It is not very hard to grasp the basic principle underlying all policy letters and organisation.
It is an empirical (observed and proven by observation) fact that nothing remains exactly the same forever. This condition is foreign to this universe. Things grow or they lessen. They cannot apparently maintain the same equilibrium or stability.
Thus things either expand or they contract. They do not remain level in this universe. Further, when something seeks to remain level and unchanged, it contracts.
Thus we have three actions and only three. First is expansion, second is the effort to remain level or unchanged and third is contraction or lessening.
As nothing in this universe can remain exactly the same, then the second action (level) above will become the third action (lessen) if undisturbed or not acted on by an outside force. Thus actions two and three above (level and lessen) are similar in potential and both will lessen.
This leaves expansion as the only positive action which tends to guarantee survival.
The point of assumption in all policy letters is that we intend to survive and intend so on all dynamics.
To survive, then, one must expand as the only safe condition of operation.
If one remains level, one tends to contract. If one contracts, one's chances of survival diminish.
Therefore there is only one chance left and that, for an organization, is expansion.
To expand, any company needs a demanded product and will and skill to produce and deliver it. It can be a service or an item.
If a company has a demanded product and will and skill to produce and deliver it, it must organize to expand. If it does, it will survive. If it organizes to stay level or seeks to grow smaller, it will perish.
This is easily observed in nations. Whenever one seeks to remain the same or to lessen itself, it usually perishes. It need not seek only to expand its borders. It can also expand its influence and service. Indeed, the effort to expand borders in a nation without increasing a demand for its influence and products is a primary cause of war. If a nation expanded the demand for its influence and products, it would expand without war. When a nation seeks to merely expand by force of arms and does not expand the demand for its products, one gets a dark age or at least a social catastrophe.
Rome, early on, was in great demand for its social technology and manufacturing skill and only a cruel streak in her made her wage war to expand. Britain, for instance, was ready to welcome Roman baskets and pottery and art and had been demanding them for nearly a century when Caesar's vicious ambitions actually wrecked the smooth progress of Rome by enforced expansion by arms in excess of the demand for Roman products. This was one Roman product nobody wanted — Caesar and his legions.
Psychiatry's product of further insanity was not in demand by the people but by the state which sought to crush people or at least hold them down. So psychiatry expanded by government regulation not by popular demand and so at this writing stands in danger of complete extinction, for its influence depends utterly on "expanding" into the legislatures and government treasuries and no expansion whatever of any demand from the public and no product except slaughter.
The Roman Catholic Church once had a healing product, by actual treatment and by relics and miracles and was in great demand by the public and eventually even the barbarians. But she began to fight progress in science and knowledge and her product turned into exported ignorance backed by autos-da-fe (burning heretics) and thus ceased to expand and today is rapidly shrinking.
Buddhism, earlier than that, expanded continuously as it never sought new extension of territory other than that of learning. Buddhism failed in India alone because its monks became licentious, ceased to deliver true teachings and were swept up, most likely, in India alone, by the Muslim conquest of that unhappy country sometime around the seventh century.
Britain of the 20th Century actively sought to contract her empire and did so to the tune of internal economic catastrophe.
Thus it should be obvious that contraction leads to death and expansion to life providing that one maintains a demand for itself and the will and skill to produce and deliver a product.
If as ours is, the product is very beneficial and if we continue to produce and deliver the demand is assured. In this we are fortunate. And we are also fortunate that try as they will no squirrel is ever able to duplicate our product since one variation (that of changed brand) leads to others and they promptly have neither product nor demand — that observation is itself empirical. No squirrel has lasted more than 2 or 3 years in the past sixteen years. And there have been many. That they squirrel shows enough bad faith to drive away the public the moment the public hears of the original.
Thus, providing we maintain the will and skill to produce and deliver we can expand and proper expansion that will continue is possible.
All our policy then is built on EXPANSION.
It assumes we wish to survive.
And it stresses the production and delivery of a straight non-squirrel product.
It is calculated to ensure a continued and widening demand by ensuring that product remains good and beneficial.
The technology itself is complete but it expands also by experience of administration of it and simplifying its presentation.
But to alter the basics of the technology will stop expansion because it is what we are producing, not what we are building.
We are building a better universe. It has not been a good universe to live in so far but it can be.
Our punitive force is our Ethics system and it exists to ensure the quality of the product and to prevent the blunting of demand for the product.
The organisation then has all its policy rigged to expand.
It takes many things to ensure expansion.
Thus when you are interpreting policy it should be interpreted only against EXPANSION as the single factor governing it.
This can serve to clarify questions about policy. The correct interpretation always leads to expansion, not holding a level or contraction.
For example, policy bars the entrance of the healing field. This is solely because there is too much trouble with the occupiers of that field and only outright war (with no demand) could solve them. This seems to be a brake on expansion. It is only a brake on expanding by war in the absence of demand. Therefore the right way to expand is to gradually build up general public demand, let experience by the public see that we heal and when the demand is there and howling for us, reinterpret the policy or abolish it as a brake to expansion. As one can only expand by external demand for the product, if one seeks to expand in the absence of a specific demand for the product, one has war and war doesn't lead to expansion any more than burning heretics and other brutalities expanded the Catholic movement.
So one interprets policy against Proper Expansion that is proper.
Expansion which when expanded can hold its territory without effort is proper and correct expansion.
Hitler (like Caesar) did not "consolidate his conquered territory". It was not possible to do so, not because he did not have troops but because he didn't have a real demand for German technology and social philosophy before conquering. Thus Hitler lost his war and fascist Germany died. It is almost impossible to consolidate territory where one was not invited in in the first place and force had to be used in order to expand.
One can remove a real suppressive by force to ensure demand will then build, providing he does not seek to force the product on the suppressive and all those around the suppressive.
The suppressive, as an individual, can be removed by force because he is an anti-demand factor using falsehood and lies to prevent demand from occurring. But one, in removing the suppressive, has to be sure one's own product and delivery are still correct and straight and in no way suppressive of anything but suppressives.
Further one must leave, at least a crack in the door and never close it with a crash on anyone because a demand still may develop there.
The only way to start a full scale revolution is totally and thoroughly slam the door. One must always leave a crack open. The suppressive can recant and apologize. The pauper can by certain actions, no matter how improbable, secure service. Etc.
In short, use force only to shut down false anti-demand factors. Yet leave the door at least a crack open in case demand without duress develops. Never finally shut off a possible demand.
You can stimulate demand. You can create it. But you may only comfortably and properly expand into demand.
Removal of a suppressive only brings a potential appearance of demand from the area he dominated. That potential, by some means, the best of which are good dissemination and service examples, must become demand before one can truly occupy territory.
Thus areas taken purely by force of arms can never be held by force of arms in the absence of demand for product and thus demand by the area for occupation and consolidation.
As we have a product that frees in an ultimate sense and de-aberrates there is of course an end to the game. But it is so far ahead, embracing a whole universe, that it requires minimal consideration.
Expansion requires area to expand into. And we are in no danger of running out of that.
If we were dependent as nations often think they are on boundary expansion on one planet, or into one planet's populations as companies think they are, we would have brakes on expansions due to territorial or population limitations alone. But we are not likely to encounter such barriers for a period of time so long we can consider our expansion potential as infinite — and are the only organisation that honestly can so consider. We are not conquering land in the government sense anyway.
All factors, then, in policy are rigged for expansion.
And this brings about a possibility one can be asked about, that of overexpansion.
One can "over-expand" by acquiring too much territory too fast without knowing how to handle it. One can conquer new territory as fast as one wants IF he knows how to handle the situation.
There are several ways one can "over-expand". They all boil down to over-extended administration lines in a single administrative unit.
In this one must know the principle on which the org board was originally conceived. It is that of Thetan-Mind-Body-Product.
If there is a thetan, a mind (organisation potential not a harmful mass) can be set up, a mind which will organise a body which will produce a product.
If any one of these elements (Thetan-Mind-Body-Product) are missing then an organisation will fail.
Man is so aberrated all mental actions seem to him to be reactive mind actions. But there has to be in organisations a data and problem-solution coordination unit in order to set up a body. (A thetan can do this without a lot of mass, having his memory and perception and intelligence.) We have then an Advisory Council to coordinate acquired data, recognise and resolve problems. Above it there has to be a thetan somewhat detached from it. This may be a higher mind (Ad Council) operating as a director to the lower Ad Council.
The mind must operate to form a body. This body is the Mest (Matter Energy Space and Time) and staff of the organisation.
This body must produce a product. This in the HGC, for instance, is resolved cases.
Any smaller part of the whole organisation is also a Thetan-Mind-Body-Product. Often the executive is both thetan and mind but as soon as traffic gets too heavy, he must form a separate mind such as an administrative committee or a personal staff to compose the mind. In such a smaller unit than the whole org, there is yet a body (the staff and Mest of the unit). And there must be a specific product. The product sometimes is absent and sometimes incorrectly assigned but if so the unit won't function.
Over-expansion occurs only when one tries to handle the larger volume with the same Thetan-Mind-Body-Product numbers one had before. This tells you why single practitioners can't expand their practices without overwork.
It also tells you why some executives are upset at the idea of expansion as they (lacking organisational insight) see it solely as overwork. They don't see that when you expand volume and traffic you must expand the organisation.
There is a wrong way and a right way to expand an organisation.
The wrong way is to add staff and facilities endlessly (like governments tend to do) without adding to the organisation itself.
If you had huge affluences occurring steadily you would soon go into collapse if you did not expand also by organisational units or branches.
In taking over a new field or area of operation, for instance, one errs when he adds that traffic to the basic organisation's traffic.
In the presence of huge escalating affluences one must analyse what is causing them and reinforce them. BUT one must also see what new KIND of traffic is being added.
If one finds a new KIND of traffic then one sets up a sub-organisation unit to handle it which is complete in itself.
If we are now getting "business men" in quantity we set up, under the control of the original organisation:
If we then were to find the new unit, struggling to form itself into 7 divisions on its own by now, gets a lot of demand and statistics on an Org Exec Course, it must cease to gratuitously coach it and set up its "Business Academy" teaching the Org Exec Course as Dept 10, appointing a thetan, mind, body and achieving a product "trained business men" and see that units to support it occur in other divisions and an Ethics unit to prevent blunting of demand and re-aberration. This can even go backwards. One sets up in Dissern a unit called "Business Course Project Promotion Section" and stimulates the demand and then when it is there puts in its Department 10.
Soon all seven divisions have extra units to care for this new action, each unit with a Thetan-Mind-Body-Product. The products are different but they all add up to "trained business men", whether they are creating demand, financing or servicing.
So over-expansion is only under-organisation in the main.
One can of course "over-expand" by attempted servicing in the absence of demand causing thus losses in finance. In such a case only concentrate on creating new demand not on servicing old demands. This by the way is the most common error in organisations of ours. They shrink because they are not creating new demand and concentrate only on creating demand in those already demanding (which is lazy-easy).
New demand is expensive to develop. Thus you often see finance units frowning on "new demand" expenses and cutting down magazines in number of issue, not buying new mail lists, etc.
To start a new sub organisation, one sets up on the basis of potential demand, sets up Ethics to prevent demand-blunting or bad internal service or performance, works on increasing the demand, introduces service, sets up external Ethics to prevent blunted demand, increases the demand by dissemination to new. and old areas of demand, increases service, ensures product, increases the organisation (not just staff), increases demand in new and old areas, stiffens up Ethics, improves service facilities, etc., etc. It's continuous expansion of volume, continuous expansion of organisation, continuous expansion of demand. Where one lags behind the others one gets trouble.
It is almost impossible to run a non-expanding organisation with ease. One gets into financial crises, staff troubles and overwork. Decay has set in. And fighting it is sure to overwork an executive. The easiest course is to expand. Then one has the help.
Summary: In understanding policy one must understand its key and that is expansion.
Only a Scientology organisation has an unlimited horizon. But any organisation must expand to survive.
The only ways you can "over-expand" are to fail to expand with new demand and keep pace with it evenly with organisational expansion as well as numbers.
It is easier to expand than to "remain level". Organisations and units which do not expand cannot stay level and so contract.
Org executives and personnel are overworked only when they cannot afford to expand and thus cannot get the help they need to do the work, quite in addition to there being more problems made by contraction than by expansion.
Scientology organisations are designed for expansion.
Expansion requires an expansion of all factors involved and when something expands out of pace with the rest which is not expanding at the same rate, trouble is caused.
Uniform expansion of demand, Ethics and service into new fields and areas as well as old areas of operation are needful to trouble-free activities.
Each member and unit of an organisation has a product which is different, contributes to the whole product of an organisation.
The ultimate product of Scientology is a universe that is decent and happy to live in, not degenerated and made miserable by suppressives as it has been. This is accomplished by the de-aberration of individuals and the prevention of blunted demand and re-aberration by suppressives and this is the method of expansion.
If in these early days of Scientology we have any troubles they occurred by an earlier imbalance of expansion.
Demand was created without handling suppressives which unequal expansion gave us a backlog of unhandled ethics in the society. All we need do is catch up our backlog in those organisational functions which were not expanded when they should have been and all will go smoothly.
Any time you do not expand uniformly with all functions you get an appearance of over-expansion by some functions. The best answer is not to cancel the expanded functions which over-reached but to catch them up by expanding the ones one neglected in support. You will have trouble wherever you cut back an expansion as that is contraction. The answer, within reason, is to advance all else to catch up to the expanded portion while still, more calmly, expanding it.