ASSIGNMENT >> 3. Read “The Missing Ingredient.”

THE MISSING INGREDIENT

There has been a missing ingredient in the technology of public relations for as long as this subject has existed. This omission has been one of the key factors that has rendered public relations incomplete as a subject and, consequently, something of potential liability to its user.

This ingredient is reality.

The things which we perceive with our senses are real. Reality is essentially agreement upon perceptions and data in the physical universe. It is the degree of agreement reached between people. You are either in agreement with your fellows or in disagreement with your fellows, and as you agree or disagree, thus is your reality.

Those things upon which you and your fellows agree are real. Those things upon which you disagree are not real.

It was discovered in Scientology that reality is interconnected with two other components: affinity and communication.

The term affinity is fairly close in meaning to the word like. However, affinity is a two-way proposition. Not only do you like something but you feel that it likes you. Affinity is also very much like the word love when love is used in the universal sense. It includes both love and like and is broader than both.

Communication is the interchange of ideas across space. A man’s impact on the world has been directly proportionate to his development of a means of communication. Communication in its broadest sense, of course, includes all the ways in which a person or thing becomes aware of, or becomes aware to, another person or thing.

These three components—affinity, reality and communication—form the ARC (pronounced A-R-C) triangle of Scientology and together these form the component parts of understanding.

If one corner of this triangle (say A) is raised, the other two will rise. If one corner is lowered, the other two are as well.

Thus with high affinity, one also has a high reality and a high communication. With a low affinity one has also a low reality and a low communication.

With a high or low R one has a high or low A and C.

And so it goes. The whole triangle rises and lowers as one piece. One cannot have a low R and a high A and C.

Public relations is supposed to be a communication technique. It communicates ideas. Suppose one were to try to communicate an out-the-bottom R. In such a case the communication would possibly at first reach, but then it would recoil due to its R.

This whole interrelationship of affinity, reality and communication is of course an advance in the technology of Scientology. It was not available to early pioneers of PR. So they talked (and still talk) mainly lies.

Older PR practitioners preferred lies. They used circus exaggeration or covert attacks using slander and falsehoods on persons’ reputations. They sought to startle or intrigue and the easiest way to do it was with exclamation point “facts” which were in fact lies.

“Mental health” public relations men dreamed up out of whole cloth the “statistics” of the insane. “Nine out of every fifteen Englishmen will go insane at some period of their lives” is a complete lie. Streams of such false statistics gush from PR lobbyists to get a quick pound from Parliament.

The stock in trade of public relations people, whether hired by Stalin, Hitler, the US president or the International Bank, has been black, baldfaced lies.

A US president once gave two different figures of the percentage of increased government cost per year in two months. His public relations man was trying to influence Congress.

The “Backfire 8” as the “Car of the Century” and the parachute exhibition “record delayed drop” and the ambassador’s press conference on “Middle East Aims” are all public relations functions—and salted throughout with lies.

You pick up a newspaper or listen in the street and you see PR—PR—PR—all lies.

A battle cruiser makes a “goodwill visit” to a town it is only equipped to crush and you have more lies.

The tremendous power of newspapers, magazines, radio, TV and modern “mass media” communication is guided by the PR men of special interests and they guide with lies.

Thus public relations is corrupted to “a technique of lying convincingly.”

It makes a cynical world. It has smashed idealism, patriotism and morality.

Why?

When an enforced communication channel carries only lies, then the affinity caves in and you get hate. For the R is corrupted.

Public relations, dedicated to a false reality of lies, then becomes low A, low C and recoils on the user.

So the first lesson we can learn that enables us to use PR safely is to KEEP A HIGH R.

The more lies you use in public relations the more likely it is that the PR will recoil.

Thus the law:

NEVER USE LIES IN PR.

The trouble with public relations then was its lack of reality. A lie of course is a false reality.

The trouble with PR was R!

In getting out a press release on a new can opener that opens cans easily, and you want to say “A child could use it,” find out if it’s a fact. Give one to a child and have him open a can. So it’s true. So use the line and say what child. Don’t call it the “Can Opener of the Century.” It won’t communicate.

Just because radios, TVs and press pour out does not mean they communicate. Communication implies that somebody is reached.

Any lie will either blunt the C (communication) or end the C off one day with revulsion.

So there is a technique known as public relations. And it has the high liability of abuse through lies and the degrade of its practitioner.

But if one strictly attends to the values of truth and affinity, he will be able to communicate and can stand up to the strain.

Knowing this, public relations becomes a far more useful and mature subject.

The next thing to know about this is “who” or what “public” one is trying to communicate with. Lack of this knowledge can lead to fruitless public relations efforts.

the methods of application of an art or science as opposed to mere knowledge of the science or art itself. In Scientology, the term technology refers to the methods of application of Scientology principles to improve the functions of the mind and rehabilitate the potentials of the spirit, developed by L. Ron Hubbard.

Scientology is a practical religion dealing with the study of knowledge, which through application of its technology can bring about desirable changes in the conditions of life. It was developed over a third of a century by L. Ron Hubbard. The term Scientology is taken from the Latin word scio (knowing, in the fullest meaning of the word) and the Greek word logos (study of). Scientology is further defined as the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life.

exaggeration (a statement or statements that something is better, bigger, etc., than is true) resembling the publicity for a circus, a large public entertainment featuring acts of skill and daring, feats of strength, trained animals, etc., all performed simultaneously. Large circuses of the nineteenth century often used promotion that involved exaggeration in order to attract large audiences.

concealed, hidden or disguised; not openly practiced or shown.

a false and intentionally harmful statement that damages somebody’s reputation.

created entirely and completely fresh, without connection to anything done or that may have gone before. In the fifteenth century whole cloth referred to a piece of cloth that ran the whole length of a loom, an apparatus used for weaving fabrics. An item made of such was considered superior to one made of different pieces of cloth sewn together.

the lawmaking body of various countries, including England, made up of elected and sometimes nonelected representatives.

any resources, practices or devices characteristically employed by a given person or group.

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953), premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1953, who ruled by terror, allowing no one to oppose his decisions and under whom millions were executed or sent to labor camps.

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), German political leader of the twentieth century who dreamed of creating a master race that would rule for a thousand years as the third German Empire. Taking over rule of Germany by force in 1933 as a dictator, he began World War II (1939–1945), subjecting much of Europe to his domination and murdering millions of Jews and others considered “inferior.” He committed suicide in 1945 when Germany’s defeat was imminent.

an agency of the United Nations that loans money to member nations and private companies, primarily for development projects, such as irrigation, education and housing. Also called World Bank.

a made-up name for a car.

scattered or interspersed with something.

a heavily armed warship but with lighter armor, fewer guns, greater maneuverability and a faster speed than a battleship, which is the largest type of warship carrying the heaviest armor.

collapses. A US Western term which symbolized mental or physical collapse as like being at the bottom of a mine shaft or in a tunnel when the supports collapsed and left the person under tons of debris.

producing no effect or result; useless.