Category Archives: What Is Wrong With Scientology?

Mission Statement

Posted on January 26, 2013 by | 569 comments

This began as my promised response to Tom Martiniano’s Op Ed that was posted on this blog on January 22.  It expanded into a mission statement of sorts given intervening events.

Before I take up particulars of the Op Ed, I want to establish a foundation.

First, I believe that L Ron Hubbard developed a workable spiritual-based psychotherapy that when applied as prescribed – according to its axioms and fundamental laws – routinely produces a well and happy, self-determined, unrepressed being.   Since leaving the church of Scientology I have applied that exact path to three individuals – from knowing little to nothing of Hubbard or Scientology to the state of Clear (quite in addition to hundreds of hours of auditing at all levels of the Bridge).  Doing so outside structured, policy-controlled Scientology is far less complicated.  There is little need for listing and nulling, extensive correction lists and the like because there is none of the sundry evaluation (under the justification of ‘ethics’, ‘pts/sp handling’, ‘justice’, or other organizational concerns) that inevitably enters when the process is complicated by later policies, and even tech, that stray from and contradict the laws and axioms which make auditing, and the Bridge, work.  I have objective and subjective reality on the workability of Hubbard’s technology.

Second, by his own admission L. Ron Hubbard could not have, and would not have, discovered that well taped path had it not been for centuries of free thinkers who came before him, most notably Sigmund Freud, Alfred Korzybski, Lao Tzu and Siddhartha Gautama.  I believe that Viktor Frankl’s treatment of Freud would have served Scientology’s future far better than the wholesale condemnation (read denial) that was later visited upon him and everyone ever influenced by him.  In the early fifties Frankl acknowledged Freud much as Hubbard originally did, noting that he was the first to look into the mind and show us that it could be done.  Frankl also acknowledged that Freud – like himself, Hubbard, and the rest of us – are influenced at least in some measure by the times in which we live.  Thus, he reasoned, one should not dismiss Freud wholesale because he, growing up in Victorian Vienna, was wrong that everything could be answered by one’s sexual hang ups.   By the same token he noted that it is just as shortsighted and stupid for us not to recognize Freud’s limitations.  To give credit where credit is due, he concluded that if he (Frankl) were able to see a little bit farther over the horizon than Freud it was because he was a mere midget standing on the shoulders of a giant.  If Scientology continued to acknowledge its once acknowledged legacy, there would be far less fuss (read impossibility to the world outside of the Scientology cult) about acknowledging Hubbard’s contributions and legacy.  There would also be a far deeper understanding available to students and practitioners of Scientology of that which they study and practice.  Further, I agree with Hubbard when he once freely admitted that had he not discovered the path he did, someone else ultimately would have.   I believe he limited future discovery beyond his horizons by later claiming his discoveries were not inevitable by the cultural evolution of humankind and his contributions to it, but instead were due to some mythic quality of his own cosmic character.

Third, because I have successfully understood and applied the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to intended result, over and over again, both in the church of Scientology and out while under intense attack by the same entity, I have earned the right to have my own opinions on the subject – as have others.   Hubbard himself acknowledged that right in the first lecture he delivered on the subject of how to study, Studying – Introduction, 18 June 1964.  If others do not have that same level of certainty of application and result I can understand their steadfast unwillingness to think with and discourse on the subject.   But, to attempt to dissuade those who have – and to condemn them with belittling labels and false accusations about  their alleged history – signifies a weak certainty on the subject in my opinion, and is anathema to the notion of broadening one’s horizons and is suppressive to the exercise of the one ability Scientology has always promised to deliver,  knowing how to know.   As will be made clear as we proceed, I would be very wary about putting a loved one’s spiritual destiny into the hands of such folk.

Fourth, with respect to philosophy, I believe that the understanding and level of application of Scientology I have demonstrated, over and over as above, helped to render me – and others – capable of the activity of philosophizing.   I happen to believe Hubbard had it right when he stated in the Philadelphia Doctorate Course:

I hope no man ever falls into that trap because it blocked human thought and human progress. Philosophy became completely abandoned as a subject…and even at this moment they still give a Doctor of Philosophy degree in universities which demands only this of the student: that he know what philosophers have said. Now, that is incredible. If you had a Doctor of Philosophy, you would expect that Doctor of Philosophy to be able to philosophize. The professors of those courses would just be shocked beyond shock if you dared come in and infer that the end and goal of their students should be the production of philosophy. No sir, that’s how you keep a society static.

…and

…Scientology will decline, and become useless to man, on the day when it becomes the master of thinking…

I believe that volumes of subsequent technical and policy writings of Hubbard put it into the minds of Scientologists that the above no longer held true.   To the extent one believes that he or she is precluded from philosophizing, by the writings of Scientology, Scientology has become no better than what Hubbard accused modern university education (or psychiatry and psychology for that matter) of being for the philosopher.  Continued adherence to such fears and beliefs will as Hubbard noted ‘keep a society static.’

Fifth, I believe that the primary reason Hubbard was close to a half-century before his time in discovering his workable psychotherapy was due to his starting with the presumption that beings are spirits, and not physical matter entities subject to scientific reductionism.  Today, many people are engaged in ‘integral’ forms of spirituality and psychotherapy and some acknowledge that in order to achieve success in either requires the practice of both.  In accordance with Hubbard’s above-noted prophesy, deep study in these fields has convinced me that within years Hubbard’s route will be discovered quite separate and apart from his own discoveries.   The reason it will be ‘quite separate and apart’ from Hubbard’s discoveries is that by his own firm policies the entities he created to disseminate his ideas are known for one thing above anything else. That is, that if someone attempts to practice and explore Hubbard’s ideas outside of their narrow-minded control, or criticize them in any forum, that someone is subject to being destroyed utterly if possible.  It is a difficult row to hoe getting integral philosophers and practitioners to listen to anything emanating from Hubbard due to the hazards attendant with doing so.  My mission to date has been to attempt to accelerate the ability of mankind to better its own lot by recognizing and applying some of the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard.   I have held the idea that an “Independent Scientologist” movement might contribute to that effort to raise the world’s collective understanding.   I am convinced that to the extent its members preach blind adherence to Hubbard and wholesale dismissal of the ideas of others (particularly of those upon whom L. Ron Hubbard chiefly relied upon in developing his own technology)  the Independent Scientologist movement may become more of an impediment than a facilitator.

Having established my foundation, I will specifically address Tom Martiniano’s Op Ed piece, which clearly represents the wholehearted views of a number of Independent Scientologists:

Some say that LRH is not the only technology that there is, nor is his philosophy the only one that works and that following his technology or values only is being blind or being robotic.  That’s fair and in theory is a solid viewpoint, but in practice it is fatal.

Fatalism, and the installation of fear, is the demise of any ‘technology.’  In fact, by definition, to claim and instill the idea that there is no other possible route takes one right out of the realms of ‘technology’, science, and even rationality.   It goes against the very workable technology – term used advisedly – that L. Ron Hubbard developed on how to study or learn.

Once an injunction is laid down that it is ‘fatal’ or even detrimental to look outside the parameters of what another has said – be it a wise man, Hubbard or God herself – you have stripped a person of self-determinism and freedom to think.  To think with, attempt to integrate ideas with evolving thought and technology, and foremost to discourse philosophically in terms evolving thinkers are developing are means by which humankind advances.

Hubbard himself once noted that if something is done in the pursuit of understanding it contains no liability (paraphrased as I don’t feel constrained to have to do lengthy searches to find quotations in order to think and discourse).   That axiom has served me well, and hopefully will continue to do so.

Realize that ANY attempt to write against L Ron Hubbard is an attempt to destroy that which frees mankind from their traps.

First, one ought to define what constitutes ‘against’.   It implies – and literally means according to at least some of the more hard core supporters of Tom’s position – contrary to any idea of Hubbard.   I contend that if you use this as a standard, you have instituted the process of ‘thought-stopping’ and have rendered yourself a less bright, intelligent and enlightened being than you were before you adopted that standard.  You are certainly free to do so – but once you have, you have left the realm of the pursuit of truth and entered the ranks of  fundamentalist religionists.   We have seen as much in recent days on this blog.   I asked people to consider where one draws the line on literal compliance to L. Ron Hubbard’s policy writings, and in return I am treated as an enemy.   When you go there, there is absolutely no difference between what you have done with your own thought process than what a fundamentalist Christian or radical Muslim has done with his or hers.  The only possible counter argument to this is that L. Ron Hubbard is different than Jesus Christ, God of the Old Testament, and Allah.   In fact, that is precisely what Tom’s piece promotes.  Such an argument will be about as effective in the world as those that the fundamentalist Christian and Muslim advance to one another.   Such absolutist thinking ultimately leads to persuasion by force and violence.  The best chance for forwarding that position – as destructive as it is – would be by zealous support of the church of Scientology and its supreme leader David Miscavige.

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 Miscavige).

Here is the demarcation point where Scientology bumps  into the glass ceiling limitations imposed by firmly held religious belief.  But I can’t address this fully in a forum with such a limited attention span as this.  I foreshadowed some of it in my book What Is Wrong With Scientology?   I invited discourse on it.  Those most violently in disagreement with it chose not to discourse, but instead to run a quiet, back channels ‘he’s not with Ron’ campaign.  This topic will be explored in far more detail in books coming out later this year.  In the meantime, look at the logic of the above statement.  It is precisely the same logic repressive clerics and politicians used to suppress the truth that the earth rotated around the sun for centuries.  The ‘logic’ went that if the earth were not portrayed as the center of the universe, holy scripture would be invalidated.  The ‘only route out’ became continuing ignorance (anyone trained on Grade IV technology knows what that statement constitutes).  Incidentally, the parenthetical comment about David Miscavige is about as anti-KSW as they come – L. Ron Hubbard never issued, nor prescribed any OT Level above OT VIII.   The group agreement interpretation of what Tom has evidently accepted as the L. Ron Hubbard real OT Levels may well afford some case gain of some sort to followers, but to pass them off as the L. Ron Hubbard OT Levels above VIII is specious.  It is rather peculiar for a guy condemning people who don’t march lock step to every word of Hubbard to be adopting and preaching such arbitraries.  It is like a kettle accusing the pot of being black.

Yes, you can read the Tao or read Buddha and so forth, but you would have to sort out a lot of wheat from a lot of chaff to get to Nirvana.  

This is a straw dog argument contention.  I have never suggested, nor even hinted, that anyone should read  the Tao or the Buddha in order to reach ‘Nirvana.’    I do contend, however, that remaining beholden, lock step, to the writings of Scientology – exclusive of any study outside of it – condemns an individual to ultimate misery, not only for himself but those he or she is intimately connected to.  That is partly because he or she will be denied the one lesson both Lao Tzu and Siddhartha Gautama taught that by omission puts a glass ceiling on Scientology.  That lesson can be summed up in two words, though it takes a lot more than mere recital of them to learn it – Let Go.

The  Scientologist hallmarks of arrogance, aloofness, meddlesomeness, pedanticism and strained intensity are not an accident.  They are inbred by scripture.  Ironically, the technology that perhaps better than any other can make the Way of Lao Tzu and the Buddha practically attainable winds up making that attainment impossible, by the implanted spiritual mechanism of ‘clinging’, ‘holding on’, or ‘mocking up’, in short, the inability to ‘let go.’  Lao Tzu and the Buddha and the Dali Lama, for that matter, have important things to say that beautifully complement Scientology.  But, one could never see that if he or she vowed to follow the next bit of advice.

Should someone follow L Ron Hubbard blindly?  I would say so because it would be better than stumbling around blindly for the rest of your existence.

Be my guest.   That is your religious right.  I fought for your ability to exercise it for the past thirty-five years.  And I’ll likely go on doing so till this vessel returns to the clay.

But, do not attempt to pass it off as anything other than religious belief.

And do not expect that such think and practice will popularize the ideas of L. Ron Hubbard and lead to more broad scale study of them.   The world is evolving.   Doomsday threats, fear tactics, and commands do not gain much traction in this day and age.   At least  not in the direction of educating, enlightening and alleviating the problems people face.

I do not wish to unsettle the beliefs that people hold if they wish to remain in the static comfort  of their Scientology beliefs.  Those beliefs are just as valid, and protected constitutionally, as more traditional, accepted faiths.   You may find some level of solace in the validation of those beliefs on this blog.   But, the theme of this forum is just as its title says, Moving On Up A Little Higher.  So along with the validation will always come  questioning and exploring and the attempts to broaden horizons and transcend.  So, if you wish to remain in the static comfort of your belief system, I suggest you not visit here.  It could be unsettling for you.

I have been accused by at least one ‘Independent Scientologist’ as not being ‘with Ron’ for espousing such views as I have here.   I beg to differ.  Attempting to command compliance with Ron’s ideas by blind faith, or anything resembling that methodology – whether Ron commanded such a course of action in moments of distemper or supreme, transcendent wisdom – is about the greatest disservice one could do to the propagation of his workable ideas.

I still believe Scientologists (of whatever stripe) have to make these choices: integrate or disintegrate, evolve or dissolve, transcend or descend.  Blame, irrespective of how you dress it up and dish it, won’t make those crossroads disappear.   Blame will take you nowhere but to victimhood.

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Posted in David Miscavige, healing, independents, justice, l. ron hubbard, ot 8, policy, psychs, Scientology, Tao Te Ching, tech, the future, the Reformation, the world, Uncategorized, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Transcend

Posted on January 18, 2013 by | 248 comments

 

The following is the third piece of advice I shared with Scientologists in What Is Wrong With Scientology?    I would love to hear what Independent Scientologists have to say about this.

Transcend or Descend

At the January, 1986 L. Ron Hubbard funeral event we touched on in Chapter 12, Pat Broeker announced that OT 9 and OT 10 were fully written up by Hubbard and ready for release.  That was a blatant lie.

Twenty years later, David Miscavige told a collection of elite Scientology contributors that L. Ron Hubbard had written up OT 9, OT 10, OT 11, OT 12, OT 13, OT 14 and OT 15.  That was a whopping lie.  The last OT level L. Ron Hubbard ever wrote up was OT 8.  Then he died.

Pat Broeker used the threat of never turning over the alleged OT 9 and OT 10 in an effort to get Miscavige to allow him to exercise control in Scientology Inc. I was a part of three separate forcible search-and-seizures Miscavige directed in order to get at the alleged OT 9 and 10 at Broeker hideouts.  Each time we came up empty-handed, and finally concluded there were no such things.  This was validated by the senior technical officer of Scientology since L Ron Hubbard’s death, one Ray Mithoff. Mithoff audited Hubbard during his final week of life. Mithoff acknowledged in my presence that Hubbard had nothing intelligible to say about any levels that might exist above OT 8, let alone gave any indication that anything had been written up about them.

These horrendous big lies, growing in magnitude as years rolled by, are the continuing creation of the religious con played out through the ages, so well described in Paine’s Age of Reason.

For those who have honestly accomplished OT 8, it makes perfect sense.  After all, at OT 8 Hubbard seeks to guide an individual toward a state or condition of no longer having the slightest attention devoted to past identities, any aspect of the past, introversion or regression.  At that level, there wouldn’t be even a remote desire for or inclination toward introspective processes or practices of any kind.

A number of people who had completed OT 8 have come to me, hoping that I could give some inside scoop on where Hubbard said it went from there.  My response is usually along the lines of: “Please do not invalidate yourself and Hubbard so.  Do you think he was cruel enough to build the Bridge to a place where, when you’ve reached the apex, you are so ill-equipped to move on that you must cling to the guard rail , waiting for some priest to prescribe your every step?  Do you feel so vulnerable and weak that you cannot step out on your own and begin to walk your own walk toward higher plateaus?”

I sometimes share the following account of a Zen Buddhist practitioner’s colloquy with Zen master Xuedou:

Someone asked Xuedou, “As it is said, ‘the road beyond is not transmitted by any of the sages.’ Where did you get it?” Xuedou said, “I thought you were a Zen practitioner.”

Some express disbelief that Hubbard would not have published something that explicitly let the world know that OT 8 was the end.  First, this is not surprising to me.  Hubbard was perpetually exploring and prolifically publishing the results of his findings, throughout his life.  I would have expected him to be exploring to the end, and if he died before he found anything worthy of publication during his elderly ventures, then the last thing he published would be the last thing he found worthy of publication.  Second, if one thinks that OT 8 is the end simply because it is the ultimate attainment on the Scientology Bridge, then from the very beginning one wasn’t pursuing the same ends Hubbard was.

To feel or act as if one needed to be the recipient of more knowledge or more effect, then one would have fallen into the trap Hubbard himself warned that formal education had created to sabotage the entire field of philosophy:

I hope no man ever falls into that trap because it blocked human thought and human progress. Philosophy became completely abandoned as a subject…and even at this moment they still give a Doctor of Philosophy degree in universities which demands only this of the student: that he know what philosophers have said. Now, that is incredible. If you had a Doctor of Philosophy, you would expect that Doctor of Philosophy to be able to philosophize. The professors of those courses would just be shocked beyond shock if you dared come in and infer that the end and goal of their students should be the production of philosophy. No sir, that’s how you keep a society static.

I have seen subjectively and objectively that this is precisely the product produced by corporate Scientology.  They create people who have devoted their entire adult lives to studying and auditing to achieve the ability of ‘knowing how to know’ (the very definition of Scientology), only to wind up feeling lost, abandoned, and powerless to do anything except to slavishly kowtow to a fascist regime, in hopes it will dispense the next carrot of wisdom.

And so the corporate Scientologist never learns to walk the walk. Instead, he learns to stand compliantly in leg shackles and talk the Scientology Inc. talk.

One who has reached the top in Scientology has two choices: transcend or descend.  One can descend down into the mire that corporate Scientology has become.  That entails adopting the sickly ‘victim’ jacket, since the hallmark of a corporate Scientologist is the certainty that until certain people, ideas and even fields of study are exterminated, Scientology can never achieve its aims.  It means covertly being a victim while asserting with great energy that you are quite the opposite, the totally-certain superhero who is part of the elite group with the only answer, and thus possess carte blanche with which to forward that group by any means necessary.  It includes behaving in a compliant, other-determined fashion, so as to avoid getting into trouble and tarnishing one’s image and status.  Because in Miscavige’s world, image and status have become everything.

Or one can choose to transcend.  Transcend with your developed insight and ability to observe and think for yourself.  Maybe even use what you know to help others ascend and transcend.  For me, that has included using Scientology to help others remove those jackets that keep them weighted to serious, painful lives.  Each auditing session I deliver – at whatever level of the Bridge – not only results in cognitions (enlightenments) for the preclear, it also results in cognitions on my part. I continue to study and find and use many other writings, from various sources, that might work more directly to move a particular individual on up a little higher from where he or she might stand.  That study also brings about a greater appreciation of what is right and workable and recognition of what is wrong and unworkable about Scientology.   But I am not saying that is your calling, purpose, or path to greater heights.  Only you can determine what that is.

 

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Posted in David Miscavige, healing, independents, miscavige crimes, ot 8, Scientology, tech, the future, the Reformation, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Integrate

Posted on January 12, 2013 by | 184 comments

Some have questioned lately where I stand on the subject of Scientology and its author L. Ron Hubbard.  I have found that perplexing since I believe I have pretty thoroughly shared that through my writings over the past four years.  It occurred to me that maybe I lost some folks in never opening up for discussion topics that I covered in the greatest detail in the book What Is Wrong With Scientology?  Healing Through Understanding.

In chapter 15 Hereafter of that book I laid out three lessons I  had learned since leaving the church of Scientology that I believed if not learned by Scientologists would spell Scientology’s demise as a viable subject in the future.  The first lesson was that Scientologists need to develop the tolerance and compassion necessary to integrate. That particular segment of the book is republished below. Feel free to sound off on what is wrong with this, what is unworkable about this, where I was inaccurate or unfair, why it ought not be heeded, or whatever else you want to say about it (within the bounds, or course, of this blog’s moderation policy).

Excerpt:

Integrate or Disintegrate

One hallmark of the corporate Scientologist that has done more than perhaps anything else to harm the attractiveness of the subject is the assumption of the holier-than-thou attitude. Scientology Inc. drives home at every level, gradiently increasing as one progresses, the idea that a Scientologist is superior to mere mortals and wogs.  Some of this is inculcated by Hubbard’s writings and lectures.  I believe that is partly due to Hubbard feeling the need to keep people involved and engaged when it was particularly tough for one to do so.

During Hubbard’s lifetime, Scientologists were continually at risk of losing family, friends, jobs, and even their civil liberties, just by virtue of practicing Scientology.  That was due in great part to the established monopoly on mental healing of the ’50s and early ’60s – driven through the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association – condemning and organizing aggressive attacks against Scientology.  That this was once the case will be made plain in my subsequent book on the movement’s history. However, it is still untenable to be associated with Scientology in certain countries, including Germany and France.  Hubbard’s material consistently regards Scientologists with the attitude that in the light of organized attacks, they ought to take pride for daring to look where others won’t.

Hubbard took that defensiveness to another level by becoming increasingly assertive that Scientology is the only workable route to betterment.  With that came a growing disdain for other practices and philosophies.  It began with psychiatry, spread to psychology and psycho-therapy, and then to other philosophies and religions.  By the mid-’60s, firm policies were instituted that effectively forbade the outside study of any other mental, spiritual, or religious philosophy.  It was a gradually-growing intolerance, but by the end of Hubbard’s life it became sweeping and absolute.  By way of example, let us take Hubbard’s attitude toward Sigmund Freud and the fields of psychiatry and psychology.  Freud was noted by Hubbard as someone to whom “credit in particular is due” at the beginning of his seminal 1951 book Science of Survival.

By 1959, Hubbard had toned that acknowledgement down to a condescending tolerance:

Older nineteenth century studies, such as psychology, developed by Wundt in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany; psychoanalysis, developed by Freud in 1894 in Vienna, Austria; and psychiatry, developed through the nineteenth century in Russia, did not necessarily fail, since they provided data which permitted Scientology to begin.

By 1970, Hubbard becomes far more critical:

Any early technology of the human mind was perverted by the University of Leipzig studies of animal fixations of a Prof. Wundt in 1879, who declared man a soul-less animal, subject only to stimulus-response mechanisms and without determinism. Further perversions entered upon the scene in the 1894 libido theory of Sigmund Freud, attributing all reactions and behavior to the sex urge.

Finally, in 1982, Hubbard summed up the contribution of the psychologist, psycho-therapist, and psychiatrist – referred to collectively in Scientology as ‘psychs’ – in a bulletin entitled The Cause of Crime:

There would be no criminals at all if the psychs had not begun to oppress beings into vengeance against society. There’s only one remedy for crime – get rid of the psychs! They are causing it!

Corporate Scientologists, trained to abide by all of Hubbard’s words literally, believe this without question.  Thus, their leader Miscavige currently whips thousands of Scientologists into a virtual frenzy at his annual International Association of Scientologists event – a yearly enactment chillingly reminiscent of Hitler’s Nuremburg rallies – by announcing campaigns directed at destroying ‘the psychs.’  The crowds leap to their feet to give minutes-long standing ovations when Miscavige announces Scientology Inc. funding for the “Psychiatry: Global Retribution” campaign, or the “Psychs: Global Obliteration” plan.

Thus we see what Scientology Inc.’s celebrity spokesman Tom Cruise was referring to when he appeared on the Today show and sternly scolded host Matt Lauer with laser-intense certainty: “You are glib.  You don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do!”  And we saw Cruise become the poster boy for Scientology Inc.’s implanted, dysfunctional, superiority complex.  Witness Cruise – who claims his “best friend” to be David Miscavige himself – pridefully pronouncing in a viral YouTube video that a Scientologist “knows that he is the only one who can truly help” others, even down to assisting a motorist in distress.  What are we to think – that all Highway Patrolmen, Emergency Medical Technicians, even good Samaritans are incompetent, wrong-intentioned people who cannot be trusted?

The first lesson I learned after 27 years on the inside was precisely the opposite.  When I left, I moved to deep-south Texas.  I had been high profile within, and thought that critics and enemies of Scientology would use my departure to Scientology’s detriment.  My goal was to disappear. And for three years I was successful.  During those three years, I had no contact whatsoever with anyone I had known for the previous entirety of my life.  I was a hurt, lonely person.  The first thing I noticed was that others noticed that condition.  Mind you, these were the lowliest people imaginable, since the county I lived in was perennially one of the three poorest in the nation.

The next thing I noticed was that those lowly ‘wogs’ cared to do something about my pain. And while they did not have a lot to share, they were only too willing to give the two things they did have: compassion and communication.  I noticed that in South Texas people of whatever station or race treat all other people with respect.  Men call one another ‘Sir’ when they meet for the first time or when they casually pass or do simple business. One is automatically granted respect and it is up to one to maintain it.  You keep it or lose it by your subsequent conduct, but you start off with their assumption that you deserve it.  Where did this come from?  I suppose some of it was Christian based, some of it was Mexican-culture based, some of it was Southern-Americana based.  Whatever the source, I do know that the compassion and communication that ultimately saved my soul turned out to be inner-city and ‘psych’ based.

I met Monique Banks in early 2005. The minute she met me, she treated me like a long-lost family member.  We have lived together since – we were married in 2010.  She had an incredible set of people skills when I met her.  They were tolerance, interest, compassion, listening, forgiveness and unconditional love.  This woman gave me the space and understanding I needed to decompress, to heal, and to put my life into perspective.  It was not till later when I met her father that I would understand where she had learned these skills.  Jim Banks is, of all things, a psycho-therapist and professor of psychology by profession.  Jim is a man’s man.  He grew up without a father, in the Bronx.  He sacrificed his teenage years to serve as father to his four younger brothers.  He then served his country in the jungles of Vietnam as a United States Marine.  Besides the qualities I already mentioned that Monique displayed, I learned that he taught his children four important lessons.

First, don’t ever play the victim – it is the most painful and unrewarding route one can choose, and if played too long will make you a victim for good.  Two, remember that you cannot control the way that other people act, but you can always control the way you react to them, and the way you act yourself.  Three, if you want to get better and more competent, then choose to associate with friends who are better and more competent than yourself (clearly impossible for one who believes he is superior to the rest). Four – and most importantly – remember that no matter what the question, the answer is ‘love.’  Ironically, Jim and Monique both naturally, and without effort, exemplified the best qualities that I believe Scientology can help one develop.  Jim, despite his profession alone rendering him a ‘cause of crime’ in the eyes of Scientology Inc., had no problem understanding my description of Scientology.  In fact, he agreed with just about everything I told him about it.

Spending time with my new family has taught me that the goals of Scientology are not monopolized.  It taught me that there are other means to achieve those goals, and people were exemplifying that in their conduct in the world.  This lead to a curiosity about how society and philosophy and the study of the mind had evolved during my years within the machine.  I read and read and read some more.  The more I read, the more I saw Scientology as aligning with, agreeing with, and potentially having tools that could help with other bodies of wisdom and routes to happiness and realization.  I also began to see more clearly how Scientology Inc. had alienated and segregated itself from the rest of society, leaving the world at large with the inclination to steer clear of Scientology.

I never preached Scientology to Monique.  But, the subject arose many times, when she would ask me about a good quality in me that she had noticed, which I would attribute to some aspect of Scientology.  On three occasions I used simple Scientology techniques to prevent illnesses from taking hold of Monique’s body.  This increased her curiosity.  The more she learned of Scientology from me, the more she considered that it aligned with what she knew to be good, healing, and empowering.

As we learned more of each other, I found that beneath Monique’s courage, strength and wisdom she carried hurt and despair like everyone else.  She reached for auditing and I provided it.  I audited her up the Bridge, through the Grades and Dianetics to Clear.  But I audited her up the Bridge with absolutely none of the Black Dianetics additives that have been detailed throughout this book.  No attempts were made to have her believe anything, no effort was made to control her behavior and life, nothing was done to get her to view people in any other way than the way she saw appropriate to view them.  My goal was solely to help her to recover more of herself, to assist her to take off those synthetic personality jackets that didn’t belong to her inherently and were making her uncomfortable – just as Hubbard prescribed when he spoke directly of the actual auditing technology. Though I had audited many dozens of people in my time within Scientology Inc. (including virtually all of its A-list VIPs), it was only during my auditing on the outside that I began to truly appreciate the power of the technology of Scientology.

There was no limit to the effectiveness of Scientology when it was offered and delivered with the sole, unadulterated intent to service and to help.  It was completely acceptable and understandable to people when it was not marketed, sold, or covertly forced upon them.  It enhanced and reinforced the good lessons that people learned from any number of sources, when it was not used to dissuade people from listening to or learning from other sources.  After another three years of delivering Scientology on the same basis to former members of Scientology Inc. and to people new to the subject altogether, those observations have been further validated.

Scientology works wonderfully when it integrates with society, civilization, and the philosophies and religions of others.  Scientology harms when it seeks to segregate from society, civilization, and the philosophies and religions of others.  If Scientologists do not learn to integrate, they will disintegrate as a potential meaningful influence.

If corporate Scientologists cannot wrap their wits around thinking conceptually with the subject and integrating with society, but instead feel they must continue to act robotically, only according to literal commands of L. Ron Hubbard, then a good start for them would be to aspire to live literally by this central tenet of Hubbard’s: “A being is only as valuable as he can serve others.”

If one truly attempted to live up to that maxim, he or she might begin to see the light. To Scientologists who can think conceptually and have not cut themselves off from the fruits of observation, you might appreciate the tree from which that branch grew:

What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? What is a bad man but a good man’s job? If you do not understand this, you will get lost, however intelligent you are. It is the great secret.  – Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

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A Scientologist’s Take on The Master

Posted on September 23, 2012 by | 477 comments

I watched Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master this evening.

My first thought while walking out of the theater was a one sentence sum up as follows:

Given the behavior, product and the likely resultant public perception for the past twenty six years of David Miscavige’s Scientology Inc.,  Anderson’s film is probably the best possible healing salve imaginable for Scientology.

On August 28th, I made a prediction about the movie in a comment on this blog  that went against the grain of the plethora of ‘doomsday’ predictions for Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard.  I noted:

I have a different (and possibly wildly inaccurate) take on the likely content and impact of the movie. That is, based on the involvement of an actor of Hoffman’s skill and a director of Anderson’s, I bet while they paint the Master as a con, they also make him human and the audience will have some level of sympathy (ala Bush at least looking likeable when Stone hammered him, and the same with Clinton in Primary Colors).  To do a one dimensional slam job would be way below the pay grade of this calibre of artist.  One lone viewpont.  We’ll see.

My prediction turns out to be a fairly accurate sum up of what I saw on the screen tonight.  However, there was not even any attempt to paint L. Ron Hubbard as a con.

While literal corporate Scientologists will likely arrogantly and smugly convince one another Anderson was clueless about the sum and substance of the core philosophy of Scientology, their captive minds will have missed out on the larger truth Anderson so competently and accurately captured.  They will have missed the forest for the trees and missed a wonderful opportunity to begin to wake up and investigate all the propaganda their own church has been implanting in them, and thus the opportunity to fully appreciate L. Ron Hubbard the man and their own religion.

If there is any fault in the film, it will be the one corporate Scientologists can hang their misguided criticisms on.  That is, for those well-studied and practiced in the subject, the portrayal of the methodologies and philosophy of Scientology was just plainly too shallow.  But, even Anderson’s shortcoming is a boon for Scientology.  For the average viewer, his portrayal of ‘processing’ is probably a tremendous mitigation of whatever their notions about it were coming in to the movie, given corporate Scientology’s bastardization of the subject.

What they will miss by focusing on the technical inaccuracy, however, is the amazingly apt, artistic portrayal of L. Ron Hubbard and the ultimate, aberrated group dynamic of Scientology. Paul Thomas Anderson digs L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology better than Tom Cruise, John Travolta, David Miscavige (corporate Scientology’s supreme leader – read, Freddie Quell at the helm) and probably every other card carrying member of Scientology Incoporated.

Though I never met L. Ron Hubbard in the flesh, I probably had more access to and have studied more of his own words, and all of the available histories about him, from his cradle till his death.   Philip Seymour Hoffman, in my opinion, captured Hubbard’s beingness  (personality) perfectly.  One dear friend and person who was personally trained by Hubbard to the highest levels of Scientology and who spent years in his company made precisely the same assessment of Hoffman’s performance.

I probably spent more years interacting with, and had more access to more detailed information about, those who throughout Scientology’s history devoted themselves to it and Hubbard to the point of violently defending him, to ultimately becoming disappointed, than anyone in the history of Scientology. I cannot imagine a more accurate and effective combining of those hundreds of people into a single character than the performance of Joaquin Phoenix.

Corporate Scientologists, to the degree they are even permitted to watch the movie, will likely chafe at the finale when Phoenix is confronted by Dodd with a tough dilemna:  remain in the group and be loved and cared for, with the caveat that he will always remain subservient and obedient to the master, or freely pursue his own path, with the caveat that he will be considered an enemy in the future and will be treated with no mercy as such.

It is understood that the truth sometimes initially hurts.  I witness and deal with the reality of the painful truth of The Master’s finale each and every day of my life.   It has become my calling to heal that pain.  I can attest that is painful.  But, I cannot deny that it is the truth.

For those interested in the mechanics of how that is so in modern-day Scientology, I cover it rather thoroughly in What Is Wrong With Scientology?: Healing Through Understanding (Amazon books).

At the end of the day, The Master is a must-see, most particularly for Scientologists of any stripe (corporate, independent or otherwise).

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Posted in acknowledgments, black dianetics, celebrities, David Miscavige, healing, independents, John Travolta, l. ron hubbard, propaganda, Scientology, the future, the Reformation, Tom Cruise, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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Fearsome Scientologists

Posted on August 29, 2012 by | 184 comments

David Letterman nailed the personality of the corporate Scientologist, still apparently understood by public opinion as “Scientologist” without any modifier.   Please see the story – and particularly the video clip of his interview with Amy Adams.

David Letterman on Scientologists

Note how Adams is lost for words, and her recognition exhibits by genuine laughter, when Letterman tells her that is how she too feels.  Also, listen to the audience agreement with Letterman’s evaluation.  Unfortunately folks, that is what we have to work with.   That is the legacy of Miscavige.

Fortunately, hopefully over time we can change that reality.  I cover pretty thoroughly HOW Letterman’s reality came to be – the process by which the reality he is correctly observing came to be – at chapters 7 through 10 and 13-14 of my book What Is Wrong With Scientology?   I cover some suggestions of how Scientologists might free themselves of it at chapters 15 and 16. Perhaps as more Scientologists understand that, they can naturally cease being what the public has come to know as fearsome.

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The Criminal Mind

Posted on August 3, 2012 by | 356 comments

From page 95 of What Is Wrong With Scientology?:

Mark my words: Scientology Inc. will present to Scientologists, as one of the first ‘proofs’ of the dangers of reading this book, its references to, excerpts from and recommendations to read books written by mental health professionals.

Quotation from Scientology Inc.’s primary anti-Marty Rathbun website (one of 35 it operates):

It must be, he thinks, since one of Rathbun’s best “PC’s (and best friends) shook Marty to the core by abjuring Scientology (and any further “auditing” from Rathbun,) and instead referring Marty to a psychology text that has now superceded Rathbun’s shallow understanding of Scientology and become his guiding light. He refers to it and quotes from it liberally, and it’s become part of the core of whatever spinny mass constitutes Rathbun’s understanding of life.

Yet Rathbun still pretends to practice Scientology, declaring level completions, and combining what little he understood of it with what he’s learned from his “cognitive therapist” friends…

...Rathbun spent a couple of decades hiding the fact that he didn’t understand Scientology basics, and can only try to compare Scientology principles to Psychology texts and principles now, even going so far as to imply that some of them were the unaccredited source of LRH’s discoveries.  Unable to make Scientology work for him, Rathbun reverts to a psychology framework to try and understand life and the mind – or more likely, to try and find an excuse for his own severe aberrations that doesn’t force him to be accountable for his actions.

Scientology Inc. supreme leader David Miscavige apparently is incapable of ethics change.  Ethics Change definition (my definition): Acting pursuant to, thus demonstrating the health and presence of, conscience.  Ethics change is marked by the ability to change one’s viewpoint and behavior toward the betterment of one’s fellows and environment.   Antonym: No Ethics Change: Habitual, hardened criminal attitude and behavior resistant to and seemingly incapable of reform.

Incidentally, I publish Miscavige’s indictment of me as a strong recommendation to read and recommend What Is Wrong With Scientology?  Healing Through Understanding.

356 Comments

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The Great Middle Path Revisited

Posted on July 22, 2012 by | 321 comments

For those new to the blog, I recommend an essay I posted almost three years ago titled The Great Middle Path redux.   I discussed then the idea that the extreme sides of the Scientology spectrum in many ways reflect one another.   The zealots on the Miscavige side and the ‘critics’ on the ‘book burner’ side nurture one another as convenient evils to make life combative enough to be interesting.

I once heard a pundit remark that probably the most straight, truthful news from the Middle East  comes from the Al Jazeera news agency.  He reckoned that based on an objective study of international news reportage on the region over a several year period.  He cited as corroboration for that analysis the fact that Al Jazeera was the only news outfit in history to be bombed by both of the opposing sides of a military conflict.

If you check out the reader reviews on Amazon books for What Is Wrong With Scientology you will see that most who care to comment express strong feelings one way or the other about the book.   A lot of people seem to either hate it or love it.   Add to the mix both extremes of the Scientology spectrum. On the one side are the anti-Marty sites, authored and edited by David Miscavige.  On the other side is the most prominent and persistent of Scientology ridiculers, Tony Ortega at the Village Voice.

The “church” of Scientology writes the following about What is Wrong With Scientology?:

 He is now taking it upon himself to tell all who will listen “what is wrong with Scientology.” Real Scientologists recognize these interpretations as an effort to dilute, disperse, and render unworkable the truths and principles of Scientology Technology which is, after all is said and done, one of Rathbun’s primary destructive goals – to make Scientology unattainable by scattering it to the wind. And real Scientologists know that the bulk of Rathbun’s latest effort is comprised of what L. Ron Hubbard himself carefully specified as Suppressive Acts, intended to harm others.

On the other extreme Tony Ortega, who has spent seventeen years attempting to make nothing of Scientology, calls What Is Wrong With Scientology?:  a ‘predictable mass of Hubbard apologetics’, a ‘bundle of contradictions’,  [the apologies are for a religion that is] ‘permeated with sickness’, ‘expensive malarky’, [attempts to pass off] ‘Eastern woo woo as ‘scientific certainty’, and the defense is a bunch of ‘new age happy talk.’

It reads to me like a shade of the Al Jazeera effect.

On the one hand I am accused on attempting to destroy everything L. Ron Hubbard stood for.

On the other hand, I am accused of being Hubbard’s greatest defender.

Those who have read the book and have followed the blog for long might understand why this reaction from the extremes pleases me.  It makes me feel like I must have hit the ball right in the sweet spot.

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Posted in independents, justice, miscavige crimes, miscavige lawyers, propaganda, texas, the future, the Reformation, the world, What Is Wrong With Scientology?

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David Miscavige Blows Off Katie Holmes

Posted on July 16, 2012 by | 380 comments

David Miscavige has no doubt by now convinced Tom Cruise that yours truly ought to be the target of his ire for Katie Holmes’ splendidly executed split and consequent historic media coverage.  After all, he’s already got Cruise’s attorney, the august Bert Fields, alerting the media far and wide claiming to be victim of me.

And just as certainly, as per usual, the real target is David Miscavige himself.

I have learned from very credible sources that David Miscavige quite in addition to infiltrating the household of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise and interjecting his insanity directly into Katie’s life through his undue and unnatural influence over Tom,  Miscavige also directly and intentionally saw to it that Katie received squirrel, reverse Scientology as explicitly covered in my book What Is Wrong With Scientology?   

Katie’s introduction to Scientology was the Golden Age of Tech II (GAT II) pilot project run directly by Miscavige’s organization (Religious Technology Center – RTC) at the Celebrity Center in Los Angeles.  Katie was put at the top of the project’s line up as one of its first unwitting guinea pigs.  GAT II’s mission with respect to Tom Cruise’s wife?   Put her through Miscavige’s latest brand of Quickie Grades (for a complete explanation of what that entails, see chapter  6 Grades of my book What Is Wrong With Scientology?)   

Miscavige’s only two tech trained staff (Anne Joasem – once Rathbun – and Elsie Tucker) personally oversaw every session of it and answered and reported directly to Miscavige, every step of the way.  Anne and Elsie cherry picked the processes to run from the huge body of tech for each grade, and Miscavige approved every individual one to be run on Katie.

So, there too is your Golden Age of Tech II news.  Apparently, based on his spectacular results with Katie, Miscavige announced recently he was going to unleash his suppression on the planet at large.

In a way, Miscavige did Katie a big favor. Had she been delivered standard grades she might have been more able to withstand the entheta Miscavige brought into her marriage and household.  She might also have attributed her wins to the Miscavige administration.  The net result would have been that she hang around longer and be effectively spiritually fattened up for a gruesome kill.

This is the conundrum of corporate Scientology and the reason why the ‘church’ of Scientology is dead.   You are damned if you and you are damned if you don’t in Scientology Inc.

The bottom line is four-fold:

a)  David Miscavige is a squirrel (someone who alters Scientology to the detriment of the people to whom it is applied).

b) Religious Technology Center (RTC) is a squirrel group.

c) Religious Technology Center is a suppressive  (sociopathic) group.

d) David Miscavige is a suppressive person.

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Allender and Miscavige: Peas in a Botox, Roids Pod

Posted on June 28, 2012 by | 158 comments

Please see this.  It is a an utterly racist, xenophobic, sexist, political statement by David Miscavige and his dysfunctional Scientology Inc.

Now, I ask you, is the following a more accurate, rational, sane positioning for this fellow?  I won’t condemn you if you disagree.  Please express your true feeling on this one.  John Allender has perfectly snapped terminals with his demigod David Miscavige.

If you lack reality on the latter, go here and read, and I suggest it will make perfect sense:

What Is Wrong With Scientology?

“Courageous”?  “Hero”? :   https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/car-wash/

158 Comments

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Kindle Edition Available of What Is Wrong With Scientology

Posted on June 25, 2012 by | 152 comments

The Kindle edition is now available at Amazon Books, at What Is Wrong With Scientology? Kindle Edition.  The whole introduction and part of Chapter One is available at this link.

In the meantime, Haydn James happened to stop by the other day and I gave him my proof copy which he finished and sent me his feedback on.  He agreed to sharing it with you.

Haydn James’ Review of What is Wrong With Scientology?

Finished reading your book. As an experienced Scientologist, I
wondered: what will I get out of reading it? The answer? A great
deal, a very great deal.

For me it answered a number of unanswered questions, but most of
all (and having finished reading the book I know you will love
this) it confirmed for me that my current spiritual journey and
purpose to help others is as it should be. Not because you, Hubbard
or anyone else told me so or because my views happen to coincide
with yours but because I know it to be true for myself. And that is
incredibly liberating.

I told you when I visited you and Mosey that I have never been
happier. That wasn’t quite true, I am all the happier for having
read your book.

I would have finished reading it sooner but I made the mistake of
putting it down to grab some food, at which point Lucy picked it
up, started reading and wouldn’t give it back. She loved it and
thought it brilliant!

Since I have now read the proof you kindly provided, I thought it
only fair that I also buy it, which I have done and posted a
review. I describe it as “A unique book on Scientology”. And it is.
But I also believe you are the Tom Paine of Scientology. I believe
this book will be to the subject of Scientology and Scientologists
what Common Sense was to the American people and their ultimate
freedom. Just as Tom Paine discussed and destroyed the validity of
willingly giving up ones freedom to an uncontrollable entity known as
“royalty”, you discuss and destroy any notion that one should
become a slave to a subject and organization designed to free
people. Like Paine’s tract “Common Sense”, the truth in your book
is unmistakable and unavoidable.

In a word … brilliant.

Haydn

Print Edition is still available at, What Is Wrong With Scientology? Print Edition

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