Daily Archives: August 28, 2009

Marty,

This started off as a simple “thank you” for the three days we
spent together.  I delayed sending it as things in my world
continue to disentangle and evolve, and in reading your blog,
thought something of more detail may be of interest.

For context, as you know, I fully submersed myself in the
Scientology world, with the help of my family, as a young teen.  I
was in the Sea Org, including Int Management, for something less
than 15 years.   I have been out, covertly, for another 10, having
tried everything to dig myself out of the hole you so aptly
describe on the cover of your blog.  While I had made some
progress, including achieving acceptable financial success and
repair of broken familial relationships, I remained unhappy,
unsatisfied, unable to gain sufficient traction in my life to
achieve what I believe my potential should be.

Like many who came into Scientology at a young age, I arrogantly
believed myself an expert on life, self improvement, the world …
everything that the Church’s culture said I should be an expert on
with Hubbard’s writings, I was.  There were enough truths in
Hubbard’s material that this idea cemented in place and became a
debilitating belief blocking my ability to learn and observe in an
unbiased fashion for decades.  I never knew Hubbard, nor had I even
met him.  I was a product of the culture of his then DMs church
following his death, and there was a massive change in organized
Scientology after Hubbard’s death, not for the better..  I blindly
believed myself an expert, even though I had never studied anything
else, or lived the life “real” people face each day.

My journey to recovery included everything from other self
improvement groups such as Anthony Robbins, hypnosis,
psychotherapy, anti depressants, study of philosophy and
psychology, meditation, eastern spirituality, and all the rest.
While some of these had little real impact, others helped
significantly, especially reading real history.

Interestingly, my greatest advances came from the realization that
psychology and other mental and health professionals were not the
evil the church programs us to believe.  Also that great similarity
exists between some parts of Scientology and psychology, and many
of the other great self improvement books and practices, INCLUDING
THOSE THAT PRE-DATE ALL HUBBARD BOOKS!  There are many good
professionals working with people to improve their lives, employing
dignity and respect greater than I experienced from Scientology in
the final years of my involvement.

More recently I have been working with a counselor, making slow
progress, trying to get myself free from constraints I have
mentally imposed upon myself from, I believe, my Church upbringing
and exposure as a young adult.

The idea of getting your help was as terrifying as it was exciting.
I had not been on an e-meter for over a decade.  The last years of
“auditing” were nothing but brutal and debilitating sec checking
leaving me feeling afraid to act in life for fear of doing bad
things.  They left me in doubt of my own ability, independence,
sanity and integrity.

And, to make things even more interesting, you were one of the last
several auditors/sec checkers I had in the church.  As you know,
our prior encounter was less than pleasant.

Side bar: The obvious question is why on earth would I do a session
with you after having been sec checked or emotionally “beat up” by
you on an e-meter a decade ago?  The answer is simply, despite your
intensity, you did have kindness and compassion.  When you realized
your “orders” regarding me and “briefing” of my character and
intention were not accurate or fair, you tried to make it right,
trying to help me leave in a stronger fashion, you tried to restore
some of my personal dignity.  Yours was one of the few acts of
compassion I experienced from the church at that time, and the ONLY
from a senior management level.

When you and I started talking a few months ago, you did not
remember what happened until I started giving details.  As you
remembered, I saw real pain in your eyes, felt it in your voice.  I
know our conversations were no easier for you than for myself,
perhaps much more difficult.  While words of apology are a good
start, my experiences leave me suspect of easy apologies, your body
language, your tone, your penetrating questions to uncover if there
was anything else you had done to me that hurt me, everything
together left me certain you were genuine.

Something very important to me, which I had not discussed with you,
was I wanted to hear your opinion about Hubbard and all the
different bodies of tech.  That you effectively communicated
agreement and belief in certain aspects and dislike or distrust for
others, and could explain why and how, including the history and
evolution of technical and administrative aspects, together with
your other beliefs and studies … these were essential for me to
trust you as a free thinker and not a “RONbot” or “COBbot”.  I
personally believe the blind reverence for the church as an entity,
DM, and small portions of the tech without being able to cross
reference and put things into context, the absence of critical
thought … these together are much of the cancer in Scientology.

Our prior visit, as you recall, had me refusing to even touch the e-
meter cans.  Recently, when I picked them up, at first, they felt
electric … it was almost physically painful to pick them up.  You
smiled, re-assured me, made me feel safe, offered to burn the work
sheets with me after the session … I knew you were genuine in
wanting to help me personally, including help repair any damage you
left in my world, and do this with the most effective means you
felt possible.

I forgot what auditing was like … having someone sitting with you
that genuinely wants you to improve and overcome personal
challenges.  The last hundreds of hours of “auditing” I had were
brutal sec checks, FPRD, Roll Back, Evil Purp Handlings, and all
the rest.  I forgot how light and easy it was, how safe and calm it
could be.

I was also startled to realize how similar it was to “Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy”, something my psychotherapist educated and
worked with me on.

Understanding and having spent many hours working on “Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy”
I understood the power and value of the e-meter, not as an
interrogation, intimidation, threatening device or lie detector,
but as a tool for a competent counselor in addition to observation
of my body language for finding areas of real emotional or mental
distress.

One of the issues I encountered with my other counseling sessions
was that I would bog down, dozens of thoughts would be floating
around my head randomly, it was slow and painful to dig through
them, identifying the real from imagined issues in my mind.  I had
the same phenomena occur with you in our session, however with you
and your use of the meter, you were able to help guide me in to
identify issues I have been trying to discover for some 9 months, in
just a few hours.

That you were not interested in the number of hours, but rather
supportive of leaving me exploring my realizations, only going back
when I asked, was very satisfying.

I was also satisfied with observing your “model”.  Your audit, exam
and CS as distinctly separate actions.  Your session was, in
“scientology lingo” as standard as the best I encountered at Flag,
and much more productive because fear and threat were not present.

My personal revelations were in the area of incredibly deep
thoughts and feelings questioning my own core goodness and decency,
whether or not I was a good human being.  The knotted ball of
string in my mind is starting to unwind, I don’t know the
consequences, don’t want to jinx them by talking about them openly
until everything has settled, but since leaving your home, have
concluded that I put these thoughts in place as part of the
intentional or unintentional actions of DMs Church putting me and
others in impossible situations that, I am beginning to believe,
were intentionally constructed to break free spirited and thinking
people.

What I will also share on this is that I was diagnosed with Chronic
Fatigue, needing about 12 hours sleep to feel somewhat rested and
alert.  I woke up this morning, without an alarm, after 6 hours,
alert and rested.  I am starting to get more effective, more able
to focus on specific tasks and execute them, though still have a
way to go.

What our auditing covered was serfacs, described in another of your
posts.

While I will never again become the blind drone DMs Church forced
me to become, I recognize and appreciate that there is value and
workability to the technology, opening or rather re-opening my eyes
to tools of value and use to myself and others in building better
lives.

Finally, on you.  I was the third person walking along the beach
with you when you received the now almost infamous and internet
published call from “anonymous”.  I watched your reactions during
and after the call.  I then listened to the call in full through
the link.

While on the surface, the caller was much more calm and polite than
I had thought, there were certain undertones and statements made by
anonymous, perhaps and probably unintentionally, that could not but
create a negative reaction, despite the tone, and perhaps
compounded by the tone.

Frankly, I would get increasingly worked up, replaying this call in
my mind, were it I that received it.  Such response is only human.
The tone of this call is exactly what DMs church would do … a
message other listeners would not consider ominous, but the
recipient couldn’t consider any other way.

I believe the caller had no malice aforethought, especially
hearing him apparently preparing food in the kitchen during the
call, clanking things around, but the caller did not appropriately,
IMHO, consider the effect of the nature and structure of his call
with the context it had to be received.

Marty, you have been a passionate and driven person since I have
known you.  Perhaps now, even more so because you see the truth,
see and feel the harm and pain created by abuses done in the name

of Scientology, and feel a responsibility to try and make things right.

I respect this more than you know, love you for the personal risk you

are taking in trying to make things right.  You have friends, an ever

increasing circle of friends who “got your back”.

To those who care, anonymous or Scientology, I absolutely am
certain that Marty has no intention of, nor ever will return to the
Sea Org or take over Scientology, he loves his life, his wife, his

dog and fishing too much.  He wants to march to the beat of his

own drum, his own integrity, and be able to, in whatever way he

can, make the world a better place, fight injustices where appropriate.

Marty Rathbun is a good person, warts and all.  He is my friend.

I also like and appreciate some of the work of Hubbard, with his
personal issues and all.

None of us are perfect, it seems especially that those who explore
or try tend to make more messes than those who did nothing.  We can
only judge people by actions.

I believe Marty’s are good, especially now.
I believe DM’s are bad, especially now.
I believe Hubbard’s were good, especially in the earlier years,
though perhaps more questionable in the later years, whether from
personal issues, or from deceptive manipulation and manipulative
information fed him by DM.

Your Friend

Reference: comment from “JIM FYDE“ (under “Food For Thought” post of 27 August whose email address is Scilonhunter@———

I am using this fellow’s response to my post titled Food for Thought, in which I offered a quote from a Malcolm X speech for people to reflect on, to demonstrate the reactionary negative I intend to keep of this blog spot as free from as possible.

Scilonhunter did define Scilon for me. It means “Scientologist” or “Scientology”. I did not approve his lengthy follow up post full of justification and puns on Hubbard. I think this post will demonstrate why such taunting belongs somewhere else. And there are plenty places for it out there as sincere folk who have looked for truth about Scientology and the Church can attest.

Scilonhunter apparently did not think as the post suggested. He instead immediately reacted and tried to provoke and invalidate – with super literal and negative misidentification and dishonest context – to attack me, Malcolm X, and LRH.

First, he takes one sentence of the lengthy quote, repeats it, and said this “is the message of Malcolm X.” No, it clearly wasn’t – the entire passage communicated a thought, or I’d have just posted a sentence. Then, he equates that one sentence with “what is true for you” and equates that with the invalidation of “all history.” If Scilonhunter knew anything about history he would know that Malcolm probably studied more history than most of his modern contemporaries. Hubbard probably studied even more than that. His personal library was several hundred square feet full of fifteen foot high book shelves, filled with books that were obviously handled and read. Even uneducated I have read somewhere on the order of a couple hundred books on history in the past four years. Yet, Scilonhunter would have you all believe we all stand for erasing history.

Second, he takes another sentence from the Malcolm X quote equating it with “LRH’s ‘Chaos Merchant’ from ‘Scientology Zero’, then takes another small quotation from Malcolm X out of context and implies he was racist and he and LRH sought to segregate groups of people from the rest of society.

Then Scilonhunter takes a quote from Malcolm made sometime far earlier than the quote I originally provided, and said the earlier quote “seemed to violate his own advice given in the later quote I provided.”

Finally, he brings up the phone call that still unidentified people covertly recorded with me and posted. He pulls out selected quotes and asks me whether my post on the call is “still true for you”. I already posted that after hearing the call it was clear Anonymous UK and I both mischaracterized it.

Scilonhunter then said the call made it appear “you still enjoy claiming to be a victim…”

Which brings us to the more fundamental problem with the anonymous fringe, which I will for now on refer to as OMINOUS, those punks and trolls who are not in this for the purpose of helping people but instead for the juvenile purpose of causing trouble and upset. OMINOUS because it describes the tone of their discourse. Declaring “war” on a religion and stating a group of faceless and nameless people will come after someone if they continue to practice that religion, is fairly well classifiable as OMINOUS.

Note that I used anonymous in the lower case. There are a number of boards where the discourse on Scientology is pretty much all by folks protecting their anonymity. Those who remain anonymous because they are legitimately concerned about pressure, intimidation, and worse from the Church of Scientology have a good reason to remain anonymous. Those who derive some weird sense of empowerment and lack of responsibility that gives them license to upset others with OMINOUS communications for kicks are sick. They are also destructive to the extent their communication concentrates on the studied invalidation of people’s past to the point they consider themselves victims.

I am working in precisely the opposite direction. I spend the better part of my time assisting people to examine their past objectively, rehabilitate that which they got out of Scientology that they thought was of value, leave behind that which they found was negative, and move on with a clean slate and with some level of enhanced dignity. Part of that process includes application of the tech of handling suppression – mainly because most people have some form of direct Church related suppression impinging on their lives in the present. I feel like I’ve done something for the person when he or she no longer acts like a victim. I believe a lot of Church suppression is operable precisely because people act like victims: cowed, intimidated, and hiding.

I have investigated the mafia on the east coast and the Mexican mafia is South Texas. I learned first hand that a great deal of their power derives from what people have heard of them and their defensive reaction to that. Consequently, by mere threats and ominous behavior or communications criminals can lord over people, neighborhoods and cities. Ultimately, I have seen organized criminals scatter like cockroaches when someone – and then others – stands up to them.

Miscavige operates on a personal and institutional level exactly per mafia tech. It is all about intimidation, foreboding stagecrafting, greater numbers arranged for every confrontation, and threats implied and real. Ultimately, I believe Miscavige’s organized crime racket collapses when enough people stand up and are counted – and are showing their faces without fear. When I saw Jeff Hawkins and Steve Hall intimidated physically and mentally into silence at Int, I knew exactly what was going through Miscavige’s head: “they are scared shitless of me and would never come after me, even sometime down the road.” When I now see Jeff and Steve talking calmly and factually about Miscavige’s protection racket to the broad public, I know they are bringing the facade of inimidation down.

Steve and Jeff are not victims. Nor are the other twelve who have spoken out, faces in plain view. If they were, they wouldn’t have had the fortitude to stand and be counted and face evil. They may have felt like victims at one time or another, but by whatever means they rose above it and at are at cause. If Jeff or Steve were convinced they had wasted their entire adult lives because they were stupid and weak enough to be conned by a science fiction writer I don’t think they’d be standing in the light and throwing water on the wicked witch of the west. If they were subjected to the continual reinforcement that they were mere victims of low intelligence that state of mind might have ensued to some extent and maybe they never would have stood up. And we’d back to sophomoric tricks that alienate Scientologists and reinforce Miscavige’s hold on a lot of folk who don’t deserve to be treated the way they are.

I am taking no credit whatsoever for Jeff’s or Steve’s personal struggles to become cause. They both were taking huge, heroic action before I ever touched base with them. They just came to mind by way of example. And by their examples, and the other twelve, dozens more are coming out of the shadows of self-invalidation and contributing in myriad ways to bring the abuses to an end.

I have been told by anonymous people that I am being watched in the event I form a group. Well, I realized I am already part of a group. We don’t have a name. We don’t have titles. We don’t even have meetings or conference calls. We are relatively small, but are growing rapidly. We don’t walk in lock step by any means; each individual has his own understanding and thoughts about Scientology and Hubbard, politics, and life in general. I am referring to a very strong circle of friends who had at least one thing in common that diehard anti-Scientologists will apparently never understand. We all devoted decades of our lives for the sole purpose of helping people. We all did suppressive things along the way. But we also in our minds only did them because we somehow thought by doing them it aligned with the basic purpose we had signed up to attain: to help people. That, no one can ever take away.

When people want to spread venom to make everything about Scientology seems sinister and weird it tends to invalidate what we share. It is sort of like a theme Malcolm X talked about on many different occasions. He explained an operation that was run on black people for hundreds of years in America to make them think everything about Africa was weird, savage and backward. He said once people began to hate the tree, they began to hate the branches and leaves which were in fact themselves. And once that set in they were victims and were easily kept down. His primary purpose was to wake them up from that illusion. That is what we members of the unnamed group do for one another.

My blog site was created to forward that healing process.

The hate messages, the denigrating messages, the invalidative messages so much resemble the standard operating basis of Miscavige it is anti-therapeutic and goes against the purpose of the blog spot. I am not going to subject my friends to this. Anyone is perfectly free to peruse the blog and do whatever they want with the information on it. There are plenty of forums on which you can spit on it, dice it and slice it and invalidate it into the ground. Doesn’t mean everybody has to agree. The discussion that occurred the other day between several Anonymous folks and ex members of the Church who consider themselves real Scientologists was great and is encouraged.