from a post to the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup:
From: Kristi Wachter
Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology
Subject: the WISE spin on Reed Slatkin - are you with us or against us?
Date: 14 Jan 2004 23:43:03 -0500
Organization: http://www.scientology-lies.com
Message-ID: <40061a57$1@news2.lightlink.com>
One of my kind sources sent me a fascinating WISE Information Letter. It's
WISE Info Letter 36, entitled "The WISE Membership - Are You With Us?"
It's dated December 21, 2003, and marked for distribution to "All WISE
Members."
It's three pages, 32 paragraphs.
It appears to be intended to spin the Slatkin debacle into a tool to
pressure WISE members into maintaining their WISE membership.
Paragraph 3 says,
"However, the primary reason WISE was established was to see to it that
Scientology organizations, their staff and their public, are kept safe
from individuals involved in unethical business practices."
This strikes me as, at the very least, a shift in focus. WISE has
historically emphasized the goal of promulgating Hubbard's administrative
policies as its primary purpose.
International Scientology News Issue 35 says:
"WISE has the purpose of disseminating and getting LRH's administrative
technology broadly in use in every business, organization, and government
on the planet."
The 1996 WISE Membership Agreement says:
"A. WISE is a nonprofit religious fellowship organization formed for the
purpose of uniting all businesses and professional individuals and
organizations of whatever kind that use the technology of L. Ron Hubbard
("LRH") for administrative, business and improvement purposes, to promote
and foster the religious teachings of LRH in society. This includes
encouragement of adherence to the goals, tenets, doctrines, codes, Creed,
policies and practices set forth in the Scientology Scriptures and other
writings of LRH ("the Hubbard Writings") in secular business activities,
and protocting its members, whether individual or corporate, from
unethical practices and unfair competition."
Paragraphs 6-8 of the Info Letter appear to describe Reed Slatkin, and
this section begins a series of implications:
* Most importantly, if you're not with us, you're against us - if you're
not a WISE member, it indicates unethical business practices.
* As a WISE member, you have a duty to find out whether others you do
business with are members of WISE.
* WISE will inform members about individuals who are have demonstrated
being "out-ethics" by failing to be WISE members.
Given that choosing not to join WISE is described as a "clear indicator"
about one's business ethics, the implication is that if you don't join
WISE, you're unethical, and WISE will make sure that others know about it.
Here are paragraphs 6-8:
"One individual offered his financial management services to his 'friends'
as a favor to 'help' them with the management of their hard-earned
savings. Offering high returns for investment ventures, always ensuring
that those he was 'assisting' knew he was being generous by allowing them
to partake in such great opportunities, this person was not participating
as a real group member and was instead using these lines only to procure
more 'business.'
"It was later found that this person's activities were fraudulent, with
the result that his victims have lost huge amounts of money and some are
being sued to return money they received. This person has since been
declared a Suppressive Person by the Church of Scientology, in which he
had been pretending to be a participant, and been subjected to criminal
justice - which means serving a prison sentence. While this group and
society in general are now safe from his covert and destructive ways,
those who placed trust in him and mistakenly viewed him as a friend and
fellow group member have learned a hard lesson.
"While it is one thing to now know that some individuals who were deceived
by this criminal saw outpoints and failed to report them to WISE, what was
worse is that those who dealt with him did not demand to know if he was a
member of WISE who subscribed to the Code of a WISE Member. Had they
asked, they would have found that this person refused to be a member of
WISE."
Paragraphs 9 and 10 note that some of his clients weren't WISE members,
which shows that those client had false data and "an omitted or altered
(lower) importance" because they didn't recognize the obvious benefits of
joining WISE.
Paragraph 13 says that WISE signs up anyone (implying everyone),
Scientologist and non-Scientologist alike, who uses Hubbard tech "for
commercial and improvement purposes." It goes on to imply that people who
don't join choose not to because they don't subscribe to the Code of a
WISE Member or agree with the conditions of the membership agreement.
Paragraph 14 says that anyone who SAYS they want to "be connected" to
others who are using Hubbard tech "yet refuses membership in WISE, is in
actual fact contradicting the wishes of LRH" and quotes HCO PL 10 Sept 90
III, point 33, describing an ideal scene:
"Businessmen who are public on lines are being put in contact with the
World Institute of Scientology Enterprises and signed up as members."
Paragraph 17 reads, "One could ask such an individual, 'What other LRH
policies are you choosing to neglect?'"
Paragraph 19 says that WISE members "safeguard the purity and standard use
of LRH technology" and improve the ethics of the business world, and
implies that anyone who wouldn't choose to be part of that must be
unethical: "For those who choose not to be part of that group, it is a
clear indicator."
Paragraph 20 reads, "Where individuals with other agendas and counter- or
other-intentions refuse to come up the scale or who choose not to
subscribe to such aims, it is important that the true members of this
elite group are aware of their actions." In other words, if you don't
join, or if someone at WISE decides you're out-ethics, WISE will tell
other WISE members that you can't be trusted.
Indeed, Paragraph 21 spells it out: "Therefore, one of the duties of WISE
is to make known any who choose not to subscribe to the Code of a WISE
Member or who do not agree to the stipulations as laid out in the WISE
membership agreement or WISE License."
Ooh, but here's where it gets really interesting, from a completely
different perspective: "Another duty and fuction of WISE is to rapidly and
terminatedly handle any business person or business activity found to be
adversely affecting a Scientology organization. This is done by getting
the offending persons familiar with the policy regarding such activities,
getting their agreement to cease any destructive activities, and then
getting them signed up as a WISE member. Where the individual chooses not
to cooperate, cease their destructive activities and sign up as a member
of WISE, WISE will similarly make known such terminals, giving applicable
factual specifics so as to not create a mystery."
So, while OSA was going after Bob Minton with all their ops and dirty
tricks, WISE was simultaneously supposed to be introducing him to LRH
admin tech and regging him to join WISE? I mean, Bob was (and probably
still is) a "business person" and was definitely adversely affecting
Scientology organizations.
Back to Reed, though, at what point was WISE supposed to tell everybody to
stop doing business with Reed? Surely THEY knew at what point Reed stopped
being a member of WISE - CoS spokesman Aron Mason said Reed left WISE in
1998. So why didn't WISE notify its members to avoid Reed?
Paragraphs 23-26 describes Non-Member Issues as a form of ethics order
recording an individual's violation of the WISE membership agreement.
Paragraphs 27-31 basically recap the Info Letter, stating that WISE uses
Non-Member Issues to tell WISE members about people who have "not agreed
... to abide by the Code of a WISE Member."
Paragraph 32 is four words long:
"Are you with us?"
My impression of the point of this newsletter is to subtly threaten WISE
members with a loss of business if they choose not to renew their
memberships (and whap them with a sense of amorphous guilt for whatever
counter-intentions must be interfering with their continued association
with such an ethical group). Nevertheless, I can't help but be amused at
the blanket nature of WISE's role: "one of the duties of WISE is to make
known any who choose not to subscribe to the Code of a WISE Member." I
mean, I certainly don't subscribe to the Code of a WISE Member, as I have
no intention of applying Hubbard admin tech nor of availing myself of
Hubbard ethics and justice tech (points 1 and 2 of the WISE Code of
Ethics). Does that mean WISE is going to tell all their members that I
refuse to subscribe to the code?
Sheesh.
Many, many thanks to the fabulous person who sent this to me - and thanks
to that person for pointing out the most interesting bits, making my job
that much easier.
Wisely,
Kristi