It is questionable whether it is even possible to completely disconnect from one’s fellow human beings. In a limited sense it may even be considered a human right not to allow communication from another, if this communication is not desirable or negative. In fact such disconnection is not uncommon. It occurs in religious contexts like amongst Jehova’s Witnesses and is also known as religious shunning. It is found in families beyond any religious context, for various reasons. It is met in political contexts as in countries severing diplomatic ties. Historically the practice of ostracism goes all the way back to ancient Greece.

One could say there is nothing intrinsically wrong with disconnection in the sense that anyone has the right to communicate or not to communicate as part of self determination or free will.

But the ‘disconnection’ practiced in Scientology is of a different kind and inconsistent with Scientology’s own advertized beliefs and principles. This is what scientologists themselves should be made aware of.

What we are talking about is the practice of disconnection from family members as it is done in Scientology nowadays. This would not have been allowed and was frowned upon in the early seventies. Scientologists who had trouble with family members were admonished to always seek to handle by proper communication and disconnection was only used as a last resort.

To explain this fully we will need to review some Scientology principles and specialized terminology.

Hubbard and thus Scientology adopted in 1965 the view that some small percentage of mankind is anti social in the extreme and that these people are psychotics and do not respond to treatment.

Hubbard referred to such people as Suppressive Persons and promptly started to also use this same label to get rid of staffmembers or others who would not quite agree with him or ‘were damaging scientology’ for example by ‘failures to keep scientology working’,‘continued membership in a divergent group’, ‘informing fellow staff members and others that one is leaving staff’or ‘initiating a breakaway group’ etc.

A person, a scientologist who was connected to such a person became known as a potential trouble source or PTS.

The rule was when a PTS was found he or she had to handle or disconnect.

In September 1983 the Church issued a bulletin that changed the way scientologists had been dealing with family members who were no longer in agreement with the Church. In this bulletin the reader is subtly misled (through source bias, confirmation bias) and suggested to read over the internal inconsistency. It states on the third page:

“When an Ethics Officer finds that a Scientologist is PTS to a family member, he does not recommend that the person disconnect from the antagonistic source. The Ethics Officer’s advice to the Scientologist is to handle.”

Further down it actually defines the characteristic of the person (SP) to be disconnected from as one whose normal  operating basis is one of making others smaller, less able, less powerful. A person who does not want anyone to get better, at all.

On the next page an example is given which shows that instant disconnection is required when the antagonistic source–which incidentally could also be a family member– is labeled SP by the organization itself.

The internal inconsistency was that the text said clearly that disconnection is used only on a persons whose normal  operating basis is one of making others smaller, less able, less powerful.

This could obviously not be said of old-time Scientologists, people who had been personal friends of LRH, former high ranking Sea Org members, OT VII’s, and even Class XII auditors who were declared SP by the Church, without invalidating the workability of the technology. Therefore this rule was sneaked in in such a way that it could actually be denied that there was such a rule.

Requiring scientologists to disconnect from any scientologist who dared to question or criticize church management or demand reform of some kind and was therefore declared to be an SP, can be understood as an attempt to protect the leadership of the Church.  For this purpose the concept of SPs was redefined to include people who tell the truth about L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists.

So what is wrong with disconnection in Scientology, is the same thing that is wrong in many cults, governments and closed groups which try to prevent the membership from looking too close into the doings (intrigues) of their leadership.

See LRH original viewpoint on disconnection as expressed in a letter to the Australian Board of Inquiry  LRH Letter re Disconnection