Grief Counseling and Trauma Relief for Those Affected by Monday's Shooting at Virginia Tech

With 32 dead and 29 injured, people around the US and throughout the world have been shocked by Monday's events at Virginia Tech, the scene of the deadliest shooting incident in U.S. history. A team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers (VMs) are in Blacksburg, VA, to provide grief counseling and trauma relief for students, family members, friends and local residents affected by the incident. "Our team is here to help," said the International Volunteer Ministers Consultant, who is coordinating the VM activities in the area. "Anyone needing to reach us should stop by our yellow tent. They can also contact us through the Founding Church of Scientology of Washington D.C. at (202) 797-9826 or call me on the Volunteer Ministers Hot Line at 1-800 HELP 4 YU (1-800 435-7498)." "So many people are in shock over what occurred," she went on to say. "That's why, in addition to the one-on-one counseling we are providing, we are also training other volunteers so they can help as well. We've put out a call for any Volunteer Minister who can possibly arrange it, to come join us." But with people all over the world affected by this disaster, the VM team at Virginia Tech are concerned that anyone needing help be able to get what they need, no matter where they live. The techniques the VMs use are described online. Anyone who is upset or distraught should visit the Scientology Handbook web site, learn how to apply the procedures and use them to get relief. The techniques are called "assists." Developed by L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology religion, assists address the emotional and spiritual side of trauma, enabling the person to recover fully from injury, stress or shock." Anyone needing further assistance should immediately contact the Volunteer Ministers Consultant or their closest Scientology church or mission to speak to someone. "I can't emphasize enough the importance of getting help," said the VM Consultant. "If you need to talk to someone, call or email me at 1-800 HELP 4 YU (1-800 435-7498) or vm@volunteerministers.org. These techniques may be simple but they are enormously helpful. That's one reason that our motto is, 'Something CAN be done about it.'" One assist that is very simple to learn is called the "Nerve Assist." When people have come through a traumatic incident like this, they often have trouble sleeping. They can be extremely tense, unable to relax. Some people even shake or experience muscle spasms. Nerve Assists help with this and are a proven way to begin any trauma relief. Instructions on how to do a Nerve Assist can be found online. Another technique that is recommended is the Locational Assist. Shock tends to rivet an individual's attention. The Locational Assist helps orient the person in his or her environment. The relief people experience from this process can be really dramatic—even with people who were completely grief-stricken. This is also described in the Scientology Handbook. For those in need of grief counseling, the assist to use is "Handling a Loss." This is online in a chapter of the Scientology Handbook called "Solutions for a Dangerous Environment."

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The Cause of Suppression

Why are some people ill more often than others? Why are some accident-prone? And is there a reason others live their lives on an emotional seesaw, doing well one day and badly the next?

There is an explanation, and it has nothing to do with the gods, fate or the position of the stars. In fact, the actual reason behind these phenomena-and their resolution-has been explained in Scientology.

L. Ron Hubbard was able to see through the complexities of human behavior and discover the underlying factors which explain the phenomenon of suppression in people-for it is suppression by others that causes these seemingly haphazard events.

The Antisocial Personality

There are certain characteristics and mental attitudes which cause about 20 percent of a race to oppose violently any betterment activity or group.

Such people are known to have antisocial tendencies.

When the legal or political structure of a country becomes such as to favor such personalities in positions of trust, then all the civilizing organizations of the country become suppressed and a barbarism of criminality and economic duress ensues.

Crime and criminal acts are perpetrated by antisocial personalities. Inmates of institutions commonly trace their state back to contact with such personalities.

Thus, in the fields of government, police activities and mental health, to name a few, we see that it is important to be able to detect and isolate this personality type so as to protect society and individuals from the destructive consequences attendant upon letting such have free rein to injure others.

As they only comprise 20 percent of the population and as only 2 1/2 percent are truly dangerous, we see that with a very small amount of effort we could considerably better the state of society.

Well-known, even stellar, examples of such a personality are, of course, Napoleon and Hitler. Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Christie and other famous criminals were well-known examples of the antisocial personality. But with such a cast of characters in history we neglect the less stellar examples and do not perceive that such personalities exist in current life, very common, often undetected.

When we trace the cause of a failing business, we will inevitably discover somewhere in its ranks the antisocial personality hard at work.

In families which are breaking up, we commonly find one or the other of the persons involved to have such a personality.

Where life has become rough and is failing, a careful review of the area by a trained observer will detect one or more such personalities at work.

As there are 80 percent of us trying to get along and only 20 percent trying to prevent us, our lives would be much easier to live were we well informed as to the exact manifestations of such a personality. Thus, we could detect it and save ourselves much failure and heartbreak.

It is important then to examine and list the attributes of the antisocial personality. Influencing as it does the daily lives of so many, it well behooves decent people to become better informed on this subject.

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The Social Personality

Man in his anxieties is prone to witch hunts.

All one has to do is designate “people wearing black caps” as the villains and one can start a slaughter of people in black caps.

This characteristic makes it very easy for the antisocial personality to bring about a chaotic or dangerous environment.

Man is not naturally brave or calm in his human state. And he is not necessarily villainous.

Even the antisocial personality, in his warped way, is quite certain that he is acting for the best and commonly sees himself as the only good person around, doing all for the good of everyone-the only flaw in his reasoning being that if one kills everyone else, none are left to be protected from the imagined evils. His conduct in his environment and toward his fellows is the only method of detecting either the antisocial or the social personalities. Their motives for self are similar-self-preservation and survival. They simply go about achieving these in different ways.

Thus, as man is naturally neither calm nor brave, anyone to some degree tends to be alert to dangerous persons and, hence, witch hunts can begin.

It is therefore even more important to identify the social personality than the antisocial personality. One then avoids shooting the innocent out of mere prejudice or dislike or because of some momentary misconduct.

The social personality can be defined most easily by comparison with his opposite, the antisocial personality.

This differentiation is easily done and no test should ever be constructed which isolates only the antisocial. On the same test must appear the upper as well as lower ranges of man’s actions.

A test that declares only antisocial personalities without also being able to identify the social personality would be itself a suppressive test. It would be like answering “Yes” or “No” to the question “Do you still beat your wife?” Anyone who took it could be found guilty. While this mechanism might have suited the times of the Inquisition, it would not suit modern needs.

As the society runs, prospers and lives solely through the efforts of social personalities, one must know them as they, not the antisocial, are the worthwhile people. These are the people who must have rights and freedom. Attention is given to the antisocial solely to protect and assist the social personalities in the society.

All majority rules, civilizing intentions and even the human race will fail unless one can identify and thwart the antisocial personalities and help and forward the social personalities in the society. For the very word “society” implies social conduct and without it there is no society at all, only a barbarism with all men, good or bad, at risk.

The frailty of showing how the harmful people can be known is that these then apply the characteristics to decent people to get them hunted down and eradicated.

The swan song of every great civilization is the tune played by arrows, axes or bullets used by the antisocial to slay the last decent men.

Government is only dangerous when it can be employed by and for antisocial personalities. The end result is the eradication of all social personalities and the resultant collapse of Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Russia or the West.

You will note in the characteristics of the antisocial personality that intelligence is not a clue to the antisocial. They are bright or stupid or average. Thus, those who are extremely intelligent can rise to considerable, even head-of-state heights.

Importance and ability or wish to rise above others are likewise not indexes to the antisocial. When they do become important or rise, they are, however, rather visible by the broad consequences of their acts. But they are as likely to be unimportant people or hold very lowly stations and wish for nothing better.

Thus, it is the twelve given characteristics alone which identify the antisocial personality. And these same twelve reversed are the sole criteria of the social personality if one wishes to be truthful about them.

The identification or labeling of an antisocial personality cannot be done honestly and accurately unless one also, in the same examination of the person, reviews the positive side of his life.

All persons under stress can react with momentary flashes of antisocial conduct. This does not make them antisocial personalities.

The true antisocial person has a majority of antisocial characteristics.

The social personality has a majority of social characteristics.

Thus, one must examine the good with the bad before one can truly label the antisocial or the social.

In reviewing such matters, very broad testimony and evidence are best. One or two isolated instances determine nothing. One should search all twelve social and all twelve antisocial characteristics and decide on the basis of actual evidence, not opinion.

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Creed of the Church of Scientology

We of the Church believe:

That all men of whatever race, color, or creed were created with equal rights;

That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance;

That all men have inalienable rights to their own lives;

That all men have inalienable rights to their sanity;

That all men have inalienable rights to their own defense;

That all men have inalienable rights to conceive, choose, assist or support their own organizations, churches and governments;

That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others;

That all men have inalienable rights to the creation of their own kind;

That the souls of men have the rights of men;

That the study of the mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in non-religious fields;

And that no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly.

And we of the Church believe:

That man is basically good;

That he is seeking to survive;

That his survival depends upon himself and his attainment of brotherhood with the universe.

And we of the Church believe that the laws of God forbid man:

To destroy his own kind;

To destroy the sanity of another;

To destroy or enslave another’s soul;

To destroy or reduce the survival of one’s companions or one’s group.

And we of the Church believe that the spirit can be saved and that the spirit alone may save or heal the body.