The Casualty Contact
Chris Owen
L. Ron Hubbard was a brilliant salesman. That fact is undeniable: the
bizarreness, paranoia and scientific improbability of Scientology has not
deterred a total of probably tens of millions of people worldwide from
taking its courses and buying Hubbard's books over the last 40 years. In
fact, if the Church of Scientology did not have such a poor public image
as a result of its abuses, it would probably be far more successful than
it is presently.
As I have outlined in the first two articles of this series, some of the
methods of recruitment used by the Church have been distinctly dubious. Few
can have been more reprehensible than that which Hubbard referred to as "the
Casualty Contact". The very fact that it was - and may still be - used in
the first place gives a revealing insight into the sort of morality and
conduct which Hubbard brought into the Church.
Hubbard always claimed that he had found techniques to cure a great number
of illnesses. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health has been
promoted since he wrote it in 1950 as curing
"Psychosomatic ills such as arthritis, migraine, ulcers, allergies,
asthma, coronary difficulties (psychosomatic - about one-third of all
heart trouble cases), tendonitis, bursitis, paralysis (hysterical),
eye trouble (non-pathological) have all responded .... without
failure"
A recent (1995) leaflet distributed by the CoS claims that Dianetics cures
"70 percent of Man's illnesses". The CoS has also claimed that Scientology does not
directly cure illnesses, but instead takes the rather coy line that
auditing is, in effect, a catalyst to the individual curing himself. "What
Is Scientology?" (1978 edition), for instance, says:
"Scientology is not in the business of curing things. Auditing is
not done to cure the body or to cure anything physical and the
E-Meter cures nothing. However, in the process of a person becoming
happier, more able and more aware as a spiritual being through
auditing, illnesses that are psychosomatic (meaning the mind making
the body ill) [and still comprising 70 percent of illnesses, according to
Hubbard] in origin often disappear."
[WIS?, 1978 ed., p. 213]
This line has been used for many years. However, until the CoS got into
trouble with the US Food and Drugs Administration in the early 1960s over
its healing claims, it did claim that Scientology was itself a miraculous
cure. HCO Bulletin of 24th July 1960, for instance, describes "Special
Project Australia":
"... It is within our power to proof Australia against mental and
physical illness ... You can advertise all you want to 'eradicates
disease proneness', to 'proof Australians against illness' since
all law applies to healing sicknesses, and could never be extended
to preventing prevention ... [Adverts should say] 'Prevent illness.
Scientologists are seldom sick. Join a Scientology group and be
able.' "
[LRH, HCOB 24/7/60]
Success stories published by the CoS have, even in recent years, cited
examples of miracle cures being effected by Scientology. There is little
doubt that individual Scientologists believe in the efficacy of the "cure"
offered by Scientology, and the CoS has done nothing to disabuse them of
this idea.
The only reason why it does not nowadays make overt, in-your-face claims of
healing prowess is, as Hubbard himself stated, purely legal. He himself
certainly believed in it; during the heyday of his private navy in the late
1960s, he often chose auditing rather than proper medical treatment. (It
caused Hubbard a lot of unnecessary suffering, though many would no doubt
say that that was no bad thing.) In HCO Bulleting of 1st September 1962, he
wrote:
"By healing you can graduate a pc [preclear] up to clearing interest
and thus we have a lower level feeder line, capable of successful
accomplishment with normal HCA/HPA training. That programme has
the following thought major: Maybe you're not sick. Maybe you're just
suppressed. See us and find out.
The phrasing can be more elegant, the message remains the same.
Legally, this permits us to heal without engaging in healing as, in
actual fact, we address no illnesses and indeed, deny people are
ill - they are only suppressed. Sickness occurs, we say, where
suppression has been too great. The argument is - have you been
sick? Did you go to doctors to be cured? Did they cure it? Then (as
they didn't) maybe you're not sick, maybe you're just suppressed. So
take some processing and find out. And the person gets well! We use
on him the exact button he came to us on. So he's never dismayed at
any change of tack on our part. Then we interest him in clearing.
This, I am sure, is the long sought gradient. This, used right,
will build our new buildings, use our Academy Graduates and give us
a chance to train up auditors to clearing.
The legal argument is simple, we don't believe in sickness, we do
not address illness, we do not diagnose, we believe that freeing the
human spirit also incidentally prevents sickness. We are doing
prevention. We also find people do not have to be crazy to be
suppressed, that nearly everybody is suppressed. We do send acutely
ill people to doctors. We advertise to cure no diseases! That last
is important legally. We only infer that people who think they are
sick are really not, but only suppressed."
[LRH, HCOB 1/9/62]
Note the reference to a "change of tack on our part". This is what the
Americans call a "bait-and-switch" tactic; the person on the receiving
end buys one thing and finds himself buying into something entirely
different, which he may not want in the first place. It's rather like buying
an encyclopedia from a salesman and finding yourself with a bill for a
summer apartment in Majorca. Needless to say, such methods are regarded by
most people as being little better than simple fraud and deception.
As the above shows, Scientology directs its recruitment towards, amongst
other groups, sick people and those suffering from difficult or incurable
conditions. In recent years, for example, the CoS has been attempting to
recruit people suffering from the incurable condition myalgic
encephalomyelitis (ME) with the promise that auditing can remove the engrams
responsible for such conditions. Hubbard had many years earlier applied his
usual attention to detail and wrote specific instructions on how to go about
recruiting the sick. The technique he devised, which he recommended as
"requiring little capital and being highly ambulatory", was called "Casualty
Contact".
He detailed "Casualty Contact" in a number of bulletins in the 1950s and
1960s, most notably in Professional Auditors Bulletin of 28th Feb, 1956 and
HCO Bulletin of 15th Sep, 1959. Even by Hubbard's standards these were quite
remarkable in the level of opportunistic cynicism which they showed. In the
PAB of 28th Feb, 1956, he comments:
"Every day in the daily papers one discovers people who have been
victimised one way or the other by life. It does not much matter
that the newspapers have a full parade of oddities in terms of
accident, illness and bereavement occuring at a constant parade
before the eyes. The essence of "Casualty Contact" is good filing
and good personal appearance. One takes every daily paper he can
get his hands on and cuts from it every story whereby he might
have a preclear. He either has the address in the story itself or
he gets the address as a minister from the newspaper. As speedily
as possible he makes a personal call on the bereaved or injured
person. It is probable that he will find on the first day that
they are overly burdened with calls, since they have been a
subject of the public press and he may find that in two or three
days, interest in the person has cooled off to a point where his
own appearance will admit of an actual interview. He should
represent himself to the person or the person's family as a
minister whose compassion [sic] was compelled by the newspaper
story concerning the person. He should then enter the presence of
the person and give a nominal assist, leave his card which states
exactly where church services are held every Sunday and with the
statement that a much fuller recovery is possible by coming to
these free services takes his departure. A great many miracles
will follow in his wake and he is liable to become a subject of
the press himself. However, in handling the press he should simply
say that it is a mission of the church to assist those who are in
need of assistance. He should avoid any lengthy discussions of
Scientology and should talk about the work of ministers and how
all too few ministers these days get around to places where they
are needed.
Some small percentage of the persons visited or their families
will turn up in his group. Thus he will build a group and naturally
from that group he will get a great many individual preclears."
[LRH, PAB 28/2/56]
For sheer, concentrated cynicism, it is hard to beat that. (It is part of a
bulletin on methods of dissemination.) But, even so, Hubbard manages it. On
15th Sep, 1959, he issued an HCO Bulletin which was even more breathtakingly
cynical:
"A fruitful source of HAS [Hubbard Association of Scientologists]
Co-Audit is casualty contact. This is very old, is almost never
tried and is almost always roaringly successful, providing the
auditor goes about it in roughly the right way. Using his
Ministers [sic] card, an auditor need only barge into any
nonsectarian hospital, get permission to visit the wards from
the Superintendant, mentioning nothing about processing, but
only about taking care of peoples [sic] souls, to find himself
wonderfully welcome. Ministers almost never make such rounds.
Some hospitals are strictly against this sort of thing, but
its [sic] only necessary to find another. Its [sic] fabulous
what one can get done in a hospital with a touch assist and
locational processing.
Don't pick on the very bad off [sic] unconscious cases. Hit the
fracture ward and the maternity ward. Go around and say hello to
the people and ask if you can do anything for them. Now here's
how auditors have lost on this one. They omit the following steps:
They fail to leave a card with their Ministerial name on it with
their phone number. They fail to have a telephone answering
service. They fail to tell they people they snap away from deaths
[sic] yawning door that they can have more of this stuff simply
by calling in. They get so involved in the complexities of
medical (ha!) treatment and are so outraged at some of the things
they see going on that they get into rows with medicos and the
hospital staff. And they also pick unconscious patients or people
who are halfway exteriorised [i.e. dying] already. This is a
pretty routine drill really. You get permission to visit. You go
in and give patients a cheery smile. You want to know if you can
do anything for them, you give them a card and tell them to come
around to your group and really get well, and you give them a
touch assist if they seem to need it but only if they're willing.
And you for sure make sure that there is someone on the other end
when they ring up. Giving them a schedule of your HAS Co-Audit
will avail much. I've got a book scheduled named the "sick
person" as a working title that will make good fodder for this.
But your statement, "the modern scientific church can cure things
like that. Come around and see." will work. Its [sic] straight
recruiting!"
[LRH, HCOB 15/9/59]
Comment would be superfluous. I think Hubbard's words say all that need to
be said.
One final thought. Hubbard's ideas, as outlined in the documents quoted
above, are more reminiscent of a con artist or a heartless exploiter of the
vulnerable than the leader and moral authority of a "church". But perhaps
this isn't so surprising. In the HCO Policy Letter of 15th Aug, 1967, he
made the following statement - perhaps the purest exposition of Hubbardism
ever written:
"I am not interested in wog morality. I am only interested in
getting this show on the road and keeping it there."
[LRH, HCOPL 15/8/67]
This, evidently, is the true context of "Casualty Contact".
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