From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 8 - September 1992 Kemp's Column By Raymond Kemp, USA Why Something New? Some years ago (about 1970), I happened to be on Flag when Ron became somewhat irate over the fact that, as he put it "People keep demanding of me a new rundown, a new process, just to handle something that I have already gone over and over again". As a matter of fact he wrote a somewhat rude note about this in the Ship's Orders of the Day, and later wrote a bulletin in much more reasonable tones, for public consumption. In my book "Handbook of the Gods" the narrator writes, "Truth is a many faceted Jewel, seek first the whole gem". As we watch the various magazines that now abound, "IVy, The Free Spirit, Alf Letter," and "The Heretic". and we read of Dianasis, Metapsychology, Avatar and the various other classifications of subjects, all to a greater or lesser extent, claiming something new (even if only to the extent of handling the 'failed case'), I am again reminded of both the above events. In England, many years ago, someone invented the train. If you look at a train today, it really hasn't changed much over the century or more since that time. It is still one of the most efficient methods of transport, regardless of how poorly administered. More recently, there was the dirigible. (Dirigible, a kind of balloon that can be steered.) Alas, it died, but is currently being re- examined because it is still the most efficient method of transporting goods across the ocean. Which brings me to the point. Zeppelin, probably the world's greatest designer of dirigibles, did not fully understand that there was a better gas that could be used, a non explosive gas. Actually he did attempt to get some but England, the producer, wouldn't let him have any, because of the lessening political scene at that time, but that is material for another article. Something new Essentially most people demand something new, because they do not fully understand all there is to know about what is extant. I am having enormous difficulty with my invention because the licensees keep demanding of me some new aspect, some new and as yet untried version, which may do more, cost less or some other such, when they have in their hands a fully patented operational item that can save lives, if only they would get on with their contractual obligation and manufacture and distribute it -as it is-. The subject religion, has been around for many an aeon, yet over the years people keep on inventing new ones, each based on a missunderstanding, or a non understanding of the earlier one. So great is the misunderstanding that the God of the earlier religions becomes the Devil of the new one People who fail in a marriage then try to go out and get a new one, over the top of the existing failure, carrying a misunderstood forward. Shopkeepers will tell you that about 20% of their customers always want what the store doesn't have in stock. Psychologists, Psychiatrists, MDs, and Chiropractors alike are constantly struggling to obtain some new drug, some new technique, some new method to handle what is in front of them. Dianetics, when it first came out was criticized, not because it didn't work, but because it had a "weird language", and this criticism came mainly from existing psychologists, who apparently have never read their own texts, or listened to their own language and technical jargon. Metapsychology, while undoubtedly doing an excellent job where applied, had apparently as one of it's original motivations, the eradication of all Scientology jargon. However what they have done is simply to replace it with a new set of words, which have to be defined within their own sphere of influence. We could take this further, and say that Ron's fight with psychiatry, was also due to a non understood on that subject. My personal opinion is that he often confused the subject with the practitioners, a misunderstood of some magnitude. Seek first the whole The point I am making is that as the book says, truth has many facets, but unless you seek to understand the whole jewel of truth as a first step, you will become blinded by the small facets that you are staring at, and thus miss the beauty of the whole, and, more importantly, will inevitably end up with the erroneous belief that your one facet is the whole. I was interested in a recent program on "Near Death Experiences" known to many of us by the rather mundane title of exteriorisation, for which you do not have to be near to death. During the programme many people had recounted their experience, always in the same general terms of seeing their body, then seeing and/or going into the light, etc., etc. Most of the people in an effort to identify that which they experienced referred to the light as God or more often as Jesus. When the obligatory (on American TV) expert critic came on, he ridiculed the whole thing because "obviously this was a hallucination since it only applied to Christians ... Buddhists wouldn't see Jesus!". To quote a monseigneur of the Catholic Church "scientology, properly applied, works one hundred percent of the time, and has no real quarrel with the (Catholic) Church". If, because of whatever, you do not like the word scientology in that quote, take it out and replace it with a word of your own choosing. Likewise if you do not like the reference to the catholic church, and what you have left is the truth of the matter, which one could state as "true therapy, properly applied works 100% of the time" - if it did not work, it was not applied properly. The obverse would be "if it never worked it wasn't true therapy". And on a final note, if you try to add to truth, you only take away from it.