Refund and Reparation

Well, you all look just fine today. I'm glad you're feeling well. You're doing all right. Audience: Yes. Yeah.

It's very funny, you know. You look at a preclear sometime and he's wondering, and you say, "You're doing all right." And it makes him feel better, you know?

But don't go so far as to say, "You're doing all right now because you're Clear." Because Clear has all of a sudden taken on two different meanings. It has separated itself. We used to have something called a Release, and that was somebody who wasn't nuts anymore—wasn't human. But we actually don't have a—this grade of "a present-lifetime-clear-of-overts-withholds." There is no such immediate statement. And yet that's more or less the intention of Clear. And you could say "clear of current overts." "Clear of current overts" is about the best statement that could be made on the line.

Ladies and gentlemen: ... I had an old friend once back in Athens who had a slave. He had a slave and this slave's name was Diogenes. And the slave used to live in a barrel. And there were very many stories concerning this slave but, actually, he was trying to find, according to modern books, an honest man. And he used to go around in daylight with a lantern, looking for an honest man.

Now, because of the length of this microphone cord, I can't pass amongst you.
I might find an honest man!

Certainly, in the last twenty-five hundred years there has been no better opportunity or no group more eligible to deliver one up than this particular group right here and now. None more eligible—but on the other hand, I might pass amongst you in vain. And that would be very sad. That would be very sad.

But the next congress, I will be able to pass amongst you and find nothing but honest men and women. Because actually it's as much as your life's worth not to be honest.

If I ever run into this friend of mine, like I lately found Karl Marx—if I—if I ever run into this friend of mine, I'll tell him that Diogenes can come back and start looking and maybe with some success. Because processing today is fundamentally "fundamentalized" and basically "basicalized" on just this single horrible fact: Them as ain't honest won't get cleared, bud.

What do we mean by honesty? In this particular regard, we mean somebody who has nothing to hide.

Every preclear you have lost—that is to say who didn't finish his intensives or his processing and go through to Clear—every preclear that you've had difficulty with, every person who has ever blown a course, every person who has ever blown a session, did so because they had something to hide! And until those somethings are cleared up they will never be Clear!

And if we were a religious organization going to town on the sin of man, we would at this moment have it made! We could convince with what violence, with what brimstone that you sinners had better come clean, or hellfire and damnation was going to be your lot! Man, we'd have it made.

Fortunately, we're not. So we can get something done. The greatest overt act in the world is jmaking other people guilty of overt acts. That is the greatest overt act in the world—about which, more later. So don't think at this moment that I'm trying to make you guilty of overt acts! The only thing I'm trying to do to you is get you Clear! That's all I've got in mind. And that's why no resistance, no attack for ten years has been able to get anywhere on Dianetics and Scientology. Because basically, as far as the subject is concerned, there was nothing to hide. That's why we're still alive.

Oh, that doesn't say that I have told you all. That doesn't say that there weren't times when I could have slipped you some hot dope concerning me or conditions or organizational wiggle-waggles in efforts to stay alive. And that doesn't say that I myself am not guilty occasionally of withholding something from you, because I am guilty of withholding quite a bit from you. But what I am withholding from you, basically, is how rough it's been. I've tried to keep a good public presence going. That's very often been very rough. And that I've withheld. But as far as any deep-seated, cross-purposed, tangled-up pitch—no, we had nothing to hide there.

For instance, I could tell you a lot about me. I could tell you a lot about my whole track. And some of it the psychiatrists would at once start saying, "You see, we told you. We told you so. He believes he's . . ." But I'm not that one. I just set that one up. But as far as anything withheld on the standpoint of our goals, as far as any errors along the line that had to do with technology, as far as data or anything else that could make anybody better or Clear or make a better civilization, that's never been withheld and it's never been an overt act. Therefore, we're still here. And that, incidentally, is the only reason we're still here. Because don't think, with as much shotgunning as there's been, that we would have survived it else.