...When helping one's fellows becomes a specialized action to be performed only by the anointed, to be performed only by somebody who wears the right star, badge, or sign -- man's dead! Because the best of man comes into being when he is willing to aid and assist any of his fellows and is permitted to do so.
We allow any dog to come around and sympathize with us when we're hurt, and even in a cave society they let a dog lick the wound to help it heal. But not in this society! And when men are made to feel that they do not have the right to aid and assist their fellows, but that Joe or Bill or somebody down the street is the only one who should be permitted to wave a magic wand or rattle a magic healing crystal, somebody had better look at the society real good because it's not a well society. Do you see that clearly?
Now, it does not immediately presuppose that because a person has a right to heal that he is able to heal. That doesn't immediately follow, does it?
But today we are at a level of understanding in Scientology sufficiently good that almost any human being alive could be put into possession of enough of that data to make anyone around him better and happier, including himself. And that is the goal toward which we are trying to win. And we are winning, using some of the artificial supports of the society which already exist. And one of those supports is organization.
But I would be a very sad man to realize, after years of work, that we had created not a greater freedom in the society but a stronger and more powerful organization in place of existing organizations. And as Hendrik Van Loon* once said, "The more things seem to change, the more they remain the same." He says that in a book called Tolerance, which I recommend to you -Tolerance, by Willem Hendrik Van Loon
We have this enormous mass of people swelling up out of the ditches and byroads and gutters and alleys and overwhelming a despotic government on the motto that "Everybody is going to be free. We're going to have liberty, fraternity and equality" and we get despotity! Instead of setting up a new free regime, all they do is use the extant communication lines of despotism in order to rule and govern. Anyone who would recommend the overthrow of a nation by force is a fool. He doesn't understand the least semblance of politics or of people. Because no nation is ever overthrown, they are just substituted for.
If you want to know what kind of a government you'd get after you revolted against a government, look at the government you revolted against. Things will be a little bit bullet-nicked, but that'll be about the only difference.
We could, at this time, put together an organization or a group in Scientology sufficiently strong, sufficiently powerful to run over everything it came to. This would be a fascinating thing to do. Be a game in itself. And then someday --me gone, other guys gone - all of a sudden there sits this thing, this organization. And somebody has to rise up and say, "Auditors of the world, unite; overthrow this monster!" And everybody would see it go down very plainly, you see. Down it'd go. Then they'd say, "Fine! Now we are free." And they would get another handful of letters cancelling their certificates. (audience laughter)
I try to look far enough in the future to forecast and predict what might be, so as to not do too many things wrong. You must allow me some percentage. And as I look into the future, I see that we are handling here, material of a potential control and command over mankind which must not be permitted at any time to become the monopoly or the tool of the few to the danger and disaster of the many. And maybe in this I am simply being overly proud, conceited or optimistic. But I would never for a moment step back from the role of being conceited just to be approved of, or just to be wrong in a prediction. And I believe that prediction is right.
And I believe that the freedom of the material which we know and understand is guaranteed only by a lightness of organization, a maximum of people, good training and good, reliable, sound relay of information. And if we can do these things, we will win. But if we can't do these things, sooner or later the information which we hold will become the property of an untrustworthy few. This I am sure, because it has always happened this way. But that's no reason it has to keep on happening this way. I am not of an inevitable frame of mind.
I have no illusions about either the unimportance of Scientology or its importance. You see, it'd be very, very easy to get a swollen idea either way.
It'd be a very simple thing, you know, to take a look at it and then take an opinion of it, independent of its actuality. Scientology, well understood, is a very powerful thing. Well used, it can do a great deal for the social order and for the individual. Poorly relayed, poorly communicated, monopolized or used exclusively for gain, it could be a very destructive thing.