The Commodore's Law

 An analysis of "The Ethics Codes - Offenses and Penalties".

If you wondered if  there were areas of irrationality in Scientology™ - look no further. Among the Holy Cows we have been chasing, this one is the holiest! It has earned 5 haloes! This was a surprise to us.  But as we kept going on with our tedious analysis, the picture became clearer and clearer. Read for yourself. No 'selling', no 'black PR' needed ; just step by step analysis of 
"The Ethics Codes - Offenses and Penalties". 
It reads like running out an Engram.

Justice and Group Engrams

I remember each time I tried to read the whole "Offenses and Penalties" 'the mind's protection' would set in and I would kind of black out and not be able to read the page in front of me to the end. It has always puzzled me what kept on happening to me as 'Misunderstood words' were not the problem.

Doing this article I finally managed to read the whole thing closely. But it struck me along the way, that if  this kind of black out happens for you too, and maybe many other Scientologists and Freezoners we actually have some kind of Group engram here. 

We have been subject to these rules and laws, but they were clouded by 'Pain and Unconsciousness'. They were too painful even to read.  This may be the mechanism behind how some oppressive regimes get away with harsh or worse justice. People simply refuse to realize it exists. They go blank or black out when they run into it. They may explain incidents of it away as unfortunate or unusual cases. 

The 'Court records' in Scientology™ (Findings of Committee's of Evidence etc.) are not publicly available either. This is another way this justice stays out of sight and becomes part of the 'Group Bank' rather than the Analytical Mind of the group. 

It would be quite a treasure for analysis if these Scientology™ records were as available and you could sit down and read through them one by one, as you can do with court records in the government court systems.

The Commodore's Law

The way the "Offenses and Penalties" is written I will call it 'The Commodore's Law". It bears similarities with the Justice that ruled in the days of Admiral Nelson - the famous British Navy hero. 

Since Hubbard was a US Navy veteran (and Commodore of the Sea Org),  we assume the model is based on US Navy's Military Law.  Mutiny, insubordination, desertion, misconduct, and other offenses harmful to military discipline are violations unique to military law.  These are all found in 'Offenses and Penalties'. The 'Courts' in Scientology™ as 'Board of Investigation' (B of I) , 'Ethics Hearing', 'Court of Ethics' and 'Committee of Evidence' (ComEv) bear resemblance with how the navy and military administers justice. The best known military court being  Court Martial. 

The Ethics Codes of Scientology™  have not gone through a legislative body (such as a parliament, if it was a country), nor through the hands of legal experts (which corporations routinely do with their laws, bylaws and policies). So we have a Code, that is written by the Commodore and is not subject to question or change. As Policy can only be changed or cancelled by the Commodore himself - and he isn't available - they are now permanent!

The Missing Review Process

As a fiction writer Hubbard would have an agent and an editor to smooth things out. They would come with suggestions and advice - and sometimes directions and orders. They would be diplomatic or negotiate on his behalf and help him to 'flourish and prosper'. They would step in and stand up for him if critics attacked him; something most creative people abhor. LRH was no different. He was a passionate defender of his teachings - a common trait for trail blazing writers and scientists. 

When it came to writing the "Offenses and Penalties", Hubbard had no friends like an agent or editor. We know of no legal experts, that gave him  advice. Most of the clauses were first published in policies or technical bulletins on a specific subject, with a foot note that such and such a deed be included in the Ethics Codes as a Misdemeanor up to a High Crime (Suppressive Act). These were never questioned or put through any kind of review process. They were just added, because 'the Commodore says so'.

This May Be a First!

What we attempt here may be a 'First'. At least I have never seen it done before - with Scientology™ 'Ethics Codes' that is. As an academic exercise it's common practice. We are putting  the Ethics Codes through a review process. 

The US Congress did something more radical to the US Military Code, when they in 1951 established the 'Uniform Code of Military Justice'. On the background of atrocities done in the name of 'Military Justice' during World War II, they completely revised the military justice system and placed the operations in the hands of professional lawyers to ensure fairer application.

The way we have done our review, is, that we first decided upon a 'Constitution of Scientology'. That was our first step. Both countries and large corporations have such a thing. These are the senior documents/laws,  that set the guidelines for all consecutive laws, rules or policies. It's 'unconstitutional' and illegal to pass laws in conflict with these documents. Only  'Emergency powers' (as a government or constitutional term) or Martial law can override such laws in a regulated way - and only on a temporary basis.

 Under certain circumstances basic individual rights can be set aside if the situation warrants immediate action without time for explanations. That is by the way exactly what group engrams are all about. Urgent orders without time to explain. 
(World War II veterans were subject to countless group engrams due to harsh military justice).

'A Scientology™ Constitution'

We looked at the vast literature of Scientology™  to isolate constitutional points. Since Scientology™ is basically a humanitarian effort, they were not hard to find. If we should pick just one Document, it would be The Creed of the Church of Scientology. A Creed in any Church is a founding document and an Absolute. We looked a little further, however and have only picked a few points here and there.

The most relevant are The Goals of Scientology, The Creed of the Church of Scientology™ and The Code of a Scientologist. I am here just quoting a few lines relevant to justice and constitutions.

From the Creed, that in part follows 'Human rights' we needed the following:

That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance.
(Label: Free religion)

That all men have inalienable rights to conceive, choose, assist and support their own organizations, churches and governments. 
(Label: Organize)

That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others. 
(Label: Free speech)

That all men have inalienable rights to their own defense.
(Label: Own defense)

(The 'Label' is the short hand we use in table below). 

From Code of a Scientologist we are using these:

1. To keep Scientologists, the Public and the Press accurately informed concerning Scientology, the world of Mental Health and society.
4. To decry and do all I can to abolish any and all abuses against life and Mankind. Label: Abuse
8. To support true Humanitarian endeavors in the field of Human Rights.
9. To embrace the policy of equal justice for all. Label: Eql. Just
10. To work for freedom of speech in the world. Label: Free speech.
11. To actively decry the suppression of knowledge, wisdom, philosophy or data which would help Mankind. Label: Free thought
12. To support the freedom of religion. Label: Free Religion

These are all good human rights principles. You find many of them in constitutions. Some of them are unique to Scientology. 
We are not trying to write the constitution for Scientology™ here. But we needed something to evaluate each point against. We held each point of the Justice Code up against the above points - our 'constitutional' points - and asked, is this point in conflicts with these basic rights and rules? Is it 'Constitutional in Scientology?'

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 it struck me along the way, that if  this kind of black out happens for you too, we actually have some kind of Group engram here. 

The 'Court records' in Scientology™  are not publicly available either. This is another way this justice stays out of sight and becomes part of the 'Group Bank'

 we assume the model is based on US Navy's Military Law. 

The Ethics Codes of Scientology™  have not gone through a legislative body, nor through the hands of legal experts

As Policy can only be changed or cancelled by the Commodore himself - and he isn't available - they are now permanent!

LRH was a passionate defender of his teachings - a common trait for trail blazing writers and scientists. 

When it came to writing the "Offenses and Penalties", Hubbard had no friends like an agent or editor. We know of no legal experts, that gave him  advice.

(click to enlarge)

Handwritten unofficial  'Justice Pl' 
by Hubbard: 
"If anyone does anything to get any of these organizations in bad publicity, such as narcotics charges, drunk driving or other unsavory data, I have a policy - I will beat their teeth in personally.

Sincerely - LRH"

On the background of atrocities done in the name of 'Military Justice' during World War II, the US Congress completely revised the US military justice system

 We first decided upon a 'Constitution of Scientology'.

...the senior documents/laws,  that sets the guide lines for all consecutive laws

 Since Scientology™ is basically a humanitarian effort, constitutional points were not hard to find. 

 If we should pick just one Document, it would be The Creed of the Church of Scientology.

The Goals of Scientology

The Creed of the Church of Scientology

The Code of a Scientologist

We are not trying to write the constitution for Scientology™ here. But we needed something to evaluate each point against.  

We held each point of the Justice Code up against our Scn. 'constitutional' points and asked
-  Is this 'Constitutional in Scientology?' 

You may want to read the tabulation first.  That is a summary and bottom line of doing the 160 plus rows table, line by line.

it was like running out an engram (to old timers it may be a whole engram chain). You don't just skip the whole thing saying "Yeah, I pretty much know what happened".

This article is intended to run out the 'actual incident' or chain of incidents.