none or for some reason the student wasn’t audited or if no meters were used on that course, HCO seeks to find out what the case’s responses were to processing.

If the case seemed to change or improve yet the student is gone, HCO looks over the blown student’s ex-auditor for suppressive characteristics such as satisfaction the pc blew, critical statements about tech or Instructors, case rough or difficult, lies about the circumstances, etc., and if such signs are present, HCO orders the blown student’s ex-auditor to the HGC at the student’s own expense.

If this interview with the blown student’s auditor seems to indicate a suppressive person beyond any doubt, HCO orders the student to the HGC at the student’s own expense.

The blown student’s course auditor will not be found usually to be a potential trouble source as these are seldom bad or rough aUditors, so questions about this possibility don’t really apply.

But if this student (the blown student’s auditor) is suppressive, it’s HGC or A to E. If the student gives on A to E, he or she may be returned to course or sent to the HGC as HCO deems best.

In all such cases where a suppressive person is found, watch out for legal repercussions by having reliable witnesses present during such negotiations or upsets and take liberal notes for possible Comm Ev. This is why there also must be an HCO representative handling it.

If there is no agreement to be audited and the student who is found to be a suppressive person will not respond to A to E (because student has blown and can’t be found or because the student flatly refuses), the student is considered terminated.

A waiver or quit claim is given or sent the student stating

Date __________

Place __________

I,__________, having refused to abide by the Codes of (name and place of org) do hereby waive any further rights I may have as a Scientologist, and in return for my course fee of __________, I do hereby quit any claim I may have on (name of org) or any Scientologist personnel or any person or group or organization of Scientology.

Signed __________

2 Witnesses__________

__________

Only when this is signed the student may have his course fee  returned, but no other fees as he accepted that service.

The ex-student should realize this puts him outside our Justice Codes. He may not have recourse of any kind beyond refund. And after signing can only return to Scientology as per HCO PL 23 Dec. 65RB, SUPPRESSIVE ACTS, SUPPRESSION OF SCIENTOLOGY AND SCIENTOLOGISTS.

The HGC audits such a suppressive person sent to it on special processes specially issued by HCOB for suppressive persons. It will be found that adherence to these policies will make things in Academies very calm.

Note: Nothing in this policy letter waives or sets aside any policy concerning the auditing of known institutional cases in an HGC. Persons with histories of institutionalized insanity may not be audited in HGC.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

P.S. If you’ve wondered if you are a suppressive person while reading this—you aren’t! A suppressive person never does wonder, not for a moment! They KNOW they’re sane!

Notes