BECOMING A COFS REVEREND

On 20 Jun 98, Steve Jebson <naismith@pop.a001.sprintmail.com>
continued the discussion on "How do you become a CoS "Reverend"?

>Warrior wrote:
>> 
>> >>In article <358bd2e9.56626922@enews.newsguy.com>, mirele@newsguy.com
>> >>Deana Holmes asked:
>> >>>
>> >>>How do you get this title?  Is it a part of one's hat?
>> >>>Please enlighten me and I'm sure, others.
>> 
>> >On 20 Jun 1998 10:35:04 -0700, Warrior <warrior@entheta.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >>   The way one becomes a "reverend" in Scientology is by doing a short
>> >>little course called "The Minister's Course". It takes about 20 hours
>> >>(less for a fast student) to complete the Scientology course of study
>> >>to be certified as a "minister".
>> >>
>
>Right.  The course when I saw it was a little longer than this, but
>I'm sure essentially the same.  It includes a few PLs and one thin
>(a little over 100 pages) book to teach all a Scientology 'minister'
>needs to know about religion.  I think it was called 'The Great
>Religions of the World', or something similar.
>
>> In article <358f1607.14678973@news.atnet.at>, ralph@atnet.at Ralph
>> Hilton added:
>> >
>> >As an interesting side note many peole were rushed through this
>> >course when Flag moved to land in 1975.
>> >There was a book on the course about comparative religion.
>> >Most of the copies available for study were photocopies illegally
>> >made by Sea Org copyright terrorists.
>> >I also observed various copyright terrorists using photcopies of
>> >the book "Brighter Grammar".
>> 
>>    A similar thing was done in PAC. The Sea Org males were told we
>> all had to do the "Minister's Course" because the US Government's
>> Selective Serice System would be re-activating the draft. It was
>> therefore explained to us that by being "ministers" we would be
>> exempt from being drafted into military duty by reason of being
>> ordained ministers.
>> 
>>    Personally, I believe the real reason for ordering male Sea Org
>> members to complete the course was related to the ongoing (at that
>> time) IRS tax cases. I figured that by having more "ministers", the
>> cult would *appear* to be more "religious". My opinion is that we
>> SO staff were told an "acceptable truth" by someone in the Guardian
>> Office.
>
>I disagree with this conclusion.  When I was on staff in an org, the
>same order came down - this was in Dec 79 or Jan 80.  I remember
>specifically that it came from the GO.  I assumed at the time that
>it was a response to the taking of American hostages by Iran just
>before this, which led to talk of war and a renewed draft.
> 
>>    In PAC, female SO members were not required to do the course, but
>> they were not forbidden either.
>
>Women can't be drafted, of course.  Further evidence that the whole 
>scheme was an involved form of draft-dodging.  Also, if the draft
>had been brought back, it could have been used to threaten staff
>who were thinking about leaving.
>
>I wonder how this was handled when there really was a draft?  Maybe
>Pilot or somebody else who was around orgs in the Vietnam period
>can say how they avoided losing male staff to the draft.


I did the Minister's Course in 1968.

At that time it was a long checksheet, about twice as long as
an academy training level, and it was pretty much never done
by anybody unless they needed to be able to cover the Chaplin's
post.

At that time The Chaplin was in the Qual (qualifications or QC)
Division, had to be a trained auditor, and had some power to
fix things for somebody who was having trouble in the org.

It was generally done as a second hat by the senior review
auditor or Qual Sec and other review auditors such as myself
usually did the checksheet so that we could cover the post
if the official Chaplin was tied up on other cycles.

This was at one time a major org correction and fix it type
post where you needed all your auditor training and policy
knowledge to try and sort things out.

In later years they decided to make The Chaplin a PR action
and moved it out of Qual and into the public divisions, basically
cutting the Chaplins balls off.  Up until that time, sometimes
a fiesty Chaplin would take on Ethics or Execs or C/Ses and
really try to fix something and they had the authority of
the Qual Sec behind them.

The checksheet I did had that "Great Religions" book (I think
it was "The Great Religions By Which Men Live", but it has
been decades).  I remember it as being shallow but resonable.
I recall it as a paperback of 200 or so pages, but maybe
I'm remembering another book that was on the checksheet.

And the checksheet also had other things on it like star rate
checking out on The Book Of Revelations etc. as well as
lots of early LRH tapes.

It wasn't really a shallow course although it was no more
than a drop in the bucket on an immense topic like comparative
theology.  But at least it was a real start on the subject.

Then in, I think it was 1969, the order came down that all
professional auditors in the US had to be Ministers for
legal reasons.

The long and arduous Minister's checksheet was immediately
replaced by a quickie Minister's course less than a quarter
of the size of the previous one and every Class 2 or above
auditor on staff was ordered to do the course.

It has never been the same since.  And, as noted in the
earlier postings, the org periodically has a big push
to make ministers for one leagal reason or another.
So they are a dime a dozen.

The order, by the way, applied to men and women alike, so
we had lots of cute girl auditors walking around in mini-skirted
minister's costumes and occasionally performing Sunday Services 
and Marriages etc.  That was still the sexually loose sixties
era so everybody (including me) thought it was jolly good
fun.

As far as the draft goes, there was about a year of US Drafting
before the quickie ministers course came out.  Since the
psychs were considered Fair Game, it became a matter of
pride that any trained auditor could cave the Draft Board
psych in and get a 4F.

I remember one guy who just went into the draft psych and
sat there doing total TR 0, reacting to nothing.  Eventually
they delicately moved him to a wheel chair and rolled him
down to the street and out of the building at which point
he thanked them and went on his way.

Another guy told them that he didn't want to die in yet
another 3rd rate war on a 4th rate planet on the edge of
the galaxy.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of the OTs chanted implant
items at the psych.  Fair game after all.  But here I'm
only guessing because I was lower level and couldn't be
told about OT stuff then.

As far as I know, no staff or trained auditors or OTs were
inducted, at least not at the large org where I was at.  The 
rumor was that you should put Scientologist down in big bold 
letters on the papers that the draft board had you fill out 
because they were getting scared of us and what we'd pull 
next.

There was one fringe public guy who did get drafted.  Then
he went AWOL and came running into the org for help.  Ethics 
and the Chaplin handled him, got him hooked up with a lawyer,
and he got a court ruling that he never should have been
inducted in the first place, being mentally unfit for
military duty, and he got away with the whole thing.

But we were really lucky that nobody got committed while
playing these games with the psychs.  In retrospect, I
think that the draft board psychiatrists were bending
over backwards to let us off and shared much of the
anti-war sentiment that was sweeping the country at
that time.


Best,

The Pilot

Back to the Main Page