Blogger note: Op Ed means ‘opposite of the editorial page’, where views are published whether they align with or collide with the editorial positions of a publication. While it doesn’t technically mean the opinions stated are opposite of that of the publication in question, the page is often filled with such opposing views. The essay below submitted by Tom Martiniano clearly is challenging the views I have been expressing on this blog for 4 years and in my book What Is Wrong With Scientology? and probably is best characterized as an Op Ed. I happen to know it represents the views of at least a handful of others who are not so bold as Tom to express their positions despite my continuing invitations that they do so. It is my hope that some of those folk muster the courage to pipe up here. Tom and I have something in common – beyond Scientology – that makes me appreciate him and his views. We have both been on the wrong end of a gun on more than one occasion and lived to express our views. Nonetheless, I will likely soon post clarifying precisely where I part company with his viewpoints (attempting to succinctly sum up what I have been attempting to do here for 4 years). In the meantime, I would love to hear your views.
L Ron Hubbard
For four years now I have been an “Independent Scientologist”, a title borne of the blog “Moving up a Little Higher”, owned and penned almost every day by Marty Rathbun.
We’ve had a lot of talk about Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, seen peoples viewpoints on what happened to Scientology, who’s to blame and so forth. I have also watched as people sit in judgment of L Ron Hubbard, second guess him and his actions, criticize the man and his products.
The name L Ron Hubbard has taken tremendous bashings over the last several years, especially recently and it is mainly and solely due to the actions of David Miscaviage and others like him who push LRH and Scientology over the abyss with their irresponsible and unpardonable actions with the body of technology that was entrusted to them to care for “Attacks from governments or monopolies occur only when there are “no results” or “bad results” KSW #1.
I want to say a few things about the man, the author, the Science Fiction Writer, the founder of the most controversial Church ever or whatever anyone wants to call him. I am not going to be open minded and say “well, he has a viewpoint and he is right in some of the things he says”. I think LRH deserves a standing ovation for all of his accomplishments in this lifetime.
L Ron Hubbard is the best friend that a person could ever want. There have been hundreds of philosophers over the millennia who have introduced technology and doctrines for living and they all have been helpful to one degree or another. But LRH has developed technology throughout the space of thirty short years that covers every aspect of life. Some say that LRH is not the only technology that there is, nor is his philosophy there only one that works and that following his technology or values only is being blind or being robotic. That’s fair and in theory it is a solid viewpoint, but in practice it is fatal.
LRH even said in one of the PDC tapes that he doubts that there is any original thought in this universe. He’d be the first one to tell you that most of what he developed is from research into the world at large where he learned such things as the basic purpose of mankind’s existence is the urge to survive and from there he developed the entire body of the triumphant Dianetics, the world’s first successful foray into the real structure of the mind. Successful technology has been lying around the planet for eons, all developed by aboriginal tribal witchdoctors, psychologists, clans or civilizations, waiting for someone to come along and codify it and put it to good use. LRH found all of this knowledge and brought forth only the technology that was time tested and proven to be a high-rate-of-success application which made people better. LRH was like a kid in a candy store finding and testing workable technology. He would travel to far ends of the earth, find technology, research it for workability and in some cases adjust it so that it would work in most cases and then make it easy to us to use. He even developed technology for us to be able to duplicate written material. How’s that for a first-ever? This is a lot of work for one man.
When you apply something that is so utterly simple and so remarkably effective as the “Contact Assist”, or “Touch Assist” or even the powerful “Locational Assist” realize a lot of time and development went into it and L Ron Hubbard worked a lot of late nights in order to bring this technology to you in an easily understandable form to make your life that much better. And just as an aside here, we used the locational assist in New Orleans and Mississippi after hurricane Katrina on people who never heard of L Ron Hubbard and had people tell us that it saved their lives. We had thousands of such wins from folks in the Gulf area from the lowly locational assist. It worked like magic.
You see, LRH cared about you. He cared about all of us much more than we actually understood. He didn’t invent Study Tech to make money. He made it so we could read and duplicate. That’s love.
Is his tech and philosophy the only tech out there? No, not by any means. Is the way it is codified and presented to lay men the only usable tech out there? Yes. LRH introduced us to “The Wall of Fire” and then taped the route through it for all of us to see. All we had to do was walk the taped line.
But this is way too simple and a lot of people have to add their own viewpoints to the chalked path and wreck the path. LRH Says in HCOPL 14 February 1965 SAFEGUARDING TECHNOLOGY
“It has taken me a third of a century in this lifetime to tape this route out.
“It has been proven that efforts by man to find different routes came to nothing. It is also a clear fact that that the route called Scientology does lead out of the labyrinth. Therefore it is a workable system, a route that can be travelled.”
“Scientology is a workable system. It has the route taped. The search is done. Now the route only needs to be walked.”
Independent Scientologists are Scientologists that are independent from the Church of Scientology. The Church is errant and has been turning good, workable Scientology technology into unworkable technology to free people and turned it into workable technology to entrap.
There have been a lot of recent books, writings and talk about L Ron Hubbard and the end result of all of this talk and writings, rantings and foam of the mouth is an attempt to make LRH less of a successful philosopher. Most Scientologists are taking the bashing right alongside of LRH and feel the pain.
Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.
Is Scientology the only route out? Yes. It is the only applied philosophy that has the OT Sections (which were removed from the bridge by David Miscaviage).
Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence. LRH is the smartest person I have ever met. He is also the most caring person I have ever met. He cares about us more than any other person on this planet, even more than Tom Cruise does (joke). The tech volumes, the miles and miles of taped recordings, the green volumes were written by LRH for YOU to use.
Yes, you can read the Tao or read Buddha and so forth, but you would have to sort a lot of wheat from a lot of chaff to get to Nirvana. LRH already sifted and worked it all out for us to use.
This posting is written for Scientologists, those who sat down and did TR-0 and had their lives changed for the absolute better, or those who experienced going exterior for the first time, or those who went whole-track on a touch assist and the other hundreds of ways one could have a major stable win applying the fantastic tech by LRH.
Get back on the taped route and find your way out of this mess. Find a good Indy auditor and go up the bridge. LRH said to build orgs. Then by God build orgs. LRH said to manage orgs, then we manage and we fix management and what went wrong with it the first time. Do it the way LRH says to do it and it will be right. Just because it went wrong the first time was not LRH’s fault. It is right out of KSW #1 “What Did You Really Do?” We screwed it up. So we set it right, not cancel it because we screwed it. It’s exactly the same thing as saying “Well, I tried process X and it didn’t work, so toss it out.” Come one, wake up. KSW was at the start of every course and checksheet you ever did and that is because LRH ordered it. He saw this coming.
So come on. Let’s get this show back on the road.
Tom Martiniano
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Well put Tom and thank you.
Bravo, Tom. Thank you for speaking my mind.
I’m happy you wrote this, Tom. I agree fully.
“Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.”
I don’t know that LRH would agree.
I can only judge the workability of the tech by the results I experienced myself. Did I have wins? Yes, absolutely. Basically it boils down to it is harder to bullbait me. That is extremely valuable to me and I will not trivialize that gain. But what drew me into the organization was the state promised in Book One. That was in 1976. Now, in 2013, I do not possess eidetic memory. I still require corrective lens. I still have a certain psychosomatic illness that I have to control with drugs or I will die. I could go on. One could say I am PTS or the auditors in all their 1000s of hours auditing screwed it up. But the carrot can be dangled in front of one for just so long till you get the idea that it ain’t going to happen. I’m not bitter. As I said in an earlier post, I think LRH sincerely tried to achieve Clear and OT. But the lack of results shows that, for me at least, he didn’t quite succeed.
I gotta say, I prefer Tom’s view. I don’t want to toss the baby out with the bath water. I believe the Scientology structure can be salvaged. If the Catholic Church can survive the inquisition, why can’t Scientology survive skidmark? I refuse to give up hope. And frankly, I still believe it’s the only hope mankind has.
I liked a lot of what you said Tom.
I don’t agree that people should follow LRH blindly. I don’t think even LRH would want that. “if it’s true for you it’s true” and so forth.
I also say that Scientology is a road out. In my opinion it is not a road to total freedom or at least nobody has arrived at that point yet imho.
I also agree that Scientology takes a person or at least a lot of people out of a bad condition and into a much better condition. I also know that some other things people have tried, they would say, have brought them into a better state too.
For me Scientology has been a great experience with the exception of the later painful years brought about by the corruption of it.
I also agree that LRH deserves a standing ovation for what he did. It is also disappointing to me that he didn’t walk the talk to himself as far as coming clean with some of his dirty laundry as we were all supposed to do. In the long run I feel LRH did way more good than bad.
There is a huge PR nightmare going on now mostly becasue of the actions of dm, but also partly to LRH not giving all the accurate data and implementing some odd policies. I will never follow anyone blindy, to me that is not the road out, it is the road to disaster.
Interesting
100% right. I just attested to Grade 1 with my auditor Chris Black in Toronto last week and flying along on Grade 2. A wonderful Grade. LRH tech works with a competent auditor and a pc that is in session. I don’t see anything that works so beautifully each time. And I don’t see any other tech with a “qual” division in it. Any error made using Scientology can be fixed with SCN. 🙂
Here is a great rant by my friend Andy Porter. Andy has had tons of experience using the admin tech and also travelled the world implementing the admin tech to missions and Orgs in Russia and all over the globe.:
From my own experience of working in business several things come to mind when comparing LRH tech to “my own” tech of management.
First, most companies can go out and hire people who have training and experience in their area of work.
You can hire doctors, lawyers, mechanics, accountants, etc etc who went to school and have experience in their fields. You still have to groove in the person as to how you do things, but you’re not training the person from scratch.
However in Scientology, you are starting from ground zero. All auditors, course supervisors, administrators and everyone in the entire Org is trained from the ground up.
This makes for a lot of issues as to who does what, when do they do it, where are things routed and all that. In a vet hospital for example, you hire a new vet or tech and they can come to work and generally know what to do and when and all that.
So, a lot of the admin tech was designed to handle that. The Org Board and Hats and Org Esto Series was written to handle these things.
But really almost NONE of this is needed at any sort of “wog” business.
Another things is that what should be done with personnel is this: You interview and hire and get a person started working. You provide some simple on the job training, usually a job-shadow sort of thing. Then you see how the person does.
the person should be able to:
a. perform their post duties
b. be good at customer service
c. be able to get along with the other staff well
If the person cannot do ALL THREE of the above (assuming you do some simple corrective actions) then you immediately look for the persons replacement and find a new person and start over.
The whole thing is soooo simple, it’s not complicated, just give them a chance, train, help them along and if it’s not working make a change. The whole cycle shouldn’t take more than a few months.
But in the church its all screwed up, you have some sort of weird effort to hold onto the person and force them to perform, using ethics and all sorts of crazy shit, like enforced ethics conditions, o/w write ups and justice actions…HOLDING the person there.
And lastly all of the LRH admin tech for orgs and missions is based on the idea that ALL DOWN STATS ARE INTERNALLY CAUSED. The idea is that if you’re stats are down its ALWAYS BECAUSE OF YOU!!!! This gives rise to all sorts of evil shit, witch hunts, insane “ethics” cycles, purges, even more fucked up “justice cycles” and its all totally bat shit fucked up insane and crazy.
The idea that YOU are responsible for your stats has some grain of truth in it, but that’s it, just a grain. For example in the vet hospital (as in any company) lets say that we measure the vet on his or her production. Well, if the receptionist is nasty and turns callers away, this lowers the vets production and conversely if we measure the receptionist on visits or appointments or new clients and the Vet is an asshole with people or a bad vet then the receptionists stats will suffer as well.
The fact of the matter, an incontrovertible fact, if you ask me, is that all stats are part of a whole. Everyone works and has an effect on the stats of others. The janitor has an effect, the bus-boy, everyone. So, trying to separate them all out and make everyone responsible for their small isolated zone is illogical and wrong.
And lastly, although in Scientology this is the biggest area of nuttiness, is the fact that each Org or Mission is but a small part of a larger whole, the Church of Scientology International. This includes senior management and the Sea Org. And from the first of my involvement with Scientology, these guys were nuts. The general leadership of the church is responsible for setting the tone for the entire movement. And look what they’ve done: anyone who criticizes us needs to be attacked, we are never wrong, charge high prices, incredibly psycho 2-D rules, insane stat pushes intertwined with equally insane demands for money – NOW. The idea that you MUST sign up for your next course NOW, the whole military sea org drama with orders and compliance…I gotta say that this point of modeling Scientology on some sort of military basis was a HUGE mistake. were building a new civilization based on the Navy structure of management? Please….
Then there is the marketing of Scientology, or rather its abject failure. Even the people who showed some competence in doing it, like Jeff Hawkins, never really used any long term and successful actions…maybe that’s because he was stopped, there was a beginning of successful marketing in the ’80’s, but that’s it.
So, back to Orgs and Missions…the idea is that their stats, meaning their down stats, are all caused internally. But that is bullshit too. To a very large extent that low stats were and are today due to the abysmal and utter failure of scientology management to manage. They SUCK at it. Management sets a bad example, has NO forward thinking and relies solely on what ever LRH wrote to manage. He developed most of the management tech in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. There are so many new ideas and new attitudes that are the norm these days, some good and some not, but the rule of the day is based on the past.
If any Org or Mission has the audacity to suggest that the stats are down because the Church of Scientology management has their collective head up their ass, or that the PR overall of Scientology sucks or any other simple, obvious truth, then they will be subjected to ethics, justice, rollback to find out WHO told them these bad ideas etc. Of course we all know that any manager of a local org or mission who suggests these things, that the leadership of the church is not holding up its end of the bargain would be immediately expelled and a black PR campaign run against them.
One last idea occurs to me regarding staff at an Org or Mission: The single most important thing that must be done with staff is to audit them! if the staff are going up the bridge, through the grades and having wins it makes all the difference. The basic auditing makes a person more compassionate, more helpful, increases their ARC and friendliness (of course this is IF the management is not running their psychotic Fascist management techniques on them!). If staff are trained as auditors and have wins in auditing them that makes ALL the difference. But the church has, for decades, run a big suppressive Can’t Have on all staff regarding getting up the bridge. IF, and that’s a BIG IF there is any auditing for staff its almost always in the direction of sec checking and other type actions.
I see some good in the admin tech. The Marketing series, the Data series, and much more is really quite useful, but the idea that it all the end-all of admin tech is silly. The additional idea that if you studied the green vols that you would be able to manage any sort of business and make it boom is also the ne-plus-ultra of arrogance and stupidity.
Okay, enough ranting, off for some real work!
Now you are talkin’ my language, Tom. LRH was the best thing to happen to our existence in this universe. Yes, other’s did contribute and LRH fully acknowledged this. But he put the final piece of the puzzles together in a usable form that gave us the way to fully enjoy the cumulative work of all prior spiritual researchers – and then some.
And every year that passes, physical sciences are revealing that LRH was right about the cosmological makeup of this part of our universe. Multiple thousands of earth-like planets are being found around nearby stars. Including the stars LRH referred to as being key to events covered in certain OT levels. People sometimes laugh and poke fun at LRH for OTIII. I don’t.
Check this out. If it holds up, it is just another clue to the accuracy of what LRH informs us what was going on back then.
http://beforeitsnews.com/beyond-science/2013/01/300-million-year-old-machinery-found-in-russia-experts-say-aluminum-gear-not-the-result-of-natural-forces-may-be-extraterrestrial-2440610.html
Thanks Tom, well and simply put!
Fix Scientology, yes, I can help do this! I guess I’ll contact IJC right away and get started on my A-J as Ron says to do. I’m sure it will be no trouble at all.
I really appreciate the fact that Marty posted Tom Martiniano’s views and has made a point of soliciting others. Amazingly enough, before I even read this posting this morning, I had sprung out of bed with the intention of getting right onto writing and publishing my views on LRH and Scientology. Fact is I have been stewing on this for several weeks.
I agree with Tom on most all that he stated and wish to add the following…
LRH could not have done it without the help of very dedicated individuals like ourselves, some specifically for research, most others for finance, dissemination, organization, etc. Also, he was just a man and not perfect by any means and made a point of stating so many times. He did make mistakes for sure, and perhaps he could have achieved what he did a lot more efficiently, less verbosely, without creating his own terminology, etc. Perhaps he did exaggerate about his credentials, or at least condone others to do so on his behalf. However, what is more important to consider is whether or not it was done for the greater good and did it produce the needed results.
It is very real to me that when all is said and done, he was the one man who distilled and codified natural laws and empirical truths and the wisdom of 50,0000 years of thinking men into an applied religious philosophy, the first that I have ever know of and it works! That is unquestionable for me. I don’t know anyone else who even comes close to what LRH accomplished in one lifetime, even without the alleged hyperbole. This does not mean that he has a monopoly on truth, nor that he is the only one that espouses it. Surely there are countless religions, philosophies and self-help groups that have their basis in truth. The point is more so, that he created a workable route- so why re-invent the wheel! But even so, every one of us and each being in this universe has the right to choose his path.
Additionally, I believe that LRH was very aware of his own overt acts and he applied ethics to himself to take responsibility for these. More likely than not he worked as hard as he did as part of a condition handling and I believe the same applies to many of us. Fact is, LRH did “eat crow” and admit to the errors of his ways and when not outright, he did so in revising references, publishing new ones that cancelled earlier issues, etc.
That said, I believe the release of the Volunteer Minister’s Handbook and The Way to Happiness were his message to people in the world at large that they could have the technology to change their lives for the better without having to join the organization, let alone ascend the Bridge to full OT. Perhaps it was his back-up plan, or part of his overall plan to reverse the theta-entheta ratio on this planet that so desperately needs to be reversed otherwise Earth could factually be a barren desert in the not too distant future.
Unfortunately, there were very definite points of disagreement on the command channels below him and these points of non-alignment with his Admin Scale for the Church, unhandled, are the underlying cause for the dissension between those in and out of the Church as well as the dissension between those of us out here- at least that is my take.
Lastly, I still have the postulate that this will come to pass, the game of “holier than though” will end and people of all beliefs will unite and create a New Civilization here on Earth, one that we will all take pride in and that is depicted by “The Aims of Scientology” as originated by L Ron Hubbard.
Kay Rowe
I meant A-E. Golly this is going to be great!
I think something has happened where people have taken losses on Scientology. They got bad service and were taken for a ride in the Church. They donated too much money or paid for too many sec checks they didnt need. They watched their org dwindle away for too many years. Now maybe we have some failed purpose going on? Hmmm. Is it possible?
Tom knows what he’s talking about here. He’s been there and done it- making Orgs and Scientology work so he knows that it does work.
“Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.”
“Is Scientology the only route out? Yes. It is the only applied philosophy that has the OT Sections (which were removed from the bridge by David Miscaviage).”
==========================================================
My questions, Tom, are these: “Is blackballing and ejecting people from Scientology for voicing their opinion regarding what they see as altered tech or crushing ethics part of the Scientology route?” “Is breaking up families when one member sees something in Scientology that needs fixing — and says so — part of the Scientology route?” “Is taking minor children away from families and making them work 16 hours a day and not providing them a usable education part of the Scientology route?” “Is making the field practice of Scientology impossible part of the Scientology route?” “Is ignoring Knowledge Reports about errors in the GAT drills part of the Scientology Route?” “Is operating the Church of Scientology with an attitude that is adversarial to its parishioners part of the Scientology route?” “Is operating the Church of Scientology at the tone level 1.5 (fascism) conducive to actual expansion and delivery of its promised salvation?” “Is sucking the parishioners’ wallets dry to make ornate buildings that need constant air conditioning and cleaning part of the Scientology route?” “Is altering the policy and tech with no explanation while demanding that people discard the older writings and recordings, forcing them to pay two or three times for the same basic information part of the Scientology route?” “Is encouraging your friends and family to pay through the nose for grossly altered tech part of the Scientology route?”
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While there are good things in what you’re saying, I don’t see that you’ve suggested an approach that will get actual Scientology to large numbers of actual people at a reasonable price TODAY. It seems to me that getting actual Scientology out to people that will provide the salvation envisioned by L. Ron Hubbard requires UN-BREAKING the broken brand associated with the word “Scientology”.
Tom, that’s very well put and inspiring. I just have one issue with what you wrote:
” Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence. ”
I absolutely disagree. I’m stable today with Scientology because I questioned everything in Scientology years ago and made it my own. I think that following blindly is a big part of why Scientology is in the mess it is today. Scientology is about freedom, understanding and thinking for yourself. We probably agree here, but I can’t let this pass without commenting.
Thanks for your write up.
It sounds very accurate to my knowledge.
My view is that it was bordering fanatical. Creepy because it was that viewpoint that got me stuck in a cult for 22 years! I no longer believe LRH was a God. That point is clearly obvious, in hindsight, and once one realizes this, it all sorts out.
Tom’s views are okay for Tom but far from my reality. LRH made many mistakes. Let’s start with missing the biggest SP, David Miscavige and letting him in a position of power! I’ll stop at that. However I have not yet thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Tom,
You wrote:
“LRH is the smartest person I have ever met. He is also the most caring person I have ever met. He cares about us more than any other person on this planet, even more than Tom Cruise does (joke). The tech volumes, the miles and miles of taped recordings, the green volumes were written by LRH for YOU to use.”
Q. Did you actually meet LRH and were you so close to him that you know this from personal experience? I never personally met him but I used to be at the receiving end of his wrath and mood changes.
Statement: As far as I understood way back then in the 60’s, the purpose of scientology was to teach people HOW TO LEARN. That means to me: learning how to know the truth (no point in learning lies or half truths). But you seem to be saying that the truth is limited by what LRH wrote. So there goes independent thought as to what to learn. I absolutely agree with you regarding KSW. I spent many years of my life at Flag as an evaluator getting orgs out of trouble when in many cases KSW was not adhered to by people. Years I spent doing it out of conviction and not just as a duty. But here, you seem to be advocating that one should not bother with knowledge that exists throughout the Universe, that one should not be concerned with what many great men and women have communicated to us humans for millenia, in many cases creating effects that changed civilizations for the better.
Your love for Scientology and LRH is acknowledged but I am afraid you are speaking from a narrow point of view, dismissing the fact that when the old man said: To Learn How to Learn, he didn’t mean to say just learn Scientology and dissmiss other bodies of knowledge. Without intention to offend, your post sounds a bit like one that would be written by what I call a True Believer.
And since we don’t know each other from Adam, I would like to ask you:
Are you a True believer Tom? Because I am not. LRH simply provided me with the tools that helped me in my journey to learn how to be a better human being. And for that I am very grateful. Notice I said “helped me”. I did not say: “if it wasn’t for ron I would be in deep shit”.
Sincerely,
Alex
Thanks Tom!
When I first read Marty’s intro I had to hold my breath.
What is Tom up to now? But then reading what you
wrote, you are of course speaking the sooth. Actually
I do not see your viewpoint diverge from Marty’s so
much re the Tech. Every time you two have applied
LRH views and Tech in life you surely have invariably
ended up with a positive result and in session come out
with, in most instances, fantastic results without the fantasy.
Soooo…?
(By the way I bought your book about Vietnam for my
grandson as he is into that war so much [go figure] &
I read it. Boy did it open my eyes. And I was such
an activist in Sweden against that war even to the
point of trying to storm and take over the American
embassy in Stockholm with hundreds of other
college students in 1967.)
Win or Lose
There’s lots of things been written
Bout how to play a hand,
not take a lickin’
Ya gotta play those cards
just as they fall
If you’re gonna amount
to anything at all
Those are your cards
you pick and choose
And from those choices
you win or lose.
Tom,
While I agree with your basic sentiment – I really don’t see the point of L Ron Hubbard bashing – and without any doubts or reservations consider myself an independent Scientologist, there are some other points you took pains to make so I’d like to add my two cents.
You say: “Let’s get the show on the road”, what does that mean? I do think an honest, critical review of the show that has been on the road so far is in order, because the world is a different place to the one in the 1950s and 60s and we really were not all that successful in making Scientology technology available to the world. Yes, Miscavige is a big who in the post-Ron era but let’s set him aside for the moment.
Who doesn’t want a cleared planet? The fundamental long term problem is you cannot force Scientology on anyone. It does not work in that type of environment as Scientology Inc. proves every day. Nor can you wave some magic wand and suddenly everyone gets it, nor can you shove it down peoples’ throats (that creates enemies and has). People have to want it, and for that they have to understand it or what it does to some degree or another so how do you accomplish that? Scientology org success in doing that was not overwhelming even in the cold war era of imminent nuclear war. And just 8cing someone into session without their full causative agreement has caused many of the problems that exist today. Yes, someone with good TRs can control others, that’s a fact, but true judgment is required..
I worked on the ground for more than half my long Scientology career and I saw what worked and what didn’t and came to some conclusions.
Firstly, it is not about clearing the planet, at any given time it is about surveying the planet to see who wants Scientology and delivering it to those who want it – as I’m sure you know not everyone wants it at any given time no matter how great it may seem to you and me or how well we do the dissemination drill, flatten help or control etc. So some serious thought is needed on how to carry out this point, especially in light of additional points below.
Secondly, Scientology is a long haul thing. In addition to the reasons above, you can’t just push someone up the bridge even those who want Scientology. I have seen someone come in, handle his current problem, leave, come back a few years later and handle something else, leave, come back a few years later etc. I have even seen people do Scientology in stages over lifetimes, certainly two at least. They got as far as they wanted to go that lifetime and left it at that and decided they wanted to do more the next lifetime. I am not even sure, even if you wanted to, given the necessity for life and livingness experience that one can do all of Scientology in one life time so it is definitely a long haul thing.
Thirdly, logistics (orgs, locations, time. money, how to do the bridge and get trained) is the biggest single barrier even when someone has decided they want to go up the bridge. In many countries today the fixed org location (premises) in the face of past and current raging inflation is a difficult proposition which forces in high prices so people can’t afford to go further or simply don’t want to spend more money and the staff get paid too little to attract the best or train them fully so results often suffer casuing more trouble (a vicious circle). Let’s not forget, most Class V Scientology orgs had a very rough time.
Fourthly, the name of L Ron Hubbard and even that of Scientology are very durable. I have audited and trained people who have read every negative book in existence. I have audited people who have been given a terrible view of Scientology by both the Internet and experience with Scientology Inc. but somehow, when auditing solved their problem all that crap didn’t seem to matter especially when they realized that to get more they didn’t have to be part of a cult.
So I conclude as follows:
0. We created our own problems, internally, just like Ron Hubbard said but the game has just begun — its a long haul thing.
1. Delivering to Indies that want training and auditing is the most important thing to do.
2. Marty is right, we have to evolve and transcend. In my opinion we have to analyze where we went wrong and develop an Independent Scientology for the modern world and make it a truly long haul thing, based upon logistics that work.
3. We can not override personal power of choice. If someone wants to leave Scientology behind at this point in their existence or even think badly of L Ron Hubbard that is their choice. L Ron Hubbard and the subject can handle it.
” Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence. ”
An OT is not blind while the rest of the world that hasn’t done the OT-Levels is blind the rest of their existence !
My God, how arrogant that is ! Pure fascism !
I’ll never again will join a group of people with this kind of attitude towards earthlings !
People with that frame of mind are per my own observations living in another universe, and are not in real communication with their environment as they would label other people of being blind but would see their qualities and care about them.
Most failures of Scientology can be traced back to people that were following LRH blindly, without thinking about what the hell they were doing.
Look at what people that were following Jesus Christ blindly, have done the last 2000 years.
Look at what Christians that were thinking for themselves did in the last 2000 Years !
Look at what expansion the missions had in 1980, that weren’t following blindly, but were thinking for themselves !
To follow blindly LRH you lose everything (your integrity) and would bring about a Static Scientology and a CULT……..
LRH discovered engrams and found out a technique that works to get rid of them. I care about the technique and not LRH and this knowledge belongs to Mankind not to LRH, neither the RCS or the philosophy of Scientology. It belongs to everyone in this universe and I’ll not say thanks to him for eternity. Nevertheless I’ve great respect for his achievements.Per Theta-Mest theory if he wouldn’t have found out somebody else would have in the future !
LRH has his place in History and one day in the future he’ll get his acknowledgements from humanity. I don’t understand the fixations of Scientologist on LRH . He left his body and he is gone ( I don’t know where) and if he would see all those discussions about him he wouldn’t like it.
He is no God that has to be worshiped !
And I dare to say. Wouldn’t have been the work of the people before him he wouldn’t have been able to find out what he discovered. And I’m sure that mankind will improve the technology of Scientology in the future !
So lets get into session and get rid of those engrams ! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
“Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.”
This sentence doesn’t make any sense even I used Study Tech on it .
Why ?
Even if there 1000 000 books against LRH there will be still 1000ds of Auditors auditing freeing people of their traps.
Tom — of course, there is much to agree with here.
But like a number of other commenters, I disagree with the concept of “blind faith.”
It is a paradox of Scientology — a subject intended to increase one’s ability to think for himself that progress along the path of freedom of self (thought) goes hand in hand with an increasing conviction that one must take everything written or said by LRH not only without critical thought, but also with increasing literalness.
The RCS is the result of “blind faith.” You can find an LRH quote that justifies virtually any course of action. One has to be able to play the piano with a conceptual understanding of the subject and when one can do that, THAT is the guarantee of results. It by necessity cannot be accomplished with blind faith.
I believe it is a very dangerous path to walk where the only thing you can do it accept what is said and comply. That to me cannot define freedom.
As for the reputation of LRH, I have commented here often enough that I do not consider it is relevant to a discussion about the workability of the tech. BUT, that being said, it is relevant to how many people are even exposed to the tech because these days he has become so toxic, people view him as some sort of Jim Jones/Warren Jeffs/Jim Baker creep. And who is going to investigate the thoughts of someone like that? I believe the blame for this lies primarily with the church — as Margaret so correctly noted, LRH did turn over all his files to Garrison and Armstrong. But you also cannot ignore the fact that the situation should never have arisen in the first place. His efforts to cover up his 2D history and other things have backfired. He is made out to be a liar and with valid cause. My personal view — I don’t believe he would have unearthed Dianetics and Scientology had he NOT been aberrated. But lying/cover ups as Marty has so aptly pointed out, become your future, only the truth becomes your past. And we see that truth more clearly demonstrated with the life of L. Ron Hubbard than perhaps anything else. I do not believe that because he lied or covered up indiscretions in his past that he did the same thing with Scientology tech. But that is the unfortunate conclusion a lot of people made.
If in fact, as some posit, LRH was some sort of perfect being who never made a mistake or set a foot wrong — then why didnt he set this straight and write his OWN biography. He had plenty of time to do it? Why didnt he write up the “Final OT levels”, he also had plenty of time to do that? Why didnt he turn over his hat with a recorded message to all Scientologists about what he expected, who he left in charge, how things were to go?
Do my comments mean I think less of him, hell no. And I DID know him personally and work directly with him as a Messenger. Was he the smartest person I ever met. Without question.
But was he perfect. No. Also without question.
And with that said, I think it ill behooves anyone to follow ANYONE blindly. It is a losing path to assign cause to someone else. And that is what blind obedience is. Assignment of cause elsewhere.
I appreciate your “OpEd”, and as I said, much of it I agree with.
This sort of reasoned discussion is healthy.
“Is Scientology the only route out? Yes. It is the only applied philosophy that has the OT Sections (which were removed from the bridge by David Miscaviage).”
I don’t understand it, out of what ?
I followed this route for 40 years, had great wins but still got lots of problems across all dynamics. Lrh once said in 5 years we’ll have cleared the planet. I believed it and followed it blindly and today the mess that Scientology is in is really not nice. How should I think with that if I apply study tech ?
I want to add more to my earlier comment now that I don’t have to punch it all out via my phone.
I am not an LRH “hater” by far – I’m somewhere in the middle these days, as I said earlier I no longer think he’s a god. I was on staff in HCO at an org for 2 years then part of the finance network the balance of my 5 year contract.
I have had wins, most definitely, some of them life changing and I wouldn’t want to change the course of my life EXCEPT that none of those wins, knowledge nor tools were worth losing my child; not in the end. But to say I have hatred now or I have let losing Jeremy blind me to the good in the data would be incorrect. I honestly have not thrown the baby out with the bathwater……YET. I’m still applying what I learned in Scn, and that goes for looking back. “Look, don’t listen”, “obnosis” as well as being able to gather data and evaluate a lot of it, without bias applies to how I am going forward.
With that all said, I honestly have a very difficult time reconciling the hard questions and facts here. I keep reading the blogs hoping that one of the Independent Scientologists, LRH “worshipers” or even just those who say they fully support LRH and Scn but are against the corporate Scientology – will some day address the tough questions that are of the obvious in magnitude.
1. Why does it appear that LRH did not use the tech in his last 6 years? Various stories about how and why he was in “hiding”. The tech I learned was that you could handle ANYTHING with communication alone, ARC=U, confronting situations and handling and I could go on and on and on here, but instead he was in seclusion for the last 6 years and let the church be taken over by SPs. Really? After all those years of hard work? He was betrayed by those he trusted? I have heard so many versions of what happened and none of them add up to a man who was a shining example of what Scn can do and was likely (if it really exists) OT 10 or 11 or even higher.
2. Not only does it seem he did not apply the tech in his last years, the tech didn’t save his marriages nor his children. Two of his children dead, one still a prisoner of the cult and only one child out and potentially living a normal life. His third wife allowed to end up in prison and died alone in the end. This is not a shining example of the greatest technology on the planet and the most important thing for mankind.
3. If LRH created something that was worth putting in a vault of titanium, where are these super stellar human beings among man? Surely they were created before the Miscavige days. Where are the results of these stellar human’s on planet earth? Where are the contributions to mankind? They may be out there, I just don’t know about them.
4. Why did LRH lie? Why lie about his background? Why lie about his accomplishments? Why lie ever?? If Wright was lying in his New Yorker article, I believe he would have been sued by corporate scn and to my knowledge he isn’t being sued.
5. Why aren’t LRH’s actual death certificate and medical examiner reports ever discussed among the pro LRH’ers? This is extremely revealing and clearly shows that he did not “choose to drop the body and move on to further his research” – and some say he was researching upper levels of scn while in seclusion, yet he wrote a lot of his scifi books during that time. I have my opinion that he was not a casualty of upper level research, but simply died of human issues.
I’m not trying to be antagonistic with my comments and questions, in fact just the opposite. I want these tough questions honestly examined by the folks who claim LRH was next to god in his work and discoveries, to see what the opinions are. Most have just somewhat talked around these issues with “oh the tech speaks for itself” or other type things. There are a lot of tough and hard to confront questions that need truth. If I’m not mistaken, the truth will as-is the thing. I realize the truth has died with LRH, but when one looks at this whole thing without bias one has to also question the rest. How can we ignore these facts and believe everything else.
Without these things answered to where it reconciles the outpoints for me, how can I conclude that my life and family was torn apart by David Miscavige and not LRH’s Scientology????
LRH should have been a bright shining example of the workability of scientology and should have had the IRS situation, the insider SPs, the bad PR of Scientology all handled and in very good order along with the church’s in strong positions before he departed – instead of whatever he was doing in seclusion.
Thanks Tom for writing this. I am happy you feel this way.
Thanks Marty for posting this. I have learned a lot from reading this blog.
Someone could say that dm is following LRH blindly. Again, who will be the arbiter on what is correct Scientology and what isn’t?
This is like an earlier similar on the Catholic Church engram chain. The had a reformation and now there are several denominations of Christianity. There are Catholics, Mormons, Pentecostals, Babtists, etc.
It looks like Scientology will go the same route. You will have dm as the pope of the Catholic version of Scientology, (pre reformation), You will have the literalists, the What is true for you is true people, the Mormon types who got extra data from LRH such as the Capt. Bill people…
I guess variety is the spice of life…
Oh…by the way…if LRH’s admin stuff was so great then how did a friggin SP take it over??
“Yes, you can read the Tao or read Buddha and so forth, but you would have to sort a lot of wheat from a lot of chaff to get to Nirvana. LRH already sifted and worked it all out for us to use.”
Should I accept this statement blindly and believe it to be truth or shouild I find it out for myself if that is 100% true ?
If I look at the achievements of the Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela I can see they too developed workable technology that brings peace to millions of people and they applied it onto millions of people and helped them with their wisdom !
“It is right out of KSW #1 “What Did You Really Do?” ”
following LRH blindly and this brought about the whole mess !
Tony,
Between this post and the one you wrote that follows mirror my thoughts exactly. Thanks.
Tom, well put.
There are a multitude of viewpoints, everyone being has had their own experiences, possibly due to the fact that people each have their own goals and operate on purposes different to each other.
For me; Scientology is the most valuable thing I have come across and auditors are the beings that have helped me most.
As for LRH? He developed Scientology. There are endless debates to be had, if that is in fact one’s purpose, but for me, this is the senior datum concerning him.
I wish I could write like you Mike….
Great post Tom. I have been an auditor for over 40 years and I can honestly say this is the best and most amazing Tech there is on this planet. After all these years I feel more strongly about that viewpoint than ever. That viewpoint is from applying the Tech more than anything else.
Scientology actually takes alot of work. You not only need to study it ,but go through alot of applying it and learn to correctly apply it-that process can take along time to get to a point of true conceptual understanding.You can still get amazing results with little training though.
Aside from having a taped path, he came up with tools that can handle the barriers that get in the way. Lets look at a few of those:
Int handling-this is a brilliant piece of Tech all by itself. Ron should be given the Nobel prize just for this. I just handled someone recently who just wanted to stay home all day because his int was out big time-now that it is handled he is out of the house doing things.
there is nothing worse than an out list, which he gave us the Tech to handle.I have had to handle many ‘wrong indications” with a resultant feeling of life being given back.
It goes on and on.
I know alot of people blindly following Scientology and so long as the guide is good, they do well. For me, blindness is when a person is untrained or just had a little bit of training.When the guide is bad it can be disastrous, which is what we are now experiencing in the Co$. Instead of followers learning to think for themselves, he takes what wins they have had to lure them into becoming robots. The training is a joke as he misleads people into believing you can ROBOTICALLY make a perfect auditor.
There is no substitute for knowing as much as you can-other philosophies, other religions. And there is no substitute for studying alot and continuosly of what you are in and what is working for you and why it works and why it doesn’t. I have never felt with Ron that I couldn’t think for myself, but I did take him up on the challenge to follow what he purported to work- exactly as he laid it out-I did and if it didn’t work followed the corrective procedures he laid out and all I can say is IT WORKS!!!
Neither do I.
” Than you very much Tony for that rant, it makes lots of sense ! ”
To be honest I’m daily learning a lot by observing wog companies and I copy them !
What if there was an Org- similar to the Ideal Org from LRHED “The Ideal Org”, (which is very different than the Ideal Orgs being built by Miscavige).
It would not have an IAS or demand people turn over their inheritance, max out their credit and sell their house to be a group member. It would deliver in-exchange, Standard Scientology services and survive and expand based on delivery and results. It would be busy with students and PC’s who wanted to be there because there was actual delivery without all the other crap. If people are there they are training to be an auditor, auditing or receiving auditing. In other words – the VFP’s,/b> of Orgs. It would be a well organized Org with all the lines grooved in and functioning with impressive particle flow. Staff could survive on their pay.
Per KSW-1, it wouldn’t be attacked (attacks only occur when there are poor or no results). It wouldn’t be all that controversial because people would be saying good things about it. People who went there would be free to live their lives and be part of life.
It wouldn’t be starting PR wars with society the way Miscavige does. It would just be there and people could go there or not. If they went there they would know they could expect Standard delivery and “Ron’s brand” Scientology.
Thats what I think anyway. I don’t think many people would object to such an activity.
Very well said Mike, while Tom has every right to his express his opinion and his beliefs, I agree more with your sentiments. I too have met LRH on the Apollo, and he had an incredible presence, but he wasn’t perfect. It’s back to the lines what’s true for is true for you. Having said that, his philosophy and technology speaking as a CL IX auditor, who audited others for 20 years, is pretty damn workable.
This is the real Centurion.
I did not make this entry, “It sounds very accurate to my knowledge”.
Fascinating link.
There is a book, ‘Forbidden Archaeology’, which serves up a similar ‘forbidden’ track.
Mike,
YES!.
Oops, I only meant to bold VFP’s
Marty I would like to thank you for the blog.
With your actions you’re really getting Scientologists to think for themselves and get them to confront the mess we are in, and sooner or later, when more of the facts are confronted, one solution after the other will pop up and people will start to create great things !
I really like it and think soon all those enturbulations and all LIES (that were the main problem) will be cleared up.
I start to sense some REAL THETA developing slowly !
I love it !
Tom, I agree that he deserves a standing ovation, and more than one curtain call. He mapped out a route that was fast and easy. Scientology is the McDonalds of spiritual awakening. If for no other reason than introducing and reinforcing for millions of people the fact that they are NOT their bodies, the contribution was and is huge. He was brilliant and peeled off the layers of unworkability surrounding many practices and used only what worked in designing processes to expand spiritual awareness and provide relief. Without question he was a remarkable man who made his mark and did the best he could. But I will never say Scientology is the best system. I do think it is the fastest. But there may be something to the saying that slow and steady wins the race. And there is nothing slow about scientology. Gurgieffs 4th Way is similar, in my mind, to scientology. But its a slower, more arduous process. But the attainment might be that much more stable. Food for thought. I suppose its a personal preference and lifestyle choice. But this posting is about LRH and without a doubt he came to play and made his contributions. They may have fallen short by his and the worlds standards, but he gave it one hell of an effort and i appreciate it.
I found many things to agree with in Tom’s well written great piece. But I also found truth in Mike Rinder’s piece. “…it ill behooves anyone to follow ANYONE blindly. It is a losing path to assign cause to someone else. And that is what blind obedience is. Assignment of cause elsewhere.” Mike great crystallization of a good truth.
Nice to see postive reactions to the brilliant Man for of his developements
He was a Good man and gave a tech that is invaluable. Thankyou and he
will certaintly have My Standing Ovations many times over.
Hi Tom;
I agree with much of what you said, who wouldn’t?
As I commented in the previous post, my view of LRH as a person is well balanced because I know the truth of the value of the work he codified, and I know of his various episodes of out ethics behaviour, so I feel comfortable in coming to a conclusion about him.
He was/is and always be a friend to me, and, without reservation, he is perhaps one of the most significant persons who ever appeared on this or any other planet, if not the MOST significant person, bar none. I rarely go so far as to post a comment such as that because of possible out PR to those who can’t have it, but, it is the truth, and on occasion it should be pointed out, loud and clear as is done here.
When I was studying Shakespeare, a comment was made by someone, not sure who, that if someone wrote just ‘Hamlet’, they would be forever immortalized for that one masterpiece. Shakespeare wrote much more than that; he wrote ‘King Lear’, ‘Macbeth’, ‘Richard III’, any one of which would make him an immortal writer for all time; people will be reading his works until there is no one left.
LRH is the same, but on a vastly different scale. If all he ever did was codify that which are the Levels O-IV, just that, he would be worth of immortality, as there are no procedures I’ve ever heard of that compare. But that is not all he did, is it. Like Shakespeare, he went well beyond, and created a way out of the mess which is more easily accomplished and in much less time than any other way out, at least that I’m aware of. Not only that, he gave us the means to learn so we can help others get out of the mess. Is the Bridge complete? I don’t know. But getting ‘done’ which is available to be done is one hell of a giant step forward.
A friend of mine once made a very interesting observation; he noted how some of the great spiritual ‘movements’ of the past and present, have as part of their ‘tech’ meditation, or ’emptying oneself’, just ‘Be’. One of the genius moves by LRH was to take that tech, and add another person into the mix. To simply ‘Be’ but not alone, but to ‘Be’ with another, which is how life is.
In reading the posts, there seems to be some comm about your comment about ‘blindly following LRH’, something like that. I agree with you; if someone doesn’t have a game plan, is just going through life blind, without any real purpose, then at least blindly following LRH is giving them something to do which can be of benefit. One would hope that even such a ‘blind following’ would eventually cause them to wake up and take a look. If that is all that such a blind following accomplished, it would have accomplished a very great deal indeed.
Amen
me too ! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Tony exercise, exercise…and very clear thinking ! 🙂
Wow !
great comments ! 🙂
I have worked in large, international IT companies for over 30 years and have an opposite opinion. I was in Wang during its death throes, NCR when it nearly died and made a come back in the 80’s. And observed its decline in the 90’s. Many other companies and I can tell you they need LRH’s admin tech like a desert needs water.
For example, just the implementation of an org board organized round production would be amazing. In these large companies, nobody knows who does what and there is immense duplication of function.
Then I dream of that miraculous day when the Dev T policies would suddenly go into force. The 400 emails per day would come back to 20.
Then there is the idiocy of having a hundred or more people reporting to the same person – “flat management”.
An immense amount of good can be brought about by application of simple Scientology policies. But the truth is that you can’t change anything in these companies. All the companies run on exactly the same, dumbed-down approach. Try and change them and you get an enormous flash back. There is no way you can correct someone. People obviously do not understand what they are doing, yet they get very defensive and cannot accept word clearing or any sort of cramming. And what would you cram them on? Because practically no company has a clear set of policies that people actually use. There was an international standard which tried to get companies to do have this kind of thing but it is falling out of use for a dozen different reasons like nobody writing sensible policies, policies that are not policies but more like rules or orders, no one studying those policies etc etc.
Yes, its easy to run one of these companies because you just let them run and ignore the stupidities and corruption. You only fire someone when it gets really bad. But these companies have short life spans and there is no real competitive advantage between companies.
Tom,
Thanks for the very refreshing write up. What LRH accomplished is much bigger than anyone expects, and was much more difficult to arrive at than anyone knows. To reinforce what you’re saying, as the world is today, Scn is the only way out. Without data on the reactive mind and a way to erase it, we’d all still be in very deep water. Without data on the nature of a Thetan, we’d still be clueless for a lasting solution. That is a practicality, and correct. The fine point of the center of the bullseye is that this is all about the truth. The truth was, and always is, right there in front of everyone’s noses. The very best minds and beings have been uncovering bits and pieces of it for ages. LRH pulled it all together and presented it for consideraion. If only I had a nickel for every torpid critic of LRH, and those failing, for every critic of the truth … the criticism is endless, but no one I have seen yet has anything to offer as an alternative, so I conclude the word “critic” is being sorely misused and the correct word is “idiot”.
I think what you meant about following blindly was that when in doubt, it is OK to follow blindly until one regains one’s footing, and better to follow blindly than to not move at all. I think some have interpreted some contextual issue with “following blindly”. If you and I were mountain climbing and you got in trouble, trust me – I set the piton. At the end of the day we’ll be back at the lodge (with full vision and recollection, reviewing trouble spots). If I’m wrong, you’ll find out soon enough, but honestly man, I think a LOT more of myself than to screw up a piton set with your life on that line. Following blindly in your context, imo, is more at agreeing to open a book, and looking up words.
Carcha
Has anyone compiled a list of the LRH that doesn’t work? Then we could really look it over and come up with a better way to do it. Personally, I’m having a harder and harder time finding ink for my mimeograph so this is welcome by me.
P.S. (Darn.) One of the problems I see developing is what I think you are trying to remedy, and that is a divergence away from what LRH has presented. Someone just said they completed OT VII, and I thought they meant Original OT VII. They meant what I would refer to as solo NOTs. And philosophically, I see people picking up “outside Scn” material and “finding the truth” in it. With the benefit of Scn, yes that’s very easy to do. One can read almost anything, and with the benefit of Scn, evaluate it. So someone ages ago talks about “the immortality of the spirit” and a Scn can look at it and think, “Wow! They had it right!” The fact is they had a piece of it, and without the benefit of Scn, that piece of it would go in one ear and out the other – for the vast majority of people. Not so for LRH. He could, and did, assemble all the bits and pieces and but them together into a comprehensive picture, with an emphasis not on reading, but on processes to bring another to actually see the truth for himself. Of course it’s beneficial to read “outside Scientology”. It’s extremely enlightening. And the more one reads, the more obvious it becomes that, howver deeply insightful, these are bits and pieces. The thing is, all the “outside Scn” has been lying around for a long time, dutifully translate and carried forward, and the world has spun progressively towards the same old space opera, wioth the same old criminals and the same old hatreds, and the same old confusion. So I interpet what you’ve written as yet one more redirection of collective attention to the fact that LRH put together a workable technology with entirely new findings to lead to a way out of this mess we all are stuck in. As he indicated, Scn may not be only way or even the best way, but it is a way, and it does work. The issue today is “if applied correctly”. And if we lose sight of that “applied correctly” part, we just trash the whole thing and aeons of back-breaking work, and are in the end, little better than the Co$.
Loved this!
Is this planet a better place because LRH was here? I’d have to say that the jury is still out. IMHO, he created as much harm as he did good and where are all those amazing OT’s that his technology was supposed to produce? We could sure use some of them right now. I especially resent his policy on disconnecting which was a key part of the us versus them mentality. 20 years and a quarter of a million dollars later, I am not better because of LRH. If anything, I’m worse off because of him. The one thing that I reacted most strongly to in this post was the statement “Is Scientology the only route out? Yes.” I don’t believe that to be true and no one can prove otherwise. I always considered KSW to be one of the biggest problems with Scientology because it asked you to agree that anything LRH said was true, even before you studied it. When I got into Scientology, I thought I would be studing data and deciding for myself what was true or not. The only way to get through a Scientology course is to agree 100% with whatever LRH says is true.
This post from Tom speaks my mind as well.
LRH is about cause. You can have ”blind fate” in CAUSE and don’t loose ground in your own responsibility.
ML/A
Brilliant post Andy.
Tis a fine thing you have written here Tom. Altho’ as others have said, I wouldn’t follow LRH ‘blindly’. This goes too much into agreement with dm’s ‘blind leading the blind’ description of training on LRH’s Tech. Like a failed auditor who got kicked off his Class IV internship at St. Hill would be expected to make a glib comment like that. Otherwise your thoughts ring true!
As a side note:
Did you know that the Indies are looking to buy out the clinic building on the corner of Garden and Drew for $2.5M or more?
There may actually be a possible bidding war in an effort to avoid such a sale to such a group.
It is actually almost an ideal building for them (Indies).
1) Two major tenants locked into 5 + 5 year leases.
2) 6 smaller tenants filling up the building that has been 98-100% occupied since 2006 when it was bought.
3) Dr Jarrett without a lease making 5-6,000SF available for about 15- 20 auditing and admin rooms and a huge central room for graduations and events.
Have fun. Report back to us.
Tom,
Thanks for sharing your viewpoint and Marty thanks for posting. Here’s my views:
I agree with Tom on many points. From what I know, LRH is the only one who codified workable tools – when applied correctly – that can improve all areas of one’s life. And, in my experience if something isn’t working whether it’s a cake recipe or a piece of tech, something wasn’t understood or done correctly. Or, maybe the flour has maggots.
Perhaps mine is too simplistic of a view.
Tom, as for your statement: “Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.” IF I duplicate the point you intended, I agree.
Unlike others, I didn’t feel that you literally meant that people should go about with blind faith following without inspection – there are many places I’ve read in LRH writings that discourage such – rather I took your comment as a strong expression of the importance and value of the tech given to us by Ron. Correct me if I am wrong.
In my opinion, along with having suppression rampant in management for the past 20 plus years, the act of using excerpts from LRH references – without understanding of the reference or the corresponding references – and pronouncing them vainly for ones own unsavory interest has created a climate of robots. And, has given the media, SP’s and anti-Scientologist their fodder.
Perhaps for some, reading the shock and awe detailed about LRH in Larry Wright’s book, throwing the baby out with the bath water somehow gives them closure to all the abuses and misery.
I think many people who dedicated their lives to Scientology, did so not because they were gullible robots but because they were looking for answers and found them. Unfortunately, mixed in with the correct answers were many held down sevens within the organization. Due to the correct answers many of us were willing to overlook the outpoints, just blindly hoping the group would correct itself.
Unfortunately, many inside are still just hoping and some outside have lost hope completely. Tragic.
What it all boils down to, is results and if the results were being achieved in the magnitude needed (from any philosophy) then we would not be having a conversation about Ron’s reputation or whether one should look at other philosophies.
Does the lack of results make the tech incorrect? Do the failures of the Organization mean that the Management Tech is unworkable? Could it be that it has been applied differently than how Ron instructed? What kind of results could have been achieved without an SP at the top?
The source of suppression has been spotted. So, now what?
Do we say, because there has been suppression in the Church for all these years and Ron was flawed and didn’t spot DM – we should abandon the parts of the tech that WE couldn’t get to work or call it all a sham? I say NO.
And, that’s how I see it.
Good find! Thanks!
That about says it all Tom. A good writing. Should get those who are contemplating back into Present Time and moving forward. I recently added in a comment that anyone out there who is in the ‘complaining mode’ about LRH or with the works of Scientology to stop complaining. Find someone out there in the world of independent Scientology who you feel comfortable with and take another step forward in the direction of the bridge to freedom. Yes it is work. But it is work well worth any effort. Find a way so that you feel like you are winning in life. And don’t bump yourself on the head because you take a little fall backward. I learned this the hard way.
Tom
I agree with the value of Scientology and LRH’s accomplishments in bringing out such a powerful, workable and life-saving technology.
There are many here who would say that the power of that technology justified the betrayals on his part, which I would summarize as knowingly and intentionally subordinating the original purposes and goals of restoring self-determinism to the individual, to his own purposes for a group (Sea Org) – in direct violation of the principles laid out in KSW#1: “It’s is the bank that says the group is all and the individual nothing.”
And while I have come to agree that nothing positive is accomplished by bashing LRH, to do the opposite and whitewash the crimes, will equally lead nowhere.
Very few people have the free theta to embrace the breadth of the contradictions. So as LRH wrote in 1960 on “When Help Becomes Betrayal” – most people quit or go rabid ‘anti-.’ Not me.
But HONESTY AND CASE GAIN applies to ALL dynamics and it applies to LRH and we had better apply it in our group or we will delude ourselves so thoroughly that we will never attain to the ideal laid out in KSW#1:
“Thus each one of us can rise above the domination of the bank and then, as a group of freed beings, achieve freedom and reason. It is only the aberrated group, the mob, that is destructive.”
A whole lot of those uncomfortably “horrible,” “unconfrontable,” events laid out in the LRH biographies actually took place as written. Sure, the author’s attitudes were bad and they were slanted against the tech strongly implying that it could not possibly work since so many other elements surrounding it were false. But in these are many accounts – some corroborated now with video testimony – that reveal alarming outpoints. Not just “character flaws” but alarming crimes.
The 5-yr-old child in the chain locker for at least 2 days (5 days, depending on whose account) is one example. The overboarding of people from the Apollo who were physically unfit and injured is another.
LRH trained us all that outpoints of magnitude, trace back to crimes of magnitude. And there happens to be a number of old-timer accounts available today revealing some of those crimes – besides those in the books – for those who dare go down that rabbit hole.
The one that stands out for me, due to your assertion that the Study Tech was a “gift” from LRH to us, is that at least 2 old-timers present (and no one has come forward to dispute it) recall the presentation of the study tech by Chuck and Eva Berner at a dinner -before- LRH gave the study lecture introducing this technology, presenting it as his own discovery.
Certainly, Chuck and Eva must have utilized earlier discoveries, like the Dianetics Study axioms, to arrive at the work they piloted themselves for many years, but this event of stealing their work occurred 6 months before LRH asserted in KSW#1 that “only a handful of suggestions (less than twenty) had long run value and -none- were major or basic…”
And if these testimonials can only be found on ESMB or Arnie Lerma’s site, it is because few of us will to hear any part of it and most won’t hear a word of it. NO ONE has opened up a “truth commission” or yet achieved a balanced forum. As I pointed out, very few exist who can tolerate the contradictions and still appreciate the value of LRH’s amazing discoveries.
But even if you care more about “the tech” than you do “the truth” (and I’m with you only if you agree that both are important) then we still have our hands full. I did not see Marty say that the new anti-Scn book was full of errors on LRH (he pointed out those errors he knew personally of) but only that Wright lazily “rehashed the same old stuff.”
That “same old stuff” is disturbing because it’s not going away. Ask any major PR terminal in or out of the church, why. It’s because a successful libel or slander suit to stop these books can only be based on irresponsible lies on the part of the author. There have been very few of these suits, to my knowledge, on the part of the church that have gone very far, and none have succeeded in removing these books permanently (corrections have been made, as far as I understand). I would otherwise be saying (and used to say, as org DSA) “government conspiracy!” But I have seen too many testimonial videos as equally damning to LRH, as the Truth Rundown was to DM.
So while it is admirable to defend the tech and the good accomplishments of LRH, as I intend to continue to do, it is fundamentally dishonest to ignore the trail of outpoints and where it leads.
Because as I see it, a full recovery of the subject and the optimization of it to even broader workability, such that it actually becomes “indispensable” to mankind (as it should be), requires a high enough level of confront and honesty that the blind spots to the flaws in the tech get removed, along with the crippling state of denial that leaves the 3rd dynamic engram in place.
As I see it, Marty is helping greatly with this process of understanding and appreciating the contradictions we need to work through (though I don’t expect he would agree with a lot of what I have stated here).
Successful running of group engrams (January 1951) calls for members state their truths – their time, place, form and event of what they observed. Otherwise, the arbitraries and frustrations stay in place and this perpetuates a lot of the infighting we see.
No, we may never see a fully accurate accounting of what really happened to LRH’s original and incredible dreams and visions for Scientology (I pray that Marty does his best, since he has our attention now). But in my view, we will only really recover the potential of LRH’s truly planet-changing visions in any way, shape or form if we pursue truth. Something that I believe the being that is LRH himself, would be advocating right now.
Tom,
I don’t consider that you have been following anything blindly at all. Seems to me that knowing and having applied the tech correctly and observing the results, you achieved KSW#3, “knowing that it is correct”. There is no reason to suspect that other, future applications would not be correct and that is just a natural confidence that comes with success.
Honestly, Mr. Martiniano, and Mr. Rathbun, I do not see what all the fuss is about.
No one in his, or her, right “mind” believes, uses or agrees with anything of LRH’s Tech JUST because he wrote it. Oh, perhaps in the beginning, there is a big of Hero Worship, and the like. And, perhaps a person who doesn’t quite get what LRH is saying, but has seen what the Tech does, will give LRH some credence and follow LRH ‘blindly’ until he or she achieves the level of judgment that LRH wanted for us all.
But, surely, no moderately self-directed person ever believed anything LRH said JUST because he wrote it, or said it. Surely, every person who wants to call themselves a “Scientologist” has not been fully satisfied with anything LRH wrote until, and unless, they finally came to understand it and/or they personally witnessed the massively beneficial results that his Tech generates for indiviuals?
The discussions about what a “Great Man” LRH was, are not stupid ones, and certainly he does deserve a defense … LRH deserves Kha Khan status, many times over, if anyone does.
But, LRH’s desert of respect, admiration and, yes, even ‘reverence’ of a certain sort, does not, in any way shape or form, that anyone should follow the Tech, or use it, without personal inspection and understanding. Much less let someone else enforce any point of view about LRH, or the Tech, from without.
If, to paraphrase an oft heard refrain which many seem to think was just hyperbole, but in fact, LRH meant as an Axiom: If it is not true for you, then it is not true. Period. And, something is not true for you if you “follow it blindly”. Something is not true for you if you let David The Weenie Miscavige tell you to believe, despite your personal mis-givings.
The utmost respect and reverence one can, therefore, afford LRH is to make the Tech your own, as far as your point of view, education and training allows. And, not a semi-colon more.
All of this jabbering about how admirable LRH was, or was not, amounts to one and only one thing: Not Getting The Job Done.
Better, in my opinion, would be to make one Clear … one OT and then make another. If every Independent Scientologist who reads this remarkable forum did that once a year, we would not give a Good Gosh Darn about The Weenie or His Loyal Vermin, much less Lawrence Wright and his ilk.
We do not need to resurrect the Church of Scientology. In fact, we do not need to even ever give it another thought. And, we do not need to start another such entity. We just need to use the Tech as faithfully as we each understand, and no more.
One of my favorite philosophies that I have always held as a stable datum is: “Do way more good than you do harm.”
It’s a foreign concept to many in the modern world. Some practice extreme environmental policies to try to do ZERO harm. But it never works. This universe seems to demand that in order to do good, you must do at least a tiny amount of harm.
Anyway, I believe Ron lived by that principle. And I think that would be a very good way to judge him. It’s also a very good way to judge David Miscavige. Because DM never cared about any harm he did at all.
“One has to be able to play the piano with a conceptual understanding of the subject and when one can do that, THAT is the guarantee of results. It by necessity cannot be accomplished with blind faith.”
This reminds me of how hard I laughed when Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) insisted that he learned to swim on the Internet. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1256023/quotes)
Poppycock, Oblio. I don’t believe for a moment that you have ever read anything LRH wrote. Not possible if you actually believe that “The only way to get through a Scientology course is to agree 100% with whatever LRH says is true”. This is utter nonsense.
I just mean, I don’t know exactly what we are “Evolving” and “Transcending” from. I thought admin tech was for use, to build and expand an org or activity. Why would anyone apply policy LRH or otherwise that did not work? Would we use email instead of a 3 basket system? What specifically are the outdated, unworkable things we are evolving away from? I’m not addressing this to you specifically- just anyone.
I think the ‘only hope’ that mankind has from the use of Scientology, is for each Independent Scientologist to put one foot in front of the other, and keep plodding along. One Clear, One OT. One Clear, One OT. One Clear, One OT. THIS is how you preserve the Tech for future generations. Not by carving out platinum LP’s and putting them in a big vault in the Nevada desert.
Seeing these two blog topics, first Lawrence Wright and then Tom Martiniano, brings a BIG LIE into sharp focus for me.
There is this notion that truth, enlightenment and any road to freedom or happiness can only come by way of a PERFECT human being, free of all stains and sin, the quintessential PERFECT being for whom there could NEVER be a criticism, a PERFECT individual who can say with PERFECT truth what a PERFECTED individual should be like. The last word on right and wrong, never wrong, never false, never misleading, never misunderstood, never misled, never out of ARC with anyone anywhere any time, all things perfect to all beings everywhere.
Give me access to Lawrence Wright’s personal life, and I assure you I will find events and actions that he is not proud of, that he would not want known and that could easily be used to demonstrate that he simply doesn’t have enough integrity to be making any kind of judgment on anyone. Ditto any individual with or without a public face. But we need his voice. We need him to bring these matters into focus where they can be viewed, understood and used for progress.
And we need Tom’s voice, a voice full of love and devotion to bring these matters into focus where they can be viewed, understood and used for focus.
I am glad they both have a voice, I am glad that everyone on this blog and on the Internet and throughout my life have a voice, and I am glad that at least in this time and place we have the fabulous opportunity to hear one another out. And I am grateful that Marty has chosen to provide such a place and publish the good, the bad, and the downright ugly, moderating it in such a way that it can be a fruitful learning experience. I am grateful that ESMB exists, I am grateful for Anonymous, for Tony Ortega, for the best and worst of the C of S, for I have learned more than I ever dreamed possible as this extraordinary adventure rolls forward. Thanks everybody!
Chris,
Jeff Hawkins took a stab at isolating his Top 12 Things (“The Dirty Dozen”) that are “broken” in Scientology organizations. Probably the next step would be to use the “broken” list as a starting point, see if we can think of any others, and then find out what in policy (or MISSING in policy) might have caused these things:
On the walls in my office are numerous LRH charts. The ones directly in front of me are the Chart of Attitudes and Chart of Human Evaluation (Science of Survival). Every time I look up, I am consistently blown away with the thought of “How the heck did he put that information all together in such a succinct format?” . To this day, my admiration for LRH never yields, my ARC only grows, and my purposes as an AUDITOR of the tech only increase.
I’ve studied many religions and philosophies over the years, and never have I ever seen or found anything so beautifully laid out, and easy to follow, while being differentially and gradiently astute to the needs of Thetans everywhere in this or other universes.
Every page on Facebook is a different division of LRH’s Org Board, and compliment each other as to need and want (albeit the in-fighting, which will stop once others have the same cognition). The mere fact that ONE individual had the forethought to organize humankind’s search, procedures, and diversified manifestations into a workable technology still blows me away everyday.
I’ve mentioned getting my Master’s degree in Counseling, which will aid in promotion of auditing those who otherwise would not seek it due to out-pr by the established organization. I marvel at the dev-t of definitive aberrations in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) ranging from PTS manifestations to engramic restimulations of trauma.
ONE MAN compiled, correlated, experimented and refined the data paving a unique path out of the game of this and perhaps (I’ll let you know when I get there..lol) other universes. ONE MAN fought and created an organization, a technology, and a Bridge for ME, and YOU, and EVERY BEING.
If I could shake the shoulders of every person and get them to just SEE the marvel and wonder of the technology, the gift, and get them to study and audit others– well, you get the drift.
WE are the collective Org Board and Citizens of the Universe.
Get into a course room, read something every night before bed, listen to a lecture, put a bit of elbow grease into the DOINGNESS of life–
Because, when all is said and done— LRH made mention of this precious and heart warming Theta inspiration…
“See you on the other side.”
Tom thanks a lot for this post. Actually I do agree. LRH was a man who inspired us without some good, good reason. He gave us a chance to remember things we had forgotten. That to me is the greatest proof that he was a friend of Man. His intentions were good.
On “blind faith” I would say that you didn’t really put it correctly as you meant it and this is why you get all those different viewpoints. Instead of saying “should someone follow LRH blindly?” which pushes a button I would state it “should someone follow LRH Policy and Tech strictly?”.
There is a big difference. I never followed a man I never met. I had some good grasp of english and I could read Source. But then I found out I couldn’t really read, lol. So I followed the procedures of Study Tech and got results. So it’s not any LRH we have been following, we have been applying a Technology through the writings of LRH.
I am sorry if some people misunderstand the notion of following Policy and Tech. This is why Scientology goes down actually. Because people cannot follow a policy or procedure exactly but can follow LRHs or DMs. It’s the fate of this planet Tom and our fate to be with some companions.
When I was the TU DIrector (and I have used this example so many times to a degree that I can be told to be “fixated on HCOBs” as I was told by the D/COI CLO EU, Zara Kotric) I was shocked to see we didn’t follow HCOBs and nobody cared or did something about it. I did do something about it. And what I did was to protest. And the CO CLO EU Walter Kotric said to the staff at the muster that a Theo Sismanides is calling DM a squirrel and now there is hundreds of staff and former execs calling DM a squirrel, too when at that time those who got word of some staff protesting about HCOBs and their non application could and should have done something.
So, I know that Man cannot be trusted with some workable Tech. He has to go on inventing new things. Which is good but, hey, let’s apply that Tech, too and see if it works exactly as it was laid out. Noooo…. The Translations issue for me was a big lesson to not trust not even seniors about their understanding no matter how smart they might show to be. Because they weren’t not just as smart as LRH but they have not been as meticulous as he was. The Man was on a mission. He was so different from others he could not be fully understood. But he didn’t care. All he cared to accomplish his mission.
Technical Bulletins 1950-1952, Page 285
(We hope that this is within “fair use” of copyrights as the whole Tech Volume is copyrighted and this story is only a minor part of it).
A STORY
ca. 1952
Once upon a time there was a man, or perhaps he was not a man, who slept for a very long time.
When he laid himself down to rest, the world was not too terrible. People were happy and their actions were productive and the green hills had flowers upon them.
When he awakened, however, things had changed. He stood outside his cave and looked at the world. Yes, somehow it had changed. The hills were ugly and brown. Near at hand two women were quarreling. Far away a red cloud rose and when he looked more closely he saw that it was a battle. And so he walked down through the fields and towns trying to find what had happened.
Men glowered at him. Children did not play. And there was little food and the haggard faces of all showed that each staggered under some heavy burden of grief. And the man, or perhaps he was not a man, saw that the world had come into trying times.
He wandered about, understanding that here he faced a black enchantment, thickly laid upon the souls of men. Perhaps some sorcerer had done it to men, perhaps men had done it to themselves. But it did not matter. The world had gone mad. Somebody must do something.
The man thought for many days. And then he made a golden ball and filled it with everything necessary to undo a black enchantment. It was a very pretty ball, on the end of an ivory stick. And it was very easy to use for one had but to hold it over the head of a human being and wish him well to break the thrall which held that being.
And the man went forth and held it over the heads of dozens of people and did not tell them what it was and they suddenly smiled and became bright and the thrall was broken for them. And the man saw that this was good and so he showed many people how to use the golden ball and told them all that was necessary to break the black enchantment clear across the whole world.
And some used it. But others said, “Isn’t it pretty! ” and began to play catch with it. And some said, “It isn’t really gold.” And some wanted to hide it for fear it would be stolen. And some said, “It’s GOLD!” and bought knives and pistols with it and fought. And some said cunningly, “With this POWER I can rule Earth.” And others simply ran about and said it wasn’t really a ball and that the man had stolen it from others and they clutched their black enchantment about them and whispered that the man had done it in the first place and that he planned to kill them all.
But the man paid little heed. He tried to form companies to make the golden ball available to many. But the people in the companies said, “It’s mine!” ‘It’s power!” “It’s gold!” and “The man will kill us all!” and so they fought amongst themselves and threw dust over the golden ball and tried to dent it.
And at last the man sat down in a desert place and sent his word about that anybody could use this ball that wanted it. And they sent officers and thieves and lawyers at him to say that nobody could use the ball.
And they took the man’s captain and said they would imprison him for saying the golden ball was owned by everybody. And they made the government put guards around the man in case anybody sent him money to help ship the golden ball to everyone.
And the man looked at these people and not one of them who hated the golden ball had ever used it in any way but only thrown dust on it and tried to dent it and he looked at the sly people who went up and down the roads saying, “It is not really gold!” “The man really stole it,” and then he looked and saw beyond these the haggard faces, the crippled children, the sorrowing women. And above all these he saw the red cloud of the battle.
And the battle cloud grew taller. And it grew taller and taller as though it hung with fire up above an entire world.
And the man, sitting in the desert place, looked at the golden ball.
L. RON HUBBARD
Founder
Sorry this should read “LRH was a man who inspired us, NOT without some good good reason”
Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.
That’s what radical Muslims say about Muhammad. Only they go one step further and kill people. This is what happens when philosophy becomes “religion”. The absolutes kick in and relatively sane people become dangerously batshit. Remember Infinity Valued Logic? If true for you, may I politely request you learn to actually think with it.
“Is Scientology the only route out? Yes.”
The only route out? Of what? Where do you think Scientology takes you to? Total Freedom? Per Hubbard himself, such a state is unobtainable. If it is simply to higher states, then we are on the same page. That it is the only route to higher states is, by the same logic, bullshit.
Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.
It doesn’t surprise me that Hubbard considered himself a failure* with this kind of talk. If I had spent the majority of my life attempting to lift the average joe to higher levels of awareness and empowerment, only to look back at the end to see I’d created a blind, unthinking, faith-based monster, chasing me to the end like a little puppy dog, I too would feel like somewhat disheartened.
* ref: interview with Steve “Sarge” Pfauth, from “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief” by Lawrence Wright.
I like Tom, but noooooo….
Look at it, make sure you understand it, test it and try it and do your best to be very analytical each step of the way. Keep what works. Ignore the rest.
Organizationally and marketing wise, it’s just been this ongoing enforced reality. So very much to disagree with, that simply did not add up, but it was always “find your word, get your ethics in or get out” sort of attitude.
The world’s not going to end if we don’t get there first. Our entire future will not be agonized; it will get better and better, and that’s happening with or without Scientology.
Relax, enjoy your moment, hour and day. Benefit from what you know and help others in a relaxed and enjoyable way.
Thanks Tom for writting this and thanks Marty for having posted it.
Here is my reply.
I became an independant scientologist 10 months ago.
After leaving the church, I heard and read rather bad things concerning Ron’s last years of life and death. And I was feeling bad with this, totally in confusion because it didn’t make sense.
But now I know what to think about it :
He was not a god, he was not perfect but HE DEVOTED HIS WHOLE LIFE TO OTHERS. I don’t know ANYBODY who did even the hundredth of what he did for others… He could have spent an easy life juste enjoying things but no : he spent his life to find a way for mankind to become free.
So I have a great respect and love for Ron.
Concerning the tech he left us, the only important thing is the wins we have with it, the changes in our lives. And the rest is just blablabla……..
Much love to all of you
Marianne (from France)
I just want to add : I won’t follow anything or anybody blindly, I have seen what it does…
OK, Marty, time to put your claim of inviting opposing viewpoints to the test. 🙂 Here’s a viewpoint from someone who is anti-LRH, which I offer in the spirit of understanding, not argument.
Says Tom: “The name L Ron Hubbard has taken tremendous bashings over the last several years, especially recently and it is mainly and solely due to the actions of David Miscaviage and others like him…”
If Independent Scientology were to adopt this mindset, I think it will implode as surely as the Church is doing right now.
The name L. Ron Hubbard has taken tremendous bashings over the last several years because of only one person: L. Ron Hubbard. The Church’s continued attempts to make LRH out to be a saint certainly don’t help; they are out-reality. Marty’s viewpoint that LRH was flawed, but still worthwhile, is more likely to get agreement. But Oblio and Plainoldthetan are right; just as many of the (allegedly 🙂 good ideas of Scn originate with LRH, so does a lot of the bad. In fact, what Tony DePhillips said:
“Someone could say that dm is following LRH blindly.”
… rings true.
By writing what you wrote, Tom, and by directing it at Sciengolotists, you are doing the same thing the Church is doing: Directing them to look inward and to ignore the obvious. Accept the good, pretend the bad isn’t happening. This is the basis of disconnection and declares: Isolate people from those who would advise them to consider a broader viewpoint.
I’m sure few here will argue when I say that is exactly what the Church wants Scientologists to do. And I’m sure few will agree when I say that is exactly what LRH wants Scientologists to do.
That’s my view from the outside. I hope it is useful, and if not, I hope it at least sounds as respectful as I meant it to be. 🙂
Nice rant, Tony!
I wnat to clarify “‘Someone could say that dm is following LRH blindly’ rings true” —
From the outside, it’s easy to say “DM practiced disconnection, LRH practiced disconnectin, what’s the difference?”
It seems there is a difference, however, and the Indies can best see that. Most outsiders will not. When you advise people to follow LRH blindly, you make it difficult to separate the Indie movement from the Church – we on the outside say “Are they really all that different?”
Hope that clears it up.
Tom Martiniano,
I don’t know you, but I love you! What a wonderful and inspiring piece, and I needed someone to iterate just what you did at this very moment in my life for reasons I won’t go into. Thanks for this heartfelt affirmation.
Marty, I haven’t read all of your book yet (have it and planned to get to it – just been busy), and I can’t always keep up with conversations on the blog. However, I would never have concluded that you two were of opposite opinions – more just a differential of emphasis. I respect you for your willingness to communicate and provide this precious forum. It will be interesting to read your follow up.
Tom, ahoy mate, full steam ahead! Your perspective is very valuable, and thank you! There is some tech I can use this very moment in my life, and I shall.
Leonore
As, i mentioned in an earlier comment on this thread, LRH had his flaws, he was not perfect and to be quite blunt, he had overts too, just like anyone else. This fact opens the door to why he went into seclusion and also missed that DM was an SP. He had his own out-ethics blind-spot, as much as I admire and respect him for all the positive things he has done. But no one is perfect, so I am not going to get on a rant about this. His contributions far out-weigh his misdeeds. Even so no one has a monopoly on truth. Just as “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, “truth is in the mind of the seeker”. So, no, I will not operate on “blind faith” with LRH let alone anyone else. I will maintain my own personal integrity and operate based on what is true for me based on my own personal inspection. And I will use what I have learned from his legacy of tech, as well as other things that I find to be true (that so far I have found to align with LRH’s teachings), to improve conditions in my own life, the lives of those around me and the
world at large. L, Kay Rowe
Thanks Steve, the org board is really needed. I guess we have to destim from DM’s nasty application of policy and ethics to reapply it and understand it.
Regarding Tom’s remark on “following blindly,” he obviously was just making a point that following blindly is better than being totally lost in the void of darkness and pain.
There is an organic sequence here. Have you ever been lost in the woods or even in a store and asked a clerk for directions? How often do they say, “Right this way.” And there you are FOLLOWING BLINDLY. Until you get your bearings, you HAVE to trust that the clerk is taking you to the right place. Then, finally you see the correct isle or correct shelf, and now you “know where you are” and you don’t need anyone to lead you anymore. You can make your own way around. You are aware of how things are.
How about when a person is lost in the woods? And rescuers find them and then they have no choice but to follow (blindly) the rescuer until they eventually emerge from the woods and see where they are.
People wake up on a gradient. “Following blindly” is not good, but it’s a darn sight better than being totally lost in the labyrinth. The next level up is actually looking around with eyes OPEN because that gives you judgement on the relative merits of anything you confront. And speaking of walking around with eyes open, what is the first thing most people are actually taught in Scientology? How to confront (TR-0) along with stable data like “Look, don’t listen” and “Look, don’t think.” The fact that many (most) people still get it wrong at first is both a reflection on CoS suppressive leadership AND upon the individual’s own inability to “walk the walk” due to still being quite groggy.
Tom, your post is a breath of fresh air combined with the sun coming up. When I post here, it’s to make a point to other Scientologists mostly, who are trying to rise up out of the darkness and quagmire that IS the Church of Scientology today. Because there factually IS somewhere to rise up to — that place is “being more fully alive and knowing where you stand.”
Some of us have a job to do and we’re doing it. And we are going to keep on doing it no matter what or who gets in the way. And that job is helping people move on up a little higher by pointing the way out. Our motivation is DUTY — the highest motivation there is. It’s not a “duty” forced by blind obedience or a stupid contract, it is the duty that is catalyzed by compassion and love for one’s fellow man when you rise high enough to have it.
If some don’t want to move on up a little higher themselves or if they don’t want others to move on up a little higher, my suggestion is to get out of the way. I just saw a program about hypnosis on Dr. Oz. Hypnosis as a field is now turning around to embrace Scientological principles big time. They are promoting greater awareness, and have left behind the original concept of instilling subconscious implant commands. They are working to break up mental circuits by getting the being to look objectively at what is there. That’s a good thing. That is a win for everyone. This is exactly what we have all wanted.
The very first thing I, along with thousands of others, read in Scientology, was the statement “What’s true in Scientology is what’s true for you” …and “always observe to observe and have the courage to say what you have observed.” It took me 29 years to finally understand what those words meant.
Sure it would be nice if Church management were themselves awake enough to encourage others wake up by emphasizing the correct importances in Scientology instead of wrong ones. But you can’t really blame them since we build with broken straws.
LRH never said he was perfect. He knew he was not perfect. So what? Should he not try to help then? What if it was you? Is that what you would have done — run away? Because I can flat out guarantee that whoever you are, for all his faults, you aren’t half the man LRH was.
Tom’s right — the proper viewpoint with which to approach Scientology is the first thing most people learn in Scientology. It’s right there in the much decried “Keeping Scientology Working” Policy Letter at the beginning of every course. LRH said it’s up to each one of us to keep Scientology working; he didn’t say it’s up to each person to blindly and robotically follow along while the subject is being broken! LRH even wrote about the problem of Robotism and how to cure it. What more could anyone ask for?
Regarding LRH’s military record, I was there when the LRH Researcher (Andy L.) finally discovered after years of searching that LRH had two military records. The real one, and a phony one that was created as a cover for LRH’s work in Naval intelligence. Why hasn’t Miscavige made this known? Maybe because he’s suppressive? Ya think?
But moreover, what does a military record or LRH’s personal life have to do with technology that either works or does not work. The Tech stands on it’s own. It hasn’t a thing to do with LRH’s personal life in the same way that the US Constitution hasn’t a think to do with Thomas Jefferson’s personal life. You either can see the merit in the document or you can’t.
So to me, it’s really silly when arm-chair pontificators sit around blaming LRH because they themselves were too groggy to duplicate what LRH expressly SAID to do in so many times and places.
One of the best drunks ever played on the silver screen was by Lee Marvin in Cat Ballou. Imagine trying to wake him up after a drunk, and rapidly trying to explain Scientology. “Wha… what… who… huh?” People are already asleep. Scientology wakens them on a gradient. It’s not the only thing that can begin to wake them up, but when correctly done, Scientology can take a person far higher and faster than other means.
When I write about DM or the CoS, and when Marty or Mike or Tom Martiniano writes, we aren’t actually blaming them for our condition, we are speaking out to warn people that there is danger there and we are saying “wake up!”
Yet it’s the individual’s own job to wake themselves up. Some people refuse. You can lead them to water, but you can’t force them to wake up. Those people in the Church — the zombies — the robots — the morons who continue to endorse and support a vicious lunatic — they were never awake in the first place! And so Miscavige used them and put them MORE to sleep than they were before. That’s no reason to condemn the entire subject. Sometimes firemen are unable to put out a fire. So do we outlaw all firemen? Do we tell idiotic tales about the first fireman and what a fool he was?
An Indie is a “Scientologist” who has woken up and now understands what being a real Scientologist is all about. Being a Scientologist doesn’t make anyone perfect. It means they know which way is up and they are either moving in that direction or helping others to move in that direction or both. Because that’s what Scientology is all about.
Good post Tom.
Well said Marianne!
Steve – To what extent is simply defining the products in IT a hurdle? Many understand a truck, but the definition of IT is itself elusive. Interesting post. – Carcha
One other point (I’ve been busy and haven’t had much time to post). What you see happening in Scientology right now is the same thing that happens in the life cycle of a forest, when lightning starts a fire which burns EVERYTHING in it’s path — the grass, the trees, and the choking weeds and deadwood. But the grass and the trees and the animals come back — ALWAYS. And so will LRH’s repute because after the smoke clears people will naturally get curious to know what good did he do? Even today Larry Wright commented in an excellent interview with Anderson Cooper about some of the reasons that attract people to Scientology. All of it will grow back and be much healthier for it, too. Scientology will probably go through cycles like this. Don’t be too concerned about stopping attacks because that is really just trying to stop confusion blowing off. Just put in order and all will come right.
I never asserted that I had read everything LRH wrote. Who has? I’d like to know what courserooms you were in. Every one that I was in, including Flag, if you disagreed with anything, you were told to clear your MU’s and if that didn’t handle it, you were eventually routed to ethics. One of my favorite experiences was when I got in an arugment with a course sup over the dynamics. How come there were only 8? Couldn’t there be more? We went round and round. The supervisors only argument was that the material I was reading said that there were 8 dynamics so that was the end of it. My independence was rewarded later when I found out that even LRH admitted therer were more. The point being that I had to agree that there were only 8 in order to pass the course because that was what LRH said. I’ve more examples of times when I disagreed with an idea of LRH’s. There is no discussion in a Scn courseroom. Only rote memorization.
Here’s my definition of blind faith: The year was 1971, I was on my fifth hour of TR-0 on my fourth day of the confronting drill of confronting the person across from me. I suddenly started to go insane. Really, I almost lost my cookies right then and there. In my mind I was having a conflict of magnitude: “Should I back off of this or keep going? It seems to me that ‘going’ is going to lead me into the abyss of insanity. What do do? Stop or keep going? Screw it, I’m pretty crazy anyhow and doing what LRH said to do might get me through this. Does he mean me harm? I don’t think he does and he seems to know a lot more about the mind than I do so let’s take the leap.” So I decided to keep going and as soon as I made that decision, all that threat of loosing my cookies dissapaited like like lost thought. I stepped into a brand new world of clarity and sanity. Wow.
In my life I have experienced a lot of people ordering me to do things or a lot of people telling me that “this is what you should do.” In a matter of life and death I was given an order that would have caused the end of my life and the words that came out of my mouth were “Fuck you Sir.” This was in the Army and in combat. For that I could have gone to jail. I would have followed that officer down the barrel of a cannon up until that order. I would not follow him after that.
Like Marty said, “We have both been on the wrong end of a gun on more than one occasion and lived to express our views.” Yes I have met LRH, no he is not perfect, yes I like him a lot, no I won’t do what I don’t want to do. (Don’t forget, I was the one who told RTC, in writing, they were squirreling in 1997 even though I knew it was the end for me and I got tossed out for that after more wrath than I would ever care to experience again. So don’t tell me I am coming from no viewpoint.
LRH has only helped people. I really don’t care if LRH was a whore in his early years, or a crimminal. All I know is that the tech of his that I use works on myself and others I apply it to, My happiest times were when I was auditing Dianetics and my pc was in a fetal position on the floor in screaming agony and I said “I’ll repeat the auditing command…” And he got through it and lost that inability after that session. Happy times.
The people on this blog are the ones who are interested in Scientology and who have hope of getting better and KNOW that there is no other hope for their future. Reading doesn’t do it. Deleting the reactive mind does do it. Otherwise, why do any of us bother with all of this yammering. We would be doing something else instead of listening to all of this.
The people I addressed this to are the ones who know the tech works and have had wins that have been life changing.
My point in “blindly following LRH” is that it is better to follow his lead and let him guide you through than to follow and listen to anyone else I have ever met, studied, listened to or known of. And once you do free yourself of the reative mind you will be free to think for yourself. That’s the whole point.
And Marty, You are a giant in my eyes. What you have been through and still able to communicate is astonishing. You’ve opened a lot of eyes. My hat is off to you.
ML Tom
If Scientology tech is so wonderful, why is it not spreading like wildfire? I hear quite a bit about corporate Scientology (almost all bad) and almost nothing about the Independents. Are they intentionally staying under the radar? Results speak loudly. I’m not hearing anything out in the real world about the ‘other’ Scientology
I agree and I disagree. While it is true the green volumes contain an excellent collection of principles how to organize. This collection is by no means either complete in all aspects nor unique or original. Org boards, process flow, management by statistics and management styles existed long before LRH. There is a lot of additional management technology out there (working and nonworking ones)
Don’t forget the turnaround of IBM. (without the green volumes)
LRH put a new slant and added some good points to many aspects of it, but thinking by reading the green volumes one will make an executive better than anybody in the “wog” world is an idea born out of ignorance.
Organizations succeed or fail for many reasons and lack of ethics is the main one. (When I say “ethics” I am not talking about “Sea Org Ethics” I am talking about “reason applied”.) And I have seen many different large companies in my time as executive and ERP/CRM consultant.
There is no reason to belittle the green volumes as there is no reason to blindly follow them. It is one (of many) useful collections of data. When the underlying principles are conceptually understood and intelligently applied they can prove extremely valuable. But they are not the answer to everything in the corporate world as I saw many Scientologists believe.
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Steve,
I would agree whole heartedly that the ORG Board ( as well as many other LRH tools of admin.) are very needed and useful. To me each business needs an independent analysis to see what, exactly THAT business needs.
When WISE started the Model of Business Know-How the idea was that EVERY single business in the world needed a new Org. Bd., stats for all its employees and so on.
It was like forcing in a wrong “WHY and handling for many companies that didn’t need these things (but needed some other sort of help).
Andy
I forgot to say, Tom’s post absolutely explains my point of view of what Ron did that is good.
Well done Tom!
Really great post!
A fundamental lure of Dianetics and Scientology is the idea of Clear and OT. It is also a fundamental question that must be asked. Are they real and do they provide the abilities promoted? If you just want happiness or ability, I can witness many people in other philosophies and religions, or even atheists, who have that, some more happy and able than can be witnessed in Clears and OTs. But if you believe that we are spiritual beings trillions of years old who have been implanted and trapped here, that we could recall and be free of past life traumas resulting in OT abilities, that we could retain awareness when we die and choose to be reborn again or not, that we have the answer to a problem that has been going on for trillions of years, I can easily say, “Well, no other philosophy or religion offers that! Even religions that believe in reincarnation such as Hinduism or Buddhism don’t offer that! So Scientology is superior! It goes further than any other practice! It is “truer” than anything else! So it’s the only thing that should be done!”
If you just want happiness and ability, it can be found elsewhere. If you want OT abilities, they can be found elsewhere. If you want freedom from what LRH says is our true past and want “Total Freedom” or “Native State,” only Scientology offers that. For the 25 years I was in the “Church,” that was my goal, that was my concern. Really, that’s what it all came down to, right, on a first dynamic level? We also see people sacrificing their first dynamic “because Scientology is the only workable solution for the third and fourth dynamics,” another belief for which observation doesn’t show consistent and actual real world results. It’s why people put up with Disconnection and all the other bat shit craziness, because they are concerned about their own access to immortality or the belief that they have the only answers to save the world. Now that I have been out, I am just no longer concerned about my immortality. I am concerned about now, this life, this planet. I think Scientology has things that are helpful. And so do many other things.
It’s like what LRH says about be-do-have. You have to ask what you want to have, to determine what you have to do, to determine who you have to be.
I wasn’t trying to give you the idea I thought policy didn’t work. LRH policy works very well when understood and applied with common sense toward expansion. It is also true to say that many in orgs had only a passing familiarity with policy which was a problem. In part because they didn’t have the time to study it, they were on Foundation and worked to earn a living during the day or vice versa.
LRH recognized in the 70s that growing planetary inflation was going to engulf orgs and it did. It made them far harder to operate which led to further stat pushes which contributed to orgs trying to “force” Scientology onto some people and trying to “push” others up the bridge who were unwilling or couldn’t afford it which backfired. I believe LRH would have done further handlings but didn’t get round to it, what with the FBI raid in the summer of ’77 and all that that entailed. And things have worsended in the subsequent decades as far as the economy goes. The world has also changed and is less inclinded to accept such things as “slave labor” and who wants that kind of overt anyway. These types of situations are non productive but could exist even for Indie Scientology. So, marketing and dissemination of Indie Scientology as well as the logistical factors relating to potential organizations and delivery needs some real thought. But there is no reason these and any other factors can’t be solved.
For now its grow it organically.
Steve, Wow. Right on the money. You are a genius. I love you,
ML Tom
I agree completely with Tom Martiniano’s views about L. Ron Hubbard. The only thing in his essay that stopped my f/n was the word ‘org’ near the end.
LRH did what no-one else has done, by finding a workable way out of our mess. He doesn’t owe us anything, and he never did. If he’d abandoned his work in 1955, 1965 or 1975 to go fishing, we would still owe him more than we could return. Whatever the truth of the negative stories told about him, they’re irrelevant: if someone saves your life, you don’t worry if they have bad breath.
Scientology is the universal solvent, and LRH immediately recognised the problem of finding a ‘bottle’ to contain it. Over the years he tried whatever was workable, but he recognised that form can never be senior to function. And organizations, like other forms, can outlive their usefulness.
Three of the bottles that LRH tried were based on 20th century US corporatism (the orgs, selling goods and services to customers); Christian churches (the C of S); and old-style military discipline (the Sea Org). These may have been the best choices at the time because they matched the background of most of the first generation of scientologists, but they align to symbols that are detested by a large proportion of the world’s population. It may be time for more diverse packaging, with lots of groups applying LRH’s philosophy and tech within their own cultures.
Part of the problem we ran into in the church was adopting the idea that someone else knows and “we are just stumbling around blindly.” Talk about self-inval!
The way I figure it, if you are going to use Scientology auditing processes, then use Scientology auditing processes as they are intended to be used. I believe that is the core point of KSW.
LRH Says in HCOPL 14 February 1965 SAFEGUARDING TECHNOLOGY
“Scientology is a workable system. It has the route taped. The search is done. Now the route only needs to be walked.”
So that route is COMPLETE and workable as of 14 February 1965.
Tom says: “LRH introduced us to “The Wall of Fire” and then taped the route through it for all of us to see. All we had to do was walk the taped line.”
Safeguarding Technology was issued three years before LRH research and released OT3. It also predates NOTs, NED, original OT 1 – 7, new OT 1-8, the HRD, the FPRD, the Purif, just to name a few processes.
Tom says: “But LRH has developed technology throughout the space of thirty short years that covers every aspect of life. ”
I am nitpicking here, as I do understand the intent behind this statement, but taken baldly and without context, this is simply not true. The auditing processes have VERY SPECIFIC and clearly stated purposes and EPs and they DO NOT cover EVERY aspect of life. Even if you include admin tech, that has VERY SPECIFIC purposes and it does not cover every aspect of life. It is intended for a non-profit organization, just watch what happens if you try to apply it to a profit making business in an industry such as computer technology where you can find yourself outdated and outstripped in just a few months. The ethics tech was originally intended to ensure that auditing could occur without disruption, and organizational purposes would not be blunted and individuals could dig themselves out of the messes they got themselves or to improve conditions so they could flourish and prosper.
Tom, you say: Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.
I must disagree with you here. It implies an intent that simply doesn’t exist in any but the most extreme case. To have such a vicious intent requires that the individual KNOWS that such a thing is possible, and is not facing a real or imagined threat. There is also an implication that there is something wrong with them if they don’t know what you know as you know it and in doing so you open the door to dismissing and demonizing their reality, which is something I think you would not appreciate yourself.
I think it is entirely possible that a particular being or group of beings will not respond to the processes of Scientology, not now and not ever — LRH was perfectly willing to allow that as a possibility — he said as much in the PDC lectures.
But I understand your love and devotion. And I understand your thankfulness and appreciation. The world needs more of that, not just for comrades and “good people” but for all people and all beings.
And if LRH is right, then this is just one small and rather constrained universe! I hope he’s right.
Tom says-:
“Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.”
I consider Tom a good person.
However I’d say he’s blind.
One must be cause etc. Scn’s primary teaching.
The idea of following anything blindly is reverse Scn.
Love your comment, Steve.
“People wake up on a gradient. “Following blindly” is not good, but it’s a darn sight better than being totally lost in the labyrinth. The next level up is actually looking around with eyes OPEN because that gives you judgement on the relative merits of anything you confront.”
This is actually right in the middle of the bridge, the Awarness Characteristics.
Why does anyone think DM uses his propaganda to put people stucked on the bridge? Waiting. For what?
They’re really put on “waiting”. That kills thetans. And because they don’t want to wait, they pay, pay, pay in the hope the ridge will start to flow again.
DM = Degrading Maniac
Yesterday I wrote, “Ultimately, from my perspective, it’s that 1948 to ’54 time-frame where ‘things’ happened electrifyingly and then at some point sometime thereafter there was the emphasis on the “new” organization’s bent and perpetuation.
Red on White versus Green on White explains my thoughts. Ron was of genius status, IMHO.
However, he should’ve left this to a grass roots movement. Fuck PR and celebrities…….”
That said, I agree with Ron on almost everything.
However, I firmly believe he chose the wrong ‘business model’. Then again that’s in retrospect.
Steve,
there is this wonderful PL “Morale”, 16 APRIL 1970, OEC 6 / Chaplain Mini-Hat.
Therin is the answer what happened to the morale of Scientologists ( defined as: a state of well-being and buoyancy based upon such factors as physical or mental well-being, a sense of purpose and usefulness and confidence in the future).
I suggest any Scientologist (any) should read this one.
Its content is not loudly spread in the Church (you’ll bet).
Here a small excerpt from this PL (empfasis mine):
Could be worth an article on your SCN-Cult portal.
I’ll definitley write one in german for the German blog.
Love,
SKM
About Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard
So here is a severely abbreviated version of my take on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology.
I think that L. Ron Hubbard was a great man. He has made significant contributions to an improved future for mankind.
Ron, through his writings and taped lectures, imparted to me much useable wisdom, but in doing so there was always the underlying proviso from Ron, that any part of this data was only as valuable to me as I personally could understand and use it to forward my own dynamics and help others to do the same, should I choose.
However, that being said, I feel that if you are going to use LRH technologies then you should do it the way Ron wrote that it should be done, if you want the results that it is designed to produce. That doesn’t mean that you cannot do something else, just don’t go calling it Scientology.
But any concept of “following blindly” is no part of LRH’s philosophy, as I understand it. For one thing it is totally in opposition to the “Q”s of Scientology itself.
I personally consider that this one concept of accepting ANY datum, without one’s personal evaluation of it, is a certain route to aberration. If, at any point, a being abandons his willingness to exercise his own viewpoint, we enter into the phenomena that ultimately created the bank… the willingness to be the effect of uninspected/unevaluated data. This leads to “belief” replacing “understanding”, rote replacing “reasoned”, aberration replacing sanity, and you no longer have a being able to evaluate the data in front of him. Because he has abandoned his responsibility for the data to someone, or something else, (God, Ron, fate, etc) he will not be able to exercise “reason” in any situation involving the data.
Therefore, any and all efforts to assist the being to inspect and evaluate data from his own self determined viewpoint are valid forms of help… all else are not, and actually will potentially make the being more aberrated.
The entirety of LRH’s philosophy and technologies is composed of methods of reversing this one trend and its effects.
I will add that I personally consider that this habit of agreeing to do or believe something that one has not personally inspected and evaluated (made his own) is a major “Why” behind the state of affairs that Scientology, as a whole, finds itself in.
Eric S
Paul, I agree with your sentiments 100%.
I think a lot of the LRH bashing that goes on originates from those who DID follow him – and Scientology – blindly. Perhaps they put too much faith in LRH, confused him with other “religious leaders” or gurus or whatever. Then when they found out he was not a saffron-robe bearded long-haired guy with a halo around his head, they ARC broke.
I’ve stated this before, but since my Day One in Scientology, a LONG time ago, I made it a personal policy to read everything about it, no censoring, the good, the bad, the ugly.
Perhaps not coincidentally, my affinity for LRH and the subject of Scientology is probably higher today than it has ever been. I never met LRH, but in EVERY book or article I’ve read, or “expose” I’ve watched, there have been things said that I knew from first-hand experience to be out and out lies.
What I think of LRH is this: no one I know (including self), no one I have ever met, can hold a candle to the guy.
I’ve known many loosely screwed together folks, some really badly screwed together, nut cases, a few paranoids, a couple of schizos – not ONE of them could produce anything of value. Not one could hold a position about anything for very long – let alone a lifetime.
Bashing LRH is like mice gnawing at the base of a giant redwood tree. It is laughable.
Not only that, but it is getting rather tiresome if you ask me. I’m all for free speech and all. Communicating does blow charge. But there is that part of me, when I hear “LRH lied about blah blah blah”, wants to ask “what’s your withhold, buddy?” – because I know from a lot of experience what lies underneath all the natter.
When I think of LRH, I conjure up images and stories of the Greek Gods – these titans are much more fitting as terminals of comparable magnitude to Ron. They were more powerful than your garden variety humans because they were part god, part man. They bled, they hurt, they cried, they threw tantrums, they sometimes failed, but often succeeded large. They weren’t the way we envision our gurus and holy men today, all smiley faced, peace and love 24/7/365, burning the incense. They were a lot more REAL.
I like it that you quoted from Technical Degrades – that is fast becoming one of my favorites, along with KSW. I fear we are losing sight of the wisdom contained in those 2 policies. After all, if we belittle LRH, if we go along with those who seem compelled for reasons unknown to me to knock him down to size, it becomes easier and easier to second guess the tools he left us.
And then the alter-is begins, and his work eventually disappears. I know that is what the Ortegas and Wrights and ALL the other “investigative journalists” would love to see happen and it bothers me a lot that we have to lie down with these flea-bitten dogs in order to bring down DM.
I hope we don’t let the fantastic tools Ron left us disappear the way so much other wisdom has. I’m really glad Tom wrote this op-ed. Except for the “follow blindly” comment, I think it all needed to be said.
I really like this one too, Hayden. Great long term perspective, sorely needed, much appreciated.
“Someone could say that dm is following LRH blindly.”
Not really. He knows exactly what he did and what he does.
He bypasses the orders of LRH and betrays thousands of parishioners daily.
You can say what you want, but don’t think for one second LRH was ever out-exchange with the Scientology Movement.
He made some money. True. But he delivered.
No, Miscavige does nothing of the things LRH said are important. Not one thing.
If you find one and you can tell me, I am willing to change my mind.
Tom, Thanks for writing this. I think its very needed and wanted. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Its about time that this was stated somewhere. I have tried to study many other philosophies and non match what LRH wrote. I think it would be to the benefit of many others to heed these words.
This question about “blind faith” is interesting to me.
Nobody wants to admit to being “blind” so we all know it must be a bad thing. Except that before Scientology, everybody was blind to things that are obvious to a Scientologist. People didn’t even know that a the big hangup of a problem could be pretty much resolved just by understanding the definition of a problem and identifying and communicating the components of the problem. They didn’t know what the components of understanding were and they didn’t have a foolproof way to improve it.
People are still “looking for their one big purpose” under rocks and various places – not knowing that they already have and know their many purposes which can be revitalized sometimes just by reading about the Dynamics.
But let’s not dwell on how blind people have been in the absence of Scientology. What about after Scientology? That’s the religion that doesn’t need faith right? Well no.
Some guy does Life Repair, gets a big win and he suddenly knows that Grade 0 and OT III are God’s-own truth. Really, the truth is that he has recovered a little faith in something. He has no idea that the levels above him are going to help him or not. But it’s workable so far and he’s willing to put some faith in the rest. You could call that blind – except that he has some indication that he might be right. He has had some results.
I think in general, most of us are not yet stably exterior with perception. But that doesn’t stop us from having some level of faith that this can be achieved with Scientology. In fact, I did experience this in my early auditing and am confident that I will be able to recover this ability and make it stable if I keep following the road. But I cannot know that for sure at this point.
After your first win in Scientology, your faith is no longer totally blind. You have something to base that faith on.
Once you realize how important faith is in Scientology, you can start to see how it contributes to our current scene. For example, David Miscavige has built a base of people with faith in him by placing himself between Ron and us. He represents what Ron wants and he has this hidden data line from Ron. Only he knows what Ron wanted. So he is trying to take over the base of people who have faith in Ron.
At some point faith in something has to be backed up with knowingness. You have to test it. So it is with David Miscavige, you eventually have to check out his statistics to see if he is as good as he says he is.
With Scientology, you need to learn to communicate, to audit. You need to learn the axioms and basic theory that goes into the auditing wins so you know what it is all about.
For me, faith is a good thing as long as you then take the trouble to back it up with knowingness.
There can be many logics depending on viewpoint and reality of the person inventing that logic. Many have experienced great benefits from applications of the Tech. So they may have every right to view things from that angle.
There are some aspects that might enrich the discussion which I would like to share:
1) L. Ron Hubbard was not stupid, he learned things. Therefore some views, statements and importances changed when he learned something to be different. A person could take a description about eidetic recall and find out later that this concept could be part of a GPM to “create the past”. To assume an identity might be a way to reduce beingness and responsibility. As I see it one of the greatest achievements of Tech is the changes in viewing things and becoming more simple.
2) Because many phenomena may be solutions to hold back prior confusions it can happen that such phenomena are be used to measure progress. So, for example, to have or have not “eidetic recall” would be used to judge if the Tech worked or not. This can make it hard to take on other viewpoints.
3) As any potential, ARC flows from much potential to lesser potential. (See the first lecture of Level 3 for details.) To be in the vicinity of a handsome being can lead to difficult situations. If you don’t match in size control may only go in one direction and there are reports of people who lacked control (but blamed Ron for doing things they didn’t like and obviously have not controlled.)
Now this is a hell of a statement to say one should be willing to assume a comparable ARC-potential to LRH’s, I am aware of that. However, I see no other way to survive safely and to exchange help in both directions when being in the vicinity of such a great being.
4) Due to lack of someone of equal stature great man are often lonesome and may miss someone who carries out the functions of a Qualifications Division and corrects them. This is a danger great men have to deal with. If they make an error no one dares to correct them or does so effectively.
5) To have a complete view, one would not only have to look at experiencing the Tech or using the Tech one has received, one would have to take the viewpoint of developing the Tech.
I feel that I understand LRH much better when I asked myself the following questions:
If it would be early 20th century and I would want to help this planet effectively, where would I start, what would I do? How would I personally go about to develop some workable methods? What size of would I need to be willing to assume?
Think about it. It creates understanding.
Tony, I agree with you on this overall. There is much to like about LRH and his technology. There is much to not like about it too and also not like about the man – LRH. But all things considered, the pluspoints far outweigh the outpoints.
I question what LRH says now and will no longer believe what is written by him or said by him as the Holy Gospel not to be questioned without trying it myself and seeing if it is true for me.
The inaccuracies in his War Record and Military History? Who cares.
The embelishing of his biography? Not that important to me.
His record on families including his own? Yes I do care about that and do not look to LRH as an authority on the subject.
His paranoia and his history of turning against those who were his trusted friends, investors, helpers and allies? This bothers me the most.
But the feeling I got from picking up the cans and examining my life and problems and resolving them for myself with the direction of a an auditor? Nothing else on earth comes close or compares.
Marty is right about Lawrence Wright and others who try to understand the attraction of Scientology to people who have experienced it. They can’t really know until they have honestly tried it themselves.
There is nothing like being keyed out from the correct application of the technology that LRH put together applied by a standard auditor.
The future of Scientology and LRH’s technology is in the outside independent field. DM will ruin and run the “Church” into the ground.
Thank goodness there are intelligent people on the outside helping to keep that which works alive for the future.
Steve,
You are a maestro of words. You took a somewhat lengthy article and distilled it. Your duplication is admirable. You got it, and thank you for your response.
Linda
Because we evolve from Infinite consciousness which we must be if we believe we are immortal beings and persist after death, we have a range from good to evil. LRH called it “scales” (as in the book 0-8) Look at Awareness scale, one could be at Source, Existence, Conditions, or could be down down down to “shock” “catatonia” “criminality” etc. The RANGE of a spirit goes from heaven to hell.
I am partial to the idea that the bigger the being you are, the larger the range from Good to evil will be.
LRH left a technical legacy which speaks for itself. I do not defend anything he did such as extreme punishments.
The good and bad is part of all of us.
A mother Teresa or Mahatma Gandhi are so exceptionally rare that they become Global icons.
The bigger one is in life the more pronounced or amplified or magnified the good/bad range manifests.
Well – for me the end phenomena of Scientology occurred when I started being cause in my own life. I achieved that ability by going Clear.
Having achieved what I wanted to get out of Scientology, I merrily went on living the rest of my subsequently successful life – at least in my own estimation.
Isn’t that the entire point of practicing Scientology?
I dedicated 15 years of my life to it and that was sufficient for me.
I’ve had many additional cognitions about the state of the planet by studying history, reading literature, living this life. There is wisdom in many places from many sources.
The OT III story just never indicated to me. It’s not something I need or want to handle. Some people swear by it and that’s fine with me if they do. They are cause over their own lives.
So, should LRH be followed blindly? Not me. That would be continuing to assign someone else to be complete cause over my life. That seems to be the very opposite of what Scientology is all about.
SKM, I realized after I posted that, that I haven’t elaborated enough. (See my comment below.) That said, from an outsider’s perspective (two key words), DM is running on the same operating basis as LRH.
“If you find one and you can tell me, I am willing to change my mind.”
Don’t know enough of what LRH considered to be important to answer. However, I’d dare say that DM’s push for ever-increasing stats is borne of LRH’s technology. I know a little about LRH’s version of management by statistics, and it’s just not sustainable. If DM could accept a leveling off or a drop, the Co$ might be able to dodge some of the accusations of merciless fund raising.
PS, Marty, thanks for sharing my opposing viewpoint.
I well recall my wife Annie telling me an experience she had with L. Ron Hubbard. She was in her teens and asked him how he learned so much. He answered with advice “read”. He had an enormous library.
His advice to her, toward the end of that life of his, “study the subject” fully. Advice I took to heart, and which advice inspired me to gather as full a library as I could, of philosophy, science, religion, the gamut, and the body of work of Dianetics and Scientology.
This past weekend I picked up a book from the shelf entitled “Einstein’s Heroes”. It’s an easy read, relatively.
One of the heroes, Michael Faraday, an “autodidact” in that he had no formal education in maths, beyond some basic geometry that he gleaned from reading “second hand” knowledge of others in some basic texts, described in plain language his observations and best guesses at the phenomena of “electromagnetics”. He described “fields” and “lines of force”.
Not having the credentials of a formal university education, and not being fluent in mathspeak, he nonetheless, opened the door to James Clark Maxwell’s formal, mathematical description of those same “fields” and “lines of force”.
In that work, Maxwell had to come up with terms to attempt to relay concepts, using both English and math languages. He called things “curls”, “twists” and “gradients” as well as coming up with a new description and equations of “vectors” to try and describe the manifestations of magnetic induction of an electric current and the inverse of electrical induction of magnetic “fields”. All multidimensional manifestations, requiring the development of mathematical formulas, expressions and even “operations”.
With Maxwell’s work, one could predict by relatively accurate measurements, the phenomena of electromagnetic induction, fields of this force, and use the predictions to bring order to the confusions of the mysteries of the area.
Those who learn the language of math can understand Maxwell’s description. Those who don’t can understand Faraday’s. ANY person can experience electromagnetics. Some are fluent in math, some can barely speak English.
To this day, no “materialistic science” has defined exactly what magnetism actually is. Neither with gravity, nor in fact, energy, space, or time. There are theories, with best evidences so far. They can describe the effects of energy, they can use magnetism, they operate in space, and are in the time continuum (which “time” is to this day defined as “that which is measured by clocks, but omits what “that” actually is).
Recent study of “energy” has shown that 99.999999999999 % of an atom is space. The subatomic particles held in “fields”, that remain undefined other than a relative ability to predict via numbers, how they may probably behave.
L. Ron Hubbard stepped three feet behind all this MEST and chose English as the language to describe what he observed. Out of an ocean of data, he evaluated importances. He defined the Static. He defined time, space, and energy. He then developed a workable technology to enable a being to experience all that he described. Not only that, he laid out a route for a personal discovery of that which a being experiences. He laid out a series of Axioms, describing the agreed upon considerations that result in all that Faraday, Maxwell, Einstein, et al, including you and I brought about that is this universe.
Recently in my study of Scientology I arrived at the second time through the London 4th ACC. The first time through this, it wasn’t very real to me. Today it is. The lectures are at this point (I’m three deep) on Axiom 36, the axiom of the First and Second Postulates.
Starting from native state, a being has to postulate that he doesn’t know something, a particular, and then he can go about knowing it. The first postulate, alone and with no comparision, is “true” and it is “not know” a something. The second postulate, denying the first, masking it somehow with a different consideration, is “know” that something, by observing it, by using “ARC”. The second postulate sticks. It persists. The first postulate gives it the “juice” to do so, as without it, the first, there is no second.
Perhaps Scientology could aptly be named “knowing how to know how to not know” and recover for oneself First Postulates and subsequent fixed ideas, Second Postulates. (E.g. please see Fundamentals of Thought, the chapter on Causation of Knowledge.)
“Lost” is a First Postulate. “Found” is a second. Found persists and derives its power of such persistence from Lost.
“Lost” is fluid, it has motion, it has confusion. “Found” is fixed, it has stability, it has solution. BOTH are considerations. As are the Axioms on Confusion and the Stable Datum, Axioms 53 and 54.
Many today find themselves “lost” with regard to Scientology. Many “find” themselves with a Second Postulate that solves that “lost” feeling. Both phenomena are described in the materials of Scientology. There is a confusion, it is handled by a stable datum.
Faraday and Maxwell confronted the confusion of “fields”, and picked a Second Postulate defining them. Those fixed the confusion, and resolved applications for the rest of the civilization to utilize. They didn’t know, then they knew. Confusion dealt with by Stable Data. Today’s theoreticians in physics are “pulling” those stable data and the confusions of the manifestations of electromagnetics, are again “flowing”. This discomfort isn’t tolerated well by a lot of scientists, and they rush to “fix” the confusion with theories of all shapes. All manner of Second Postulates abound.
Dianetics and Scientology as developed and refined over the decades of work that L. Ron Hubbard put into them, can act as a Second Postulate, an answer to the questions of “not know” what life is and just what the heck is going on around here. The wonder of the subject is that the accuracy of the answers, the “know” is what it is, and though not “perfect” as that would, by theory, as-is the entirety of it, it provides enough “know” to lift one out of the entire phenomena of the Axioms and recover native ability to posit “not know” and “know” and have freedom of choice over either/or. One can “run out” Scientology with Scientology.
The material encompasses that phenomena, the Second Postulate. It also encompasses the First Postulate, the one on which depends for its fixedness, its persistence, the Second Postulate. As-is the First, and no Second. The ULTIMATE Truth is a Static. And if that isn’t freedom, there isn’t any.
If Scientology has become fixed idea, a “box” for some, then the keys to that box are contained in it. LRH put them there. All one needs is find them, and open the box. That is why I apply the 10 points of Keeping Scientology Working. I’ve found the keys, and opened the box, and I want others to have similar gains, knowledge, and the freedoms of “not know” from which they can postulate something to “know” and play a game better. If I wear the guide hat, as Tom refers to from Safeguarding Technology, then I wear it, as described, and despite the insult of being “100% LRH, 100% workable” and I guide to the First Postulate, the Second Postulate, first to “what” and thence to “who”, and beyond, to the Ulitmate Truth – the Static.
What kind of a man lays a “trap” (as some would describe it a “prison of belief”) with 1-6, and then with neon lights, with diabolically evil “7,8,9 and 10” points the way to the keys that unlock the trap?
What kind of a man?
My kind.
Years ago, I had some wins in Scientology.
Some of my friends have had wins doing other things, such as Christianity.
We all “glow” equally when we share our wins with eachother.
Same amount of key-out. Same vocal inflections with the same enthusiasm. Same desire to share the good news with others. Same level of certainty that our system is the best system. And quite likely, the same ultimate destiny for each of us.
But, I won’t join Christianity and my friend won’t join Scientology…..ever !
So that solves that. He goes to heaven, worried about my destiny. I go back to the theta universe, worried about his.
But these days, I’m free. Letting go of the “must have” on going up a bridge has been the single biggest key-out of my entire Scn experience. Honest! The night I cogged, back in ’09, that I could just be where I’m at as a being and that it was totally okay, I cried in my car as that whole “must have” mechanism went SNAP, CRACKLE and POP!
The relief I felt from finally just being my OWN advisor was immense.
Tom makes some good points and some not so good points, in my humble opinion. With all due respect, I see some propitiation and a sort of hierarchy of thetans (LRH), listed in his post. Respectfully, if Tom simply took away any must have on the bridge, he would feel the same amount of relief I did.
No matter how OT anybody ever got, they couldn’t stop what has happened. And what has happened in Scientology is, perhaps, a real world manifestation of the true condition of the entire systemic failure LRH created. DM is the living manifestation of that imperfect system and what it allowed for.
A very, very wise man once said, “Be open to everything and attached to nothing.”
Open-mindedness. It’s the most freeing, OT thing I’ve ever had.
Ok, I like it then.
Excellent!!
Hi Tom, great post.
I have a lot to say, but little time right now, so I’m going to start with one of my favorite quotes from Ron. It’s a section from “What do I think of Auditors”
“My opinion of auditors in general is fairly well known to several people.
I think of an auditor as a person with enough guts to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. This quality is rare and this quality is courageous in the extreme.
It is my opinion and knowledge that auditors are amongst the upper tenth of the upper twentieth of intelligent human beings. Their will to do, their motives, their ability to grasp and to use are superior to that of any other profession.
I think of an auditor as having INITIATIVE. He is able to grasp or make a mockup and put it into action.
Auditors survive better than other people.
If this world has any faintest chance of surviving it will be not because I write, but because auditors can and will think and do.
I think our auditors came from beings lately arrived on Earth who, seeing where it was going, decided to band together to send it elsewhere.
I consider all auditors my friends. I consider them that even when they squirrel. I believe they have a right to express themselves and their own opinions. I would not for a moment hamper their right to think. I think of auditors and Scientologists as the Free People.
Just as they consider one another their people, so I consider them my people.
I think their errors of the past, when they existed, came about because we are new and we are finding out and I don’t think any of their errors were intentional any more than mine were.
I can understand their own reactions because I can understand the counter-effort given them by society, and thus I don’t hold auditors guilty even when they fold up but simply assume we’d better make a better effort into the society to overcome or bypass the counter-effort.
I don’t expect auditors or Scientologists to instantly agree with or seize upon whatever I say. I would be offended if they did and would feel they weren’t a Free People. Since they are intelligent I expect them to think over what’s said, try it, and if it’s good for them, use it. That old auditors sooner or later come back to and use what I have discovered isn’t any testimony to our relationship at all, it’s only a testimony to my being right because I meant to be right in the first place.
I sorrow when I see somebody accomplishing less than he should because he thinks I wouldn’t approve of it. In organizations and out I count upon initiative and good judgment.
The most decent people I have ever known have been auditors. The best hearted people I know are auditors. They are so decent and good hearted I have to work and argue with them to make enough to keep mock-ups rolling well, a thing they are now beginning to do….”
LRH
That we’re all here expressing ourselves and speaking freely is, in my opinion, a key ingredient to ensuring the application of the tech will continue into the future.
Personally, I get great results using the grade chart and all of the processes and procedures that were extant around 1980…before the original OT Levels vanished. I’ve studied and re-studied the Acad Levels and the materials through Grad V and much of the SHSBC and I don’t have any need or desire to add or subtract anything. That’s the cornerstone of our practice and we are thriving well with that stable data.
I do love to read other philosophy and things like the Holographic Universe. I love the philosophic posts and debates. They are great.
I don’t believe that we’ve ever really described or delineated what a “civilization of which we can be proud” really is. When I look at the civilization of the Sea Org and the Class V orgs and the public of those groups, I’m totally turned off.
I think each of us who has the courage or desire or just dumb ambition to start a group and deliver the tech need to stay in comm, and inform eachother on success points and failure points. We are still new and we still have a lot to learn. While I feel no real need to go outside the tech vols and tapes for processes and procedures, I do feel that we need to get ourselves well hatted on what the hell is going on with the various publics on this orb and what they read, and who their opinion leaders are, and what they are saying.
And I think that each of us needs to establish his/her own group and decide on its ideal scene and select the public that it wants to comm the most with. Policy is simply rules to attain an ideal scene. So each group needs to decide what policy to apply, when to apply it and what to toss out as unworkable for their scene. I’m personally not going to have an LRH Comm, a Flag Rep, a KOT, or an FBO in my “org.”
We run a tech/admin ratio of one admin to three tech. I think LRH was incorrect on his estimate of what was required to be really viable. And I would feel very comfortable debating that point with him.
Lots more to say. No more time. Thanks again for taking the time to write your views.
Les
To Steve and Tom,
Steve I liked your example of following with blind faith directions to get out of the forest, or whatever it was. That makes some sense.
Tom, thanks for the clarification. Maybe we are all just saying the same things in different ways. I would like to make this distinction however.
You can follow someones directions to obtain what you want, whether it is to find your directions or a higher state of being. If you follow the directions, they have to make some sense to you at first. If the clerk tells you to jump up and down twice and then drink a Mt.Dew to get to the bathroom, I think you could consider that person a bad source.
In Scientology I was given PLENTY of reasons and references for having to get hundreds of hours of sec checks and how this would free me but this turned out to be crap. Eventually I did say “fuck you sir!” But only after way too much pain and suffering. Part of the problem is the information shut off. You may not have enough data to make a decision about whether it is a good idea to get another intensive of sec checks. So part of following directions involves comparing results to what others have gotten out of those directions. This reduces the “following blindly” quite a bit. I actually wouldn’t call that “following blindly” it would be “following an educated path or prediction” with eyes wide open.
TR’s, Clay demo the Comm cycle in full, Chart of Human Evaluation, Havingness Scale, Emotional Tone Scale, DMSMH, and especially to my mind Science of Survival, which established more respect for his sheer genius and ability to observe truth than anything else. Add to these basics a taped standard route that does work to unburden the case to magnitudes of gain of perception and postulates and power to act regained to a being unlike anything in any miles of former discoveries. No LRH wasn’t God, he may have been the prophet Maitreya, debatable, but his writing in Hymn of Asia were certainly prophetic. He wasn’t perfect as we have become aware, and too often the focus of embellishment, but tell me of any technology ever produced in the history of earth that includes anything even remotely as effective or with similar results.
For the record I am in accord with Steve Hall’s assessments above.
Give Andy the credit for that rant..
Chris,
I worked for a Wise managed computer company in Clearwater and it was embarassing to see all the unused baskets on everybodys desk. We used email and there were almost no paper documents in the office but we had to have them because Wise said so. There were a couple of other awkward requirements like colored folders and such. After three years, we still didn’t have a functioning org board. It was kind of comical actually. The sort of thing you’d see in an episode of Office
A little data on Faith:
“The mystic, for millennia. has been talking about Faith. He
never built a bridge to it. He made a terrible fundamental error
in converting Faith to Have Faith. When he said Have Faith. he
invited understanding, then confusion ofunderstanding because
one does not understand Faith. One is Faith.
The source, content of and contact with FAITH is YOU.
The result of this mystic error (and it is a very gross error)
was to place individuals so far down the Tone Scale that “love”
and propitiation became bywords and hocus-pocus and the
order ofthe day. Here is a 1.1 religion. It is afraid to understand
because it has to Have Faith, but it isn’t Faith because Faith is
not understanding. Hence, the general confusion at 1.1.
A byproduct of this is the fact that individuals who thus Have
Faith are running too slow. You get ESP, hypnotism, mixed-up
facsimiles with others, martyrdom, physical illness and all manner
ofunwanted things at this slow speed. It is too close to the static
of Death at 0.0 and its people are awfully dead, ineffective and
irrational.
People who are trying to Have Faith aren’t Faith. Thus they
Fear (1.1) and Propitiate (1.1) and are generally confused. One
will not buy unreason at 20.0. They began by Knowing Faith and
then became confusedby having Faith explained.
Because of spectacular successes (rare as rarity), the mystic
continued to strive for something he already had because he had
no way to get back to where he was. The enormously successful
points of Being Faith, in the sea of unsuccessful Having Faith,
kept the mystic striving. It is possible now to achieve Faith,
or regain what one has lost.
I Am, Faith, I Know are at 20.0 on up. At 20.0 on the gradient
scale, they are at optimum unity with MBST (the physical universe).
But as they rise from 20.0, they become less and less effective
on MBST until top static is reached at 40.0. The scale is a circle.
40.0 and 0.0 are the same, so it is possible to go two ways toward
Death. One is less well off at 21.0 than he is at 20.0, since the
MBSTis dwindling away. The austere but spindly and weak mystic
who dwells upon abstracts is less able to Know.”
– LRH AN ANALYSIS OF SBLF-DETERMINISM
ADVANCBD PROCBDURB AND AXIOMS
Tom, I deeply appreciate your standing up for Ron in this way. It needed to be said. Ron’s work was remarkable and unique. And yes, I do believe that people who take pleasure and profit in publicly bashing Ron are working against the interests of man, regardless of the honesty of their views.
Thank you.
Very well said!
Agreed 100%.
Agreed Andy! And below all that organizing was the big fat “holier than thou” service facsimile.
“The RCS is the result of “blind faith.” Very interesting point….this blind faith has allowed David Miscavige policy to supercede LRH policy i.e. Ideal Org, IAS & Super Power donations, profusely forbidden by Hubbard, now standard operating procedure by the SQUIRREL at the helm – David Miscavige.
As an outsider who enjoys studying the history of Scientology and other religions, I think there is probably a lot of good that can come from using LRH’s techniques and discoveries. I happen to know a Scientologist at work who is still in the church. I don’t discuss Scientology with him much as I don’t want to antagonize him (as I am an evil Marty and Tony Ortega reader), but I can see it does some good things for his life.
Respectfully, though, I’d have to disagree with you, Tom. You cite KSW as if it is justification for your attitude. I feel that KSW is at the very root of what is so wrong with Scientology. I think this is some of what Marty argues in his books, though he can correct me if I am off base.
At the root of KSW is line 3: “knowing the tech is correct.” This doesn’t say “trying the tech out, and seeing it works for you, and doing your best to apply it, and respecting others who it isn’t true for.” It says “knowing it is correct.” The tech is infallible. It is perfect. LRH did it all. If you are messed up, then you messed up applying the tech. It can’t possibly be the tech’s fault.
I think most Scientologists then take a few logical jumps based on KSW. If the tech is correct, then LRH must be correct. If LRH is correct, then Scientology must be correct. If Scientology is correct, then it is better than any other religious tradition. If it is better than any other religious tradition, then Scientologists are better beings than any other humans that follow other traditions. If Scientologists are better, then everyone else is a DB. If everyone else is a DB, then they are worthless and fair game.
And thus, we get the abusive attitude that DM and so many corporate Scientologists have. I am better. I know everything. You don’t know as much as me. You’re a useless piece of ****. I’m a big being, so you deserve to be punched in the face, sued, and harassed.
Tom, I feel this is toxic, and it starts with KSW and the attitude that LRH and Scientology must be infallible. I think the only way Scientology can grow in the future is to shed this notion and adapt, transcend, and admit that it doesn’t have all the answers.
Then, maybe more people might be open to trying it for themselves.
I agree with you, Tom
Great truth there Mr. Cowboy Poet.
Haydn, you hit the nail on the head in so many ways for me with this. Your solutions 0, 1, 2, 3 are excellent. That’s the Independent Scientology I’m striving for.
Me too!
Amen Ingrid!
Your friend’s rant aligns with my staff experience.
“Two of his children dead, one still a prisoner of the cult and only one child out and potentially living a normal life. ”
Who is gone other than Quentin?
+1 🙂
Ditto me! Brilliant.
Since I’m speaking my mind — now we’ll really push that Op Ed thing, Marty! — I should also add that while I disagree with Toms’ view, for the reasons stated above, I also think such a viewpoint is vital to the survival of Scientology. Here’s why:
Read the testimonials of people who have given up on the subject completely. For many, if not most, the primary reason for leaving is the realization that LRH was not who he claimed to be or did not do what he claimed to do. The parting may come right away or some time after, but that is the crack that causes irreparable structural damage.
People look at the lack of progress or the lack of promised results and they look for reasons. Some blame it on DM; those people become Indies. But most make the connection with LRH’s exaggerated claims. Other data causes other cracks — the similarity of Dianetic auditing with “wog” therapy, for example — but once that big break is made, it is inevitable that the wall will crumble. It’s just a matter of how long it will take to reach that tipping point.
True!
Off-topic, but data from another forum that may be of interest to people here.
A Hungarian Scientologist created a Facebook group for Scientologists to place ads called “Advertisements of/for Scientologists.”
WISE did not like it and requested its removal based on an assertion of intellectual property (i.e., on the grounds that “Scientologists” is a “collective membership mark”):
Dianetics and Scientology are the only way out. Ron is the man!!!!
I agree, following blindly is what gets/got us into this mess 😉
It’s a cult phenomenon that should be deleted completely!
Phil de Fontenay
Awesome Cowboy and Chris!
Centurion — may I respectfully ask of what you make of LRH’s views on evolution and re OT III, the fact that science says the cited volcanoes did not exist or did not exist at the named places 75 M years ago? Or on the rather incorrect descriptions of radioactivity?
I mean that as a sincere question. I remember early on listening to a tape in which LRH poked fun at physicists who claimed that c (speed of light was a constant) when light travels different speeds through say air or water. It presented me with a conundrum. Physicists do not say c is the only speed of light (in fact there are experiments that show light can almost be slowed to a slow crawl). What physics has defined c as is the constant speed of _light in a vacuum_. So you can see my problem? Here was this guy I studied quite seriously, and I come across data that indicate he had a misunderstanding. His knowledge was not complete.
If the occasional fact of verifiable science is incorrect, how and why should someone accept that all facts and claims much harder to verify are absolutely correct?
That’s where I think LRH tried to convey that you have freedom of thought — it is not true for you unless it is true for you.
BTW, I do agree that some things do bear out (like the plethora of planets, including some Earth-like as best can be told). But the views on Venus? No. Mars? No likely unless the implant station is underground or is run by automated beings (not biological organisms). Or — back to the volcanoes and nuclear blasts. There is this tantalizing deposit of iridium around the world at around (but not exactly at) 75 M years ago. Iridium can be a product of nuclear blasts — but it can be residue of asteroid strikes too. So … hmm. My internal jury is still out on that.
Thank you Tom for writing and Marty for posting. It is uplifting to have what amounts to a free speech forum. Communication is the universal solvent.
Tom, while a agree to one extent or another with many of your points, I found I cannot agree with this statement: “Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.”
To be more polite than in English, my response is “caca.” That stance is exactly what has gotten CoS (and the topic of Scn in general) in such trouble. It is what has led to needless disconnection rather than reasoned discourse. It is what makes so many live in fear — fear of organized Scn, fear of their own integrity, denial of their own critical reasoning and intelligence, and it sets up LRH onto a weird demi-god pedestal that I sincerely hope he did not aspire to. For people to be free, they absolutely must be able to write express their thoughts whether it be for or against LRH. I almost want to say, “Relax! What is valid will stand the test of time. It will stand inquiries, scientific studies, double blind research, you name it. And if it cannot withstand those things, well, heck, people can still believe it as a matter of faith if they wish.”
Now, all y’all may or may not get a kick out of this. But as I plow through “Going Clear” by Wright, I actually find my opinion of LRH changing for the positive. Rather than CoS’s “too much sugar for a nickel” hagiography, the guy was a real human being, with all his mix of flaws and genius. Frankly, he did not need to embellish his life. It was remarkable and awesome. Why he chose to do so probably does point to one (of possibly many) character flaws, but that does not invalidate his body of work.
For example, I think JFK was an awesome president. His multiple affairs and being hooked on pain pills does not change my opinion. I admire Einstein greatly. The fact that he abandoned a child (Liesel) change my mind? No (though it did break my heart as a parent). Newton who created calculus (as evidently also did Leibnitz) was an astrologer and alchemist, and never made it onto the 2D, dying a virgin. He was arrogant and obnoxious. But still great. Or take Tesla, far more a genius than Edison (and per the US Supreme Court the actual inventor of the radio, not Marconi), with his germ-phobia and weirdness was still am eminent phenomenon.
I’ve actually come to believe that madness and genius may be linked in some way. So here’s to Ron! Hooray for his genius. And hooray for his madness. And may we be free to speak freely as free beings.
The ironic thing, is that if one simply applies BASIC scientology tech, guys like DM are easy to spot an avoid. All you need is Tone Level (though other things certainly apply).
But the “Admin Tech” allows “ass-kickers” like DM to flourish and prosper in SCN Orgs.
A serious out-point.
Carcha,
I think the industry doesn’t have too much trouble defining its products. But it struggles with its purpose and ability to communicate with their users. It has very little responsibility for the people it sells products to. They have been selling the same products to customers every five years for the last 30 years.
Word processing for example, improved efficiencies in law firms by 60% in the early 1980’s with very little gains since then despite enormous investment in very similar facilities.
This is really obvious at the IT-user interface. IT has a terrible time trying to find out how they can use their products to help the user.
System Analysts who can really apply the technology are rare. You have the analysts who come from the business background but don’t have enough IT knowledge to understand what the technology can do. Then there are the analysts who understand the tech but never seem to be able to deliver what is needed or wanted b y the users. The analyst with a balanced view is rare.
It has “spread like wildfire” in the past(1960s and 1970s), and will do so again. It is spreading as needed right now. It’s spread is only limited by the availability of training centers outside the Church, and they are being established in increasing numbers.
Perhaps you should study at home or at a library, outside of “official” courserooms?
Yep, want to ack you also on both posts
You need to publish a book of poems, Cowboy, if you have not done so already. That is a Good Poem…..A gem of Truth.
Well, Gerhardt, my view is that you can’t get a better education in admin than reading the Management Series volumes. They are phenomenal.
In 1970 Ron wrote a policy called Group Sanity which outlined 11 points where Earth organizations are going wrong. They are spot on and apply more today than ever.
I’m a contract Project Manager and have worked for Australia’s largest banks, engineering firms and IT companies over the last 30 years. In all that time I’ve never seen a company with a functioning org board based on products. They are never more than command charts showing little fiefdoms which sometimes dont’ even communicate which part of the org you need to go to. It’s standard practice in all projects to develop your own org charts at the beginning of a project. When dealing with a team or group, it is also standard to insist on a Single Point Of Contact to avoid some of the complexity of figuring out who does things and exactly how to ask for stuff.
Project managers have become very popular over the last 20 years because they are a way of papering over the lack of admin tech in our companies. When trying to get things done, we run into every single situation there is in that organization.
Take the “IBM turnaround” for example. That’s a story for the stockholders. They’ve done the same thing that every other company does in their position. Lay off tens of thousands of their staff for a start at immense cost. No staff member imagines IBM actually likes them or considers them part of their group. Imagine a Dad coming home after losing his job saying to his wife, “I’m sorry honey, but we’re going to have to let some of the kids go.”
If you apply for a job at IBM in Australia, as I have done, they offer you 40% less than they did 15 years ago – despite inflation. They offer you a daily contract which is supposed to be 8hrs per day. Then they ask how you feel about working 10 or even 12 hours fairly frequently (at no charge to ibm) and if you balk you don’t get the job.
I talk to my friends who took jobs there and it’s pretty obvious that the company is making money at their employees expense.
It’s easy to over-estimate how competent the world’s administrators are until you actually have to try and get something done in these orgs. LRH admin tech is like a bright light in the darkness.
yep, agreed. There is no substitute for understanding.
@Kay Rowe,
Nicely stated. I agree that no matter what can be said about LRH’s personal life, his design of the organization and the policies which support it, and his own apparent lack of applying his own tech/ethics to himself by going pts (in my opinion), he was able (with help) to give us the tools to raise our awareness and rid ourselves of case. I know in my heart that there is no way I would have achieved the self awareness that I have nor would I have rid myself of case without training and auditing. I went to the Eastern religions prior to Scientology and my main problem was how to really get started. I thought I was going to have to go to India or China. Finding Scientology offered a Western approach to what I liked about the Eastern philosophies. I do have some disappointment that there is a lack of high level OT processes that I was hoping to find, but on the other hand, just having those abilities alone would not get rid of case- something I was unaware of before getting on board with Scientology. Also, my ability to help others is something gained from Scientology.
To answer Marty’s question, I think that I mostly agree with Tom in that Ron set up a workable system with the tech, and we should just use it and get on with our bridge and help others up the bridge independently. I don’t know that Corporate Scientlogy can be fixed, but more importantly, I don’t feel there is a need for a big corporate organization anyway. In my experience, the bridge works when everything is done properly, but I can’t speak for everyone. Ron does say that he can’t promise we will make it. Maybe that s a default statement but nothing regarding knowledge can be guaranteed, just like in education. For every perso who feels that the tech did not produce the result, there is probably a reason that could be found with the right auditor, c/s, or qual terminal. In the end, results speak for themselves but creating an organized religion with a bunch of administrative rules pitted against an imposssible time machine isn’t necessary. I believe it was the organization which ruined the organization..not the essence of the tech.
After doing both sides of the bridge, the next step is to research higher levels of awareness, something which the church will never be able to do with DM in power.
Actually, I just re-read your comment and would like to say that despite my comments about IBM, I agree emphatically with your main point. Ethics is definitely the first point of attack if you want to change things in organizations.
“Some say that LRH is not the only technology that there is, nor is his philosophy there only one that works and that following his technology or values only is being blind or being robotic. That’s fair and in theory it is a solid viewpoint, but in practice it is fatal.”
100% unadulterated, close-minded, brainwashed BULLSHIT.
It’s nutty statements like this that make me thankful that not only is The Church of Scientology dying on its arse, but the practice of Scientology itself is slowly but surely disappearing off the planet. Sanity will prevail. Sure, you’ll spin some BS about the complete opposite, but that’s only to be expected from a deluded wannabe cult leader.
Yeah, go on; call me OSA or a CoS sympathiser. Seems that’s the only retort you use these days against people who don’t have their tongue planted firmly up your sphincter.*
*Yes, I’m aware this post will never see the light of day, but this post is intended for the eyes of Rathbun and the arse-licking sycophants that help to moderate this Blog.
Rinder – brilliantly stated!
I don’t agree that we have to “lie down with these flea-bitten dogs in order to bring down DM”. Even though I cringe at the corporate church under DM, I also cringe when I read negative stuff about the church in the press because unfortunately the public at large does not and will not differentiate between DM, the tech, the current church, and LRH unless they have been a part of it at one point in time. The church pr is so bad that even though folks speaking out take pains to distinguish between that which is miraculous and belongs in the LRH tech and the negative actions of DM and the current church, most media folk just seem to take advantage of the fact that they can get a boost in ratings by jumping on the ‘controversial church’ bandwagon. Hopefully, some people out there have a reason to listen to details, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on i. I’m thinking that all that gets through to the general public is the a restim of the A=A=A of previous bad pr. Still, there are those folks who are or have been involved but have failed purposes or upsets. They will listen and learn from that which is presented. News about the church is a double edged sword.
Taking down DM, as you put it, is something I would like to see but it is not on my admin scale of goals or even a plan. I do not think that this is a possible task from the outside. I do think that continuing to go up the bridge and get trained in the Indie field is the best way to create a win/win situation.
Tony, your points extremely well made here. I also think that Scientology will have numerous sects like Christianity instead of being dominated by one church governing body and I think that’s a good thing. And I MOST definately agree with your last statement. As the saying once went – “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Hey Tom. I totally get it. Thanks for your posting today. Plus that is a great win you had in 1971 on TRO. I had my first TR0 win in 1972.
—-I blindly followed LRH many times to my benefit. And one day years ago when I went in session to receive auditing and I just did what the auditor told me to do. I didn’t ask “why”. Afterwards I walked out into the hallway realizing that I was very extremely tall and couldn’t stop smiling. Some days later I read the HCOB to find out about the auditing process I had received and sure enough the End Phenomena was “Exteriorization”. I followed blindly until I was in a much better position to see.
—-And again only a couple of years ago a man got hit by a car in the highway and I saw about 30 people standing around the poor chap. Within the first 10 seconds I gave myself 10 reasons why I shouldn’t go help. In the 11th second I felt like shit. In the 12th second I said “fuck it” and walked straight over, pushed through the crowd, I knelt beside the guy, took his hand, and it was “Amigo, this is the session.” He looked like he might be dead. But it had been 30 years since I have read the LRH data on assists. But when I had studied the data I was a Primary Rundown Completion (study tech) which means I should still be able to apply it. I did an assist for an unconscious person. Part of the guy’s brains were exterior to his head from the accident. I ran the assist anyway. From behind me a woman spoke softly to me saying: “I’m a nurse at the hospital. I’m happy you know what your doing. Can I help? ” I told her “sure”, don’t let people come too close or make too much noise.” I could hear her behind me doing that. I continued the assist. The man regained consciousness, opened his eyes. I had to then convince him to remain lying still. Then paramedics arrived. I was glad I trusted LRH.
—I think Scientology is for people who want to get something DONE! That’s one thing I admire about Marty, is his level of getting things done.
—–Tom, I’m happy you are doing well. I read your incredible book “Vietnam-The Teenage Wasteland”. You kept the promise that you made on the battlefield back in 1969, and I say that because I’ve read of the many years you have devoted to helping mankind since those horrible days.
Mike, in my opinion, the cult of blind faith in SCN was a necessary by-product of DM’s power grab and an artifact of the Messengers (if it hadnt been DM, probably it would have been someone else). Not that there weren’t shadows of this before, but when LRH died, the CMO should have been folded up. Orgs are like being and want to survive. Just because their reason for being ends, doesnt mean they dont want to go on surviving. With LRH dead, DM had to create the Myth of the divine LRH to justify the continued existance of the very organ of his power.
Folks like you Mike, and Marty, who lived this period may have better perspective on this since you actually lived it. But then again, maybe an outside perspective is more clear.
I can tell you from my time in the Sea Org, that i found it very nasty (not to mention often counter-productive) that a little 15 year old messenger could come into the area of a veteran staff member (far more valuable than they) and act like a total shit and since that person “was LRH” for all practical purposes, they just had to take it or risk a declare. Maybe guys like you and Marty didnt see it since you where “above” it and where pretty hard working guys. But i can tell you from repeated experience that the lower level CMO’ers were pretty abusive little fucks.
We on the outside, no longer have this tumor growing on us. We can acknowledge the greatness of the man, despite his manifest faults. Worship is less than necessary and is not part and parcel of our excuse for existance.
To those good people, like Haydn, who believe our main job now is to deliever to those who have left Cof$, i’m sorry, but as far as the long term suvival of SCN, this doesnt lead to a good prognosis. Those who have left are an obvious starting point, but this is a game of diminishing returns as it posits a parasitic existance on an already dying (practically dead) host. If independent SCN is really to suvive and flourish, it must develop its own outreach and recruitment.
As independents, i would like to see us coalesce into loose association of Orgs or “churches.” Maybe a “congress” sort of structure like the Southern Baptists or Methodists or whatever. A core set of tenets are drawn up and agreed to by the member churches and then adhered to. (mainly regarding the Spirtual Tech, guys like Dan Koon and other high level tech folks can comprise a technical advisory committee to organise the technical codicles) Those orgs that violate or later disagree can be kicked out or leave (but dont have to be demonized). So its a ground up structure, rather than a top down. Org voting rights within the congress would be based on factual size of their core membership, so the more successfull and larger orgs would have more voting power than the less successfull.
Such a system would certainly harness in a more productive and effective manner the natural competitive nature of people than the LRH Birthday Game or any of the raft of Ass-kicking Flag Orders, since the obvious thing to do for any Org to do is find out what is making the big orgs successfull and do it or even improve upon it. So, you can keep the Spiritual Tech as unadulterated as possible, but as much as possible org structure and operational policy at the Org level is left to that Org.
The one compotent SCN has lacked (because of the cannablistic regging culture of the church) is a theta social climate. Beings love get togethers and fellowship. If you combined good technical delivery with regular and genuine social get together opportunities, real SCN could flourish in spades. Those not ready or who cant afford the their next thing, can still participate and be among the like minded.
The possiblities as endless as they are exciting.
Thank you, Tom! The only thing I can think of that I may disagree with you about in your post was your statement that ,
“Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.”
I would say that while there may be a grain truth in this but the greater truth is that one could never really understand and apply Scientology fully or get the best results if it was approached this way.
That said, I appreciate your putting Scientology in perspective with other studies of the spirit and the mind and pointing out that Ron synthesized and aligned a LOT of truths which had been discovered by others along with his own discoveries and developed VERY workable techniques for enhancing the lives of others and reaching others where they “live”. That’s what he did. Anyone who has had a standard session by a well-trained auditor or done TRO to a major stable win, or given someone an assist and had that person describe the relief they experience has experienced this. In my view also LRH was and IS very caring person and is a genius among geniuses. Everyone who I have met (a good number of people) who had met Ron mentioned the palpable experience that he personally cared VERY much about the people around him. Did he have shortcomings? Yes. But, it is not fair not to put any mention of these in perspective with his stellar accomplishments. I don’t know anyone else or any other practice that has produced simple, workable tools as effective as TRO and the contact assist or an auditing-type process that is helpful to virtually any human being. I am always willing to look, but I just haven’t yet seen anything that approaches Scientology as far as broad effectiveness and workability goes.
And Marty, thanks for the invitation to comment opposing views. I can’t keep my mouth shut anyway, so like it that way. Like you said, an op-ed doesn’t HAVE to be an “opposite” view and I don’t see any SERIOUS disagreement you between you and Tom. I have appreciated your acknowledging the truth which exists in and the effectiveness of some non-Scientology practices.
From what I have heard from others, you are an EXCELLENT auditor. While you might look into or try out some of these, somehow I doubt that you do chanting or make use of I Ching sticks as part of a Scientology auditing session. 🙂
So, for what I have heard you are mostly on the same page, but I look forward to hearing about where you part company with Tom as well as where you agree with him.
I agree! I think the main point is that Scientology auditing either helps a person more than anything else around, or it doesn’t. There’s much to complain about organizationally and about LRH as founder, leader, personally etc., and being critical of it all is fine but it doesn’t change the fact that the tech produced results. However, folks like Paul Haggis for instance, who go through the OT levels but had all these considerations about what they were doing…like auditing despite the lack of gains or whatever, weren’t even ‘in session’ apparently or were other determined. I watched his TV interview and unless there is alot more to the story, he never said that he got any gains. If he talked of any gains then it flew over my head. So how one can complete OT 7 and not make gains is beyond me. How miserable. I understand not making gains and then leaving the level after not getting help, but to continue and accept a cert that says you are done…that is strange behavior. Where was his personal responsibility and integrity level?Did the media take out his wins? Geir Isene is Independent and left after OT8 but he also talks about the incredible gains he achieved. He distinguishes between the organization and the tech and it is apparent from his doubt formula that he was self determined going in and leaving. So the admin tech is useful and applies to organizaiton in general, it isn’t the red on white, and it is too often used to trump the tech one way or another!
“NO ONE has opened up a “truth commission” or yet achieved a balanced forum”
Right !
Tom, re: your TRs experience: I wouldn’t say that you were excercising “blind faith” so much as you were trying out an LRH datum that you had studied and in trying it out in “real life” you found that it worked for you extremely well. I think that’s the way one SHOULD put ideas into action.
i think it is not only fine, but the PREFERRED action (in my universe anyway) to test out EVERY datum one gets from LRH or anyone else, to see if it is true for yourself by your OWN observation. Then you make up your own mind as to its truth and its value for YOU. We all know that Ron himself at one time thought that this was a point of personal integrity.
I do not evaluate Ron’s decisions in his personal life. I have read a couple of the “attack biographies” and LRH never ordered bombing attacks on defenseless civilians, nor the imprisonment of hundreds of thousands nor committed any of the other atrocities that so many “great men” did. He was a brilliant man who worked extremely hard in bettering other peoples’ lives. So he led a “colorful” personal life! His many failures with his spouses and children are the same that most of us have experienced in life, one way or the other. Apparently at times he had the same challenges in applying Scientology basics to his own life as many of us have had.
Where I do feel it is legitamate to evaluate LRH’s actions and to be brutally critical when necessary is in his attitudes towards other Scientologists and his actions towards them (both personally when he knew them and in the general policies he wrote that applied to staff). And this includes his actual ACTIONS in regards to David Miscavige. And I would also add how he fostered a certain military type slavishness on the 3D that greatly discouraged individual action and ENcouraged following orders and “comman intention” which very surely eventually resulted in the highest ranked people in Scientology (such as Heber, Leserve, Yager, etc) just saying “yes sir” over and over and over again to “the chairman.” That attitude and that culture didn’t just “spring up.” It was created duringg the 60s and 70s and I think it is right to hold LRH to account for that. Not to make less of him or what he accomplished as a great philosopher of the human mind and spirit, but to UNDERSTAND how what happened to the CoS happened (if one is interested in understanding that).
I also think it is both legitamate and necessary to evaluate and criticize Ron’s administrative actions as well. Yes, he did MUCH right, obviously (he established the first really new international religion since Islam in the 7th century; maybe there were others, but none as extensive or as “real” as Scientology). But I think we can VERY much question, for example, his establishment of the creation of the Flag Service Org in Clearwater in the light of how this affected Orgs and their ability to keep their public local (an interesting and vital subject I think in the history of Scientology from the perspective of a staff member from 1970 onward and how things changed after 1975).
Thanks for your viewpoint Tom. I hope we can all exchange our viewpoints with each other and hopefully become more enlightened as a result.
Karen, beautifully stated.
Well said FOT, but Newton dying a virgin!!???!!! I guess he had more time for science that way (no sex, no internet, no major league sports, lot of free time if one wanted to make use of it, that is, if one wasn’t in heavy toil 16 hours a day). I’m also a great admirer of JFK by the way and one thing about him was that he learned from his mistakes, which of course we all make in life.
Wow! Thanks, Jim. When I looked over the discussions of the last days I asked myself, “What are they trying to solve?”
As I view it, spiritual development does not depend on the collection of status-numbers, but on increased understanding and increasing decrease of complexity. Where is the limit of that?
For me personally HCO PL “Your post and Life” is an OT-Level. Ron states in it that its data come from the highest OT-Levels and the data in it evaluate even subjects like ARC and how to make a postulate. It corresponds to HCO PL “Tech”. These two give me progress each time I apply them to something. Each time I feel more OT.
The first rule, used in repairing anything, is to understand it.
The second, if you can’t understand it, get more simple.
The first one touches somewhat the “blind faith” discussion, as in order to decide one has to understand. Obviously one has to invest some trust in order to try the matter out. It doesn’t make you a robot.
To be a robot one has to be a robot.
To be an independent one has to be independent!
p.s.: Your analysis also touches the two points I feel to be key for the situation in the CofS.
1.) The abandonment of the Primary Rundown. In briefing to the Aides Ron stated 1972 that without a study rundown that makes persons understand what they study any amount of study would be a waste of time.
and 2.) the abandonment of a complete OT 2 which runs out more than 2000 ways of how not to understand. These can be dramatized.
I did read an East Germany book about Einstein. This book had lots of „and Lenin said..“ All over the book quotes from Lenin in a book about Einstein. A bit similar to that we now have a David Miscavige Scientology world. Very recently I had the cognition that Scientology without L. Ron Hubbard does not work. I do not mean that you have to send a prayer to LRH or something like that to make it work. Sample: During the rough times 1984 in my area I had to clean up the mess done and that had been quite a task. I could survive it (literally, as those charges involved had been quite a challenge for my body) only by sticking to LRH strictly and re reading the references for my job every day.
On the other side of the coin I am not a fan of any kind of „displayed“ admiration for a person. Be it a movie star, a politician or father or whoever. So, I could not see any point in giving LRH a good hand on every occasion possible. I could and cannot share this feelings. I am a „whole track technician“ and that is not my world.
[I change my alias to Schorsch instead of George. Schorsch is the spoken name of George in bavaria.]
“To me each business needs an independent analysis to see what, exactly THAT business needs” – Thank you, Andy.
I’ve worked for a company that did not have an org board and encouraged musical chairs. On paper they were doing everything wrong. In reality, it was absolutely brilliant. Their work was organized around a project with a very specific product. They would put the work out in their internal newsletter encouraging interested people to apply. The people that ended up on the project were there because they wanted to be there and were very passionate about it. At the end of the project, may be in a year or so, the whole process would start over. Crazy eh?
Doing this they produced world-class, award-winning products and have become a household name. I should note that the entire organization did not run this way, but a good portion of it did. They did have a traditional skeletal organizational structure.
If an ambitious Scn Management Consultant was on the scene their first action would be to put “order” into the “chaos” by org boarding it – and destroy the successful organic synergy that evolved. It may have been chaotic to him, but to those involved it worked perfectly well.
The phenomenal thing about LRH and his Admin tech is that, though it’s not complete as he states in the OECs, still it’s so crystal clear and LRH was instrumental in working out Simplicities to build up some Complexities. If those Simplicities are NOT understood the whole thing goes by the boards.
In the Org Board and all his Admin Tech LRH makes an analysis of the Cycle of Action. That people do not get it or that there are no fully hatted (in the full sense of the meaning) Administrators makes the Admin Tech look weird or be misused.
Still it’s the Tech that LRH and others used to boom orgs. I did too once in a Central Files project. It was amazing. We got tons of volunteers. Of course there was a big prize issued by ED Int for them to get. That, together with some little application of the Org Board made the project successful.
Yes, I like Haydn’s viewpoint, too. And we do have to give the Indie Movement some real thought and do apply more and more of the hundreds of policies that are there to be applied. Not enforce, understand them first. I did a meticulous study of the org board and Livingness. That gave me a strong foundation as to what IS the org board and how each department makes the Particle (Product to be) FLOW and change towards a desired thing. If this sounds too theoretical for some… well, it really isn’t. There is a lot to grasp in Admin and it can speed up things provided you have a good product, which we Do. We actually have the best, most important Product Man would like to have. Admin can do some miracles towards its dissemination.
L. Ron Hubbard, Jr aka Nibs
Yes Steve, brilliant post. Thanks, man!
Regular Dog, your story with the assist is amazing! Thanks for sharing.
Great post Alex and I agree. I’m afraid that Tom’s posting contains the seeds of fanaticism that underlies much of RCS. I feel all LRH wanted people to do is LOOK. One could say that everything in the subject of Scn is all about LOOKING on a gradient scale. To adopt the subject and then decide to NOT LOOK (or even “selective” LOOK) is the greatest of ironies.
These questions right here ‘are’ your answers. People, Scientologists, exes and non-scientologists, have been asking these qestions for years, and no surprise, no answers, no explanation; because the only explanation is that despite L Ron wishing the tech to have worked the way he wanted it to, the way he promised people it would, it DIDN’T work!
I am not discounting the ‘wins’ (whatever that means) that each individual had, I’m sure you felt them if you said you did, but those ‘wins’ were not the end result L Ron promised, no matter how you spin it.
And that saying the man is always being quoted as saying: “If it’s true for you…and so on” it isn’t even the orginal sayiing, that he got from someone else (Snake Thompson) – it was actually “If it’s not true for you, then it’s not true.” Meaning, if the evidence doesn’t add up, then it’s probably not true – and at the very least needs further investigation. The ‘evidence’ here is mounting…
On Blind Faith, something good from the Dalaï Lama : “Rely on the teachings to evaluate a guru: Do not have blind faith, but also no blind criticism.”
As a side note, I saw so much extraordinary comments the last days, thanks to the moderator I think.
I still have doubts that individual auditing over the internet could be really effective, but with this blog I experienced a fantastic and succesfull group engram running!
…except for the ‘follow blindly.’
LRH gave us a lifeline.
Every time you get a session where you locate and blow some kind of charge, or every time you gain more insight into how life works, and therefore become wiser about how you handle it, every time you apply some tech you know to help better someone else’s life, you are pulling yourself and others forward along that line.
LRH was saying something very important when he said that Scientology is not based on faith, it is based on hope. When someone sees that something has gotten resolved because they have done some auditing on it, or realized something important, it gives them hope that other things can be handled too. When others see people winning with the tech, it gives them hope. Hope carries us along.
So our grip on the life line gets stronger.
And our strength and certainty carries others along. And the persistence of others in turn gives us strength to continue to persist despite the innumerable obstacles and counter intention that life throws at us.
None of us can do this alone. We depend on the sanity and caring of others, as they in turn depend on us.
This is the ascending spiral, the growing volume of mutual help and the strengthening of the group agreement that there is a way out, and most importantly, that It can be done. Every other debate about the details of how to do it is of far lesser importance.
Since to one degree or another we all affect each other, it is incumbent on all of us to keep our eye on the ball. It is so easy to get lost in the details, but it is the big picture that is important. That is what keeps the hope alive for everyone now, and everyone else that will come along in the future.
Negativity, entheta, invalidation, all these things do nothing but weaken the resolve of the individual and of the group.
When any of those we are connected to and care about gives up hope, lets go of that lifeline, wanders away, or turns against it, we all die a little.
There is hope.
There is a way out.
It can be done.
Thanks Jim, I am confident that Scientology is the way you describe it just because I have experienced the same things and we do share a reality. A Huge Reality. Your analysis of the First and Second Postulate shows the depths and heights which a thetan can attain through Scientology, the Second Postulate. The way you put it, “lost” and “found”, the stable datum…. I think it’s the best stable datum we can have now… those who cannot see it, simply have not done much homework. We have…
I would also like to clear up one other thing here as your ability to see in depth is always so helping.
What do LRH and DM have in common?
They are both leaders but of a different caliber.
However, what I just got the idea that they do have in common is that they CAN’t be Stopped. Many have criticised both as sociopaths and maybe there is a certain degree of a sociopath in both personalities. I am not by any means saying LRH was a sociopath whereas we all know that DM is.
But both can’t be stopped. A leader LEADS and of course DM being no philosopher but a manager at best keeps on Leading no matter what.
But I would like to stress that a Leader Leads and carries on no matter what and finally gets to the point and gets the rest to arrive, too. In such a frenzy to arrive the Leader may “lose” it from time to time and all people have to say is that the leader was yelling. they can’t see that so many people arrived.
This certain craziness in a leader to continue leading and to move on I think is the one key thing to see and think about it. Because when a guy such as DM can keep on being a “leader” just because he has this one basic attribute, of NOT BEING STOPPED by anything or anyone, then bad things happen.
We have seen leaders in gangsters, in politics in many many areas who are bad. Nevertheless they couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. So they led their people to the wrong end.
LRH was a leader who wouldn’t be stopped (Ethics) but he had also the Tech and Admin he had developed.
Just as an aside point of what you said as it came to my mind.
I really enjoyed your post and thanks for being so clear and in depth always in writing about the philosophy of Scientology.
Thought-provoking comment. I have seen the reverse at work i.e. a company completely stifle its ability to grow, expand and adapt due directly to the insistence on “applying” Admin Tech.
Whilst proudly displaying its “Model of Admin Know-How” certificate on the wall it was getting completely left behind by the competition. I was taken on board to do a marketing program to take the sales to new public instead of selling and re-selling to existing customers, and quickly found my remit was going to be impossible while all the marketing budget was being spunked on useless “mailings to CF”, while I wasn’t able to sack or reassign the useless staff as they were “hatted”, while there were endless “Ad Councils”, “Exec Councils”, musters and god-knows-what, but most of all because the Ads I mocked up, while provenly workable (I had almost single-handedly boomed the UK stats in the 80s with a Book 1 marketing campaign and knew my stuff), didn’t conform exactly to LRH policies on how to write an Ad.
Having said that, with a little common sense applied, I do agree that some of the CONCEPTS of Admin tech could be useful, if applied very sparingly and immediately discarded if found unworkable.
Oh, I forgot the biggest production-killer of all – the weekly stats bullshit. Every week all staff would spend typically hours working out and drawing lines on a graph – to show – what exactly? This company – G&G vitamins – was staggering along at the barely-viable level for DECADES while new boys on the block such as Goldshield simply came along, did some proper marketing and suddenly all their Directors were driving Aston Martins or Bentleys. Each Thursday 2pm I bet they were either getting on with the next marketing campaign or counting their profits, while G&G staff were drawing lines on a graph to submit to “management”.
Honestly I really can’t understand this post.
“Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly? I would say so because to me it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence. ”
What the hell has that got to do with real Scientology? If you really believe that how did you ever have any trouble with RTC? I am pretty sure that is exactly the attitude RTC love to see. Amongst other problems is the issue that L Ron Hubbard is not alive and in front of you to speaking to you from his own body with his own voice. What you refer to as L Ron Hubbard is in fact a primarily a collection of typed messages that could have in fact be written by anyone. Unless you use your own judgement to find the truth or otherwise you have no way of know who it is that you are following blindly. Presumably this is the attitude of thousands with in the RTC controlled church and makes it possible for such bizarre things and HCOBs and HCOPLs issued and modified post 1986. Really what the hell?
Thanks Tom and Marty. Very refreshing to be part of such and open minded blog.
I am joining those who disagreed with the blindly follow LRH issue for the following reason: LRH asked of us not to do that and the reason behind that is clear. For true knowledge one has to question even if the source appears God-like compared to self.
Reality however is that no matter how much LRH was stressing this issue some people will still end up following him blindly. At that point they have parted from the tech. It is questionable as to how much if any gain one would have with such mentality if it is permanent.
To answer the issue if blind following is better than nothing I would consider who it is that is doing the following. Following LRH blindly as an individual trying to go up the bridge is one thing and doing the same as an auditor (or any other form of tech source) is another.
As an individual some degree of blind following (or faith) may be necessary at first depending on the condition of the individual. The point however is that one should try to get out of that condition ultimately.
As for an auditor I would have to say that they should be already out of the condition of blindly following LRH before they try to help anyone else otherwise they may be doing more damage than good due to the fact that their true conceptual understanding is not in as required by the tech.
Blindly following LRH indefinitely is out tech IMHO.
Let me have a go at this one please.
Firstly, if I am working out how much energy I’m going to get out of something when I blow it up, I’m guessing I’d have to use the formula
e = m x c squared, right? If one is going to use different speeds of light then the formula is going to come up with all sorts of answers. How can that be right? Will a nuclear explosion release different amounts of energy according to one’s opinion on what the speed of light is?
Back in the 50’s I think you will find that the speed of light was regarded as a constant and LRH was correct to finger it as a fraud.
When it comes to the location of volcanos 75million years ago and your feeling that Ron had a misunderstanding, I think you need to reconsider what you are doing here and I’ll give you an example of why.
My Science Teacher at High School loved to talk and told us a lot of amazing things. He talked about how long it took trucks to stop as an illustration of physical laws. He also ventured into politics now and then with comment on current events. The guy never once let me down on physics – but I am pretty certain his political commentary was not as solid. But so what? He wasn’t teaching us politics and we knew it was just an aside.
So I think you should take into account that this guy wasn’t teaching a geology course.
I’m sure you are like me in this regard. I am expert in several subjects. But in the course of a day I can be heard giving my opinions on (a) politics, (b) music, (c) someone else’s behavior, (d) what senior management of my company 5000km away should do to fix the company, (e) all manner of subjects I would do well to keep my nose out of. I’m sure many of the things I say are possibly doubtful. But how important are those things?
Having said that, I don’t think anyone at all knows for sure where those volcanos were 75million years ago. I’ve been doing a bit of reading about this and there is a very popular school of thought now that the traditional models are breaking down in favor of something they call cataclysmic geology. And those guys are geologists.
As for Ron’s opinion about Darwinian evolution being incorrect, I agree with that one hundred percent.
If you are as passionate about the truth as you sound, you should read the book called Forbidden Archeaology. It’s a heck of a read and might give you a little insight into current “verifiablel science”.
Spot on Ingrid.
Nice suggestions.
Lots of people are agreeing that dm is blindly following LRH. (and should)All the people in the cult believe that dm is applying KSW to the max!! Surely Tom Cruise believes this. Lots of people believe that dm is ruthlessly applying the ethics tech (without being “reasonable”) There are tons of other examples of how some “not quite bright” think that following a destructive course of action IS “blindly following LRH” and is a GOOD thing to do.
Please reread the policy. It says clearly in the policy exactly what you say it doesn’t say. Ron says point 3 is achieved by trying it out and observing that it works. That is how point 3 is to be achieved.
If you have a piece of technology that is supposed to solve a problem, then it darn well better solve problems. If it observably does that, then you will have point 3 in. If it doesn’t, then only a lunatic would “know that it works”.
Unfortunately, the Church appears to be populated with quite a few of those these days.
I might add, you should respect others regardless of what decision you come to about a particular piece of tech.
I wouldn’t say it exactly as you did, though you made me laugh fore sure!
I do agree with Dirks point that there is a lot wrong with KSW. And there are a lot of jumps of “logic” people make by following it blindly.
I sound like a broken record saying that I like a lot of LRH’s tech. It’s almost like I have to convince people that to look at he things that I think are not so great, I have to “prove” that I am not an LRH hater. My point is that not all things he wrote were genius. A lot of his stuff was pure genius. But I am sorry KSW stinks!!! He could have said ” I have developed some very workable technology. Please don’t change it and try very hard to apply it with love and tolerance because it can bring people to a mugh higher place.
But NO…he said all sorts of crap in that reference, do I relay need to relay it all here now ?? How about all the heavy ethics shit he wrote?? Are we to follow all that shit blindly too??? WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent comment FOTF.
Hellp Dirk,
you say:
“At the root of KSW is line 3: “knowing the tech is correct.” This doesn’t say “trying the tech out, and seeing it works for you, and doing your best to apply it, and respecting others who it isn’t true for.” It says “knowing it is correct.””
But the KSW#1 PL says:
I hope this helps.
I love what you said. It’s so sane and true.
I mean, I hope it helps to find consistency in this HCO PL.
Well, what LRH actually says is: “Three is acheived by the individual applying the correct technology in a proper manner and and observing that it works that way.”
That doesn’t leave a lot of leeway. It does assume, as Dirk says, that the tech and everything about it is infallible – and by extrapolation if you don’t get the expected result you are doing it wrong.
Now, most usually this is probably true – but it doesn’t allow for judgement or common sense. It’s just “take my word for it”. Furthermore it must be applied “ruthlessly”, not with love and understanding; Executives MUST challenge with “ferocity” etc. Don’t worry if it is “unpleasant or unsocial…” – it is a “deadly serious activity…”
This is, as Jason Beghe memorably said, LRH banging the desk. In the SAME policy LRH says that every man, woman and child’s existence for eternity depends on what you do with this information. No – it doesn’t. Sorry, but it simply doesn’t. If Scientology wasn’t destined to become a cult before this policy letter, it was inevitable after it.
LRH wrote the following:
(page 314 of the Intro to Scientology ethics book under chapter entitled Suppressice acts)
“Neglect or violation of any of the ten points of Keepiong Scientology Working.”
“Seeking to splinter off an area of Scientology and deny it to properly constituted authority for personal profit, personal power or “to save the organization from the higher officers of Scientology”.
~Part of KSW is :
6. Seeing that the technology is correctly applied.
7. Hammering out of existence incorrect technology.
8. Knocking out incorrect application.
etc…
If you are in the Independent field then you are committing a suppressive act per the above reference that LRH wrote. If you are violating this Justice code, are you then applying the tech?? Ethics and Justice tech is tech too isn’t it?? Why shouldn’t you follow this rule blindly also?? Maybe if you did, you would have some spectacular cognition??
If you don’t hammer out incorrect technology then you are also guilty of an SP Act. Any of you who feel this way should turn yourself into the cult and beg for forgiveness and do Ato E like a good little bot.
I dont think i’m the only sucker who, duely impressed with things like Tone Scale, TRs/Comm Cycle, ARC (applied), Study Tech, Auditing Wins, etc etc, got excited and joined staff or the Sea Org, only to find those bodies seemly operating on something very different than Scientology, yet of the same Source.
LRH in the Spiritual sphere counsels against force and threat of force when dealing with other being, staffs are seemingly run on nothing but. Crazy shit. Seems like the old man became frustrated with herding cats, and tried to bulldoze Scientology to the masses.
I think we can discard all the force crap in Admin Policy (and i dont give a flying fuck if LRH wrote the damn Flag Order or HCOPL), discard the Sea Org compeletly, and simply use what works and that which actually aligns with Scientology principals.
So far in my experience, i trust LRH completely in the Spiritual Tech area. On the Admin side, i take him strickly on a case by case basis.
Yes, Scientology needs some structure and organization. But i sure dont need some ass-kicking dictator screaming at me to be free while he squeezes my gonads with one hand (metaphorically speaking) and my wallet with the other.
“LRH has only helped people.”
Only? Ummm… not so much. A touch of a “blind” spot there?
Tony, I agree – many people believe it is so.
But we know (at least I see) that he is not doing it at all.
He knows exactly that he is about to destroy ALL reputation of the Church and he doesn’t care if he takes LRH down with the ship.
good write up Mike, you were on the ship with LRH,you knew him, you were still in after he died, following blindly leads out the bottom.
why didnt he finish the ot levels, why did he die alone in a little trailer without his family with him.
i just got larrys book read 50 pages, i think he was a character, he had the little boy in him and he created games different then your average joe, he was an exaggerator for sure, if he was routing on to solo nots now, with is out 2 d, getting gov disablity,irs problems, saying he was a secret agent in the past,he would never get on solo nots, that is funny to me.
i dont care if he screwed sheep, my purpose from 1967 forward was to wake up and be free.as i said the other day, i did all the old and new ot levels, the LS and i dont even have a clue for certain what will happen when i die,i dont know anyone who is exterior with full perceptions, in or out of the church,i could of spent more time in india, meditated more, but it seems we are all on earth searching for truth which i did find , but not this idea of total freedom, if scientology said to me to this program , it will cost 10,000. you have have a better life, i would have done it and been happy, but by saying you will be a god like person,they get kids to sign billion year contracts, charge people 100,000 s of dollars.push people to the brink. if you thought mike it will make you a better person would you have giving up your youth instead of college and making money in the world? i wouldnt want to join the seaorg, i was smart enough to miss that, but for 19 years i gave them all my free time and lots of dough, it was what i needed to do or it wouldnt have happened. most people want to believe this total freedom and clearing the planet instead of being in present time enjoying there life.
For those of us who believe Scientology has value, the attitudes about it tend to fall into two camps. One camp sees Scientology as a set of tools, to be applied at the discretion of the user to solve problems, forward the search for wisdom, etc. The other camp sees Scientology as a set of rules, to be applied verbatim in most if not all situations.
Much of the noise in this debate comes from that rules vs. tools split. From several of Tom’s remarks he seems to be rather firmly in the ‘rules’ camp. Personally, I am just as firmly in the other one.
Meshell, while there is undoubtedly a lot of workable data that he collected,edited, refined, etc.; your Q’s are the “Elephant in the room”.
If confronted, they lead one to realize that there is no “there”, there as far anything universe shattering for spiritual beings. There is some good stuff to pull from this writings. But, NOTHING near what he promised or alluded to. Axiom 38 is not being applied by most here. Hence, the dearth of responses your received…
Hi!
I wouldn’t get too concerned about LRH’s mistake on this issue.
I’m sure LRH found those areas by using the ‘date and locate’ tech. Having done that, he probably looked on a map or atlas to find where these places were. Having found them on a map, and noting there were active volcanos in that location, he simply assumed they were the ones, since the science of the time indicated that would be the case.
The fact that THAT volcano was not there then, doesn’t mean that at that place and time there was not a different volcano.
LRH relied on the science of the time, and that science was not yet complete.
The true test is; does the uncident run or not?
Hi Steve !
“Following blindly”, of course, of course !!! Thanks for making me understood.
Nice example of when something touches a button, one becomes unable to think… and with DM “Following blindly” became a huge button once independant !
Of course, when somebody is in confusion, any stable data which enable to go out of it is good to take.
Thanks for having seen what was misunderstood and cleared it !
Marianne
What Valkov said.
Steve, it is easy to criticize and claim companies just turn to exploiting their employees. There is some of that, but by itself it will do nothing to turn a company around. Can you point out a single notable larger organization on this planet being run on LRH admin tech? Can you show me just a few examples of the claims that are made? I have done SSII and OEC 0 and studied the management series and worked as a top executive in large organizations. I also studied economics and several approaches to management philosophy. The idea the green volumes are all and everything, while there is not a single instance of a larger organization on this planet successfully running on it is in my experience a bit naive.
You want to take the staff working conditions and pay as indicator? Do not make me go to the obvious. 🙂
Nevertheless LRH has developed some brilliant pieces of management technology and studying his work provides tremendous insight. Gaining these insights and intelligently integrating those elements into larger organizations framework to make them more successful and a better place to work, that is the task ahead. Other than PR BS from the COS I have in the last 30 years not seen any of this, with a few exceptions in HR and training.
If the world out there is dying that badly and the green volumes are the solution, why are big corporations not reaching for it? Why does the church need WISE to shove it down people’s throat?
In my opinion it has to do with the arrogance: ‘We have the only workable tech in all aspects, the rest is “wog”.’ It is called hallucinating.
Until somebody humbly takes the tech and integrates it with repeated demonstrated success to improve and help organizations it is just not true, yet.
agreed, 100%
Regarding your comment under “secondly”.
I got two guys in SCN around 1987. They did one course and then left. One of them I met two years ago, and he said: “I still have benefits of the comm course I did 25 years ago. I asked him why he
did not continue, and you do not want to hear this story. The key point is the following:
Since I joined SCN it was a continious: “enforced reality”.
You know what I am talking about: enforced regg cycles, enforced courses, enforced ethics, study, justice, handlings corrections, auditing , ENFORCEMENT WHEREVER YOU look.
Enforced total Freedom .
During the decades it became more worse, and one day I said thats it. IT does not work this way (for me).I was so fed up with enforced Scientology, so I left.
These guys in the orgs even believe that they can run out
“enforced reality” in session, and just keep going the same crap.
I tell you, for the rest of the universe, I do not set one feet again into a SCN organisation. Just because of this aspect.
I rather play the game of reincarnation for the next 10000 cycles.
And I assume all this ENFORCED is more or less based on policy.
Thanks. The administrative frame of SCN does not fit to its philosophy.
Tom – I’m not a Scientologist and never have been. There has been lots of comment on here that people like me are not qualified to cast any aspersions on the topic of Scientology because we have never experienced it.
Well, you are clearly someone who has experienced it, you are a product of it, you I guess are the advertisement that should attract people to want to learn more about it.
Yet you are saying some quite frankly astonishing things. You are saying that ONLY this man has the answers, we should not consider any other paths, that we should follow his instructions blindly and if it doesn’t work it’s our fault.
I’m sorry Tom but that is not an advertisement for a process that I or others would have the slightest interest in attempting.
Sure, the world has its problems, but I look around me at the magnificent accomplishments of some of the great people in history, who had no knowledge of Hubbard’s writings and I can see immediately that you are wrong in your claims Tom.
I’ll be honest with you Tom, I pick up my iPad to watch videos of man walking on the moon, while I listen to Beethoven with my beautiful happy daughter, and I don’t believe I need to risk my mind, or hers, turning into yours.
Yes, that is an amazingly applicable reference! It corrects the redefinition of the word “entheta” which has been falsely redefined in the CoS to mean anything unsavory.
Hi Les, Very well stated!
Thanks for the great ack Jewel. We are tracking for sure.
I appreciate your response to that of volcano’s listed from map
by LRH and to me that doesn’t seem unlikley at all.
Exactly.
It is also a very important tool to run any kind of 3rd dynamic engrams.
I can’t let this ignorant comment go by without a response.
If you’d ever gone exterior with reality ONCE in a Scientology session, you would know how workable Scientology tech is. Regardless of whether you wind up at the top able to exteriorize at will.
If you’d ever solo’d a couple of levels honestly, you would KNOW how much material there is inside each of us that needs to be confronted & handled in order to attain anything like full OT.
“Enthralled Observers” simply do not have a clue what Scientology tech is all about..
It has been stated many times before, but in order to understand Scientology FULLY – at least, the technical parts, which are the meat of the subject – you must do it. At least some of it.
Otherwise your opinion, no matter if you are Lawrence Wright or Tony Ortega or Paulette Cooper or anyone else, is worthless.
Please understand, what I’m saying does not apply to critique of the organization and/or some of its policies. One does not have to “do” those in order to have an informed opinion.
Tony,
Maybe I am missing your point here, but it seems to me that exactly PER KSW, the corporate church led by David Miscavige IS way off KSW – it is now the squirrel group! Therefore, that is what needs to be knocked out, reformed, whatever. Who cares what they declare. It’s NOT Scientology.
Furthermore, in my mind David Miscavige IS NOT a duly constituted authority. He usurped the position with a bully power push when he was untrained, inexperienced, unqualified. Some people here helped him, and fortunately, they are trying to undo what was done.
It is highly questionable the degree to which anyone has received or delivered correct tech in that environment for over 20 years. End of endless sec checks and IAS statuses are not the “route out.”
Also, to my mind ALL policy must keep in mind the Admin Scale – with Goal and Purpose at the summit, so I can live with its imperfections and accept adaptations to fit modern life and so on as far as policy goes.
To my mind, this really is a game – supposed to be a game where everybody wins.
Leonore
Thanks. I was just thinking of Diana, Suzette, Arthur and Quentin.
Anybody remember Digital Light Wave in Clearwater? Up and coming company that was taken over and destroyed using Scn Admin tech overseen by Wise. I’m sure there will be responses that – well they didn’t apply it correctly but this was supposed to be a Wise showcase. In fact, DM’s sister Denise was VP of Admin and again I’m sure someone will point out that DM is an SP. There are always excuses when Wise fails which seems to be more often than not. Turns out they spent so much time trying to put in an org board and all the other admin stuff that they forgot to continue producing a product. Using Scn Admin tech in the ‘wog’ world is like installing a set of cement galoshers. But again, that is just my humble opinion.
I wish the Independent Movement well, but they have a hell of a long way to go to even approach wildfire and they are lacking the one ingredient that fueled the explosive growth of the 60’s and 70’s and that is LRH himself. Not only is he not present, but in the general publics eye his reputation is tarnished beyone repair IMHO. So you might pick up some seekers of truth but the general public, I don’t think so.
Well said! I don’t think democracy is so bad as Ron writes it in KSW. At least it is much better than this totalitarian system the church has right now!
I understand your viewpoint, Tom. People are free to hold onto an idiol. And I really do respect your game and grant you beingness on it.
I followed LRH blindly for a couple years, then I had my “wake-up-time”. The missing concept of what a sociopath is helped me big times (thanks, Marty, for recommending it). After that I sat down and really checked everything against MY knowledge what I observed is true for ME. I even dared to ask myself at one point if LRH could have been a sociopath. And you know what?! I don’t know for sure as I have never met him. And I don’t care anymore. The knowledge is separate from the person.
I am the source in my own universe, for my own creations and I am thankfull that he put a lot working things together with which I am able to prosper, help others, become more able, OT, etc.
I don’t hate him or degrade him or whatever. I just don’t choose to take him as an idiol and follow every word blindly as I am cause and very happy about it after years of blindness as a follower or true believer or Kool-Aid Drinker.
“The true test is; does the incident run or not?”
Excellent point. And the case wins on OT3 that I have read about (when the level is run correctly to the right EP) are incredible.
I wont reply to FOTF 2012’s questions to me because others have replied pretty much as I would have. 75 million years ago there were volcanoes on Earth. There have always been volcanoes on earth. There always will be. I don’t know where I will be 75 million years from NOW, but I am not about to get there without doing the LRH Bridge before I do. To me, it’s a good insurance policy given to us by a man who could have done plenty of other things with his time other than what he did. Curiosity lead me to the Bridge. It will take me all the way to the top of it. I just “got’s to know”.
When I get to the top of it, then, and only then will I judge just what happened and if it was worth it. Either way, it’s my call, and the location of a volcano 75 million years ago is not enough of a worry to keep me from continuing on a path that has, so far, given me fantastic wins (once I got away from the DM cult to be able to experience them without their money grubbing suppression on my lines).
Can you give me any examples where green on white was responsible for making a large wog company successful?
Great post Tom. I agree with the spirit of it. It needed to be said and has led to some excellent comments on Faith and Hope, among other things.
@Lynn,
I agree that members of the church, especially staff, can get into using LRH as the sole source for everything under the sun, without inspecting anyone else’s opinions or data, let alone their own powers of observation. I actual hate when people just allow LRH to think for them and adopt his opinions about issues outside of the tech. This seems to be the nature of Scientologist. He, (LRH) is right about this, so he must be right about that. Ugh! We just can’t allow automatic thinking as attractive as it may be. People do this though, not just Scientologist.
However, I think that when it comes to shedding case and raising awareness,the red on white gives us a road that can be followed. If it didn’t, people wouldn’t be drawn to it. In that sense, people who leave the bridge to find their own spiritual path will most likely be ‘stumbling around blindly”. A person who has all the answers and can free self and others from suppression, grief, pain, and unconscienceness wouldn’t bother to seek out Scientology. Why would they? So people come to Scientology for help in one thing or another: relief from misemotion, curiosity about the mind, higher levels of awarenss etc. Unfortunately, many don’t learn the tech of auditing, which makes them vunerable to group attitudes. They can have difficulties in distinguishing between following the precise tech of the processes and the other aspects of the organization. It all becomes a big ball of something to follow without inspection. When people do this, they are not being self determined and are not using their own powers of observation. The tech needs to be examined for usefullness as well. You get auditing, you get trained and audit others. You see that the processes work, so you don’t mess with them. If you do not win on the training or auditing you leave (or you should if it isn’t resolved…why pretend?). Following the red on white as laid out makes sense. To deviate from it does not. Going beyond them (higher OT levels) is ones perogative.
I don’t know any other human being in my lifetime who has been able to give the masses a chance to rid themselves of pain and unconscienceness. There are guys like Depak Chopra who have followings, but I have listened to the man, and though he has some wise things to say at times, if you put him in an auditng session I am sure he would read like crazy. He has case. He doesn’t even talk about himself as a spiritual entity. He talks about having a soul. I was surprised when I heard him talk about this. Terminology aside, that is a dead ringer for someone who doesn’t get that he is the “I”. This is not a rant against the man, as he does good. But, I simply do not see anyone out there who can offer up ‘healing’ as much as a trained auditor. Meditation, regression therapy, ways to promote out of the body experiences, practicing Hinduism, Buddism, and even the infamous practice of remote viewing (which is Ron’s baby anyway), etc are all valid. But, I still contend that anyone who practices any of the above can be put in session and make more gains in a few intensives than what their practice has given them. Even if a person can exteriorize past the moon and dance around the stars, it doesn’t mean that he or she is free from case. Likewise, people can dump a load of case and still not freely ‘dance’ in that respect. Outpoint? Maybe, maybe not. But, take anyone on planet earth, no matter what their path and they can be audited. I bet just doing presession rudiments would blow them away.
So all I am saying is that one can follow the tech to the letter without losing their own sense of observation and causation in life. And, I argue that knowing the tech will allow one to transcend beyond what the bridge can offer and one will have more self validation in the process. Following the technical processess of auditing, and LRH’s data regarding auditing, should not in anyway create self invalidation. Listening to the creator of the tech- about the tech- is not in the same basket as adopting his or others opinions and attitudes in general. It is not automatically self invalidating to agree with others or to follow a presribed method unless one does so without personal inspection. To do otherwise is simply to operate at other determinism.
@Danielle,
I, for one, do not think that one should give up hope on disseminating the tech. Use the tech for self and others and it will stay alive and well. I agree it is the only hope of mankind. But, the organized religion that is Scientology which operates under a whack job will not transform. Efforts to bust the unlawful practices of DM and the church have failed. Unless someone from the inside calls an ‘HCO Bring Order’ on the little hitler and places him in the ‘hole’ for starters, the org will continue to sucuumb to out ethics, tech and admin. As you have undoubtedly read (and experienced?), the people working with this slime ball are so pts that they will not kick his ass for fear of reprisal. If or when someone does, then we may have a situation like the Wizard of Oz when the wicked witch is dead– even the monkeys celebrate. Until then, it is what it is. And from there, who knows. In the meantime, get on with the show of freeing beings.
(i.e. providing true data, open communication, multiple view-point system et al)
Very well written Tom. Scientology IS the only rout to true spiritual freedom. And we are the one’s responsible for getting the show back on the road once again. And we are doing it!
Publius, where;s the beef? Where is one single OT (it IS an objective definition with objective abilities that he defined) as described by R? He himself, demonstrably, wasn’t one. (btw, I went exterior before, during & after Scn.)
I’ll see how long until this question is actually answered by you. (comm lag tech)
I like that!
Standing ovation!
So true. Hubbard did not want to make followers, he wanted to make leaders.
One of my realizations after leaving the C of S was that trying to operate from the viewpoint of LRH was putting me as a being in Treason. I am a powerful being in my own right and hope that I never again invalidate my own viewpoint and source. LRH did some wonderful things and I consider him to be a friend, but if I do not make my own decision based on my own view and understanding, I am not free. In my opinion, this idea that Ron knows best and should be followed blindly, that we should abdicate responsibility because he has it all figured out, is dangerous beyond words. This is what allows good people to do rotten things.
Such a pleasure to read your poems! So glad you are sharing these again! I missed you!
Interesting fact: the word “blindly” seems to have hit a cord. It appears 88 times on this thread. (89 including this post. 🙂 )
Beautifully spoken and so true.
Pure reason! Standing ovation! Serves to dispell the MYTH that David Miscavige is a “big being”! LAUGHTER!
Thank you for posting Theo. One of my favorites as it alludes to magic enchantment, and sorcery.
Tony
I do not see the “justice Codes” as any kind of “tech” per se. They fall squarely into the field of “policy”. They, in themselves, do not “handle” anything. They are rules, or codes. They are not designed to make the being more self determined…
They are designed to CONTROL his behavior. Therefor they are NOT VALID PROCESSES. They are NOT tech.
Eric S
Actually they are intended to handle something. They are intended to handle perceived “whys” for departures from an “ideal scenes”. But these are not technical handlings, they are administrative handlings.
Eric S
Heavy sigh. Just when I think I’m starting to see some sanity in current and previous Scientologists, you throw that out there. How can you justify that Scientology is the only way out? You don’t even know what out is. Has anyone made it out? You’d have to demonstrate that at least one person has made it out and don’t use LRH as an example because if he made it out, I want to stay in. I certainly don’t want to follow the example of his final years and exit from this lifetime. Seems like the ‘tech’ didn’t do him much good.
Static itself is not an ultimate truth.
Static is the abstract best-approximation idea of LRH to describe that which underlies the physical universe and empowers it. This is a very gray area to which I would caution anyone to pay special attention to when it is presented as ultimate truth.
I wouldn’t read too much into it. Why?
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you were born and raised on a cruise ship. You hit 13 and start wondering about how the ship gets around. But the lower decks are off limits to you and no one else has any useful information on the subject. So you observe the smoke from the ship, watch it getting refueled, and notice things like the vibration that goes along with the motion of the boat. Then one day you pop a breakthrough cognition:
“THERE MUST BE SOME SORT OF ENGINE INSIDE THE SHIP!”.
Would you be correct? Yes indeed. But that does not mean you know the first thing about the intricate details of the engine. You just know it exists and makes the ship move.
This is similar to us (humans) being the 13 yo, and the static being the “engine” of the universe.
LRH did not say he knows how that “engine” works. More specifically he did say he does not!
I find this to be a reoccurring confusion for many in SC.
Mystifying SC as if it was the answer to everything in the universe is very
misleading. Quite a few do that still and it is not necessarily intentional because this can be a very testy subject.
The ultimate goal of science and SC may be the same, but for now they are worlds apart. There closeness is nothing more than a far reaching cognition for the time being.
This “engine” which IMO LRH referred to as static is indeed very unknown to us for the moment.
Also it is a very VERY out gradient to address and wonder about it for most of us. So many smaller gradients steps we have not even addressed yet and many of us here, now, need to worry about their next step on the bridge and not some far out concept.
I would have to indicate that LRH was not one bit delusional about this issue. He said so himself that SC is not a study of structure but instead functionality. Mainstream science is hammering at structure alone blindly which is the underlying cause of their super-un-airtight theories such as quantum mechanics. LRH was hammering at functionality mainly but was at least mindful of structure! Therefore it would be understandable that on some level he was closer to the truth.
Of course you can figure out certain overlapping issues regardless of which path you are on, but ultimate truth comes from walking both paths with equal intention. No offense to LRH’s image but he was not walking the science path with as much enthusiasm as the spiritual aspects.
(I know he would take none because he said so himself that this is how it is)
Let’s be very clear here. Things like the static give an idea of what brought this whole damn physical universe into existence on the first place. But these are not blue prints to ultimate knowledge. They are abstract concepts of something complex that which we do not have the details for.
They are abstract ideas concerning the conditions of creation and source. They are not addressing what was really created using these.
Here is another analogy:
Say you know a lot about computers and programming. So much so that you could design your own computer and write any program you wish. (and have time for) Then you see a program called MS Office one day. It is a program that you have never needed before. Are you going to know how to use it? Hell no! Just because you do know most there is to know about computer hardware and programming does not mean you know that specific program. You will have to learn the specifics just like any other user. The fact that you know a lot about computers in general is not enough to know how to use MS Word.
Similarly knowing about how the universe is/was created does not inherently mean that we will know what the hell the particles are doing right here right now. They are doing whatever they were put in place to do but their current condition is a result of complex interactions and we do not know the details. We may know about the WHY, but the HOW and WHAT is still uncharted area. SC does not give answers to that. That job is up to us and I for one am being increasingly cautious about such confusions and go with not following blindly.
Yes your right Steve, well put. Good article Tom, there’s hope yet.
I agree with you to a large degree Oblio.
Of course WE see that he isn’t.
My point on this is that when you enter in “blind faith” you have to “follow” someone and there are many interpretations of what is “standard” or “not standard” so how can a person “blindly follow” LRH when different people interpret what is standard LRH in different ways.
How about Keeping Admin Working?? Written by LRH.
I also disagree that they are not technical handlings. For one thing ethics is part and parcell of handling pc’s in the church. I have personally had huge wins applying ethics. But my point here is that I am sure LRH would consider ethics and Justice a very precise tech. If you take this into account and read Keeping admin Working I think you can make a good case that if a person were not able to think on thier own then they would consider all of us on the outside as squirrels and that all of us were not appling KSW or Keeping Admin Working. My further point is that LRH did not have it all straight.
He was a genius and a much better thinker than I, but I can still retain my own opinions and my opinion is that he went astray at some point and a big part of it was the KSW series.
You are missing my point Lenore. 🙂
See my recent comment above.
Of course dm has it wrong. My point is that when you start to “follow blindly” you then have to take someone elses word for what standard LRH is. Inside the cult they would have you believe we are all squirrels. Outside we would have you believe they are all squirrels. The only way to decide is to THINK FOR YOURSELF otherwise you don’t know who to follow blindly. Get it?
Love should not be blind.~ Annonymous wise man.
When love is blind, you can find your life on the rocks. ~ Annoymous philosopher.
EISM, I am with you in this post. Book One, as popular as it was, did not deliver that was promised. I would have had a great deal more respect for Hubbard had he revised Book One, pointed out deficiencies and how he had updated the definition of Clear and redefined the route to get there. In fact, he did those things, but he did not revise Book One to show that process.
Nancy
I do not wish to toss the baby out with the bath water either. But I do feel that we are preserving a great deal of dirty bathwater, mistaking it for the baby. Scientology has so much to offer without having to be blind to problems and/or faults within the process of developing the tech. There is no reason to give up hope.
Danielle, (and anyone else) would you/could you detail specifically why you believe Scientology is the only hope mankind has?
Thank you,
Nancy
Arguably THE discovery in Scientology is the Static. It’s Axiom 1. It’s also addressed throughout the Scn Axioms. Take a look at COHA, R2-40 for some further material. (Take into consideration the proviso at the top of R2-40.)
I agree with you that there is no organization in the world running on LRH’s management tech. But that’s not the same as saying it doesn’t outline exactly what is needed.
Asking “why aren’t they reaching” for LRH admin tech is not the right question. If you sit down and go over it, people already know the essentials of Dev-T and why they shouldn’t duplicate functions. They already know it is a stupid idea to have 60 people reporting to the same manager. They already know that you need to plan ahead. They already know so much about running a company. They don’t need any green volumes to tell them most of the basics. So why don’t they do it?
You said it before in your post. Out-ethics.
A few years ago I worked at EDS – then the largest outsourcing company in the world. The CEO apparently didn’t know the purpose of the company. He thought we were a leasing company. He bought all United Airlines aircraft and leased them back – just before September 11. Then he bought all the US Navy desktop equipment without finding out if we could deliver to the terms of the agreement. Those two out-ethics, off-policy, unreasonable decisions alone practically destroyed a great American company. But that guy made enormous sums of money, bonuses and a golden handshake for destroying the company.
I haven’t yet worked at a large company where I didn’t find a purchasing officer doing deals with a favored company or an exec receiving overseas holidays from IBM after buying new kit. A marketing firm I worked for was defrauding Australia Post on a massive scale. Two contracts ago I was sacked for asking an exec to conform to company policy of getting three quotes. I saw a bank I worked for blow $1.6billion on a stupid idea that absolutely everyone in the IT department said wouldn’t work. I see that a lot in this industry and the only reason I can see for a lot of these things is the relationship between the vendor and the guy with the chequebook.
You have to be realistic. It’s a terribly out-ethics world out there and there is no book, green or otherwise, that is going to save the day. Only reasonable men with their sleeves rolled up will be able to do it.
And it’s much easier to follow blindly because then you move the responsibilitiy over to the person you follow and not think for yourself anymore and evaluate what that person says or does. In order to be able to evaluate you have to understand. I saw a lot, lot people (me included for a period of time) who dumped ther own knowledge and responsibility level in front of the door and stepped into Rons universe. That does not work. It is against the basic triangles and the result is fanaticsm, extremism and what you see the “church” is now.
I think that a lot of people expected Ron to be a perfect god. Perhaps he maybe helped to create those expectations somewhat. But he was/is a being, a person. He worked very hard in his recent life and produced a lot of things that help people. My instincts tell me that he was/is a very brilliant, able guy and a pretty darn good guy, generally. Reportedly he worked VERY long hours for most of his life and was very involved with a lot of things. He obviously screwed up by leaving a situation where it was possible for a vulture like Miscavige to take over the organization he had worked so hard to create while developing the product which was the purpose for that organization (The Tech).
When he kicked the bucket, his body was 71 years old. He had a massive stroke, and probably had had numerous smaller strokes, some of which possibly neither he nor anyone else was definitely aware of. If he was taking it a little easier for 6 years, that’s OK with me. Whether he smoked or drank a little whiskey in those last years I don’t know. Who cares. He was/is a self determined being. The only reason I would even hope that he did not is because I don’t think that would have helped him, and I like him. In fact I actually do think that he was and IS a god. Then again, that’s how he thought/thinks of you and I also. Maybe he is right.
Meanwhile, I also understand your disappointment in his shortcomings, and I am glad that some of the good things he did had a good effect upon your life.
Got it. Guess I never took KSW to mean “follow blindly” and still don’t. That’s why I say that my understanding is that ALL applications (including ethics) must be tempered with the understanding of goals and purposes.
Thanks for responding, and while I’m at it, thanks for being an outspoken and active participant here.
Leonore
If you are so right, then provide the answers to the questions posed in Meshell’s post.
I am qualified to see, because I have eyes, I don’t have to have ‘done’ scientolgy to see (and read). And I can see that these questions haven’t been adequately answered to date… so, go ahead…
Well said… lol
I agree with all the points above except the part about staff hatting. The fact that outside organizations have this big computation on wanting someone else to train and hat their staff for them is the very reason that all I could get were secretarial jobs upon leaving org staff.
Not every bright, capable being has oodles of “wog” qualications – in my own case, I dropped out of high school to get away from a serious PTS situation that I couldn’t resolve at the time because I didn’t have the tech to do so and the responsible adults in my life at the time didn’t have the confront to notice what was going on. Unfortunately most places equate no high school certs with lack of ability to get any.
So I went from one pointless job to another before discovering Scn, and for the first time I was seen as a capable person who could learn, who could train, and could be hatted. I would never in a million years have been allowed to train after a short period of time for senior technical positions in a wog company because they would expect all sorts of qualifications and preferably a degree.
Also the world where I am assessed at interview first on my “personality” before I get the opportunity to sell my production is a computation I hoped I would not again have to run into.
Tom, I liked your post and generally agree with your unwavering attitude toward LRH and what he stood for and what he wrote and stated. I don’t agree with everything LRH said – some of his opinions on certain topics… BIG DEAL! WHO CARES! WHATEVER! (he would usually state these opinions as “his opinion” But after applying THE TECH he developed and seeing IT WORK to better conditions and address problems I’ve applied it to in my life (all dynamics), you get to a point of a high level of trust. I have never “blindly trusted anyone” but I have seen too many people not be able to trust anyone and of course, mostly, they also can’t trust themselves.
In 1968, in The Auditor No. 36, What It Means to Be a Scientologist, LRH said:
“Now you realize that, today, the bulk of the human race is walking around with the belief that there is something wrong somewhere, but they don’t quite know what it is. The hideous thing is that people at large are not aware of a very interesting thing – that anything at all can be done about anybody.
The cop who gives you a ticket takes it in his normal stride that this is just the way it is. The hospital attendants who pick the remains out of the drunken driving wreck, the very best thought in various professions that should have to do with this, are all agreed that there is nothing you can do about it…”
“One of the great truths of Scientology is that increased awareness is the only factor which offers any road out. That is an awfully simple truth, but you’ll find out that people don’t know that. They think that less awareness is the road out – and that is the road down into the basement…”
“There is a battle which is going on in the world at this time and that should be understood. There is no good in the world that is not fought by some. The holiest saint, the purest knight, the most orderly group alike have been subjected to attacks since man’s beginning. And Scientology is no exception. The turbulence of the society around us is fantastic. There is no just civil law left, really. It is that lawless and disorderly condition in the society about us which makes it hard for us to work.”
“We live in a civilization where some madman can sit in a government chair telling everybody how bad it all is over there and so forth, then all of a sudden get 30 million people killed, as one fellow named Hitler did. This is an interesting civilization and that is because people don’t know who they are, or what they are, or where they are going or what they are doing.
“What happens to Scientology and Scientologists in a world of this character? Well, our basic attitude toward the world at large will have to be more and more an auditor’s attitude if we are going to accomplish survival. (Auditor: A listener, or one who listens carefully to what people have to say. An auditor is a person trained and qualified in applying Scientology processes to others for their betterment.) It might be said that we are starting from nearly nowhere and trying to go somewhere. However, we have the tools to do this.”
“We have the whole world to handle now.”
“Yes, there is a hope. We are rich in knowing how to exactly handle such circumstances or conditions. Nobody knew before. That is factually true here on Earth. You will find yourself being more and more an auditor as time goes on.”
“This is a pretty daffy planet in a rather strenuous universe. When you start to introduce order into anything, disorder shows up and blows off. Therefore, efforts to bring order in the society or any part of it will be productive of disorder for a while. The more free people we have, the better we can control the confusion of an area. A group is as capable as it contains capable individual members. The more people who are trained, the more successful we will be.”
“We are the only group on Earth that does have a workable solution. It’s time we realized it and used it, every one of us. We must set a high example of teamwork and dedication if we are to bring it off.”
“Scientology can and does change human behavior for the better. It puts the individual under the control of himself – where he belongs. It is a science of life and it works. It handles the basic rules of life and it brings order into chaos. So let’s grow up to our own technology and take responsibility for it. And do our jobs as Scientologists to the world.”
Here’s my picture: Everywhere I go, I take Ron along with me, riding on my shoulder. With each step, I make sure that he is happy with me and I am doing just what he would do. When I get into trouble, I realize that I must not have been paying attention or have misunderstood him. I beat myself up, a little (or a lot), and vow to do better. I settle Ron more firmly on my shoulder because, even though he is very heavy, I know I would be completely lost without him.
You too Lenore! 🙂
Lol.
I have been there too and got the T-shirt.
Tony
I have come to suspect that we have somewhat different concepts for the term “tech”, or for specific uses for the word. But having realized that, I do think that I am getting what you are saying here, and though I would say it somewhat differently, I feel that we are in agreement on most points.
Eric S
Thanks Eric.
I appreciate your patient comments. I live a fairly hectic life and don’t always spend the time to fully communicate precisely what I mean, but communicate (or try to) quckly the most important points I am trying to make. Your comments strike me as very calm and patient and wise and I agree with much of what you say. I appreciate the comm line.
Dear Tony,
I was writing re: “DM is following LRH blindly”, only.
“Blind faith” is always bad.
In Buddhism there is a term “faithful trust”.
This is similar to Trey’s comment here.
This is very different to Blind Faith.
When I started Scientology this lifetime, I had (instantly) a “faithful trust” that this guy (LRH) will lead me to new levels of conciousness.
But I knew that I need to study for myself. I trusted him, that there is only the truth I find for myself. And my trust wasn’t shattered.
I still trust him. Although I know that there are things I disagree with him about. Some things I couldn’t experience for myself and some things just don’t make sense (mostly administrative stuff or my questions regarding why he established the RTC in the 80’s and how could he ever allow himself to come into the position where he is dependant on one communication channel (i.e. the Miscavige/Broeker connection)).
I still trust him.
So I was only talking regarding DM. He is not following LRH blindly. And he doesn’t seem to trust him (or anyone else for that matter).
Very good!
All this out ethics stuff happens because of relationships (good ol boys clubs), politics, and lack of accountability paired with individual ignorance and arrogance. In the end this produces decisions that are not reasonable for the survival of an organization.
I worked in a remarkable company they had very little policy and that was we pay 35% over market in all positions, everybody was sitting in one large office space, no status no secretaries for mgmt. or execs. They were sitting at the same desk just a couple of feet away in open space from anybody else. No offices, just one big space. Everybody was on first name basis be it the general manager (making 3 Mio per year) or the worker in goods in (making 80k per year). If you were in management you had to accept every 3 years a new job across department borders. The marketing product manager became a buyer; the quality control manager became financial controller. No matter what your history was, if you did not perform in present time you got a golden handshake and were going away the next day.
That was a hell of a productive company. We had 3 times the revenue per head compared to our industry. And it was often fun to work there as every single post was actually held by a competent person.
Why? Transparency (we even knew what everybody was making, unheard of in Germany), open communication, no barriers between management, clerks and workers, no status, no hidden commlines. Everybody virtually saw who everybody was talking too; everybody virtually saw any flab produced anywhere. There was no hiding. If the General Manager picked his nose the whole company knew about it in real time.
It had the effect to cut the politics, the hidden data and the out ethics at least to a minimum.
It wasn’t done with 15 binders of policy. It was done by pulling down any barriers, by creating great transparency, enabling open communication lines in all directions and not allowing personal status in the work environment.
Guess what, that company actually applied many of the principles LRH talks about in the green volumes in a very simple way without using any green on white. That is what I mean by grasping the principles and applying them intelligently to a situation.
Ok cool. I think I get your point. I have a lot of trust in LRH too. I did objectives and was crawling around on the floor as I was blowing through drug masses and came into PT so I know what the tech can do. I think trust and following blindly are two different things. I trusted dm for awhile untill I got wrapped around the telephone pole too many times and when I heard he was hitting people I knew the guy was a total not job and split.
It relates to the Ethics Presence PL. LRH had a lot of ethics presence. He made some bad decisions in my opinion which lead to DM taking control and destroying a large part of his work and therefore HE (LRH) loses some ethics presence for that.
I enjoyed talking to you.
Hello Tony,
I agree with you.
I also “trusted” DM for a while. BUT I never understood really what his post is. “Chairman of the Boards of RTC”. WTF? Couldn’t find it on the org bd (kidding). And now all we hear is “the ecclasiastical leader of the Scn Religion”. What? Where is this on the Org Board, please?
I started to be suspicious after all the other Execs didn’t show up at the Events.
I think, you are right. Once a system of viewing things is used as a “solution” that relieves one of his responsibility to deal with the matters life presents one does not get understanding, but can become some kind of fanatic. People defend their “solutions” and it can be hard to get them to look at facts when they fear the danger that solution holds in check could be turned lose again. To choose to take beingness, confront and inspection is certainly a good answer to the issue.
Yes, you are right. There are a lot better why’s than “out-ethics”. If you said “poor communication” it would be a lot more successful as you say.
“Out-ethics” conjures up all sorts of policing strategies while “poor communication” leads to some really effective answers like the one you just told us about.
Thanks for that.
I agree that there has not been a single full OT created as LRH described. But does that mean there is NO value to the tech?
I can’t agree to that and if you do I can say that you probably never had any good auditing.
Well Tony, Read all my posts in this thread. Obviously, you didn’t even read this sub thread. (why didn’t you?)
There is value. Just like a lot of other self help tech. But, as LRH said, SCN isn’t about being a feel good movement. It was ALL about creating OT’s, breaking the death/birth cycle and obtaining “Native State”.
You were duped, so was I. Axiom 38 is your friend. Use it.
Sorry for the comm lag; it is something I’m still working on!
Which buttresses my point above about how much material inside each of us there is to handle. I know I’m still far from full OT; but I have experienced enough glimpses of it, on a key out basis, that I have no doubt it’s there, whether fully attainable by us with the tech we have or not.
Indeed. It’s not just that though. After OT levels I can’t exteriorize at will with full or even partial perception. Sure, I’ve “felt” exterior but that fell far short of OPERATING Thetan. I will not for one second invalidate anybody else’s gains. I’m just saying that or me, Clear and OT fell far short of what was promised. That’s all.
Amen Maria!
Not to take anything away from your apropo point but…
Do you really think the Catholic church “survived” the inquisition?
I suppose it depends on your understanding of “survived”
Personally I think the Catholic church long since buried anything that Christ would have wished for it to offer the world… For me the inqusition ended along with Christ’s influence on the “church”
But that’s me.
MF,
Are you saying that Dr. Jarrett will knowingly let Indies use his office space? Is he an Indie now?
Oh, now I think you may mean if/when Jarrett moved out, then his space would be available. In that case he is not an Indie.
If you wish to look at the static as the ultimate truth I am not the one who will attempt to stop you. I was not challenging you BTW neither am I in need of further information to draw the conclusion that not all answers are to be found in SC. Everyone has the right to go only as deep into the rabbit hole as they desire and I respect that. However since LRH wanted to help us to open our eyes I don’t think it is in alignment with his goals to state the static to be an absolute. I know he says it is an ultimate truth but I translate these things carefully nowadays.
Us humans work in a certain way as we gather our limited little information of reality through our bottleneck information gathering systems (eyes, ears, nose, tactile etc). The whole is/as-is/alter-is/not is ness is true to how the mind works. Extending that and declaring that the whole universe works that way also is quite an arguable move. I do not blindly accept that notion no matter who the source is. To do so would require me to make assumptions. That would be going backwards for me as I am finally doing much much less assuming thanks to LRH’s tech. The tech works for humans/thetans or whatever one wishes to call themselves but to assume that this technology and its principles also apply to the mest universe in it condition is like trying to figure out the materials used for creating computer chips by observing how MS Word or any other program for that matter works. So let’s agree to disagree how’s that?
I agree wholeheartedly about how LRH adds up historically speaking. I have come to think of him as a flawed and sometimes evil genius but he was definitely a genius and definitely a man to be accorded great respect despite his flaws The application of his auditing techniques alone would indeed be a great advancement for mankind unlike has ever been seen before in human history.
The “engine” “works” (operates) by reach & withdraw.
No mystery at all.
Tom, how do you respond to the incontrovertible exposures of Hubbard’s lying?
What he said about his university career, his military career etc and many other things have all been proven to contain lie after lie.
Do you simply deny these? Or do you accept them but still follow his teachings? And if so how do you square the circle that is the question ‘if he lied about so much else how much did he lie about the technology?’
I have absolutely no issue with a persons religious freedoms, they should be protected, and no issue with independent scientologist but I have often wondered how the continued revelations of so so many of Hubbard’s lies impacts a Scientologist’s beliefs or strength of beliefs!
Tom, thank you. I never knew L. Ron Hubbard and never even knew anything about Dianetics or Scientology until after his death. But just one 3-hour Dianetics session completely changed my life. And you are so right about the effects of Assists of any kind. So, I don’t really know who he really was, but I know that the procedures he came up with work, and that is enough for me.
Phew …
I guess Davey boy is a real big being then.
If I asked someone to explain to me how a car engine works and they said no mystery at all, you turn the ignition and it runs; that wouldn’t be a very precise answer would it? What about the pistons, valves, shafts, bearings and spark plugs and such? Not to mention principles of operation, engine controls, combustion, the cycles, fuel delivery etc.
Is there too much truth in this question for you to confront? Could any of the independent Scientologists please show that you are different from Scientology Inc and are able to engage in critical open discussion about LRH with non Scientologists?
Could you please address the clear issue of the number of proven lies in the rest of LRH and how this relates to your strength of faith or conviction of beliefs in all that he said and wrote regarding his research and the tech and his claims of study etc?