Lecture: Security Checking: Auditing Errors
Author: Hubbard, L. R.
Document date: 1961, 26 October
Document title: Security Checking: Auditing Errors
Document type: lecture transcript
Event: Saint Hill Special Briefing Course
Location: East Grinstead, Sussex
Document ID: SHSBC-76
Description: Hubbard talks about Catholic confessions and their history; relates this to Scientology's confessions.
Now, the poor old Catholic church that I have raised so much the devil with occasionally, from time to time . . the poor old Catholic church . . for the lack of this datum which we’re talking about right this minute, has developed all of its heretics, its Martin Luthers and the lot. The boys they’ve had all the trouble with, they manufactured at the confession box.
Person comes up, he’s just groveling in the dust, you see, and he’s just got through having intercourse with his sister or something. And he scratches on the confession box, you see, and he says, “I have something to confess.”
And the priest is sleepy that day, you know? He says, “Yeah, what . . my son.”
And he says, “Well, I’ve done something very. . .” And his courage fails him, as you see in pcs all the time. The guy’s courage fails him, you see? And he says, “Well, I . . I heard some nasty gossip about the mayor.”
And the priest says, “Well, what was it, my son?”
“Well, I heard the mayor was sleeping with the alderman’s wife and that the alderman . . and that the alderman has committed incest with his sister.”
And the priest says, “Well, that’s eighty-nine and a half paternosters and two umpteegahs, so tool off now.”
And the fellow says, “Whew!”
And a little time goes on and the Inquisition all of a sudden is called upon to find out what all this sin is going on over there and what’s all this commotion against the true church. And all this commotion against the true church is getting more and more commotional.
Well, they managed to burn most of them. After they’d missed their withholds, then they had to burn them. But they managed to burn most of them, but they missed just enough to cause an overthrow of the Catholic church, because it’s no longer the dominant church on Earth. Well I forget, we in the white race consider ourselves extremely, egocentrically, as being the races of Earth. But as a matter of fact, there are so many other churches elsewhere that are bigger than any church we have anywhere that that was it. But one time the Catholic church could have numbered up along with some of the great Eastern churches, and so on, and it doesn’t anymore.
But that’s it. There’s your Martin Luther. There’s your Calvin. I’m sure that it happened right there at the confession box: priest didn’t have an E-Meter. I think it’s very poetic justice, because he buried most of the knowledge . . the church buried a great deal of knowledge that came out of ancient Greece and Egypt, and so forth. They put a lot of this knowledge away because they didn’t think it was good for people. They kept it in the catacombs. Actually, they released Aristotle . . just in the Middle Ages, they suddenly broke out Aristotle complete and released it to the scholarly world.
Nobody had ever heard of Aristotle and Plato before that. They broke out Plato so as to prove that Catholicism was the true religion. All of these various things occurred and they sort of shut off knowledge, one way or the other. And they didn’t have an E-Meter. That’s . . that’s what it amounts to. Well, what problem are you faced with then? You’re faced with an immediate heretic. He doesn’t like you. He doesn’t like your organization. He’s going to dream up all sorts of wild tales and lies about you and your organization, or about others or something, because of the missed withhold1. And what are you supposed to do then?
Well, let me caution you against following the policy of our immediate forebears on this particular planet. Firewood is very costly. If only on economic grounds, why, you shouldn’t have to go burn every person, you see, who has been missed on a Security Check.
Now that’s what it would amount to, sooner or later. You’re walking up the line, you see? You’re walking into a heavy . . a heavier power position on this particular planet and that’s what it would amount to. you already have means and ways of cutting down the overts2 against the group, to keep the group from being sundered and keep individuals of the group from being cut to pieces. You have that, inherently, in a Security Check.
Hubbard, L. R. (1961, 26 October). Security Checking: Auditing Errors. Saint Hill Special Briefing Course, (SHSBC-76). Lecture conducted from East Grinstead, Sussex.
Notes
- Definition: missed withhold ↩
- Definition: overt ↩