On the day I posted this to www.truthaboutscientology.com, I also posted it to the Scientology debate board at beliefnet. I hope some who read this here will go over there and offer up their responses to my thoughts.

I was recently re-reading Keeping Scientology Working (HCO PL 7 Feb 1965, R 27 Aug 1980, R 12 Oct 1985).

It raised some questions in my mind about how Scientologists understand and think about this PL.

First, since LRH says "No matter where you are in Scientology, on staff or not, this policy letter has something to do with you" (although he says it in all caps), and since it's part of most (maybe all) CoS courses these days, I assume that most/all Scientologists who read this PL assume some responsibility for KSW. Would that be an accurate assumption?

Second, I'm aware of the directive that you should not read past a word without fully understanding it. When LRH says,

"Whenever this control as per Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten has been relaxed, the whole organizational area has failed. Witness Elizabeth, N.J.; Wichita; the early organizations and groups. They crashed only because I no longer did Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten."

... does the reader typically know, fully, what LRH is referring to when he talks about "Elizabeth, N.J." and "Wichita"? Or is the understanding that they were orgs that crashed (given in the next sentence) considered sufficient understanding here?

Third - and this is the thing that really caught my attention - LRH says, "only the tigers survive." I came across that and, since I've been doing more reading about the world of science (as well as world history), I thought, "but that's not right - lots of species survive besides tigers." I mean, LRH wasn't a tiger when he wrote that, he was a human. There are way more humans right now than there are tigers. The World Wildlife Fund says tigers are one of the most endangered species in the world.

And I thought to myself, I can see what Ron's trying to say here, and it seems to me that he's providing an example that contradicts his message. He's saying, we have to be tough to survive. But if you look at the natural world, there are all kinds of ways that species behave, and different species characterized by different behaviors that survive quite well. Insects seem collectivized; sheep seem docile; dogs are friendly; and all those species are surviving better than tigers.

I recognize, of course, that Scientologists are individuals and do not all think alike, but I'm curious - what do Scientologists make of this?

Thanks!

Kristi