I got an email promoting this LRH lecture, so I decided to listen to it.
I have almost all LRH lectures in CD form. They take up a lot of room in my apartment.
So I got this one out and put it on.
It was delivered on 15 October 1955 in the New Lindsey Theatre in London (which according to all accounts, no longer exists) as part of a series of afternoon lectures given while Ron was in London to train student auditors.
As expected, it went over the 8 dynamics (you can look those up online and find out what they are). But it also got into some deep discussions about how the various dynamics relate to each other.
In particular he emphasized that you cannot bring up society in general when individuals are simply punished when the do “wrong.” If you don’t give individuals a way to recover from their wrongdoing and develop a more optimistic approach to life, they will just continue to drag everyone else down with them.
He devoted some time to the United Nations. He saw the group as a “camouflaged hole,” which in Scientology organizations refers to someone who is pretending to do their job, but really isn’t. If you wanted the United Nations to accomplish peace on Earth, they would need some real teeth.
But he also talks a lot about good versus bad control. People thrive on good control. This is where they are asked to do something, then allowed to go ahead and do it. People love this. People hate bad control. This is where they may or may not be asked to do anything, and if they try to do something, they will be deflected or stopped. This form of control is so common that most people equate it with “control,” and think any attempt to control anyone or anything is bad.
And so even if the UN had teeth, would they use their power to exercise good control over member nations? Maybe not.
The alternative suggested by Ron is to work to raise the population in general up to the point where they will simply not accept bad control and thus, if asked to go to war, will simply refuse. Perhaps what we need is a combination of these various approaches.
Ron goes over several other interesting ideas and stories in this lecture. Overall, I found it very palliative in these times of confusion and conflict.
Good to hear you commenting on these lectures.