Misconceptions (continued)
Can Scientologists come and go as members if they wish?
Certainly. A Scientologist is free to be as active in participating in services as he or she wishes. Non-practicing Scientologists may return to services at any time. If someone decides he no longer wants to be a member of Scientology, he or she is free to leave. Parishioners visit or participate in Scientology as they wish.
What does the term“Suppressive Person” mean?
A suppressive person is a person who seeks to suppress any betterment activity or group. The suppressive person, also called an antisocial personality, works to upset, continuously undermine, spread bad news and denigrate other people and their activities. While it has sometimes been said that a Suppressive person is just anti-Scientology, the fact is they oppose anyone doing better in life. Such people are not always easy to identify, however, they can be known by specific characteristics:
- He or she speaks only in very broad generalities. “They say...” “Everybody thinks...” “Everyone knows...”
- Such a person deals mainly in bad news, critical or hostile remarks, invalidation and general suppression.
- The antisocial personality alters, to worsen, communication when he or she relays a message or news.
- A characteristic, and one of the sad things about an antisocial personality, is that it does not respond to treatment or reform.
- Surrounding such a personality we find cowed or ill associates or friends who, when not driven actually insane, are yet behaving in a crippled manner in life, failing, not succeeding.
- The antisocial personality habitually selects the wrong target. If A is the obvious cause, the antisocial personality inevitably blames B or C or D.
- The antisocial cannot finish a cycle of action. The antisocial becomes surrounded with incomplete projects.
- Many antisocial persons will freely confess to the most alarming crimes when forced to do so, but will have no faintest sense of responsibility for them.
- The antisocial personality supports only destructive groups and rages against and attacks any constructive or betterment group.
- This type of personality approves only of destructive actions and fights against constructive or helpful actions or activities.
- Helping others is an activity which drives the antisocial personality nearly berserk. Activities, however, which destroy in the name of help are closely supported.
- The antisocial personality has a bad sense of property and conceives that the idea that anyone owns anything is a pretense, made up to fool people. Nothing is every really owned.
Virtually all the turmoil and conflict in an individual’s life can be traced to contact with such personalities. Individual men and women can usually sort out their differences through communication if they are not adversely influenced, often unknowingly, by an antisocial personality attempting to inflame, instead of resolve, conflicts.
What is “Disconnection?”
If an individual attempting to improve his life through Scientology is encountering persistent opposition from a close associate, his spiritual advancement is impeded.
In the vast majority of cases, the antagonism is rooted in false information about Scientology and providing the true data ends the matter. As a last resort, when all attempts to sort out such situations have failed, the Scientologist may decide to disconnect from the person until the antagonism ceases.
A person who disconnects is simply exercising his right to communicate or not to communicate with a particular person. This is one of the most fundamental rights of man. Members of other religions have exercised it down the ages when confronted by those who persistently opposed the practice of their faiths. Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Amish practice “shunning"—a form of disconnection—and their right to do so has been upheld by courts across the country. Certain Orthodox Jewish congregations practice an extreme form of disconnection in which a mock funeral is held for apostate members. Disconnection in Scientology is neither new nor strange in the annals of religion.