AboutLaurie Hamilton Expertise I am able to answer questions regarding Scientology practices and procedures, belief system, donations, religious rites, management, administrative and staff matters.
Experience I am a second generation Scientologist whose parents began in Dianetics in 1950 and studied directly with L. Ron Hubbard. I have been personally active in the church for 40 years, have eleven years former staff experience in both technical and administrative areas, and extensive technical and administative training and counseling. I am "clear" and "OT." I come from an extended family of many religions, but my spouse and children are Scientologists, as are my siblings and their spouses, several cousins, nieces, nephews, an aunt, and an uncle. Between us we have had every good and bad experience one might go through in the church at every level.
Question What are the possibilities that someone who was a suppressive in a previous life could become a Scientologist in the present? Would such a person remain suppressive throughout successive lifetimes?
Answer Since people who are suppressive persons in THIS life become Scientologists, the possibility is nearly certain.
It's impossible to know if a person remains suppressive through successive lifetimes. I suspect they do more often than not, since the restimulation which causes a person to be suppressive is so deeply embedded that I expect it would be very difficult to shake. It's kind of a Catch-22. A person who is suppressive cannot get case gain - and if a person doesn't get case gain, how are they going to become free of the part of the reactive mind that makes them suppressive? That said, body death and acquiring a new body can be sea-change events - so I suppose it is entirely possible that a person would experience a state of release from parts of their reactive mind that dogged them an entire life.
One such mechanism I could envision would be that a suppressive person, as we know, cannot be wrong. However, faced with overwhelming evidence of their wrongness and an opportunity to "be someone else" through body death, it's possible that with body death and acquisition of a new body, the person could flip into a new identity in order to escape the pressure of being wrong - and the new identity would be one other that the suppressive one. Just speculating, here.
Since existence without case gain has been seen historically to be a dwindling spiral, however, and since a person is always getting better or getting worse (there is no such thing as stasis in the universe), It strikes me that the odds would be against body death "curing" suppressiveness. Friends and family and I have a running (dark humor) "joke" about why the death penalty is a bad idea. If you imprison a person for life, you know where they are, and can keep your eye on them. If they die, you lose track of them, and have no idea where they're going to pop up next. Heh.
