Introduction: I realized that there are two different types of help and thought that a word should be invented for the help at the lower end of the scale. I quickly realized that there was a word for it: Sympathy. Also included is the brochure “Attack on the Preclear”, simply brilliant. It's a must-read.
Read Max Hauri's introduction letter to this article below.
Sympathy vs Help
Probably you could kill a man with sympathy. It has been done. There are three levels of healing: the first is to do something efficient about the condition, the next, if the first can't be done, is to make the patient comfortable, the third, if he can't be made comfortable, is to give him sympathy. That is in accordance with old medical practice. However, sympathy is a terrible thing but is considered to be a very valuable thing.
The survival value of sympathy is this: When an individual is hurt or immobilized, he cannot fend for himself, get himself good, defend himself. If he is to survive he must count upon another or others to care for him. His bid for such care is the enlistment of the sympathy of others. This is practical. The cheerful good-fellowship of the weak, crippled or ill is part of this mechanism. If men weren't sympathetic, none of us would be alive.
The non-survival value of sympathy is this: An individual fails in some activity or effort to help. He then considers himself incapable of surviving by himself. Even though he isn't sick actually he makes a bid for sympathy. When a person, not actually ill or immobilized by injury, is making a bid for sympathy, he considers that he has failed so badly that he cannot by himself continue on in life. His self-confidence is undermined. He is not able to handle himself well. Counter-emotion and counter-thought have garbled his facsimiles. He feels he has to have sympathy to get along. And he displays an illness or disability to gain sympathy.
This is mechanical and is not to be disparaged: the person is actually in need of help. And almost every human being is prone to this error. Almost every one will make a bid for sympathy by holding out some old facsimile. A psychosomatic illness is at once an explanation of failure and a bid for sympathy. That does not make the sympathy, when received, less sweet. And it does not make the ill any less painful.
One is peculiarly liable to sympathy bids around his parents and family.
L. Ron Hubbard
Dear friends,
Today in session I had an interesting cognition. I realized that there are two different types of help and thought that a word should be invented for the help low on the scale. I quickly realized that there is a word for it: Sympathy.
Now sympathy is not always a bad thing. But I think you have to know the scale from sympathy up to help. There is actually a kind of scale for this. See above for an excerpt from the Handbook for Preclears. Also attached is the brochure “Attack on the Preclear”, simply brilliant. You have to read it.
You can buy the Handbook for Preclears in our bookshop in German and French. We published it a few years ago. The book also includes the valuable Table of Attitudes. Highly recommended. Price Fr. 25.– plus postage.
I also have five antique copies of the English book.
By the way, this planet needs help, not sympathy. Your help.
Much love.
Max Hauri
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