John Damonte - additonal note.
After I made this "stub" biography (in the hopes that other would complete it) I saw the following in a comment. "... John Damonte who was protesting that vile disconnection practice back in the 60's." and wondered if that was surprise that disconnection went right back to the 60s. Of course it did. I remember well, the following, which is probably not documented. When I worked at Saint Hill in the 60s (date uncertain, but possibly could be 64) Ron issued something like 5 to 8 policy letters usually with some days between them, where the title included a word like "Morals". There came an order (written, but not a Policy Letter, which is why I say "undocumented") that all copies of those Policy Letters were to be destroyed and replaced by new Policy Letters (dates the same) where the word "morals" in the title was to be changed to Ethics. A little later (a year or so) I was working in Mimeo at Saint Hill and the Sea Org had been started. Ron wanted to run what became the Org Executive Course on the Ship. This was before the Org Exec Course (Green Volumes) were made, and at that time, if you wanted to look at a Policy letter, it would be the mimeographed (duplicated from a stencil) copy. We (Saint Hill) got an LRH order to provide packs of all (I think all) Policy letters. At that time I had a mimeo staff of about four. We were ordered to work full out at it, and were excused of everything else. We worked overtime (excused of every other staff commitment) and had little idea of what was happening in the rest of the Saint Hill. I remember taking a break, and seeing a new Policy Letter (there was another LRH Mimeo, which handled new things he wrote). I was appalled. It was a short single page Policy Letter, and described the penalties for Lower Ethics Conditions (the below nonexistence ones). One of them said clearly that the person was to wear old clothes, not be allowed to leave the premises, and not be allowed to have a bath. For some hours I mulled this over. Was Ron having a joke. Surely he would not use his Policy Letter line to make a joke of that nature. But surely he would never seriously mean such a thing. I had a problem. We (mimeo) were totally absorbed in this gigantic job, and did not know what was going on in the rest of the org. I later learned that the rest of the org was plagued by missions from this new thing, The Sea Org (or its early beginnings) Believe me, the early signs of Ron's tendency to megalomania were evident at times way back. He did make some efforts to be "scientific" insisting that all he wrote and spoke would be available, so people could follow his "line of research". The bad from those times also needs to be made known, so that a balanced judgement can be made about his work. All best wishes,
Ant
Stated factually, as you have done, is a great service to those studying the subject. A balanced narrative without attempt to sugar-coat nor demonize, is what I like to see.
People are smart enough to find the threads of truth for themselves I believe.
Yes. I believe part of the data series (or something green on white) is that to judge a situation you need "all the facts" (a bit of a tall order, but you do need as much as possible and reasonable of the relevant facts). Another important "green on white" is a necessity to be able to evaluate importances. To move to an entirely different field, there has been a "big fuss" in Denmark and abroad because the Zoo here killed a youngish giraffe. Totally out of proportion. A lack of interest in the facts behind it.