L. Ron Hubbard explains that colonial English and apartheid South African governments required Scientology assistance to train their ignorant "natives", in the 15th ACC (Power of Simplicity) lecture "Education: Point of Agreement", given on 30 Oct 1956.
"The Scientology religion is based exclusively upon L. Ron Hubbard's research, writings and recorded lectures —
all of which constitute the Scriptures of the religion"That's what's important, is finding the place where the cycle starts. Where must you start the cycle of education, Scientology style? Where are you going to start?
Well, down in South Africa they teach "Soil Erosion, Principles of Prevention of," and of course, the English nation knows more about the South African native than the South African does. This has always been true: The further you are away from something the more of an authority you're apt to be. And the English nation has many, many good points, but plumbing the level of start on the learning cycle is not one of them. And so they've spent this tremendous amount of money, and actually more or less forced the South African government into this particular groove of "teaching the native how to conserve soil!" And the natives didn't get it.
You plow this way, you keep the erosion from occurring, you do this, you do that. Tremendous program! Very expensive program! And it has — the level of bite is as effective as putting out a program to moles on how to look at the moon. No bite at all! As long as a white foreman is there, they will prevent erosion; but the moment that a white foreman turns his back — boo! There goes the whole program.
The program is neglected not because the native is averse to the preservation of soil, but because the learning cycle is not started where it must start to obtain an agreement with the person being taught. So we come to our first real rule in teaching somebody something, and in auditing
somebody, the same rule applies: You have to find a point of reality which can be attained by the preclear
Now, I have taught quite a few natives of other lands to do this, that and the other thing. And it's not necessarily true that you must start with a very simple point, and it's not necessarily true that you must start with a complex point; it is only true that you must start with a point with which they agree is vital and necessary.
The South African probably could tell you that the native is not entirely aware of this interesting fact: that his soil or land will ever become his son's. Their ideas of time are not that good. You'd have to start this whole program of "Soil Erosion, Conservation of Soil" in South Africa at this fundamental point. Please let me teach you this one because the only place you will miss in trying to teach anybody anything is this one point. Where you have to make guesstimates at where you start, your snidest moments won't tell you until you finally find yourself doing it. In other words, it's much further south than you think — always. And you're running the preclear above his case, see, and he gets no reality on anything you are telling him. The machine isn't real, the directions aren't real, nothing is real. You have to teach a South African to teach a native at some point of reality, and then the whole program would be a howling success. It isn't that the native is recalcitrant, its that nobody has scraped his level of complex foible-foibles and agreement on the matter of soil conservation. That's all.
You'd probably have to teach him, "Now look, land: here is a piece of land, this is a piece of land. Belongs to you and the tribe. Right?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, all right. Now look, there's no more land."
"Oh, I'm not too sure about that!'
"How long has it been since you have conquered an enemy tribe?"
"Say, you've got a point. Ooh, Matabele — it was way back, way back, way back! That's right, we aren't getting new pieces of land!"
Well, you're liable to get the guy so excited at this point of the lesson, or some thing of that sort, he's liable to go around the village and convince everybody of this, and they say, "Yes, you know — what do you… well, what do you know! By golly, that's the truth! That's the truth! That's a big thing, you've just discovered something! By golly, now that's a smart white man. You're smart! What do you know? You mean, we're not at war? We're not going to acquire any more land? These pieces of land which we've got right here we will continue to have probably, but we're not going to have more land than this. And, gee, you know, that's terrific, we just aren't getting in any more land these days!"
Well, you'd probably just have to let that die down. That would probably be a big cognition
He'd say, "What do you know. If you've only got two wives, don't beat them, because they can't perform work. That's why no work gets done around here!"
And for another week everything goes to hell! And you finally get up to the point of where he's supposed to take care of something, a lesson which has never been taught to the native of South Africa.
And now we come along with a fellow who doesn't have that in mind, and we teach him soil erosion. Wow! Wow! Let's just run this guy on, "Sun, moon, Earth. Sun, moon, Earth. Sun, moon…" He's dead in his head, black basalt. Let's say, "All right. Now, go to the sun. Go to the moon. Go to Earth. That's fine. How are you doing?"
"I'm not doing anything. What the hell are you talking about?"
Got the idea?
So, the native learns he has to take care of something. And then he learns that "the way to take care of it is…" You got it?
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